Leaders who have children — regardless of career — often work to ensure their kids have an opportunity to succeed. Successful CFOs, who may raise their families with less stress around their personal finances than others, have a balancing act to perform.
On one hand, human nature compels parents to give their kids everything they didn’t have themselves growing up. On the other, many people — especially those who have climbed the leadership ladder — understand the value of a strong work ethic, resilience and integrity being instilled early on in their children’s careers.
For those parents who fail to properly balance these factors, the consequences are detrimental to both family and company alike. And, as trends indicate millennials may be worse off than their parents, executives of all ages who have children are under a tremendous amount of pressure to raise their kids with a sense of humility, responsibility, and an understanding of the value of their opportunity to continue success.
For Steve Tannenbaum, formerly the CFO of numerous communications and pharmaceutical companies from 1985-2022, instilling a work ethic into his children was a byproduct of his own work ethic. Though he admits he spent most of his time working and talking about work, the payoff is evident in his son Michael Tannenbaum’s success. Michael most recently took the CEO role at financial services firm Figure after serving as CFO and then chief operating officer at corporate card issuer Brex, as well as chief revenue officer at SoFi bank prior.
Planting curiosity
Steve, who worked alongside his wife in various roles at the companies where he was CFO, started his family during what he said was the busiest and most important time in his career.
“I was working long, late hours constantly. A lot of people I knew had a different outlook on raising their children,” he said. “It was during a time when fathers were becoming much more visible in the home, and I was not part of that group.”
“My kids never got to see a parental relationship the same as their other friends may have seen in their parents,” Steve said. “[Michael’s] mother and I always worked; it’s the way we were both raised and so we pushed Michael and his sister to do the same and to get to work early. It was easy for them and us because they grew up watching their parents work all the time and hearing them talk about work at the dinner table constantly.”
“I think a big part of my interest in my initial career path was watching my dad interact with his team.”
Michael Tannenbaum
CEO, Figure
Steve says this made his son interested at a very young age in the dynamics of corporate leadership. “Michael was always interested in things other kids definitely weren’t interested in,” he said. “He was always asking about what was going on at my job, we always talked about it.
“I remember being on vacation and he was hounding me about my current company where I was a CFO at the time. I remember him saying, ‘Dad, what are you still doing there, it’s going nowhere, you have to leave,’ and this is when he was still in high school.”
The apple and the tree
In his early days, in roles such as a busboy and barback at restaurants and a barista at Starbucks, Michael was exposed to hard work and the value of a dollar. But outside of the grit and empathy developed from his time in service positions, he says watching his dad interact with his team impacted the way he leads now in his leadership role.
“I think a big part of my interest in my initial career path was watching my dad interact with his team,” Michael said. “On a Saturday, unless we had errands to run or an obligation, my dad would be working. [But] we always had people over the house, like I remember one time we went to a Patriots game with his team, or we’d have a summer party at the house and I watched how he would interact with those who worked for and around him.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Steve Tannenbaum
I learned that any executive or leader, or even a dad, needs to be relatable and make themselves available to everyone,” Michael said.
When asked about the origins of his dad’s work ethic and its impact on him growing up, Michael said it was something he was always aware of. “My dad grew up on the south shore of Long Island and went to Nassau Community College; I grew up the son of a CFO in an affluent town in the suburbs of Boston and started at Columbia University. I always understood that we had different upbringings,” he said.
“However, the way I was raised, to always work hard no matter what, combined with the New England culture of hard work, literally from the Puritans that founded the place, was a big influence on me growing up, so much so that I think if I was raised in Los Angeles or something, I think things would be different,” Michael said. “It’s part of the reason I chose to raise my kids there today.”
“My dad grew up on the south shore of Long Island and went to Nassau Community College; I grew up the son of a CFO in an affluent town in the suburbs of Boston and started at Columbia University. I always understood that we had different upbringings.”
Michael Tannenbaum
CEO, Figure
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Steve said when chiming in on his son’s willingness to put in the work early on in his career.
Resisting spoiling and carrying on values
The idea of working for the sole purpose of providing for your children isn’t what drove Steve to work hard. Therefore, he said, worrying about spoiling them was never the issue.
“Honestly, it was never really about my children,” said Steve. “That may seem kind of selfish, but I never thought about it that way. I always thought about my career as being a good provider to my family, yes, but I was on much more of a traditional path back then. Things were so different, and I never really thought about it like I was working [solely] for them.
“I think there was much more of a focus on making sure our kids were respectful to everyone through our actions [as parents],” Steve said. “We always made sure our kids knew how to treat people, and did that by doing our best to show a good example. We had smart kids, we knew that by the way they were wired that they were go-getters. We just had to do our part to lead them in the right direction.”
For Michael, now the father of two kids under the age of four, the idea of instilling the same values he learned is essential. Although his kids are still young, modeling these values that Michael himself learned decades before is something that he thinks about a lot.
“It’s the parent’s job to instill good values into their kids.”
Michael Tannenbaum
CEO, Figure
“I think as parents, you have to reduce the impulse to spoil, and it’s the parent’s job to instill good values into their kids. Now, I am not here to tell people how to raise their kids, I still have a lot to learn and don’t have it all figured out, but I am going about it based on how I was raised.
“From the CFO’s vantage point, this is likely clear because of the discipline, rigor, and efficiency required to be [a CFO],” he said. “Maybe if we were both [chief marketing officers], or someone who tends to be a bit more likely to want to spend, things would be different.”
