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Building out a team at any business can be difficult. But the challenge of deciding on your first finance hire at a high-growth company can be especially nerve-wracking. For Tom Egan, CFO and Head of Capital Markets at DivvyHomes, this was his day-to-day reality.
Joining the company when they had only 75 homes on its platform, Egan led the charge of building out DivvyHome’s finance function. He had to do this while also managing the complex task of overseeing the business's finances to keep it running smoothly. But with Tom’s deep legal and finance background, DivvyHome’s finance team would quickly turn into a huge asset for the rest of the org.
We’ve condensed some of the major themes from our recent conversation with Tom on the FinOps Today podcast and summarized them below. But to get a full picture of Tom’s story at Divvy, be sure to check out episode 5, available on all major podcast streaming platforms. Here’s some of what you’ll hear about in this episode:
How Tom built out the finance function
“What I realized in the recruiting process was that over time we needed to build out a pretty broad functionality within the finance org. And capital markets, while it was an important aspect of the business and a complex one, that was very much my skill set. And so I felt like it was important to have a complementary skillset come in. So the first hire, I refer to him as a Swiss army, he covered really all aspects of our finance team from start to finish.”
How the finance team operates today
“The accounting function is probably a little bit more linear, particularly as we've navigated being an early stage company. And, as we're growing, adding new business lines and continuing to consolidate how we operate and building out our capabilities on the technology side. I think the accounting function sitting where it sits in the organization, which is effectively all the way at the end of the supply chain…almost by definition ends up being probably the last line of defense, so to speak.”
How DivvyHomes manages its FinOps
“It's been a somewhat organic journey, I would say to where we are today. We do have someone whose focus is on financial operations, who sits within the end treasury, and he sits within the accounting org. Although again, I think it's pretty fluid, something of a dotted line up into the capital markets business, because so much of what we would call FinOps is related to the capital markets facilities.”
What Tom sees as his next area of focus
“The accounting function is almost by definition, going to lag a little bit in its ability to really effectively leverage technology. And so I think that's probably my biggest focus right now, is trying to make that part of the business a little bit more efficient. And to improve our internal controls as we start to work towards accessing public markets. I think it's just something that's important for us to be able to do. And frankly, it will be much more scalable over time.”
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