About this episode
It was in the late 1990s when public accountant, savvy networker and future CFO April Downing decided that it was time to leave Dallas. “I had cultivated my network there really early—there was a group of friends from PwC whom I regularly attended a book club with, and later we would all go on to different tech firms,” remembers Downing. However, unlike those of some of her tech-minded PwC colleagues, Downing’s future plans did not include Dallas or Silicon Valley. “It used to be that I had to say Austin, Texas —but everyone knows where Austin is now,” comments Downing, who accepted an assistant controller role at Motive Communications, an Austin tech firm—only to lose it upon her return from maternity leave. “I thought that my life was going to be as an accountant, but they said: ‘You can be the finance person,’” recalls Downing, who credits the early job pivot with opening the door to a succession of senior finance roles that included the position of acting CFO. In many ways, Downing’s Motive chapter exposes the historic connection between Austin’s high tech pioneers and its wide-body tech hub future, for it was at Motive that Downing first crossed paths with notable Austin investor and former Dell CFO Tom Meredith, who for a time served as chairman of Motive’s audit committee. It was also at Motive where she first connected with Kip McClanahan, whose firm Silverton Partners is credited with having helped to lead the next wave of Austin technology investment. Years later, McClanahan would help to recruit Downing to fill the CFO role at WP Engine. Comments Downing: “One of things that I’ve been trying to do lately is to foster connections with some of the people who are new to Austin in order to share our heritage that says, ‘We’re all here to do better together!’” –Jack Sweeney