The Three Foundations of Strategic FP&A with Chithra Rajagopalan
In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, host Paul Barnhurst sits down with Chithra Rajagopalan, Head of Finance at Obsidian Security, to discuss what great FP&A looks like in high-growth companies, why strong data foundations matter, and how finance teams can become more strategic business partners. Chithra shares lessons from scaling finance teams, supporting hypergrowth companies, and using data to influence better decisions.
Chithra Rajagopalan is a finance leader with experience across high-growth SaaS and AI security companies. She currently serves as Head of Finance at Obsidian Security, where she oversees financial strategy and operations. Her previous roles include finance leadership positions at Glue, ClickUp, and People.ai, following earlier experience at Deloitte and Ernst & Young.
Expect to Learn:
Why great FP&A goes beyond reporting.
How strong data foundations support better decisions.
What finance teams need during hypergrowth.
How AI is changing finance roles and workflows.
Why cybersecurity matters when finance adopts AI.
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
“Accounting is always going to give you exposure to what already happened. You still need a strong FP&A partner to know what to do in the future.” - Chithra Rajagopalan
“You can have as much data as you want, but if you don’t utilize it to make decisions, surface risk, or hold people accountable, it’s pointless.” - Chithra Rajagopalan
Chithra explains that strong FP&A starts with reliable data, business understanding, communication, and the ability to prioritize what actually moves the business forward. For finance professionals, the growing use of AI also means shifting from task execution toward an orchestration mindset, where teams understand systems, workflows, automation, and business strategy rather than simply producing reports.
Follow Chithra:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chithra-rajagopalan-mba
Website: https://www.obsidiansecurity.com/
Disclosure: Portions of this episode (such as the introduction or promotional segments) use AI-generated voice narration produced under human editorial review.
Earn Your CPE Credit
For CPE credit, please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, answer a few questions, and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for the FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode:
[00:00] - Trailer
[05:07] - What Great FP&A Looks Like
[11:16] - Building Finance During Hypergrowth
[15:19] - Creating a Culture of Data
[17:52] - Three Foundations of Strong FP&A Teams
[29:31] - Inside Obsidian Security
[34:38] - AI, Finance & Cybersecurity
[39:42] - Moving Beyond AI Hype
[44:43] - Why Finance Needs AI Guardrails
[47:24] - The Skills FP&A Professionals Need
[50:01] - The Future of Finance Teams
[57:08] - Why Startup Chaos Builds Better Leaders
[59:15] - Closing Thoughts
Full Show Transcript:
00:01:20.410 — 00:01:45.330 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Welcome to another episode of FP&A unlocked where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst , aka the FP&A Guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who are reshaping the role of a in today's business world. Together, we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FP&A from great FP&A.
00:01:46.650 — 00:01:55.730 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
And this week we have someone who will help us do that. Really excited about. It's had a lot of great roles and experiences. So I want to welcome Chithra to the show. Welcome.
00:01:55.730 — 00:02:00.070 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm super excited to be here. Thanks again for the opportunity.
00:02:00.110 — 00:02:14.590 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah, I'm really excited to have you. Chithra Rajagopalan is a finance leader with deep expertise in high-growth SaaS and AI security technology companies. She currently serves as Head of Finance at Obsidian Security, a leading cybersecurity firm, where she oversees the company's financial strategy and operations. Chithra has led Obsidian through several rounds of successful VC funding and has played a key role in helping the company grow over 1000% in the last four years, resulting in Obsidian being recognized as Deloitte’s Fastest Growing Companies in North America (2025). Her prior roles include Head of Finance at Glue (acquired), Director of Corporate FP&A at ClickUp, and Director of Finance and Accounting at People.ai. Chithra began her career at Deloitte following the completion of her MBA in Finance and later gained experience at Ernst & Young before pivoting to the startup world after relocating to the United States. Known for her collaborative approach and business acumen, she has built a reputation for translating financial insight into strategic value across cross-functional teams. Beyond her corporate work, she is passionate about youth education and community empowerment.
And yeah, and then it was, you know, when I spoke with her son, it was like the problem statement was very clear. It was something I got pretty hooked on as, hey, why are we not talking about this? More like it really makes sense. Like me as a finance leader, all this time security was never in the forefront.
but somebody who's handling highly sensitive data and like it should be. Technically, this is not. This is a huge responsibility. So it was kind of very product excitement that got me more intrigued. And of course, amazing people. So it's been a bliss working here for three years now. Prior to that was with, um, similar, similar, uh, roles with click up people, AI and and prior to that, I spent quite a bit of time as interim CFO services that we did in comptroller ship, which is focused predominantly on SaaS companies that are venture backed and going through a hyper hyper growth scale.
Uh, who clearly didn't have like a CFO internally but did need finance leadership and started my career with big four where I got to do a very different kind of work. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
00:03:50.920 — 00:04:13.770 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Awesome. Thank you. And I can relate to the fact that cybersecurity actually works for Digi cert if you've heard of them. And then I started my career with the Navy, so security was very high. I worked on a weapons division Navy base with all scientists and engineers that were working on that kind of stuff. And then I worked for American Express, which was very strict on security because you can imagine with credit card data.
00:04:13.810 — 00:04:32.970 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. So one of our core ISP's is financial services and banking, especially because of that, like highly sensitive data, high volume of data, regulatory requirements. And, you know, like the exposure that they have is very, very intense, right? So it is definitely a core ICP of ours.
00:04:33.050 — 00:04:43.450 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Not surprised at all right. I mean, government and banks are and healthcare are probably three of the highest as far as if there's a breach type of information they have.
00:04:43.490 — 00:04:50.650 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. And medical the healthcare field and Lulu.com is also another one that we run into predominantly.
00:04:50.690 — 00:05:06.860 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Not surprised at all. Makes total sense for that industry. Before we jump into that, we'll get a little bit more into kind of what you're doing today. This question I like to start every episode off with, I love seeing the kind of diversity of answers and the similarity. So when you think of great DNA, what does it look like?
How would you define it?
00:05:06.900 — 00:06:06.160 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
I mean, simply put, great. Anna, I always believe is not just reporting, it's it's when you are able to influence a decision, influence a trajectory of where the strategy is going. I think that's what you want to define for Anna as. And I think there is a role or a phase in, in a company's growth where Anna will play a lot more of a strategic role or like will have a lot more of a predominant contribution.
Right? Like, I think having that strategic partnership in whatever department really brings the group together for a company and whether it's insights or data and how do you utilize that to make make decisions within a department or an or holistically as a company? I think this is where that bridging the gap is required, because accounting is always going to give you exposure to what already happened.
You still need a strong DNA partner to know, okay, with that information, what am I going to do in the future?
00:06:06.200 — 00:06:22.240 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned there are some stages where it's more strategic. I'm going to guess you probably seen that in early startups. It seems like that's where you really like to thrive. And you enjoy that involvement as you're moving rapidly and trying to figure out what's next. And how do we scale this?
00:06:22.280 — 00:07:31.010 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. And I think I mentioned to you this before, like being in startups of was something that was I was exposed to very randomly. And I just literally I was like excited about even the small little contribution that you make has a huge impact on the company. Even though I came from the accounting side of things, it really gave me a lot of perspective, a foundational perspective, and I wanted to pursue my my career and pivoted a little bit more towards DNA.
It's kind of like a added ammunition and a tool that I had in my backpack. So especially in an early stage company, there is a lot more weightage in getting accounting and actuals in place. But eventually, once you kind of start growing, that's where you start questioning things. Okay. How did this campaign that I did?
What happened to that? Like, how am I measuring my leads? Did the sales get some benefit out of it? You start asking smaller questions and then it becomes a little bit more of a strategic discussion, right? So I love seeing that evolution and being there, being able to witness that and kind of taking it to scale and hypergrowth is definitely rewarding.
00:07:31.010 — 00:07:55.180 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
I can relate to that. While you're talking about is when you're really kind of involved those decisions. Yes. The accountant's accounting is important. It's good, but it's just a part of the picture. You get to see much more of the full picture in that figure and a role, and I'd love to see what's an example you could maybe share.
You mentioned, you know, influencing decisions. So what's the time you've seen great in action. Maybe something you did or something you seen someone who works in a did?
00:07:55.220 — 00:08:15.180 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So I think I've been fortunate enough to have worked in amazing companies where the teams were a little bit more mature and seen a lot more decision making. That has happened with with the set of people that are pretty much concentrated on, on certain problem areas.
Example would be how,
00:08:17.020 — 00:09:11.590 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
especially on a plague situation. Right. How are each and every dollar that you're investing in? How does that translate back to top line revenue? And this was the time where my most of my career was very much focused on B2B. Suddenly there was a pivot to, okay, we're now going to do plague. So what does that even mean?
Right. So there was a huge learning opportunity that opened up. And just understanding how your dollar investment, how does that create beats for you. How does a conversion happen. How do you change the mix to actually influence a top line, whether it's seasonality, whether it's different, different avenues or sources of marketing dollars that you invest and like, how do you kind of make that magic happen with the mix that you're investing in?
That was very interesting to see. And and obviously, this was back in the day when the market was in this crazy.
00:09:11.630 — 00:09:14.110 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
All they wanted was growth at whatever cost.
00:09:14.150 — 00:09:15.510 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
That that base.
00:09:15.510 — 00:09:18.030 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
That holds their money was free. I guess.
00:09:18.070 — 00:09:20.630 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah, were interest rates were literally pretty much zero.
00:09:20.670 — 00:09:25.150 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah, exactly. That face that that magical unicorn land once we.
00:09:25.150 — 00:09:44.750 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Were all ready. Yeah, that's a good, good, good term for magical unicorn land. For some reason, economics always come back around. Yeah. Kind of over those cycles. Dot com. Yeah. Ten years ago I think we're going to see it again with a lot of AI companies. No tokens aren't free. No, AI isn't free.
00:09:44.790 — 00:10:26.010 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes, exactly. And now we need to hire more people to manage AI, so it's like we all go through this phase, right? But yeah, I think I think, um, and now with the craziness in the market where you want to invest quite a bit is in data like data is your friend as an AI person. So really being able to read and understand, okay, what are the nuances you're, you're working with and how do you translate that into actually actionable insights.
Which then it gives gives your executive team the right direction and the right path to go forward. So I think I think that probably is how I would look at some of the successes that at least I've witnessed throughout my career.
00:10:26.010 — 00:10:31.170 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
It's funny how often it comes back to data. It really, you know, being able to analyze me.
00:10:31.170 — 00:10:35.090 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
You hear me talk about data like nonstop throughout this episode.
00:10:35.290 — 00:10:39.730 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
All right. We'll just title this episode data data, data and more data.
00:10:39.730 — 00:10:41.730 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
And unicorn magical land.
00:10:42.010 — 00:11:04.460 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yep. There we go. We got it. Thank you for that. I hope my we can see you is listening. I'm So prior to becoming head of finance, you, uh, you built out the team at click up. So I know you and I talk a little bit about that before. And as anyone knows, I use click up. In fact, my my notes for this episode are on one side of the screen and click up.
00:11:04.740 — 00:11:05.460 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
I love that.
00:11:05.500 — 00:11:15.620 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So kind of kind of funny to tell. Most people don't know that. But yeah, it's up there. And so I don't know what was that adventure like. What was it like building it out. Because obviously they were pretty early. This was about 4 or 5 years ago now.
00:11:15.660 — 00:13:16.930 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes. So this was very early and we had just raised our 4 billion valuation round. It was around 400 million raise. So the team was young and it was it was definitely, you know, we were literally going through a hypergrowth phase and and it was predominantly BLG as well. And B2B was not something that explored.
It was something we wanted to do at that time. And initially when we kind of got that influx of money and how we wanted to think about it. One thing I was realizing was that we didn't have the challenge, wasn't forecasting. The challenge was building the foundation. It wasn't about how, okay, we're thinking about like.
It was like about business strategy or like investor related topics. It wasn't foundational yet in how do we operationalize from a departmental investment standpoint? Two different things. So there is of course, where you kind of like are forward looking, which is for an outside audience that's always going to be there.
But how do you utilize this when it comes to, hey, what happens if I invest in this? What happens if I spend 100 K in this particular strategy versus that one? How does it all translate back to top line? So that was in there. So I think initially there was a lot of relationship building that I had to invest in.
And working cross functionally understanding the nuances and understanding what kind of data is sitting where. And this was extremely critical. And I feel like sometimes we take this for granted because then just becomes something in silo, which is working in the corner. I think that's what I was trying to avoid to an extent.
So there was a lot of education awareness that, uh, me and my CFO at that time, we, we invested in quite a bit was, you know, partnering with the team, like, let's sit down. Let's go through what you have. Why are you hiring like 20 people in this month?
00:13:18.410 — 00:13:19.450 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Probably don't need that.
00:13:19.450 — 00:13:23.850 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Many people probably didn't hire that many that month if you needed them.
00:13:23.890 — 00:14:37.860 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
We were hiring quite a bit at that time. Um, you know, like, I think you kind of go through that phase of like, hey, this money, let me just invest, invest, invest. Like what? What is the goal? What is it? What is where are we headed? Let's work backwards from there. Right. So it's a very different way of thinking.
So if there was a little bit of investment there where we had to, like bring the team together and say like, hey, this is what we're holistically planning. And how does this all translate back to the departments? How does this let me help you kind of see through that vision, right. So I think that is probably where a lot of time was spent.
And of course, while we were doing that, we were also investing in the data team because, you know, like as we are kind of like going through this hypergrowth phase, we also needed to figure out some of the answers, like, how is this all tying together? And at that time, I think the fact that we invested in the data team helped quite a bit because it it gave us so much answers, and it was extremely important for the company at that stage in scale.
Of course, we had some tech debt that we had to clean up, but I think it was the right timing on that cleanup. It was it was much needed investment. So that's what the initial phase looked like.
00:14:37.900 — 00:15:19.150 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah. So I mean, as I'm hearing you, I, I hear a couple things. There's a lot of education, relationship building, a lot of trying to get everybody on the same page of how do we properly use this investment? Because I'm sure there are business leaders, you see, 400 million. I need people, great. I can hire them.
And it's like, well, you can. Is that the best use of the money? And that's where a broader discussion has to happen. And then as we've said before, data. So building out that data foundation I'm curious I want to get your opinion on this. Where do you think it should sit in a company? Do you think the data data assets under the CFO, under it, under its own group, you have a preference?
Or is it more about the culture and how it's managed holistically? Kind of. What's your take on?
00:15:19.190 — 00:16:43.380 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. I think that's a great, great question. I have asked this question a couple of times for myself as well. So at click Up and people, I was sitting in the CFO org. And when I came on board at obsidian, I had the dead end systems as well. I don't particularly think there is a perfect formula for this.
I think it to your point. I think it's a latter. It's a culture of data rather than where it's reporting to. And we recently hired a VP of data and it um, he is now handling that. So once he came on board, I kind of like shed it kind of transferred that team back to him and said, hey, we want one source of truth, whether it's cross-functional, whether it's something executives are looking at, this is what we want, and you will be that person who is going to be owning it and kind of building dashboards.
So a lot of foundational cleanup and what good should look like I was able to come in and establish that at obsidian because I've seen the pain of not having it. So it did give me a little bit of a perspective, but the scale at which we want to go at, I thought it made a lot more sense sitting with with the VP of data, and it kind of a role.
But yeah, I don't think there is a real right answer for this. It's more of you should have a culture of data rather than regardless of where it reports stuff.
00:16:44.100 — 00:16:51.060 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Now there isn't a right answer. Everybody has an opinion. Yes, but if there was a right answer, more people would be doing it the same way.
00:16:51.100 — 00:16:52.020 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly.
00:16:52.180 — 00:17:14.500 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
And so why the conversation? Right. Because we can all have, you know, different thoughts. And I definitely think I had someone once say on the show, you could tell someone who's a modern CFO by what they're doing with data, kind of implying, hey, the first thing to do is kind of want to own the data. And I'm like, I get especially early stage companies like get that idea.
I think any CFO today has to have a close relationship to data, but not necessarily.
00:17:14.500 — 00:17:30.860 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Oh yes, it's honestly about what you do with it, right? You can have as much as data, but then if you don't do anything with it or don't, you don't utilize it to actually make decisions and surface risk or call out and hold people accountable. It's pointless anyway.
00:17:30.900 — 00:17:35.340 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah, I would agree with you. You could have all the data in the world, but if you're not using it, it doesn't do you much good.
00:17:35.380 — 00:17:35.900 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes.
00:17:35.940 — 00:17:52.030 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Kind of stepping back to how you shared building out the team at a click up. What advice would you offer if you have someone listening in a similar situation there? Maybe at a hypergrowth company, they're trying to build out any key lessons learned or advice you would give them about the process?
00:17:52.070 — 00:18:47.640 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. And I think I've owned functions in the last 3 or 4 roles that I've been at. It's also like my own learning through experience and my own kind of formula that that has worked. Up until very recently, I think I kind of look at it from a three three points perspective. One is definitely I think we've talked about this quite a bit, what the data foundation like, if you don't have good data, it's basically garbage and garbage out.
I think one of the reasons why I delayed building my team at obsidian was I wanted to have a holistic view and and a centralized location for data to be held, because I feel like it would be a disservice to the FBI team coming in until we have some of the foundation checked out. And right now it's working beautifully, right?
00:18:47.680 — 00:18:51.880 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So we're sure our companies felt that way. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?
00:18:53.560 — 00:19:19.000 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So I think no, I mean, I also feel like every company is very nuanced as well. Like they all kind of go through their own different formulas of what's priority. And I think having that data foundation I feel like is a non-negotiable. It doesn't have to be perfect. I feel like perfect data is like Santa. Like you like the concept of it, but it doesn't exist so.
00:19:19.040 — 00:19:27.640 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Well, it's kind of like the perfect relationship or marriage or whatever. Perfect. It doesn't exist, right? Yeah, it sounds great in theory, but good luck in reality.
00:19:27.680 — 00:22:05.400 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly. So I think I think that's also dangerous, like waiting for perfect data. And then I'm going to do the stuff I need to do. I think that's also dangerous to think that way. So what is good enough and what is? As long as you know what the what the delta is and what assumptions you're making, I think we need to have something in place rather than doing nothing.
So that is one aspect. The second one, I think very important for me is the partnership and business mindset. So somebody who has like really good soft skills to, you know, have like hiring the right people basically who are able to have relationship, build trust and are intelligent to hold a conversation about the business because that's how you earn your currency to be able to influence and execute it.
So I think half the job is communication in my opinion. Like how do you translate some of the data that you have extracted and help your business partner in, in kind of like helping them move in the right direction? Like that is that is an art. It's something you need to really invest in. And relationships matter because you're also dealing with different personalities.
So that understanding also comes with understanding of the business. You really need to know the ins and outs of the company, how the product works, how how it's positioned in the market, what is the specific nuances of the vertical that you play at? What is the competition look like? I think you should be able to have have an opinion, and you should have an understanding of what are you selling at the end of the day?
Are you convinced about what you're setting? And if you're not in that position, I think it'll be really hard for you to be a business partner, in my opinion. And of course, the third thing for me is prioritization and focus. The ability as a team to be able to do that is actually one of the fundamental, I would say, like fundamental elements of this whole role, you have like 10,000 problems happening at the same time.
You know, you're not going to solve everything. So what is that? 1 or 2 important things that you're going to solve, which is actually going to move the needle for the business and do that, you know, wholeheartedly, efficiently and beautifully and execute it to your best. I think that's that also requires a lot of discipline and a lot of cross-functional alignment that, yeah, this is this is what we're going to solve as a company.
Right? So I think these are the three things I would say is extremely important from a Hypergrowth, um, standpoint. I'm also curious what you think about this.
00:22:05.440 — 00:22:52.650 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
FP&A and a guy here, and I'm really excited to tell you about an event I'm excited for. If you work in a or enterprise planning, you're going to want to check out the EPM summit this November in Vegas. What makes it different is that it brings together the entire enterprise planning ecosystem, software providers, implementation partners, analysts and practitioners for independent discussions, hands on learning and real conversations about where AI is taking enterprise planning.
If you're evaluating platforms, planning a migration, or simply want to stay current, it's definitely worth a look. It's November 16th through 19th at the Bellagio in Vegas. Who doesn't want to hang out in Vegas? Go to EPM summit,
00:22:54.090 — 00:22:59.569 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Register to learn more and register for this exciting event. That's EPM Summit
00:23:01.370 — 00:25:12.920 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Register. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true in a lot of businesses, but definitely data, because what happens is if you don't focus on data early, it can't guide your decisions until you're just going to end up with data and tech debt. So fix it early, because if you have twice so many customers, it's always harder to fix it.
The bigger the company, the more people you have. So I'm totally with you. And if you establish it early while you're growing, the decision should be made with data. You're in a much better decision later on than getting to scale and then trying to change the culture to be data. So I think data is definitely important.
Relationships and communication. I mean, it's just it's one of those key things that people need. Does every single person in an organization need to be a great communicator? No. In a small company where there's a couple, you may need that. Now, as you scale more, you can have those people that aren't.
But on a whole, if you don't communicate, you're just not getting things done. And I really like how you said helping the business make decisions on the communication. I'll share this. I interviewed a guy who said the number one thing he hears when he's hiring, he runs a nationwide hiring firm for a is the leaders are always saying, I want people to won't just drop the report on the business's lap.
I need someone that can interpret it and help the business know what to do with it. Yeah, think so. Often we think our job is reporting. Our job isn't reporting. Our job is to take what's in the reporting and help the business make better decisions. So I really like that. And then the third one you said was prioritization, which you're right now has a million things.
And the prime example I always give here is I work for a business where about 3 or 4 times a year, the forecast would come to the same week. I had to pay sales commissions, and I'd always get a call from my boss. But when you're late with the forecast and I always say, do you want me to pay people or do you want me to finish an arbitrary forecast?
That doesn't matter if it's today or tomorrow. Never. Once they say, do the forecast. It was always done as soon as you can, but pay the people first. And I mean, that's should be a pretty easy example. But I know people would be like, well, I'll get the forecast because that's my bottom. No people being paid is the priority.
00:25:12.960 — 00:26:05.450 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. And I think in the age of AI, one more kind of variable that gets thrown into the mix is the people you hire. Are they the orchestrators or are they the just just followers and dask people? Right. Because a lot of tasks that you're doing, repetitive ones, like just adding things up and reporting and going through data like AI can do a lot of it.
You want to hire people who are orchestrators and who are able to think, hey, this is how the function should work, and these are the nuances that it has and can intelligently kind of map that out, because then it's easy for them to, okay, this is how I want the agent part to work out for me. This is why we are able to do a lot more with a lean D, so I think that is something I've noticed that is changing in the landscape of FPI.
00:26:05.490 — 00:27:05.340 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So interesting. And I actually just shared this earlier today speaks exactly to what you're talking about. You know, one of the questions I ask in every episode. So I've been doing this for two years and a lot where I asked this question, I always ask, what's the number one technical skill? When I started, 70, 80% of the time it was some combination of Excel spreadsheets.
Financial model. In the last three months, I'd say 60% of the answers, maybe be a little less, but quite often I hear design thinking system thinking data AI, which gets exactly to what you're talking about. If you're going to orchestrate a workflow, you've got to be able to think about systems and design and data not just running a process, but being able to map it and optimize it and figure out the right flow.
So I think it's really interesting to watch the shift that's taking place. Not to say that Excel and modeling aren't important. I don't think anyone's going to hire somebody that doesn't know how to use a spreadsheet or build a model, but you also need to be able to be a system thinking in design. So in some ways it's almost like, well, now you're being asked to do even more.
00:27:05.380 — 00:27:46.480 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly. Before you had your head of FPN, then you had like three managers under them, and then you had analysts who reported to the manager. So the hierarchy and the org structure was entirely different, where everybody had their own pieces of the puzzle. But right now, like what you demand out of the finance person is a lot more.
And this is not just on the bad side. I see this on the accounting side as well. Right? And I feel like Covid around that time was reset for finance teams quite a bit. That was like it's been nonstop since it's either the market or a bank run or a pandemic. So we are part of one run.
00:27:46.560 — 00:28:03.360 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah. The the rate of change over the last decade has been crazy between pandemic, war, technology, you know, and just everything. It's really feels like the only thing we can count on is change. And it's going to continue to come more and more and faster and monitor.
00:28:03.400 — 00:28:08.040 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly. And the back office is where you get the least amount of love, right?
00:28:08.080 — 00:28:08.680 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Wait.
00:28:09.040 — 00:28:11.120 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Not everybody loves their back office.
00:28:13.240 — 00:29:00.410 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Oh, I think that I don't I knew I would back office. I think you'll laugh at this and then you have a similar one is when we wanted to go to a Tableau conference because we were implementing it. Erno is a micro strategy and I worked in the travel division for this company, so there are lots of free travel stuff flying around.
They told us once enough people had signed up for the company that we were free. They let us go. We had a scrounge vouchers from our supplier people, so the hotel and the airfare was free. I think the entire amount of the week and a number of the dinners were covered. My boss covered a couple. I think my entire reimbursement was like 150 bucks for a week conference.
They didn't even let us stay in the hotel where the conference is at. We had to stay in the the cheap one that was free. I'm like, okay, I know I'm back. Office.
00:29:00.410 — 00:29:30.660 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
There you go. Exactly, exactly. Um, but you know, not to not to throw anyone under the bus, but it's just it's just how the market has been. It's it's the need from the business has been very different in everybody's trying to get leaner and operational standpoint. And, you know, money is not cheap anymore.
And how are you going to like get perceived in the market is also very different. How you're benchmarked is also different. So collectively as as a community, we are all seeing the pain.
00:29:30.700 — 00:29:46.780 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
No I agree. I mean, there's definitely a lot of challenges these days. So I want to shift gears a little bit. Tell us a little bit more about Obsidian Security. You've been there almost three years, but that experience has been like I talk a little bit about that.
00:29:46.820 — 00:31:52.770 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I think I believe the most rewarding part of it was kind of like seeing the company grow so rapidly and evolve and succeed every year for, I think for the last, you know, 6 to 7 maybe quarters, we have exceeded our numbers. We have we've met all the goals. We have overachieved on a few other metrics and definitely proud of that.
We have a world class team. Uh, the company has been big in the company, has been a great learning opportunity for me as well, like working with some of the most intelligent people. And cyber, as you can imagine, is pretty nuanced. And then you kind of. It takes a little bit of a different kind of flavor. People in, in in cybersecurity.
So it's been a great university in a capsule format for me personally. And the other element is that, you know, like I'm not saying because I work here, but the exact team has been, um, it's been an amazing executive team, and everyone's invested in what's important for the business. And what does it take for us to succeed overall.
And this makes a huge difference, like the culture and how the executive team things, it does trickle down to the rest of the company's culture. And I think we have we have set a good standard on how we want to go tackle a problem, or whether it's a vision of the company or responding to a market. I think it's been it's been a bliss working here and very grateful for, of course, our, um, our visionary leader, our CEO as and he's been phenomenally, phenomenally kind of like being being our backbone.
Like, I think he's done a fantastic job kind of spearheading the team in the right direction. So it's been great. And where we play is very interesting as, as a product because think of I mean, I can tell you from a finance example, right. You as a finance team, you have ERP, you have HR eyes, you have a cloud based FBA system.
You have slack. These are kind of like the typical stack you work with. And it's communicating to each other at all times,
00:31:53.810 — 00:32:09.850 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
where security kind of stops is where you authenticate yourself. You log in like who's protecting the data that's flowing between these two applications. That's where we play. So anything of anything, third party application, that's the security we protect overall.
00:32:09.890 — 00:32:12.490 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
As soon as it goes outside a system to another system.
00:32:12.730 — 00:32:13.610 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly.
00:32:13.770 — 00:32:14.650 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Inside the system.
00:32:14.690 — 00:33:34.510 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly. And the scary part is now you put AI in the equation so the same API connection between two applications is being used by agents as well, who have never had to be authenticated to enter in the first place. Now they're over provisioned, has access to more data than you actually need, and are performing at the hyper scale and kind of like exposed to so much more and has high exposure to a bad actor coming in and hacking through the surface.
So this is the problem we solve, whether it's your SaaS supply chain issue or your agent is actually all part of the same equation and authentication, or you're just because you have two factor authentication organizations. So that's not going to mean anything because no more hackers are no longer going to an identity and trying to hack that.
They are actually within the in between the application. That's that's where the most vulnerable sweet spot is for them. And a very recent example has been like the sales floor of Salesforce attack or the worst attack that happened. There was another one that happened, which is clue, which I believe is a go to market tool that got hacked.
So these these all exposed customer data that that lives inside the inside your CRM.
00:33:34.550 — 00:33:54.550 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
That's why I have LifeLock nine of LifeLock. But I do have my credit frozen because I've had uh, my data shared more than once unfortunately. So I can can relate to that. And that makes a lot of sense. You're going to attack the, the transit versus the, the home base, so to speak, when something's in transit.
00:33:54.590 — 00:34:38.250 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. And I think the landscape also has changed quite a bit. If you look at many, many decades of cyber investment, has always been on the identity, whether it's, you know, zero trust networks or, you know, the actors of the world, you know, like that, that's where the most of the investment has been.
Now that's no longer interesting for people to go hack. So this is. This is a new era. And we are kind of going through a phase where we don't have much security guardrails, and there is a top down stress on having to adopt AI and to go fast. So how do you do that and still be secure and safe about it? I think that's the equation people are trying to figure out today.
00:34:38.290 — 00:34:48.330 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So speaking of that, what are the questions finance leaders should be asking is they're adding AI and they're thinking about cybersecurity. I mean, what are the questions they should be going through.
00:34:48.330 — 00:37:05.830 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So I think first of all, I think we should treat it same as purchasing another technology or an application. Right. So is it measurable? Is there a business outcome or are you just following a hype. So I think you should partner with your GRC team. In your IT team, go through the process and vouch and ask them tough questions.
Is my data protected? Am I going to get in trouble for connecting this to other things? You know, like I, I think you need to partner with your internal IT team to make sure that what you're that you're taking your part of the responsibility, right? Because at the end of the day, there are definitely a lot of options.
And to make it more useful, you have to give it provisions. You have to give it data. So how are you doing it in the most safe, secure way? And rather than having your internal team be a blocker for you, work with them to get the output you want. So especially on the finance side, at any day you have to go through a sensitive data like it's just part of the job.
You have to be responsible along with that. So every single step of the way ask yourself like is is my data protected? If you have questions, ask. And if you need help, also ask. And now flip side how are we using this to enhance productivity for us, I think. Obviously we are thinking of AI as an accelerator rather than replacement of a judgment, right?
So on that matter, there is still a lot of stuff we were manually doing. I think AI has become definitely a lifesaver for my my teams because they do a lot of reporting, a lot of budget analysis, a lot of commentary around was a lot of research that they do. All of this has kind of like accelerated with AI. And finance is always known for being the late adopters of any technology like we are.
We love like if something's working, don't touch it. Like let it be. So in that way, I'm glad that my team has been a little bit more AI forward. And of course, we drink our own Kool-Aid and we feel a little bit more secure when we have obsidian running in the background.
00:37:06.230 — 00:38:29.540 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
And a guy here, I want to take a minute and share something I've been working on. I've spent several months Adding new affiliate programs to my website. Probably wondering why affiliate programs? Well, I can't train you on everything, but I can show you and give you trusted resources with exclusive guide discounts in many cases.
On my website, I have several of the top AI people in the world. I have the top certificate programs. I also have other programs like Excel power BI. I'm bringing you some of the top people that train in the world. There's Nicolas Boucher with exclusive discounts, David 14 Matin, Karl Seidman. What's the elusive discount?
The top programs F pack, FMI and more. So go ahead and check it out at my website. Sign up and if you have a question on what program is right for you, go ahead and message me. I'll get back to you LinkedIn. Or you can email me. So go to the.com and check out my trusted list of resources for you to upskill yourself.
Yeah, no. It's always good to know the data is secure and agree with you. I mean, finance tends to be laggards when it comes to technology. There's many different reasons for that. We could probably spend a whole episode on just that.
00:38:31.180 — 00:39:41.710 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
You're like, yes, we could, but let's not. So, you know, one other question I want to ask is obviously you've been working to, uh, think about how to use AI within your finance department and implementing it. And sometimes I like to call it kind of this generative AI craze. I, I just asked on LinkedIn the other day, I asked a question, you know, uh, how are you doing with AI fatigue?
You know? Yes. Exhausted. Uh, you know, sometimes and about, you know, 70% of people were somewhere between sometimes and all the time. They're just feeling exhausted with the conversations. About 10% just said, give me more World Cup, please. And about 4% of people said I just ignore AI altogether.
Kind of. Where are you at with all that? And how do you manage the fact that it just feels like it's a constant cycle of change, of hype, of new things? We have to learn. It's not just the oh, hey, AI's came its first. Now figure out how to prompt. Now go ahead and give it a lot of context. Now all of a sudden build workflows with it.
It's like you're continually being asked to learn new skills that you may or may not be, you know, have the aptitude or even the desire to learn. So I just want to get a little of your thought there.
00:39:41.750 — 00:41:58.020 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah. Yeah. I love this question. I think I remember the face when we all went through where I was like, oh, I can wipe code this. I think I'm going to totally build Salesforce by myself. So I, I think I'm glad that we're out of that funk because I somewhere down the lane we forgot the token cost existed. And you know, there's a cost to experimentation.
So whether it's my team or team at the broader scale, I think it has to be outcome driven. You could spend so much time setting and experimenting things like what is it actually doing for you? Like, let's start from there. I'm sure you have better things to do rather than sitting and experimenting through models.
I mean, maybe there are some people who want to do that, but I think it absolutely have to start from outcomes. What is the outcome you're trying to drive? How is this contributing to what you're trying to achieve through your role? And ultimately, how is this contributing to the organization? Yes, there is some experimentation you might have to do, but I, I don't think it should be part of the hype.
It should be part of intentional decision making around what tool to use that best suits you and your organization and the security team to make the best out of. So in my team at least, my guidance was that, hey, make a list of things that you're manually doing today or you feel like, you know this, I could outsource this, or I feel like I'm not getting much value out of it, but it's like Jeff I need to do.
So let's start from there and see what happens. But from that, what happened is that they started creatively thinking about, hey, maybe this, this other thing that I could do. And then it kind of like bloomed into something beautiful. But it was it never was like, hey, here you go. Now. Now, you know, go have fun with it.
That that definitely was not the guidance we provided, because at the end of the day, of course you can sit and wipe things, but is that really what you want to do with your time, and is it actually more cost efficient to do that rather than buying maybe a software that's much more cheaper? And that's kind of like the view that I had on the whole topic.
00:41:58.060 — 00:42:03.140 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Makes sense, I get it. What is it? So so no token maxing leaderboards at your company.
00:42:03.180 — 00:42:11.070 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
And still trying to forget that phase we went through. But it wasn't bad, but it was also like, what is going on? Like?
00:42:12.510 — 00:42:54.950 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Then it's like, okay, that is flawed. Running on one side. That's correct. Running on the other side is like, okay, pick a lane. Like, what do you guys want to do? Like, why are you doing the same thing on two platforms? So there was a little bit of like that shock. I'm pretty sure everybody went through that.
And I feel like slowly it's settling down. And we had to write. Like we had to see the ugly side of everything before we kind of took a step back. But. But I feel like it. Unless it's outcome driven, you'll probably find yourself in questionable situations again, because the optionality is you. Of course, you have so many models and so many options out there, you will have fatigue.
Like, I'm not surprised people feel fatigue because you kind of don't have that much kind of time to sit and figure this thing out.
00:42:54.990 — 00:43:25.200 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
No, I agree, and I, I'm grateful for past the the hype. I still think we see a lot of the kind of, you know, the vibe coding thing. And as I've said, nothing's wrong. If it makes sense to Vico to Solucion, I think it's more about workload flow than applications. I'm going to maintain them. I kind of compare it to Excel.
Like, I like asking people how many of you, when you inherit an Excel model, start over. Almost every hand goes up, right? There's a few people that don't. I mean, how many times did you start over? We got a model.
00:43:25.200 — 00:43:29.360 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
At a time. If I've inherited it, I'm pretty sure I redid it.
00:43:29.720 — 00:43:40.360 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Now we're going to inherit somebody's vibe coded tool that has no idea what the programing means. No training on maintenance or engineering and expect them to use the same thing.
00:43:40.680 — 00:43:54.559 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
That is so true. And and I underappreciated how much maintenance these things required because of course I also created a bunch of dashboards. And I'm like, well, this thing forgot everything I told them yesterday, but
00:43:56.160 — 00:44:22.370 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
let me start over, I guess. So I think there was a little bit of, um, I mean, I wish, I wish, I mean, maybe this is a call to action for all the AI companies out there. Spend some time in training. Spend some or something out that actually gives us some best practices and how you guys are doing it within your company.
That will actually go a long way, and also building a brand and a loyal customer profile.
00:44:22.410 — 00:44:42.530 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Agree those that can really help understand best practice governance, how to build. Not the ones that can just talk about it, but those you can really trust, whether it's companies, individuals, you know, they're going to have a bright future because we're all learning. And the reality is, I'd much rather have an expert help me than figure out 100% by myself.
00:44:42.570 — 00:45:20.710 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly, exactly. And I think for finance is also a little different because you don't want hallucinated numbers. You get a little bit here on the accounting side. Lack of a better word, a little uptight about how you're thinking about numbers in general, right. Like you want the decimals and everything to kind of die off.
I get obsessed about it. I think that is hard for me to palate that. Oh, all of this was AI generated. Like, are you sure about. That's what we want to do. So I think baby steps. Right. But my team's using it as much as they can in different areas. And we are also learning as we go.
00:45:20.750 — 00:45:26.990 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah. And I think that's the the key is you need to be willing to learn. You need to be open. You need to experiment.
00:45:27.030 — 00:45:28.790 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
100%, 100%.
00:45:28.830 — 00:46:18.160 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
What a find that right balance. And every company is going to be a little different. What they're comfortable with that doesn't mean one is better than the other as long as your child constantly, I think challenging the thinking and trying to find ways to move forward and be more efficient. The examples I often give is I had someone ask me in a webinar, well, hey, could AI do this?
I was teaching something excel. I'm like, yeah, I could do that, but you can already do it with a deterministic solution that you can automate called Power Query. Why? Why do you do the AI to do it? There's a there's a variable cost to it you're not sure it's always going to be right? You know, I think it was just kind of that.
Oh that's cool. So can I have AI do it? But why would you? And I think that balance is what people need to think about because sometimes it is I do it, it's cool. I want to buy it. We all play with it in our own time.
00:46:18.360 — 00:47:02.330 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely, absolutely. The other danger that we noticed was with AI. Some of the departments same problem solving was happening by multiple people in different departments. So you're actually duplicating work. This was also like kind of a lack of I've heard this from multiple companies and peers in the industry like, oh, you already have this.
Oh, I just spent like a week doing this. Oh, I also have like, okay, somebody is already solving it. So it's it's all over the place, right. So which is why I was going to think going back to like really be clear on the outcomes. You want to drive. Maybe somebody already has a solution that might be much more, faster and easier than you.
00:47:02.490 — 00:47:21.690 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah, probably a good way to track what are the projects you're working on and to track those across the company, you see? Okay, these five people are working on basically the same thing. Get them in a room and figure out what makes sense before they all just spend a week building something and we waste four weeks of productivity.
They just were all tired of dealing with it. So they all said, oh, I can code this. And the way they went.
00:47:21.730 — 00:47:22.490 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Exactly.
00:47:22.530 — 00:47:23.930 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
All right. So I want to go ahead and.
00:47:23.930 — 00:47:44.130 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Move into the sections where I asked some kind of standard questions. And then we have a little bit of a get to know you or ask some personal questions for you, and then we'll, uh, we'll let you go here. But I've really been enjoying this. The first one I want to ask, in your view, given kind of today's environment, what's the number one technical skill in a professional needs?
What's the number one they should master?
00:47:44.170 — 00:47:47.810 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
I think um, I would definitely say the orchestration mindset.
00:47:47.810 — 00:47:50.410 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
That's what I figured based on our earlier conversation.
00:47:50.450 — 00:48:19.420 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes, exactly. And I think, uh, that encompasses a few things. I think we talked about it. Right. Like how you think about business systems, how you think about strategy, how you think about execution, how you think about automation, how you think about adding resources. So if you have that mindset which is able to orchestrate that along with a business, you know, dynamic business acumen, I think that's that's the sweet spot.
00:48:19.460 — 00:48:25.340 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
And you mentioned business acumen. So what's the number one soft skill we need kind of talk the technical. What do you think the number one soft skill is?
00:48:25.340 — 00:48:53.140 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
I think being able to navigate different kind of personalities. I think as you become a leader in DNA, you're dealing with an executive team that, hey, been there, done that. Different kinds of egos, different kinds of way of problem solving. It's very nuanced. So I think being able to take a step back and understand that, hey, everybody's coming from different kinds of background and have a little empathy in that process goes a long way.
00:48:53.180 — 00:48:59.040 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
You'll appreciate this when you mention a lot of different personalities. You know who Jack McCullough is? Have you ever heard of him?
00:48:59.080 — 00:49:00.680 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah, I think so.
00:49:00.720 — 00:49:09.080 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So he's a he's the CEO of CFO Leadership Council. He's written a couple of books. He's done a podcast. Okay. One of the books he wrote was called The Psychopath CEO.
00:49:09.120 — 00:49:09.760 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Okay.
00:49:09.960 — 00:49:38.720 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Got, like, almost a survival guide for CFO. There was a study done. And, you know, he kind of painted it a little bit, but basically they found someone at the sea level likely to be a psychopath of somebody in prison. The percentage. So he joke, you're likely that the board meeting as you are at the prison to be sitting with a psychopath.
So talking about learning different personalities, I always think of that of the executives when he shared that on one of my podcasts. It's a fun, fun listen, something. There's something for you to think about.
00:49:38.760 — 00:49:41.000 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:49:41.440 — 00:49:46.880 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
And managing personalities. Not that I'm saying you have one, but it just kind of made me laugh. Oh, nice.
00:49:47.080 — 00:49:48.240 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
We are yet to work together.
00:49:48.240 — 00:49:59.570 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So you're an old book about it. So if you need to know how to survive your, uh, psychopath CEO. There you go. I want to get your opinion. I mean, obviously everybody has a different thought on this. What do you think, fans?
00:49:59.610 — 00:50:00.810 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
The role is going to look like.
00:50:00.810 — 00:50:07.010 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
The professional and kind of 3 to 5 years. What do you kind of see changing or staying the same. What's your thoughts?
00:50:07.050 — 00:51:46.580 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah I think there will be a shift I think I'm I think we're just on the verge of automation. I feel like I mean, I'm, I'm really curious about this by like for myself personally as well. Like what happens to the Ana plans, the pigments of the world. Right. Like how do they play a role in all of the AI shift?
There is a huge movement happening in the ERP world, right, where they are adopting so much AI that they are able to become ERP plus. So how does this all shift in tooling in systems happen where what happens is that you will naturally shed people who are traditionally thinking people won't be able to keep up and it'll be it'll be really hard for them to shift into the new mindset.
So which means you'll see a lot more for folks or finance folks who are more dynamic, a lot more business mindset people, and who are more strategic than just doers. So I think that natural transition will happen where your doers are basically your systems at this point. So I'm really, really curious on how that all plays out.
But I think that's that's kind of like where the world is headed. I don't see huge finance teams anymore. I don't think that's a thing. Eventually these things will get narrowed and leaned down quite a bit. I can also see how the relationship between offshore teams and core teams sitting in the HQ, like how that is going to play out, would also be interesting.
But yeah, these these are some of the things I think about.
00:51:46.620 — 00:52:07.960 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
No, I appreciate that. I think that's interesting. And now I want to move on to the section where we get to know a little bit more about you personally. So the first one you're very involved in, I think it's blossom Projects. Tell us about that, how you got involved, what it is I know it's a not for profit. If I remember I think it's people in India that you're working are other kind of countries with disadvantaged.
00:52:08.120 — 00:53:47.090 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So blossom projects started like 12 years back. So this was set up by a wonderful lady from the area. So she went to a Buddhist camp and she met this individual who was actually helping students graduate high school because they were part of a suppressed community in, in a part of a different parts of India where they had they just needed help because they were not being supported by the community.
That inspired her quite a bit. So she took on, she retired and we formed the boats and the president of the board and we kind of rebranded, rebooted the whole organization. So what we do is give marginalized youth a second chance to life. Think of any underprivileged kids who didn't have a chance at education.
Not because of any other reason, just because they were born into a certain tag in the society. So that's what we are trying to help, and that's we are just here to provide education for kids who actually deserve and where we're not given a chance. So we run a residential program. They come in, they stay with us for a good nine and 9 to 10 months.
They graduate high school. Either they're given a path to higher education or they are given vocational training to actually start make a living. So we kind of cut the chain of poverty that way. And these are kids who are actually going to college for the first time in generations, right? So, um, yeah, it's it's a very humbling thing.
And I don't know who I would be without it.
00:53:47.130 — 00:53:55.180 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Do you have a kind of favorite experience or something you could share? I imagine there's a lot with that. I mean, anytime you get to see people.
00:53:55.260 — 00:55:29.030 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yeah. What I think one of my absolute favorites is this young little kid. She was she was actually a victim of a sexual abuse and within her community. So she ran through the police station, got the man arrested, came to us, and she, you know, this was the first time she actually got some attention, right?
And she was like, I just needed a safe place to stay. That's all I needed. And we were able to provide that for her. I mean, she came to us very malnourished, traumatized, and she ended up graduating high school and ended up pursuing college. So this is just one of the stories, by the way, and you have many more like that.
So most students who come to us are very much, you know, malnourished, they're extremely traumatized. I don't have family members to support them, usually come from an alcoholic family, or have maybe been raised by a single parent who is kind of just a daily laborer. So very, you know, like extreme poverty, poverty of a situation and is what their background is.
Even just three meals a day is a life win for them. Right? So it really gives you perspective in life. You know, we talk about all of these things that are happening and we are kind of in a bubble. There are people still struggling out there to just make ends meet. And for them AI is not even a thing. Right?
00:55:29.070 — 00:55:39.390 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah. I remind you what's important to get caught up in the world of work. But at the end of the day, one of my favorite quotes is service is the rent we pay for the world we live in.
00:55:39.430 — 00:55:52.490 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes, I love that saying. And I think that's a truly, truly remarkable way of thinking about life, because I think at the end of the day, we are all here to help each other out and let's do our part. Even if it's a little bit.
00:55:52.530 — 00:55:56.850 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Nobody asks how big our bank account is at our funeral. So
00:55:58.010 — 00:56:10.610 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
all right, one more question here, and then we'll let you go. If you had to build a playlist, we're going to go a little direction here. Prepping for the board meeting. What are you putting on it? What's on your playlist as you're prepping for that board meeting.
00:56:10.610 — 00:56:14.010 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So I'm more of a podcast person, so I.
00:56:14.410 — 00:56:15.890 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
So my podcast is on, right?
00:56:16.090 — 00:56:20.370 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Yes. Your podcast is always on while I'm prepping for board meetings.
00:56:20.610 — 00:56:23.930 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
All right. Well, we've got default stuff. What's really on there? What are you?
00:56:23.970 — 00:57:07.460 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So what are some of my favorite ones? Of course I love Andrew Huberman. I love Dario as CEO. These are my two hobbies that I always love. There's Mel Robbins that I really like. So I usually have a podcast that's running in the background, but usually when I'm prepping for board meetings, I have nothing happening.
This is more when I have to do mundane stuff that I know is more manual. I need to like clicking through numbers, you know, be on my Excel wizard mode. That's when I have something kind of like running in the background. Or, you know, sometimes it's just a few episodes of Friends or How I Met Your Mother or something brainless, and I don't have to think about it.
And it's just like background noise. yeah. That's what I do.
00:57:07.500 — 00:57:25.020 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Got it. All right. Got to ask one more. Get to know you, because I just saw this, I remember, I read it, I think it was in, uh, magazine article that you did. I can't remember the name of it, but you've called yourself addicted to startup chaos. So I'm not worried at the startup part. But what do you love about chaos?
00:57:25.100 — 00:58:36.150 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Great question. So I think I am a builder. I love taking nothing and making it into something that's useful for myself and other people. I, I love the journey of that. And I think chaos was addictive because I noticed that sometimes when we make best decisions, when we are at the moment, you know. It's. Everything is on fire.
Just go get shit done. That's when you do some of your best work. And I've since then noticed that, you know, like, it's very interesting how the human mind works. You're procrastinating for the whole time, and then suddenly everything is on fire and you're getting, you know, you're as productive as you might not even think of.
So I think I did get addicted to that. Plus, you know, like I think startup is the best way to learn real life scenarios. And there's no university that can provide you this. And in a big company, I feel like I've been there and it was more of you're kind of like part of the small machinery and you're kind of like contributing in a certain way, but you don't see the impact much, and it's just not working for me.
00:58:36.190 — 00:59:14.600 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
Yeah, you're a cog in a machine, I get it. So people like, want to be able to see the whole thing. I can say you learn a ton doing a startup, having built a business for the last four years, I can definitely relate to the the learnings that take place, especially finance. A little different when you're the one who has to sell and do marketing.
And definitely I've learned a lot. I would be better at it and I say this all the time. I'd be better tomorrow. For the last four years, what I've learned running my own business is not that I'm saying I'm going back, but I would definitely have a different appreciation so I can appreciate that. All right. Last question.
If someone wants to get in contact with you or learn more about obsidian, what's the best way?
00:59:14.640 — 00:59:37.640 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
So if you want to contact me, you can always email me at my first name at Obsidian Security. Com or you can shoot me a note at LinkedIn. Happy to answer any questions or provide any information again. And if you want to learn more about obsidian, we have a page where you can request a meeting or just shoot me an email or a message on LinkedIn.
00:59:37.680 — 00:59:46.620 · Host: Paul Barnhurst
All right. Great. Well, thank you so much, Arthur. I really enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you carving out some time for me. I know our audience will get value out of it as well. So thanks for being on the show.
00:59:46.660 — 00:59:55.300 · Guest: Chithra Rajagopalan
Absolutely. Thank you. This was amazing and thank you for making it super conversational. I learned a lot as well. And yeah, thanks again for the opportunity.
That's it for today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A Unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A guy, and I'll see you next time.