ServiceNow CFO reveals the value of adventurous spirit

As the first person in her family to go to college, Gina Mastantuono, ServiceNow’s chief financial officer, must work hard to succeed in a corporate environment.

However, her desire for excellence allowed her to embark on a career path, holding senior financial positions at cosmetics giant Revlon and high-tech equipment distributor Ingram Micro.

“I have taken many risks throughout my career. Once you complete a task, you become more confident, more confident, and willing to do it again. I like to get out of my comfort zone and try new things, because I really People feel that the biggest growth opportunity can bring the best development.” The New Yorker said.

In January, Mastantuono became the chief financial officer of ServiceNow, the software giant that provides the company with a cloud computing platform to manage digital workflows.

Mastantuono said that her rise to become the head of Finance for ServiceNow, one of the fastest-growing software companies, has seen its stock price rise more than 20 times since it went public in 2012, which reflects how far she has gone in her career. She said: “When I first started in the financial industry, my dream was not to become a CFO because, frankly, I didn’t really think it was possible.”

This also reflects the ambitions of Mastantuono and other members of the ServiceNow leadership team, bringing the company’s market value to nearly $100 billion in late October. Given that this California-based company was established in 2004, achieving this watershed will be an achievement.

On October 28, ServiceNow announced its third-quarter results, showing that subscription revenue for the quarter was US$1.09 billion. The stock price fell afterwards. This was part of the broad market sell-off caused by the coronavirus. The company’s valuation was approximately 92 billion US dollars. But what Mastantuono said to her in the day’s speech was very optimistic: “We see a strong momentum entering the last quarter of this year, and our strong business processes enable me to continue to implement until 2021. I am full of confidence in the ability of the year. I am very excited about it. In the process of becoming a company with revenue of 10 billion US dollars, we have seen the attraction.

As a platform-as-a-service provider, ServiceNow provides technical management support, such as IT service management for IT operations of large companies, including service desk functions. In order to continuously improve the quotation, a series of additional acquisitions have been made in the fields of AI, data analysis and machine learning functions in recent years.

By the time of the coronavirus pandemic in March, ServiceNow had just released its latest version of its cloud software “Orlando”, which was paired with artificial intelligence (AI) technology designed to solve practical problems.

Mastantuono said the result was a proposal designed to provide customers with a method to “detect IT incidents before they happen.”

She added: “This really increases productivity because the help desk resources can solve problems without the need to talk to people on the phone.”

Therefore, ServiceNow’s approach can simultaneously solve the work flow of IT, employees, and customers, which has matured in the coronavirus environment, Mastantuono said. She said: “Most of our innovation comes from the needs of our customers, what they are looking for and what they are trying to achieve.”

Mastantuono said a recent customer survey conducted by ServiceNow shows that since the coronavirus attack, companies have become more enthusiastic about investing cost savings in innovation to increase employee productivity. She said: “This is to make employees often work from home and have to deal with family members and other promises to improve people’s working environment in the coronavirus environment,” she said.

The value of the CFO

Mastantuono said that in every company where she serves as the chief financial officer, she “has great value and position in making strategic decisions”, whether she is the chief financial officer or improving her career. To the location.

After graduating from the State University of New York at Albany with a major in accounting, “there was really no role model for female CFOs at the time” and she moved to Ernst & Young (now Ernst & Young). She said: “I started to work in accounting because I think everyone needs an accountant. From a security perspective, I will be in a good position.”

After taking up corporate accounting and controlling positions, Mastantuono began her career with cosmetics giant Revlon, where she was hired as the group’s international CFO. “I really want to broaden my horizons and exit accounting and other fields. Since then, for me, my career has always been about growth, taking risks, and taking risks wisely,” she added.

“This is a huge risk for me and the company, because my entire career has been accounting and domestic work. I really don’t have a lot of international experience. Therefore, for me, this not only broadens my experience outside the accounting world The depth of experience has really broadened the experience in the international market.” Mastantuono said.

Although Ms. Mastantuono is considered a leading cosmetics group, she said that she worked closely with Revlon’s international president to establish a traditional American-centric model. She was promoted to senior vice president (SVP), and at the same time added the chief accounting officer and assumed the position of international CFO. “I may play a dual role three-quarters of the time, but I can really combine the financial and accounting of both parties.”

After reflection, Mastantuono said that while facing these challenges, it is necessary to raise a family and build up the vital personal resilience in 2020. “Taking these types of risks, staying out of the picture, and being confident about your own development is essential to ensure a safe landing and do good deeds,” she said.

Mastantuono held the first group CFO position in IT product distributor Ingram Micro, which was later acquired by HNA Technology. She described Ingram as “a huge company with a turnover of $40 billion and meager profits.” Masantuono said that in her six years, she was “at the highest level of every conversation and decision. cutting edge”.

This is the ideal grinder for her to arrive at ServiceNow, which requires a new leadership team to expand the company. The company’s annual revenue reaches $4 billion, but its ambition is to achieve greater turnover. “We need to study how to expand our business scale and back office to ensure that we are absolutely prepared when we reach $10 billion.

Mastantuono said: “This is a matter of building cross-functional departments and bringing the team together at the leadership level. They are looking for the CFO to help promote.”

It is also important not to ignore the original value of the company. She added: “Ensuring that we can maintain the entrepreneurial spirit and the agility of the ServiceNow culture is crucial.”

Matching strategy

With the elimination of the coronavirus environment, ServiceNow may be welcomed by enterprises, but in the early days of the epidemic, it was not all smooth sailing.

She said: “I started on January 8. Due to the coronavirus, we all went home in mid-March 60 days later.”

Since ServiceNow is operated by a very new management team, this challenge has become even more severe. CEO Bill McDermott joined the company not long ago, and hiring Mastantuono was his first step when he arrived from the German software giant SAP.

But she quickly realized that despite the challenges, the team still needs to continue to innovate and backed by the finance function, which provides key insights that can provide a basis for good decisions. “We are not just a counter of beans-adding up and looking backwards.” She said: “We need to think about how to move the strategy forward and make sure that we are at the forefront of where our customers need us. “

Mastantuono said that the coronavirus pandemic has changed the focus of decision making, thereby enhancing the CFO’s role as a transformation promoter. She said: “I think the chief financial officer is the chief transformation officer.”

In the ServiceNow model, Mastantuono worked with CIO (Chief Information Officer) Chris Bedi to ensure that the data set captures valuable insights as efficiently as possible. “I work closely with the CIO to ensure that the data is as clean and reliable as possible. I’m talking about having the right data at the right time to make the best decisions,” she said.

Mastantuono said that CFOs can help companies not only survive in the current environment by making strategic decisions, but also flourish in the “next normal”, thus playing a key role in guiding companies through the crisis.

“This is all about digital transformation. Because we are a digital first company, we are able to transfer 95% of our employees remotely within 24 hours. However, for many companies that do not focus on digital investment, it is necessary to do Up to this point is really difficult.

“This crisis shows that they absolutely need to invest in these areas. The coronavirus is ushering in a new convergence of corporate finance and digital strategies. Those companies that embrace this idea will become stronger on the other end of the pandemic.” She said .

Mastantuono said that thinking beyond the immediate context defined by epidemics is crucial. “Now more than ever, a cohesive long-term strategy is needed because this moment will pass. She said that you must deal with short-term issues while looking to the future.

“It’s difficult to think long-term in a crisis. But I want to say that the role of the chief financial officer is to help drive dialogue.” She added.