<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-cfo-project-future-of-finance"></a><div type="image" title="Amrita Ahuja, Block's chief financial officer" height="1801" width="2402" msid="88286432" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11893999" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="square" source="Orion">Square</keyword> Inc., now called Block, is expanding its narrative to include businesses of all sizes. </li><li>Its CFO, <keyword id="12738064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="amrita-ahuja" source="Orion">Amrita Ahuja</keyword>, told Insider about how cryptocurrency is influencing its financial growth.</li></ul><a href="https://squareup.com/us/en">Square Inc</a>., which recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/square-inc-changes-name-to-block-jack-dorsey-twitter-2021-12">changed</a> its name to Block, equips people with tools to help run and grow their businesses including commerce solutions, business software, and banking capabilities. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/square-inc-changes-name-to-block-jack-dorsey-twitter-2021-12">Block</a> is a global technology company focused on financial services that includes the digital payments company called Square. The firm, led by Jack Dorsey, who recently <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-stepping-down-position-cnbc-reports-2021-11">stepped down</a> as Twitter's CEO, <a href="https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/SQ-3Q-2021-Shareholder-Letter.pdf">reported</a> a gross profit of $1.13 billion in the third quarter, while its <a href="https://cash.app/">Cash App</a> offering generated $512 million. Though revenue growth slowed from past quarters, the company nearly <a href="https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/SQ-3Q-2021-Shareholder-Letter.pdf">doubled</a> its payments in Q3 — $15.5 billion — for businesses with more than $500,000 in annual sales. Previously, small businesses with annual payment sales of less than $125,000 outperformed these larger sellers. This is positive news for Block Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja. Square has been appealing for smaller businesses, but Ahuja told Insider she'd worked to expand its narrative: It wants to support small and large businesses alike with not only payments but software and integrated solutions, hardware, and financial services. Ahuja said that explaining its rapidly growing Cash App to people was also key to its messaging. Previously, Ahuja was the chief financial officer of Blizzard Entertainment, where she focused on the intersection of digital media and video-game publishing. Ahuja <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inner-circle-of-square-cfo-amrita-ahuja-dorsey-meeker-sakhnini-harden-11627075079">told The Wall Street Journal this year</a> that she became excited about Square because of its impact on small-business owners like her parents, who had immigrated from India and owned a day-care center in a Cleveland suburb. Block's earnings <a href="https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/SQ-3Q-2021-Shareholder-Letter.pdf">report</a> said it ended the third quarter "with $7.4 billion in available liquidity, with $6.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and investments in marketable debt securities, as well as $500 million available to be withdrawn from our revolving credit facility."Ahuja said this financial statement put Block in a position for long-term success. "We believe we have a strong balance sheet that affords us the flexibility to invest for the long-term both organically and opportunistically inorganically, and we expect our balance sheet to grow over time," she said. Ahuja said Block's investments tended to be long-term ones. While it's willing to adapt, the company has a strong belief that investing over long periods will show the strongest returns, she said."As we measure effectiveness of those investments, we think about compelling unit economics and about efficiency in returns on those investments across product development, sales and marketing, and customer operations," she said. Ahuja said she believes artificial intelligence/machine learning and cryptocurrency and blockchain technology will disrupt commerce and other fields in the future. Ahuja said AI and machine learning would help companies like Block launch products in industries that were otherwise restricted because of a lack of technology or inadequate risk models. These new capabilities, she said, could open the funnel and provide more people access to automation tools."AI/ML will enable companies and their employees to be more efficient — the potential to quadruple revenues while only doubling employees," she said. And Ahuja said she believes that while crypto will perhaps initially be used as an asset like gold, it will act more as a currency in the future. "The verifiability, transparency and independence of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will be disruptive," she said. Ahuja said that she wanted Block to build skills in both of these areas and have a strong understanding of their capabilities. One way Block is staying ahead of the curve is through investments in its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-square-builds-bitcoin-business-tbd-2021-7">newest</a> business unit, called <a href="https://twitter.com/TBD54566975?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">TBD</a>, which is focused on building a decentralized, open platform to exchange <keyword id="11893902" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="bitcoin" source="Orion">bitcoin</keyword>. This is in addition to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/square-building-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-wallet-service-jack-dorsey-2021-7">development</a> of Block hardware wallet, a product that Block says will normalize bitcoin storage. It's also said to be considering developing a bitcoin mining system to help make mining more accessible. According to <a href="https://bitcointreasuries.net/">Bitcoin Treasuries</a>, Block held about 8,000 bitcoins valued at about $376 million as of Tuesday.To further solidify its place in the cryptocurrency industry, Block has committed $10 million through its Bitcoin Clean Energy Investment Initiative to support a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/energy-consumption-of-nft-cryptocurrency-mining-and-sustainable-alternatives-2021-7">more sustainable bitcoin ecosystem</a>, Ahuja said. <a href="https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index">The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index</a> has estimated that the cryptocurrency uses more energy than nations like Sweden, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/energy-consumption-of-nft-cryptocurrency-mining-and-sustainable-alternatives-2021-7">Insider reported earlier this year</a>. A Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-07-13/bitcoin-miners-building-rigs-must-navigate-world-of-crypto-power-hunting">report</a> in July estimated that bitcoin-mining machines worldwide used the same amount of power as Bangladesh."We hope this initiative accelerates the transition of the entire blockchain to clean power rather than only removing the carbon for the bitcoin that [Block] processes," Ahuja said. Clarification: Square Inc. is now known as Block. We've updated the article to reflect that change.

Block CFO Amrita Ahuja breaks down the company's long-term growth strategy and how it positions itself for success

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-cfo-project-future-of-finance"></a><div type="image" title="Tricia Gulger, CFO, Whoop" height="1000" width="1500" msid="88195824" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12705230" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="whoop" source="Orion">Whoop</keyword>, a human-performance company, closed a significant funding round this year.</li><li><keyword id="12124266" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="cfo" source="Orion">CFO</keyword> Tricia Gugler told Insider about how it's staying disciplined when deploying capital. </li></ul>For a monthly fee, <a href="https://www.whoop.com/">Whoop</a> provides members a wearable <keyword id="11897658" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fitness" source="Orion">fitness</keyword> band that records <keyword id="11894571" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="health" source="Orion">health</keyword> data such as heart rate, sleep quality, and respiratory rate and presents them with insights about their performance and recovery.The wrist strap — designed for 24/7 monitoring — has been spotted on professional athletes including LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Tiger Woods, and Michael Phelps. Whoop is the "official fitness wearable" of the <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/official-fitness-wearable-womens-tennis-association/">Women's Tennis Association</a>, the <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/official-fitness-wearable-pga-tour/">PGA Tour</a>, the <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/official-fitness-wearable-lpga-tour/">LPGA Tour</a>, <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/official-wearable-crossfit-partnership/">CrossFit</a>, and the "<a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/nflpa-provides-whoop-to-players/">officially licensed recovery wearable</a>" of the NFL Players Association. The brand has also signed partnerships with Division I athletic departments at Howard University, the University of Southern California, and, most <a href="https://bceagles.com/news/2021/10/4/boston-college-athletics-and-whoop-announce-multi-year-partnership.aspx">recently</a>, Boston College, to name a few. In August, Whoop closed a $200 million <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/200-million-financing-3-6-billion-valuation/">Series F round</a>, valuing the health-tech giant at $3.6 billion. Whoop said the influx of capital elevated it to one of the most successful stand-alone human-performance companies in the world. The company, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whoop-31-year-old-ceo-kevin-durant-lebron-james-eli-manning-2020-10">founded</a> in 2012, has raised more than $400 million in venture capital to date. At the center of the successful funding round was Chief Financial Officer Tricia Gugler, who <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whoop-im-honored-cfo-tricia-gugler/">joined</a> Whoop in 2020 after serving as the vice president of finance at <a href="https://www.thirdlove.com/">ThirdLove</a>. Before that, Gugler was the vice president of finance and treasury at <a href="https://www.stitchfix.com/">Stitch Fix</a>. <h2>Innovating on new investments</h2>In an email interview with Insider, Gugler said Whoop leveraged its data and science team to create sophisticated predictive models for investment outcomes. One of the tested investments, Gugler said, is Whoop's recent acquisition of <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/acquires-push-velocity-based-training-solution/">Push</a>, a tech startup in Toronto that says it provides enhanced data on weightlifting performance. "We'll always keep the majority of our investments grounded in product and engineering, enabling us to innovate and provide the most advanced <keyword id="11893017" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="technology" source="Orion">technology</keyword> and features to our members," she said. Gugler said that though Whoop is still in the early growth stages, it was leveraging the recent capital to invest in several new initiatives, such as international expansion, women's performance, Whoop Live (a way to visualize incoming health data), and enterprise work across verticals like healthcare and government. "Our opportunity is large, which means we need to be disciplined in how we deploy our capital to drive growth in both the short and long term, while balancing bottom-line results and returns," she said. One of Whoop's ambitions is to scale up across the globe. Gugler said that 27% of the business is international and that Whoop now has a marketing team in Dublin solely focused on international expansion. "We believe being in the market with relevant content will enable us to connect better with our members and drive even stronger growth," she said. Perhaps Whoop's most robust growth initiative is its investments in female athletes. The company recently announced the creation of a <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/womens-performance-collective-voiceinsport-partnership/">Women's Performance Collective</a> which supports product development and research around women's performance. Whoop said that as part of the program it created a diverse coalition of top athletes from around the world to test new product features and lead sports science research on women's athletics. In addition, Whoop partnered with <a href="https://www.voiceinsport.com/">Voice in Sport</a> to support young women and help them optimize their performance: The initiative plans to give 100 collegiate athletes both Whoop and Voice in Sport memberships. Whoop also recently rolled out a <a href="https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/whoop-feature-menstrual-cycle-coaching/">Menstrual Cycle Coaching</a> feature designed to provide performance and recovery recommendations that align with hormonal shifts. Gugler said Whoop's allocation of investments toward these initiatives would support its focus on expanding its membership base through product features, community, research, and more. <h2>Preparing for a future capital structure </h2>While Whoop isn't publicly traded, Gugler said Whoop would be ready if it chose to go public. "We are very happy being a private company, but do believe WHOOP can be a successful company in the public markets," Gugler said. "Although we have no specific plans, we are building our capability to be public company ready, so if and when we choose to go, we can."

Whoop CFO Tricia Gugler shares how the booming health-tech company uses capital to innovate

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-cfo-project-future-of-finance"></a><div type="image" title="Kristen Ankerbrandt, CFO Compass stands on a residential street" height="2688" width="4032" msid="88153442" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>The CFO of <keyword id="12690846" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="compass" source="Orion">Compass</keyword> believes profits will catch up to the real-estate brokerage's rapid growth.</li><li>Kristen Ankerbrandt said the tech-forward firm would always favor the traditional role of the broker.</li></ul>When Kristen Ankerbrandt first laid eyes on the residential real-estate brokerage <a href="https://www.compass.com/">Compass</a> three years ago, it was an attractive investment target.Ankerbrandt was working as an executive at the private-equity firm <a href="https://www.carlyle.com/">Carlyle</a>, where she helped source acquisitions for its flagship <a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/carlyle-closes-new-mega-fund-on-185b">$18.5 billion investment fund</a>. The conversation took a turn when Compass' CEO and cofounder, Robert Reffkin, suggested instead that Ankerbrandt join as its chief financial officer."The first question for me was how big is the market opportunity," Ankerbrandt told Insider in an interview in November. "It was the $2 trillion residential real-estate industry, the $100 billion market for brokerage commissions, and opportunities to expand into ancillary businesses — it was massive."Ankerbrandt has seized on that chance to expand, helping arrange the acquisition of a series of companies in businesses that are complementary to Compass' core focus in brokerage. It has, for instance, purchased title-insurance and escrow providers in hopes of bundling those services with the real-estate sales transactions it specializes in and boosting its profitability. It has also scooped up rival brokerage firms to add agents to the roughly 25,000 who already work for the company.While Compass has gained a reputation as a voracious buyer in recent years, Ankerbrandt said she had also brought rigor and diligence to the company's growth. To create its mortgage business, for instance, Compass eschewed an acquisition in favor of a joint venture with the origination company <a href="https://www.rate.com/">Guaranteed Rate</a> over the summer."We're always really thoughtful about being disciplined financially whenever we do any kind of M&amp;A," Ankerbrandt said. "Guaranteed Rate has expertise, it gives us speed to market, and we thought it was important to get access to a really high-quality offering."The venture has helped Compass focus its spending in other areas. It bought the title company <a href="https://commongroundabstract.com/">Common Ground Abstract</a> in September for an undisclosed price. Last year it purchased the title companies Modus and KVS for $70 million and $50 million. Earlier this year, Ankerbrandt helped steward Compass' much-anticipated initial public offering that <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/compass-stock-price-trading-ipo-public-debut-stock-exchange-2021-3">valued the firm</a> at about $7 billion.Its shares have since sunk to under $9, less than half of their peak. Compass posted net losses in its first two quarters as a public company, and in its <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/compass-reports-third-quarter-2021-results-1030961219">recent third-quarter earnings</a> it disclosed it had lost $99.8 million during the three-month period. In the first three quarters of the year, it reported a total of $319.3 million in net losses, versus a $230.4 million loss during the same nine months in 2020. But Ankerbrandt touted the company's revenue growth and suggested its push into ancillary services would boost profitability."We had $370 million in revenue in 2017, and we did $3.7 billion in 2020, which is pretty incredible," Ankerbrandt said. Compass has said it anticipates reaping up to $6.4 billion in revenue in 2021. For years, upstarts in the residential real-estate business have sought to displace or deprioritize the role of the broker. <a href="https://www.redfin.com/">Redfin</a>, for instance, pays its agents a salary rather than commissions — an arrangement that suggests it sees its platform and exclusive listings as the key drivers of its business. Instant buyers like <a href="https://www.opendoor.com/">Opendoor</a>, meanwhile, are making it possible for customers to buy and sell homes without the help of a third-party agent, while moving into the same lucrative add-on services like title and mortgage that Compass is hoping to attach to its deals. Just as those two rivals have, Compass has billed itself as a leader in the growing overlap between the real-estate and technology sectors. But Ankerbrandt believes the key to its business lies in the increasingly traditional belief that brokers will retain their place at the heart of real-estate transactions in America. "There have been a lot of dollars going into the real-estate space looking to disintermediate the agent," Ankerbrandt said. "We have a very unique focus on empowering the agent to be more efficient and productive and to allow them to invest their time the way they want to, with their clients, so they can grow their business."

Compass CFO Kristen Ankerbrandt explains how the fast-growing brokerage company can reap profits

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-cfo-project-future-of-finance"></a><div type="image" title="Photo of Mark Mason, CFO, Citigroup" height="2996" width="3987" msid="88077834" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11896548" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="citigroup" source="Orion">Citigroup</keyword>, one of Wall Street's largest banks, is prioritizing consumer-banking technology.</li><li>CFO <keyword id="12664823" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-mason" source="Orion">Mark Mason</keyword> told Insider about how Citi is using data to inform new tech opportunities. </li></ul>As the chief financial officer of <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/citi/">Citigroup</a>, Mark Mason oversees the finances of a bank that collectively holds some $2.4 trillion in assets and $354 billion in retail deposits.Mason also has a distinct view of Citi's <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/citi/investor/quarterly/2021/annual-report/">annual budget</a>, which in 2020 included $43 billion in operating expenses across things like compensation, advertising and marketing, and technology. Almost 20% of that expense budget, or roughly $7.4 billion, now goes to tech spending; in 2010, that figure was 10%. The increase reflects the trend of the nation's largest banks devoting more time, effort, and money into upgrading both core consumer-banking tech and the front-end tools used by retail customers, market makers, and portfolio managers. "In many ways, there are so many benefits that come from the investments we make in technology, and technology is changing and moving so quickly," Mason told Insider in an interview in November. "As margins get squeezed for businesses that are very profitable and high returning, technology in many instances gives you the opportunity to bring down your unit cost."When Insider spoke with Mason, his team, like others across the bank, was in the middle of reviewing its annual budget. That process includes meetings with Citi's CEO, <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/citi/about/leaders/jane-fraser-bio.html">Jane Fraser</a>. This year, Mason said, he and Fraser discussed how Citi's chief data officer for <keyword id="11895316" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="finance" source="Orion">finance</keyword> interacts with other data heads across the firm, including those in Citi's institutional and consumer businesses. "All of them come together to make sure that the end-to-end view is the way we're looking at data as it moves through the organization," Mason said. "If you think about data in a finance operation or any institution, as a CFO what you want to make certain of is that the quality of the information that you're producing is as accurate and timely as it possibly can be," he added. For Citi, Mason said, these data questions span businesses and teams. Timely and accurate info on risk-weighted assets and the capital usage of the bank, for example, can help inform "how much more I want to allocate to a new product or a new client opportunity." Data on Citi's <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/citi/about/consumer_businesses.html">retail customers</a> — for example, the bank counts more than 130 million credit-card customers across branded and cobranded offerings — is also important. "That data actually informs a lot about the nature of that consumer, their behaviors, what they like, what they don't like, the types of rewards or incentives they're likely to be more responsive to than others," Mason said. Tech investments — particularly early-stage partnerships with new fintechs — can take a long time to pay off. That makes it difficult from a finance and planning perspective to know how to approach their value. Mason said it's a major focus when bringing new tech in-house to Citi. "One of the things that I have to do is think about what it takes to stand up a new technology: How do I measure efficiency over time, and then how do I actually get that productivity out on the other end?" Mason said.

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Block CFO Amrita Ahuja breaks down the company's long-term growth strategy and how it positions itself for success

Lily Katzman

Whoop CFO Tricia Gugler shares how the booming health-tech company uses capital to innovate

Lily Katzman

Compass CFO Kristen Ankerbrandt explains how the fast-growing brokerage company can reap profits

Daniel Geiger

Citigroup CFO Mark Mason breaks down the bank's approach to data and technology projects

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11 CFOs discuss their biggest priorities and challenges and how they guide innovation within their organizations

Business Insider Staff