March 3, 2022

How Jonah Remz of Capchase is scaling his team and expanding internationally

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When you’re scaling a company, hiring for key roles should be one of your top priorities. That said, hiring isn’t as straightforward as it seems and can come with many challenges. Joining the Capchase team as the 15th employee, Jonah Remz had the responsibility to surround himself with a team that was agile, experienced, and ready to navigate the road ahead. 


How do you focus on hiring quality talent while trying to scale quickly? How do you resist the pressure to scale for the sake of growth? For Jonah, all of these questions were on the table as he expanded his team’s finance operations capabilities. 


That said, as a Head of Finance, just because hiring is a key initiative doesn’t mean the business operations stop. International expansion, budget setting, creating expense policies and more are all crucial to keep top of mind. For Jonah, balancing these growth and operational priorities were essential during a pivotal moment in Capchase’s growth. 


Jonah also explains how setting up his team early to expand internationally wasn’t easy, but has helped Capchase be more efficient and have more confidence as they continue to expand their global operations. Dealing with controls, compliance, and building a new infrastructure was a tall task, but has put Capchase in position to succeed as they grow. 


We’ve condensed some of the major themes from our recent conversation with Jonah on the FInOps Today podcast and summarized them below. But to get a full picture of Jonah's unique journey at Capchase, be sure to check out Episode 2, available on all major podcast streaming platforms. Here’s some of what you’ll hear about in this episode: 


How Jonah approached the challenge of scaling his team

“Joining the company when there were 15 employees… gives you that chance… to take the learnings of the different experiences of the past, see what's worked, see what hasn't. Try to put that into place in a new environment where you really have all this green space to do what you believe is the best for scaling the business.”


How Capchase tackles budget setting

“Sometimes I feel in prior experiences, budgets can feel like something that might be restrictive and it's a finance exercise of approving or rejecting expenses and whatnot. But for a company like Capchase, which is in this really exciting period of growth, I look at it more as how can we really align on goals.”


How Jonah is thinking about international expansion

“​Another area is continued international expansion. I think every territory brings exciting opportunities with a lot of great, interesting companies that we can provide our solutions to. And I think that's something that we always look to do. But it obviously comes with certain complexities about regulatory environments for each country around reporting around staffing, what does payroll look like, etc.”


How Jonah prioritizes extra time 

“As a startup and moving quickly, there's always an emphasis on getting things done and making sure that we're moving quickly and never slowing the exciting growth of the business. 

But also we need to make sure that if you have a key employee that's out for vacation, that you don't have a hiccup or a lag in the business. So, I think it's continued time around documentation—just making sure that we always have no bottleneck or no source of risk there.”

The full transcript is available here.


About Jonah Remz

Jonah Remz is the Head of Finance at Capchase, a NYC based Fintech whose mission is to automate finance for predictable revenue companies. In his role, Jonah leads all strategic finance, FP&A and financial operations functions of the business. 


Prior to Capchase, Jonah was a Director of Finance at Bread, a NYC based BNPL Fintech which was acquired by Alliance Data Systems in 2020. Jonah also previously spent time as a Director of Finance at Intersection, a NYC based OOH media & technology company, and started his career at Houlihan Lokey in NYC. Originally from Boston, Jonah is a long suffering Jets and Mets fan who has stuck with his teams through thick and thin.


Interested in giving Ramp a try? We’re pleased to offer a $1,000 bonus to eligible Capchase customers who sign up.

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