In early 2018, Ashim Gupta was either on a path to become “a lifelong GE person” or poised to try something completely new with a young company in an unrelated industry.
Gupta had spent nearly 20 years in multiple finance roles at General Electric by then, including serving as CFO of GE Engineered Systems and GE Water. When he was named senior vice president and chief information officer of finance and global operations in 2016, though, a crucial vendor decision created an entirely new career path for the man who originally thought he would be a diplomat.
In the CIO role, Gupta was responsible for enterprise applications for finance, automation, and ERP and big data strategy. He became one of technology startup UiPath’s first customers, selecting the firm to help automate and streamline GE’s business processes.
When UiPath’s founder and CEO invited Gupta to join the leadership team in a non-finance role in 2018, Gupta accepted, becoming the organization’s chief customer success officer. He was named CFO in 2019, and last month, added the COO role to his responsibilities.
Ashim Gupta
CFO and COO, UiPath
First CFO position: 2010
Notable previous employers:
- GE
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
SANDRA BECKWITH: You joined UiPath after using the company’s product at GE. Why did you shift from one of the world’s largest corporations to a software startup?
ASHIM GUPTA: When I told UiPath’s CEO Daniel Dines in early 2018 that I had to lay off 500 people, ironically, he said he had to hire 500 people in the next 18 months. I thought it sounded like more fun to hire people than to fire them.
Technology was really taking off then. If I wanted to do something else, this was a good moment to do it. It was the right time, it was the right energy, and it was immensely scary because I hadn’t done anything like this before.
Why did you join UiPath specifically, and why as chief customer success officer?
GUPTA: The company was focused on growth at the time. Understanding your customer base is really critical to growth, and I understood UiPath’s, which is Fortune 500 and Global 2000 CFOs and CIOs.
This was my first customer-facing role, and I accepted the offer for two reasons. First, the company’s metrics were impressive, and I really loved the organization. Just as importantly, though, I was following well-known advice from GE’s former vice chairman, John Rice. He said that to grow, you have to go where you feel most insecure, because that’s where you’ll learn the most.
My insecurity was around talking to customers. I had never done it. And, I had never built a large team and had to scale from 15 people to 250 here.
What was it like to shift from a large corporate culture to a startup?
GUPTA: It was a massive change. There’s a lot about my GE experience that allowed me to be successful here, especially when I took over UiPath’s FP&A for a while, but the harder part was identifying what from GE I had to forget.
It was things like perfection and hierarchy. At GE, you knew who was a senior executive. Here, your title doesn’t matter.
Tell me why you were named CFO and more recently, COO, as well.
GUPTA: When the CFO left in 2019, I became interim CFO while we searched for candidates with experience taking a company public. When that didn’t work out, the CEO and board asked me to take the job permanently. I had to learn a lot quickly before we filed an IPO in April 2021.
I became the first COO last month because the team felt my breadth of knowledge and experience made me a natural fit for it. Over the past six years, I’ve worked with many different parts of the company at different stages.
I’m excited to continue to contribute to the company’s trajectory in a new way.
How does your Fortune 500 finance background affect how you do your job at UiPath, and how might it differ from someone with a different background?
GUPTA: I understand our customer base really well and that’s critical. I have important Fortune 500 skill sets, too. In addition, I’m used to dealing with massive organizations with immense complexity, so some of what seems complex here is simpler because of that background.
On the other hand, somebody from a startup is used to the inherent chaos and fast cycle of uncertainty, euphoria, tragedy, and stabilization. I didn’t have that, so I had to get my stomach in shape to ride the startup roller coaster.
It’s a different diversity here, too. I had to figure out how to integrate with the culture. You can’t find your cliques or pockets because there are none. People who are around a lot of startups already understand that.
What advice would you give to others in finance hoping to become CFOs?
GUPTA: CFOs are typically in the middle of some of the tougher discussions and decisions, so be ready to evaluate yourself after a crisis. Evaluate how you dealt with it. Did your heart rate go up? How was your mind – was it stable, or did it waver a lot?
This is important because it’s how you grow. I failed so much, not because of my skill set, but because of my maturity. Finding that balance of maturity and skill set will lead people to be great, to accomplish, and to reach the destinations they need to get to.
