The CFO Leading Talent, Operations & Corporate Communications (Kate Gulliver, CFO & CAO, Wayfair)

Disclaimer: 

This is a podswap episode from The Growth Minded CFO, hosted by Lauren Pearl and Alex Louisy, featuring Kate Gulliver, CFO and CEO of Wayfair.

The path to becoming a CFO today is rarely a straight line. Finance leaders are increasingly coming from diverse backgrounds, bringing a broad range of skills to the role. After all, the best CFOs don’t just manage numbers; they shape strategy, foster talent, and drive innovation across an organization.

In this episode of The Growth-Minded CFO, hosts Lauren and Alex sit down with Kate Gulliver, CFO and CAO of Wayfair. It's an insightful conversation about leadership, adaptability, and impact. Kate shares her journey from investor relations to overseeing finance, legal, talent, and corporate communication—offering a rare look at the evolution of a top executive.

She reflects on the challenges of stepping into new roles, the power of an entrepreneurial mindset in a high-growth company, and the lessons learned from integrating finance with people strategy. Kate also opens up about balancing a demanding career with motherhood and the importance of fostering an inclusive, authentic workplace.

In this Episode:

[00:58] - Meet Kate Gulliver: Wayfair's Multifaceted Leader

[01:53] - Journey Through Wayfair: From IPO to CFO

[06:55] - Transitioning to Talent: A Leap of Faith

[10:28] - Learning and Leading in Talent Management

[16:08] - The CFO Perspective: Integrating Talent and Finance

[17:11] - Navigating the CFO Role: Insights and Reflections

[18:50] - The Importance of Cross-Departmental Communication

[21:30] - Wayfair's Latest Launch: Wayfair Verified

[24:49] - Operationalizing New Ideas at Wayfair

[29:59] - Balancing Work and Life

[33:23] - The Importance of Authenticity at Work

Connect with Kate:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-gulliver-3b242762/

Connect with Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexlouisy/

Connect with Lauren:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenepearl/

Follow The Growth-Minded CFO:
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-growth-minded-cfo/id1773662367
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Upflow_FRM

Transcript:

Paul Barnhurst (00:00):

FP&A guy here, and today I want to share a special episode with you. This is a pod swap we're doing with the growth-minded CFO. I'm sharing one of their episodes and hoping you'll like it and listen to the show. It's hosted by Lauren Pearl, who's a friend of mine and also Alex Louisy. Lauren is a fractional CFO. Does a lot of great work in the space, really knowledgeable person. The podcast is sponsored by Upflow, or Upflow is the company behind it, and they had on the CFO and CAO of Wayfair. Kate Gulliver. The episode is the CFO, leading Talent Operations and Corporate Communications. She talks about the entrepreneurial mindset, what it takes to be a strategic leader, how she's taken on more and more responsibility beyond just finance. I think it's a great listen way to think of the future of the finance role and hear from someone who's fabulous in the business. So I hope you enjoy this episode. If you did, let me know and I'll do more pod swaps, but I'd love to bring you other shows way to learn and listen to what others are sharing in the finance space. So we'll go ahead and roll the episode. Thanks.

Host: Lauren Pearl(01:08):

Too often finance leaders are expected to stay in their lane

Co-host: Alex Louisy (01:11):

Managing numbers, forecasts and budgets. But what happens when finance isn't just about the numbers?

Host: Lauren Pearl(01:18):

What if it's a driver of talent, operations and strategic decision making?

Co-host: Alex Louisy (01:23):

Kate has done just that as a CFO and CAO of Wayfair. She's not only steering this company's financial strategy, but also overseeing key functions like legal talent and corporate communication.

Host: Lauren Pearl(01:38):

In this conversation, she reveals how finance leaders can expand their impact and what it takes to thrive in a role that touches every corner of the business.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (01:46):

Let's dive in.

Host: Lauren Pearl(02:06):

And we are here with Kate Gulliver, the CFO of Wayfair. So Kate, welcome to the show. It's so exciting to have you here. Thank you.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (02:14):

Welcome Kate. Thank

Host: Lauren Pearl(02:15):

You. I love being here. Thank you both. Kate, could you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do at Wayfair?

Co-host: Alex Louisy (02:21):

Sure. So I have been at Wayfair for over 11 years. Wayfair's an e-commerce company. We sell furniture. I'm currently the CFO, but I have had a wide range of roles at the company. I started to run our IPO, so I actually started investor relations. I did that for a few years. I ran a p and L for a little bit. At one point I was our chief people officer. That's the role I've actually had the longest at the company. I did that role for six years and then I guess it was two or three years ago, I stepped into the CFO role. And within that role I lead finance actually still our people function, legal, real estate compliance, and sort of corporate comms.

Host: Lauren Pearl(03:04):

Very, very cool. And I wonder as the CFO role now, can you tell us a little bit more about what the experience was moving from function to function? Did you have any doubts moving from one functional area to another? Did you face any kind of friction moving to and fro any kind of interesting insights of what it's like to change your role within a company? So significantly?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (03:31):

Yeah, I mean I have personally loved it and it's why I'm still at the company because it not only, so the company itself has gone through sort of a crazy period of growth since I've been there, which is very fun to sort of see that. But I've also gotten to have several different roles within the company and doing each job, it feels like I'm starting something new every time, which there's a lot of friction. So that's not to say there's a lot of friction, but it has been for me highly enjoyable. I actually think more of the friction was externally. I think people thought every move was a little bit crazy, particularly. So my background was originally in finance. I worked in private equity, I was an investor for many years. So first leaving that to go into the corporate world was just not something that people really

Thought

Guest: Kate Gulliver (04:19):

Made a lot of sense. And then when I told people that I was going to leave the finance world to run the talent function, I think people thought that I had lost my mind and that probably our CEO had lost his mind because I knew nothing about talent. So it was interesting. I actually think, not that I felt it was easy in retrospect to go and say, oh, I had such conviction every time I changed jobs. No, it creates a great story now, but not at the time. But I was excited each time and it was more externally where there was a little bit more noise. That

Host: Lauren Pearl(04:51):

Makes tonnes of sense. So you kind of followed that passion. I love that. I really love that.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (04:56):

It's so interesting what you said about, we had tonnes of questions around the role around people and how does that fit with the financial, but before we do this, something we wanted to come back on with the fact that you started on investor relationship, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. And how does that help you looking at the global company and as you start, is this a special position that helps you later in the job of having this outside view on the company?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (05:21):

Unquestionably. So I came in to Wayfair about nine months pre our IPO. Actually, my first day on the job was the first day of what's called the banker bake off, where the banks all come in and pitch you to run the IPO. So everybody, all that you name the bank, they're in there and they're just telling you why they should run the process and they're going to be the best bank to take you out. And so really for the first nine months I was there, my role was entirely around preparing the company for the public offering. And as part of that, you get to help craft what the company's public story is going to be. And in doing that, you, I got access to everybody within the company because I had to understand what were the metrics that we were going to show. By the way, 11 years later, there's metrics that we decided to show then that now I'm like, oh man, why did I come up with that metric?

(06:15):

It's an awful metric. What idiot put that in place 11 years ago? Unfortunately it was me, but part of the process is you write what's called the S one, which is your offering memorandum that you put out as part of the process and writing that was probably the best way for me to learn the business. And I loved that. I mean, I had to learn every part of the company as a result. And so I got to meet all of these leaders across the company and it really helped me understand how Wayfair operated and helped me really grow to love the business because I was able to identify what we were doing that I felt was unique to the business.

Host: Lauren Pearl(06:51):

That's so cool. It also resonates a lot with something we've heard from multiple CFOs about coming into the CFO role and sort of the process around that. What we've often heard from multiple CFOs is don't come in and execute at the operator level right away. It's so much more fruitful to observe and understand the company and understand the stakeholders, speak with everyone and kind of get a lay of the land and build that trust before going in. So it's very interesting that in doing this task, you got to do exactly that. You got to speak with all of those stakeholders and build that thesis of the company and your understanding of the company, which is incredible.

Guest: Kate Gulliver (07:31):

Oh, absolutely. I mean, again, none of this was, it's not when I joined the company that I planned someday I was going to be, none of this was planned, but in retrospect, looking back on it, it's an incredible foundation. And I spent eight years at the company nine years before I became CFO. And so I knew the business not even in the financing. So I knew the business very well operationally and commercially before stepping into the CFO job. And I think that that makes you a much better CFO over time if you can have the opportunity to do that. Yeah,

Host: Lauren Pearl(08:05):

That makes total sense.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (08:06):

That makes total sense. So how do we move from investor relations to people?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (08:11):

That's the big question. It's so odd. It's so odd. And by the way, by far unquestionably the best career move I've ever made in my life. I loved it. I loved running the talent function. So when I joined the company, as I said, the company was much smaller scale and we didn't have a fully developed people function at the time, although we had some very talented people working on talent acquisition and talent management. And I'll never forget, I was with the CFO of the company and he was telling me how he had been talking to the CEO and they realised they needed somebody very strategic in a chief people officer role, which had not yet even been created. And he was like, do you know anybody? Maybe you have some friends. And he goes sort of casually said, I even thought maybe you could do it, but I know you would never want to do that.

(09:04):

But he knew me very well. And so this idea sunk in my head and I was like, that's interesting. So I came back to him a few days later, I said, oh, you remember how we were on the plane and you were talking about this job? I'm a little bored. I think I could do more. I'd love to sort of understand what you meant by that. I've never even considered something in that space. How could you possibly see me in this space? And Michael, who was our C FFO at the time, and is a dear friend and mentor of mine to this day is just incredible at, he's very comfortable with the idea that a lot of technical skills can be learned on the job and that instead what he looks for when he hires is an ability to communicate, an ability to lead and sort of strong quantitative and analytic capability.

(09:51):

And the rest you either hire the expertise or you develop it. So he was not fussed at all that I didn't know. The legalities of talent and sort of the ins and outs and what he focused on were skills that he thought I had that would be beneficial to the role and beneficial to him. Then he suggested that I talk to the CEO about it. Our CEO is our founder. He still runs the business today, Norridge. And I'll never forget what he said to me, which was the most important thing I think about all day is do I have the right people in the right roles? And at that stage, his view was that our number one limiter on growth, and at this point we were growing 50, 60% a year was not having the right people.

(10:33):

And I sort of came away from that conversation and I thought, well, if this is what the CEO is primarily thinking about, why wouldn't I want to do the job that he feels the important is the most important to the company at this moment? And I also felt like I had something unique to bring to the role and that I might approach it more analytically than historically that role has been seen. So it was a real leap of faith. Again, people definitely thought I was crazy, but I thought I would go in and do it for two years and I did it for six years. I absolutely loved it. There is, in my opinion, very few other ways where you can sort of learn the company as intimately as you do in that role

When

Guest: Kate Gulliver (11:14):

You're hiring so many people and you have to set up the systems and the processes and you really have to identify who are we as a business,

What do

Guest: Kate Gulliver (11:21):

We want our culture to? How do we want that to be articulated? The culture is really defined already. That's already been created over years of work. It's really how are we communicating that and what do we like about that and what do we want to modify? And it was really exciting to be sort of that hands-on and that development. That

Host: Lauren Pearl(11:38):

Is so cool. I'm curious, as you came into that role, you probably had a lot of new things to learn, switching functions. What sorts of things did you do in that role to get up to speed and what would you suggest maybe to other CFOs who are tackling a new function as CFOs, we often get tapped to kind of pinch hit and take over an entire department, somebody left for step in. Exactly. So this happens quite often. What would you suggest to those folks And also any specific suggestions for someone who's taking over talent

Guest: Kate Gulliver (12:16):

Specifically? So I would say a few things. So first, I did get lucky in that there were some great people doing day-to-day talent work.

(12:26):

And that was very fortunate, would've been a much harder situation if I didn't have people that had deep talent expertise. And so what I really tried to do in the first few beginning part of that job was sort of ride alongside them, understand what it was that they were doing. I would attend meetings with them to sort of see how they navigated situations, sort of start to learn some of the complex legal pieces that you have to have in talent, but also how did they see the world. And then the other big thing was it gave me an opportunity once again in that IR job to go back out and interview every VP and C-level executive at the company and asked them, what is working well for you in talent and what is not working well for you? And when you take on a job and you're new in the role, people are so willing to share because they think it's an opportunity I can help influence what this role is going forward.

(13:19):

This is great. Why wouldn't I want to spend the time with Kate to tell her what I think is working and what's not? So it was incredible for me to hear from our chief commercial officer or our CTO, what they felt was productive and what they felt was actually really inefficient. And so that sort of gave me the starting list of, okay, here's what we want to go after. And in that early stage, you can ask whatever questions you want. Nobody assumes that you have any knowledge. And being able to do that I think is the most critical part of ramping up. And so it's both. You do have to rely on some folks that have the more detailed expertise and really taking the time to ask all the questions in the beginning, which is an obvious answer, but unfortunately the true answer. I would also say the other thing about talent, and I think about any role that the CFO might take on if they have to step into real estate or a p and l because someone's left, the basic analytics still apply.

(14:20):

It's not that you can't take some logic and rigour to the job in the same way that you do into looking at the financial statements. It's just some of the numbers and the inflows are different. But we look at attrition data, we look at employee satisfaction, we look at compensation, we look at the ROI that we're getting on certain large populations of workers or other types of assets, and those were all the same questions. It's just applying a slightly different set of data to it. And so I think it's really important not to assume that the skills that you have in the C ffo role aren't applicable in these roles. They absolutely are applicable.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (14:58):

Did you get some help from the outside that something that we often have from other guests on the podcast about getting some mentor or some advisors or

Guest: Kate Gulliver (15:10):

So in the talent role, I was extremely fortunate in that a friend of my husband's of mine who actually works with my husband had made a similar transition. She was a marketer and then had become a chief people officer, and she invited me. She had created a network of chief people officers in Boston who met every other month, and she invited me into this group. And it was such a gift because I learned how other people in the field thought and what resources they used. For example, I didn't know any of the tech in that field when I came into the role. And it's actually space that has had an amazing amount of tech development over the last 10 to 15 years. And so in that group you would ask, Hey, what are you guys using for people analytics or what are you using for X, Y, Z? And it would just be a way to start to develop and build my own network, which would've been hard to do without that. So I think that is a very important piece of ramping up in any new role.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (16:07):

We talk a lot about this network effect and also the importance for finance leaders to go out and seek those groups because sometimes it's just you feel it like you are owning the truth by just digging further in the numbers or digging further into your own process. But sometimes the answer is just right outside when you ask someone else.

Guest: Kate Gulliver (16:27):

And the CFO job can be a little lonely, right? Yeah. I mean often you are responsible in a way that many others are not. You have to own the problem. You often know and see things before maybe others in the organisation do, particularly your peers sometimes. And so I think it can feel a bit like you're on your own island, to your point. I think that's a great point. And being able to pick up the phone, I'm not sure the particulars obviously, but at least sort of talk through high level with somebody, Hey, have you ever experienced X? Or how are you structuring YI think is very important.

Host: Lauren Pearl(17:05):

Yeah. Also, I love your point about when approaching a role in new function, thinking about expanding that network to now include professionals who can help you with that new function. Oh,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (17:15):

Absolutely. Right.

Host: Lauren Pearl(17:15):

As another step of what you will do adding to your personal board of directors.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (17:20):

So you said you then moved to the CFO position. Was that the first time as A CFO?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (17:25):

Oh, yes. Yeah, no, no. So I worked for many years running the people function for Michael, my boss, who was the CFO at the time. I actually reported into him in that role. As I said, our founder is the CEO, so he only has three direct reports, one of whom is the CFO position, but that CFO position historically held a lot underneath it. Michael decided that he was going to retire a few years ago, and so I moved into his position upon his retirement.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (17:54):

So that's the first time that you're moving into the CFO position. And so you're coming from this talent experience. One thing that I like a lot with the CFO is that sometimes they see the picture as seeing talent as just a number in the spreadsheet or anything, but it's actually way more than this. What is your experiences growing into this role after running the talent function and how did that help you in this new CFO position?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (18:21):

Yeah, it's a great question. I think for any executive at the company, if you've done a stint in talent, you probably approach how you lead and guide your own team differently, certainly. But how you show up for the company as a whole differently because in the CFO role, like the CPO role or the chief commercial officer role, or the CTO role or the president role or near our CEO, you're often asked to represent the company as a whole or to speak in front of the whole company and answer questions and sort of help guide folks. It's not just my own team, it's all of Wayfair. And because I had that talent background, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how folks in Boston may feel about a decision, but I've also spent a bunch of time in our warehouses. So how might someone in one of our field operations feel about a decision or somebody in our London office versus our Boston office or the tech team that sits in Mountain View? And having that sort of breadth of this company is not just the finance folks that sit in Boston or the commercial folks that sit in Boston, it's more than 10,000 people in a wide range of roles across the globe. I think is a very important approach to addressing the organisation and ensuring that the organisation is thought of as a multidimensional thing. And I think it can be easy when you're in finance, and I'm sure it's true with any other role, to have your world just be the world that's proximate to you.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (19:58):

That's a great tip. So yeah, I think it often comes back to this kind of tip that those finance leaders have gave us, given us around just making sure that you get outside of your own finance box

Co-host: Alex Louisy (20:11):

Go and talk to others. Of course, if you've been into other position, this is even easier. So that makes a lot of sense.

Host: Lauren Pearl(20:16):

And the value of communication across organisation, across different departments. We hear so many folks talk about how important it is to also get that kind of narrative out of just the finance function. So it really speaks to that as well. Very cool.

Still to come on this episode,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (20:35):

People are watching you, right? And they're paying attention to what you're saying and what you're doing and how you show up at work. And I think there are times where I probably wish I showed up less authentically than I sometimes do. My team definitely knows when things are spinning. A little bit out of control

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Co-host: Alex Louisy (22:40):

So I think you said earlier today that in the conversation that you sometimes know things before others know about it. I think Wayfair announced a big change yesterday that was released.

Guest: Kate Gulliver (22:55):

Wayfair verified,

Co-host: Alex Louisy (22:56):

Wayfair verified. Can you tell us just in a few words so that people can understand what it is and so I just have a follow

Guest: Kate Gulliver (23:02):

Question. Yeah, no, we're excited about this. So we're a retailer, but at our core we are tech enabled

(23:08):

And what we're always trying to do is help on the storefront, help folks discover products. We sell millions of products, dunno where you bought these from, but I'm sure we sell something very similar to this if not this. In fact, we probably have several that are similar to this. And so the question for the consumer becomes how do I know if this is a really nice high quality chair or if I'm just getting a cheap chair and by the way, maybe I just want the cheap chair, but how do I understand value? And Wayfair verified is a way for on the storefront. So the web experience for you to understand value. These are products that are tested by our merchants actually. We often film, we would film somebody sitting in this chair describing it, showing how tall the chair is relative to the average human's height, that kind of thing. And then these are products that we know will ship easily to you. They do not arrive damage. All of these things that we've checked on Wayfair verified. So then you're on the storefront, you're searching, you're looking for sort of a barreled chair and you can look for the Wayfair verified product. And so it just helps distinguish across all of the wide range of products in the marketplace. It really helps the consumer know, hey, that's a product that Wayfair trusts

(24:14):

And it has the Wayfair stamp behind it. Yeah,

Co-host: Alex Louisy (24:18):

So that's a big release for Wayfair. How did you get involved in this overall project? Was that way before or last minute?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (24:26):

We keep the CFO away from this. When did we don't want that. One of the things I love about Wayfair actually is although we're a large business, the overall operating team is actually pretty small. And so I think neuro, our CEO does actually a great job at all of these things are sort of talked through at the leadership team level. And in something like this, there's obviously an investment component to it. You are taking labour time to film. Right now we don't use AI all over the place, but in this particular case we've chosen not to use AI in the filming because we actually think it's really important to see if you're opening and closing a drawer of a dresser. AI doesn't do that well, right? We want to see how does a human actually do it? We want a human to touch the product and talk about the product.

(25:12):

We need that authenticity. So there's a cost to that. And so part of the way that my team gets involved in something like this is we actually have a commercial finance team that supports the commercial operation. And as an idea like this is developed, they'll actually sit and partner with that team hand in hand and say, Hey, this is what we think it's going to cost. If you think that those products are going to get X amount increased conversion, here's the likely ROI on that investment over time. But you have to make an assumption around this kind of conversion, this kind of customer lifetime value or improve satisfaction. And so they'll actually work on that from the very beginning. That's

Host: Lauren Pearl(25:51):

Very cool. In thinking through supporting as a CFO, a new rollout like this a new programme, could you break maybe into the stages of as part of the leadership team, what you're thinking about as maybe the idea starts to get bounced around, you start to go into implementation, you start to actually have the programme and now are tracking metrics, the kinds of different ways you're thinking about those different moments?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (26:19):

So in this case, I think the original idea, I actually don't know who generated it or where it originally came from, but I think it was designed to solve, it was well understood to us that it can be challenging as a consumer to navigate so much depth of product and we have a highly credible brand. And so how do we use that to our advantage? We recently went into physical retail and so we've actually just been touching a lot more product than we typically touch. And now that we see product, so much of it coming in, it's helpful to say, Hey, well we're already seeing this, what else can we do with it? So the idea comes from a customer problem that you're trying to solve and trying to identify what is unique about Wayfair that can solve this problem in a different way than maybe other folks can solve it.

(27:03):

And so that's really where it gets started. And then I think your next piece was how do you think about operationalizing it and where you go from there? We tend to to just get things going. So in this particular case, yes, a finance team helped the team understand what the cost would be and how to think about it. But at the same time, the guy who actually runs a programme guy named Mike Macquarie, he just wanted to start filming some videos to see what would happen. So he actually built himself a studio bay in an office base area of the office that we were not using on a weekend and sort built this bay to film the product to start showing, hey, this is what it could be,

(27:47):

This is what it is. And Niger, CEO is just incredibly, I think Niro probably helped push him to go do that. He's very supportive. Nige is an entrepreneur at hard, he and Steve Conine founded the company and so they're super excited about somebody who's going to go and take that kind of risk and really just get doing something. So we try not to actually over rotate on, Hey, let's build the perfect business plan instead we want to do those things in parallel. So it's like, let's get going on this. Let's see if we can get some traction. If we get traction and then we want to have a lot of bays and do a lot more filming, then we can understand, hey, we actually have to dedicate X amount of hours towards this, which is going to be y amount of headcount cost. Here's what that's going to look like. It's going to take a spot on the page, it'll take a spot up here. Do we want to move a verified product into that spot or do we want a sponsored product and what is the return on that? But the first step is really let's just get it started. And that's one of the things that I love about working at Wayfair. It's a large company, we're publicly listed and there's still that attitude of let me go in on a weekend and build a bay to film in. Yeah,

Host: Lauren Pearl(28:51):

It's such a startup mentality. It strikes me that it's just such a valuable asset for a large company to have to still have that entrepreneurial spirit to just kind of go in and try something and test it out and see if this is even worth having metrics around before actually executing. You don't always hear those stories, but it makes sense that that would be very successful thing to,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (29:16):

It's hard. I think it's really hard. There are many places in the business where we probably need to hold onto that more than we do

Host: Lauren Pearl(29:21):

Because

Guest: Kate Gulliver (29:22):

It can be very hard when you get so large to still be comfortable taking that risk. I'm trying something. And so I was speaking with Steve, our other co-founder recently about how do we instil that risk tolerance still? And I think sometimes he'll say, Hey, you don't have enough risk tolerance. You get worried about X, Y, Z. You need to be comfortable taking the risk we got here

Host: Lauren Pearl(29:42):

By

Guest: Kate Gulliver (29:42):

Moving faster than anybody else and taking the risk. And if we lose that, then it becomes much harder to innovate and stay on top.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (29:49):

And I think it speaks a lot to what you said earlier about culture, and I think that's what makes it so interesting about your previous position as well of I think aligning a global culture within the company of what, 15,000

Guest: Kate Gulliver (30:01):

Employees.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (30:02):

I mean, it's incredible to think of how much it's a privilege to be able to keep this overall culture as the company grow. I think in our companies it's just only a few 10th of people. It's already hard to keep the same principles and culture. And so I guess it's something that is super important in your position today.

Guest: Kate Gulliver (30:24):

And to be clear, it's very hard and we've definitely at times lost it, right? Of course. I think it ebbs and flows and I think one of the jobs in leading the people function, but also just in being a senior leader at the company who's been there for 11 years is for myself to try to identify when are we losing that and how do we get back to that and when am I creating process that I don't need to create because we're a larger company and I think I need to do it, but we don't really need to do it. And so where can we sort of scale that back?

Co-host: Alex Louisy (30:54):

I remember that the idea of the culture and also the supporting function of finance in the business and helping them launching new ideas. I think it's a great, great tip and insight for the audience.

Host: Lauren Pearl(31:07):

Kind of to start wrapping up our conversation, we'd love to pivot to a topic around balancing work and life. So we know that you're a mom and you're also a very publicly facing leader. Curious, what kinds of challenges have you encountered in taking on both of those roles and any tips or advice from other folks who are in the same position trying to find that balance?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (31:33):

I'm pausing because there is not a balance. So I have three children. They are 10, eight and five, and my husband also works very full-time. So we've chosen that. I think the biggest thing I try to remember is that we are very fortunate to be making these choices. We are in a privileged position to have both be in jobs that we love and to also be able to have three healthy kids. And there are trade-offs that we've made obviously to make that work. Probably the biggest of which is that I think it's hard. It's often hard to all five of us be together because I'll be travelling or my husband will be travelling. We trade off and go in and out. And so maybe one of the unfortunate trade offs is how do you find time? We really value, we try on the weekends to all five just be together because we really value the time when it's the five of us versus one adult somewhere or one kid at a soccer practise or another kid at swimming and really not getting that time.

(32:40):

But I say it's not balanced because there are times where work is dominance and I enjoy leaning into it. I've always loved working. There was never a time where I thought I wasn't going to work. And so there are times where I really lean into work and then there are times where the kids are dominant, where something is going on with one of my children, they maybe need some extra help or it's just a stage of their life that is more complicated. And so I share that because I think what has helped has been not thinking that on a day-to-day basis it's going to be balanced and instead acknowledging that there are going to be periods where it's going to feel completely out of control. They're going to feel periods where maybe it feels a little bit better and there are going to be times where it feels like I'm swinging from one side to the next, and that's okay. It usually does pivot back. That

Host: Lauren Pearl(33:34):

Makes it, it's so funny. I feel like when dealing with these issues so often in addition to whatever grief we might feel from certain challenges, we give ourselves additional grief from facing the challenge itself, from the fact that we can't be. So I love kind of that permission to, it's okay if you're not doing it all great, all at the same time,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (33:54):

You pivot back and forth. It is hard to acknowledge that in the moment. There are definitely moments, but I think being able to say, yes, I'm going to be really great at this thing today and I'm probably not going to be great at the other thing. And that's okay. Yeah.

Host: Lauren Pearl(34:08):

How do you find, we all kind of have lives and we all have work. What do you think about maybe even also from your background now and talent that you do for or that you expect from colleagues in helping each other kind of retain that balance and maintain thriving lives in both aspects?

Guest: Kate Gulliver (34:31):

Yeah, that's a great question. I really feel fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of colleagues who have rich lives outside of work in addition to work, but they often, they're incredibly dedicated to what they do, but they're also very comfortable talking about, oh, this weekend I did X with my kids, or I did this. I am a really big dog parent and I did that with my dog. Or maybe I'm taking care of my parents, my older parents, and here's what that looks like. And so I love it when people, I really like to get to know my team. So I love it when people show up at work and they actually talk to me about their kids or where they're going to school. When I first went into interview at Wayfair, I met Michael, the CFO at the time. And I'll never forget we were in the middle of his evening because I was in another job and I didn't want them to know I was interviewing anywhere.

(35:22):

So I met him at 7:00 PM at night at the office, and we started this interview and within five minutes his phone rang and he picked it up and he said hello briefly to the person on the phone. He put it on pause and he said to me, I'm sorry, this is my son and he's trying to go to sleep and I need to talk to him for a few minutes and then I'll come back in. And so he left. He went and talked to his son and then he came back in. And at that point, I didn't even have any children, but I knew that that was the kind of person I wanted to go work for. Somebody who was incredibly dedicated to his career, unbelievably talented at what he did. He's been a public company CFO multiple times, but his kid still calls him at 7:00 PM at night when he is out of town to talk to him.

(36:02):

And I loved that, and I think I try to role model that a little bit. I'm not sure I do it as well as he did, but at least to show, I talk about my kids a lot. And on Friday a colleague was in the office and his son came in with him for a few hours and it sort of hung out and was colouring in the area just so that people can feel that actually they can bring their whole selves to work. And I think that's the bottom line is that the workplace is, we spend a lot of our hours in the office and the workplace is a much more enjoyable place if people can bring their authentic selves in and if they can bring who they are outside of work into work some. And for me, that has made the experience at Wayfair much more enjoyable than it otherwise would. And I feel very fortunate to be working for folks who embrace that and encourage that. And I try to do that a bit with the folks on my team.

Host: Lauren Pearl(36:51):

That's such an incredible answer. It's so important to be able to bring your full self to work. It reminds me of one CFO we chatted with recently who was speaking about the benefits of morale in the workplace, and it was Alana Estrich, she's the CFO of Planned Parenthood, and she spoke about that from her experience leading troops in the military talking about an army runs on its stomach and how important it is to get letters from home that so often we think of these softer things as sort of like, oh, it's the fluffy stuff on the side, but it is essential to having a team that runs well to consider their ability to bring their authentic self to work and have that morale.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (37:36):

And again, back to the culture of the company. And I think what is interesting as well is that oftentimes we see CAFO are just a number of crunchers on the side and stuff. And what you're saying here, which I know and we know, but it is also important to remember, is that we are as CFOs, as finance leaders participating in building this culture of the company and keeping it tight around whatever principles you have in your own organisation. I think it's something that is also super important. Yeah,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (38:02):

People are watching you and they're paying attention to what you're saying and what you're doing and how you show up at work. And I think there are times where I probably wish I showed up less authentically than I sometimes do. My team definitely knows when things are spinning a little bit out of control, and there are other people that probably handle it more gracefully, but I do think they at least feel that I'm being transparent with them.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (38:28):

I think it's yourself. It's just being yourself. I think it's important thing. Huge, which is great. Thank you so much, Kate. That was a great conversation. I think for anyone listening to us, and we've seen that a couple of times on the podcast, I think the most incredible and inspiring thing is this ability to change career and changing moves from one position to another. And I think something that you highlighted today was the fact that you always took it with a positive angle and willing to learn and taking this as an opportunity. And I think that's a great learning, but also something that is really inspiring for young finance leaders in the space that may end up becoming the CFO of Elisted entity. So thank you so much, Kate, for being with us today. Oh,

Guest: Kate Gulliver (39:08):

Thank you for having me. It was wonderful. Thank you so much.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (39:11):

We would love to record more episodes like this. I think you

Host: Lauren Pearl(39:15):

Would agree. Absolutely. I would agree. Let's record more of them with wonderful guests like Kate.

Co-host: Alex Louisy (39:19):

Thank you so much, Kate, for being here. If you listen to this episode today, you can just rate the show, leave us a comment, and more importantly, share it with anyone, whether they are in the finance space or not. There's a lot of learning that are even beyond I think the finance thinking and everything. So feel free to share, subscribe, and we'll see you soon on another episode of the Growth-Minded CFO. Thanks for being with us today.

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