519: Understanding Your Talent Investment | Bernard Huger, CFO, OneLogin

“You want to be a CFO.” The second the words reached his ears, Bernard Huger experienced a moment of clarity that ultimately lifted a stubborn fog from the future path of his finance career. While this was not the first occasion when such a thought had entered his head, this time the words were delivered by a professionally accomplished friend, who wielded an air of objectivity. Like many investment bankers, Huger had found the doorway to corporate development positions less illuminated than those to other corporate roles, while at the same time C-suite doors-of-entry were especially hard to find. “It wasn’t so obvious to me, but as I explained more about the types of things that I wanted to do, I realized that he was right,” says Huger, who left investment banking after 12 years to become CFO of MuleSoft, a fast-growing San Francisco software firm. “Let’s just say that I caught a tiger by the tail,” recalls Huger, who today derives from the experience a lesson for others: “It was painful, but biting off more than you can chew and pushing yourself is critical to accelerating your career.” Asked about the type of CFO role that he envisioned for himself when he joined OneLogin, Huger focuses his comments on hiring and building a team. Only by having standout talent, Huger explains, will finance be able to signal to the organization at large that it is “a creative force” and capable of creating analytical models that other parts of the organization can leverage to foresee the trajectory of the business. –Jack Sweeney