Episode Six co-founder and CFO Chermaine Hu has spent much of her career working at the intersection of finance and growth, first as an investment banker and now as a finance leader inside a scaling technology company.
Before helping launch the payments infrastructure firm, Hu spent 14 years in mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley, advising on transactions across industries and geographies. The experience provided a technical foundation in finance, but she said moving into an operating role offered a very different perspective on how companies actually function day to day.
In a conversation with CFO.com, Hu discussed the transition from investment banking to corporate finance, how the company approaches disciplined growth as it expands into new markets and the mindset she looks for when building finance teams inside a growing organization.
Chermaine Hu
Co-founder and CFO, Episode Six
First CFO Position: 2013
Notable previous employers:
- Rêv Worldwide
- Morgan Stanley
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
ADAM ZAKI: You spent 14 years working in M&A at Morgan Stanley. How has that background influenced the way you approach capital allocation and financial strategy as a CFO?
CHERMAINE HU: The first year outside the investment banking world was a big shock. I realized pretty quickly that I did not really understand what the real world was actually like.
In M&A, we sold a lot of companies, from small to very large, and so much of that work happens on paper in an Excel spreadsheet. You are buying this company or selling those assets, and everything looks very straightforward in a model.
But when I left that world and started working inside a company, I realized how little I actually understood about what it takes to run a business day to day. Running a company is really hard. Running a division is hard. Running anything is hard. On paper, it all looked so easy when we were valuing companies.
My 14 years in investment banking were an incredibly important foundation for everything I do today. The environment teaches you how to deal with challenges and how to solve problems quickly. When you are a junior banker, you are expected to do everything. If something needs to get done, you figure out how to do it.
That mindset stayed with me. When problems come up now, big or small, my instinct is to figure out how to solve them. I might not know the answer immediately, but I will call people, ask for help and be resourceful. That mindset is probably one of the most valuable things I took away from those years.
How do you balance scaling quickly with financial discipline, given the upfront investments required here in technology, compliance and new markets?
That balance is always tricky. We are not perfect, but we have been doing this for 10 years, and we are still thriving, so something is working.
For us, it starts with understanding the objective. Why are we scaling? Is it to support more clients, expand geographically or add new capabilities? Once you understand the goal, you can be much more thoughtful about how you allocate resources.
For example, we started our business largely in the Asia-Pacific region. North America is obviously a massive market for us, so we wanted to establish a presence here. But expanding from one region to another is not as simple as just showing up.
We sell enterprise software to banks, and those customers want relevant references. I remember speaking with some banks in Texas who said, “That’s great that you work with large banks globally, but what do you have in Texas?” Local credibility matters.
When we think about expanding into a market like the U.S., we take a very deliberate approach. We are not going to hire 30 people immediately and assume customers will come just because we have been successful elsewhere. Instead, we build a few strong reference clients first and then expand from there.
We try to be very disciplined about costs. I think our investors appreciate that. Growth is important, but it has to be done thoughtfully and in a way that makes sense for the long-term success of the business.
What metrics do you focus on to understand whether the business is scaling the way you expected?
From a finance perspective, we track the typical SaaS metrics, things like ARR growth, retention and net retention. But beyond that, each function also has its own way of measuring efficiency. For example, marketing looks closely at what we are getting back from every dollar we spend.
As a growing company with limited resources, efficiency is really the theme across the organization. What we want to avoid is simply throwing bodies at a problem. The challenge with growth is that you gain more clients, more markets and more operational complexity, but you still want to figure out how to do more with the resources you already have.
Sometimes the answer is that you do need to hire another person, for example, if we add a large number of clients in a new market. But the first question we always ask is how we can scale the business without increasing headcount at the same pace.
Different teams track different metrics to measure that, but the overall goal is the same: to keep improving efficiency as the company grows.
What capabilities do you look for when hiring people into your finance team so you don’t scale headcount alongside growth?
I actually do not love the CFO title because I think it is a very limiting description of what the role really involves.
When I hire people, I look for individuals who are motivated to learn. Of course, they need the core finance skills, but more importantly, they need to be curious and willing to take on more responsibility as the company grows.
That mindset is important because the company is constantly evolving. When we were a 100-person company, we could do certain things one way. Now that we are over 200 people and continuing to grow, we have to think about how those same processes will work when we are two, five or even ten times the size.
So I look for people who do not wait for problems to appear before solving them. Instead, they think ahead about how we should improve systems and processes as we scale.
Technology also plays a role. We regularly evaluate new tools and look at how existing systems can be used more effectively through automation and integration with other teams. But ultimately, the biggest driver of efficiency is having the right people who are willing to rethink how things are done as the company grows.
As both a co-founder and the CFO, you have to balance two perspectives. The founder side wants to push growth, while the finance side often has to enforce discipline. How do you manage that tension?
I think it is a good way to frame it. I do not necessarily believe CFOs always say no. Usually, the answer is based on a set of reasons.
When someone approaches me with a request, my instinct is actually to try to say yes. But first, I want to understand why. Why do we need this investment? Why do we need another person or another tool?
If the reasoning makes sense, that is the first step. Then we look at it in the broader context of the company, our resource allocation, our cash flow and everything else we have to balance.
Sometimes the answer might be no right now, but yes in six months. Sometimes it might be yes if certain conditions are met. And sometimes it is simply yes.
Our goal is always to grow and succeed as a company. So the real question is what will help us achieve that in a way that is responsible and sustainable. If the reasoning is strong, then we will support it.
Given your dual role, what part do you play in evaluating the risk profile of business partners and investors?
Maybe the best way to explain that is to describe how responsibilities are divided among the leadership team.
One of my partners is the CTO, and he runs the entire technology function. My other partner is the CEO and he oversees sales, account management and our client relationships.
That means I am responsible for everything else that no one wants to touch, things like legal, HR, finance and accounting.
But in reality, those responsibilities are not isolated. Sales connects directly to finance, and technology is obviously central to what we deliver to clients. Everything we do as a company involves resources and investment decisions.
Because of that, I often feel like I sit right in the middle of the business. Everything that happens has some dollars moving around. Whether we are hiring people, investing in technology or pursuing a large deal, there is always a financial dimension to it.
When we face decisions that involve risk or are outside our comfort zone, the three of us come together and talk through the reasoning behind them and the potential implications. As a smaller organization, collaboration is essential to how we operate.
The quality of capital markets has shifted quite a bit lately. Has that changed the way you approach runway planning, budgeting or conversations with investors?
I think we are in a fortunate position because of the relationships we have built with our financing partners over the years.
Right now, it is not an easy time for companies that are actively out in the market looking for capital. But we have been able to build strong, long-term partnerships with our investors, which helps us navigate periods of volatility.
From a CFO perspective, it is always important to think about the known unknowns and even the unknown unknowns. The best approach is to plan well ahead and give yourself a lot of buffer.
During the 2020 and 2021 period, that might not have been the most popular mindset, because capital was much easier to access. But in a more typical market cycle, maintaining discipline and preparing for both positive and negative scenarios is critical.
Building long-term relationships with the right financial partners is also very important because those partnerships can help you ride through changes in the capital markets.
