The CFO who scaled. And is doing it again

[Music] Hello and welcome to On the Line. I'm Alice, founder and editor of The Line. The Line is a community centered around real conversations with people working in private capital. I've been covering private capital markets for the past 17 years, with the last decade focused squarely on the finance and operational side of the business. And that's because it's my belief that this is where the real work of the industry is done. So on this podcast I sit down with CFOs, COOs and other senior operational leaders to understand how these firms really work, what it takes to succeed in these roles and explore both the highs and the lows. So today I'm delighted to be joined by Raj Shah. Raj is CFO and operating partner at Claret Capital Partners. Hello, Raj. Hi, Alice. Lovely to be here. You're very welcome. So to kick us off, let's set the scene a little bit. You joined Claret at the beginning of this year? Yes, in January this year. January this year, excellent. Now, take me right back. Take me right to the back of the beginning. And taught me through, I actually think your education is quite interesting and your early career. So yeah, let's start there. Sure. So that's good. So in terms of education, so I went to Brinnell University, studied internet engineering, did three years at Ducksbridge Campus, came top in my year, which is a really nice Qdos. And I went to graduating, I received a scholarship, and I did further studies when in to Queen Mary's University and it masters in technology management. So very much tech focus around that time where it was the kind of dot-com boom, everyone was going into the IT world and I thought, well, that's probably going to give you the most money. So within that direction, came out of it and thinking, I'm not really enjoying the, in the particles out of it. I enjoyed the freebies out of it, but not the particles out of it. So it takes a time off when traveling around Australia, which is really good fun. Came back kind of, I thought, well, I've got to start doing something. I need to build a career. I need to earn some money and make my life out of it. And I can fill into finance. It's probably somewhere in the blood as well. So my family are full of accountants, my dad's account, my brother's account, uncle as well. And somewhere along the lines of just learning from my granddad as well, so my granddad had his own business. So he was a new mathematics, which is basically meaning, they were managing old coins and old notes. So that's a career in itself, a profession in itself. So for that, I used to go to a lot of coin fairs with him and he was selling old coins and old notes, which is really cool. And when we got home and we went back to his office and he was on the first floor of the house, we used to do double the credits. So we used to do like a tee box and say, look at what we have, we were, and what we spent, let's see what the professor made today. So really kind of that foundation came through from my granddad, followed on into kind of the bloodline of one of family are doing as a as a as a as a cantant. And I did then SEMA, which is a kind of natural way of getting into finance. So my first, I would say real job was at Humburt's, which is a listed, at the time was a listed aim company. So I was there for two years. At the very beginning of what do we try to do was, you know, a choir or companies along the way? That's kind of their growth plan. So I joined at a time where it was just before the GFC, we were doing really well. Now we had some lot of financing that was provided to us. We went from 20 branches to up to 80 branches in the short space of time. I moved to Sol's Brief one year to help out with all the new exhibitions into the finance. Came back to London and then that's when GFC took place. We ran our cash, went into administration. So I've seen a company that's grown very quickly. Yeah. And also go down very quickly as well. So for me, it was really hard. Being in that kind of HG environment where there's a CEO, CFO, controller, shareholders, running around and seeing how we can survive or help survive the company. And I knew we were going to lose our jobs because I knew part of business was going to go down under at a time where it was just we were buying a lot of companies at premium prices. So yeah, that was kind of a learning curve for me in terms of a company scaling but also taking some wrong decisions. Yeah. Okay. This is all fascinating. There's early routes that the familial ancestral heritage to what you're doing. But also I think your education really on the tech side of things. Absolutely. Okay. So then how did private equity come about? I just fell into it. Part of quite a few jobs. I applied to obviously at a time where GFC was taking place. It was really hard to get another job. So anything that came along I would have taken. And luckily, Bo Mark came along. They were looking for a assistant FC to join their business. And I thought, well, private equity, let's go for it. Now I've never had a bit before. So for me, it's very, very new because I've come from industry and I've come from a listed environment coming to private markets was unknown. I just went straight into it. And I really loved that our environment of investors, funds, investments and how we as funders professionals and manage all free parts of that business. So I was about kind of learning ground and really the foundation of what I've learned of that period of time. As you know, Bo Mark and Bioworld, you know, tends to be more slow in terms of investment pace. We were probably in two deals a month. I said, two deals a year, sorry. That's quite fast. Two deals a year. And the fundraising, typically around six years. So I missed out on the fundraiser of fund four when I joined. And we were doing two deals a year. So I learned as much as I wanted to be within the four years. Got probably too comfortable at the time. And I thought, well, I need to move now. And I really take the next step in my career. I was fortunate to have two job offers at a time, one from a very large VC firm and something capital. So for me, if felt like a no-brainer, I wanted to take a bit of a risk. And that's not what CFOs tend to say. But I took the risk and I really wanted to go and really learn in a smaller company environment, whereas only 10 of us at a time, there was all over who was our CFO at a time and two imagine partners and a small team of investment professionals and a couple of people in operations. So for me, it was the really best learning ground of being part of the organization where I can get involved with all parts of the business. So that variety for me was the key. Whereas the VC firm would have been very good, probably a bit too comfortable. Yeah. Okay. So then you joined 17. You've already got this really great foundational kind of very educational background, good solid base from Bowmark. You take a risk on 17, which is just mad now thinking about that for thinking about it only being 10 people. But fast forward to last year. Yeah. And the firm's AUM is, what is it like, 20 billion? More than 20, yeah. Right. Okay. And you were there, kind of had a front seat to that massive growth. Yeah. I think the risk side of it when I first joined was more on the strategy than anything else. It was more than enough finance was very new. Yeah. I remember speaking to the founders back at back when it came out and I could not get my head around it. I just go, I was like, how do I write about this? Yeah. I think when they said to me, this is one of our finances, this is how we did it. This is how we think we can grow the business and ambition that they showed in the interview for me was the kind of selling point. And if it worked out great, if it didn't work out, I would have been still enjoying that environment for sure. And then we went from fun one, which is a 88 million fund to fund two very quickly then from three. And then it just grew exponentially. And being at our forefront, our growth, being a new asset class is not many people would have had that opportunity, which I had. So it's very fortunate one to join and to be part of that growth environment. Yeah. Okay. We're going to come back to all of the lessons that you learn from that scaling journey. But before we do that, let's kind of close the loop on your career path. So obviously we mentioned at the top there, you joined Claret at the beginning of this year, taught me about that decision. So going from a fund that's really just exploded over the past, what does it I guess 10 years to then come into Claret, which is obviously relatively a much smaller lesson or manager. What was your thought process there? Yeah, I've thought to myself, like, 70 couple has been a phenomenal ride and journey and learning environment. And also we've done so much in a in that space of time, going from 200 million when I first joined and being a part of the team to take a two over 20 billion. And I thought, I'm still young enough to do an experience enough to do something more and take another, no risk, but never educated, you know, move somewhere else. I could have stayed and a lot of CFRs I knew, well, certainly, you're a bit crazy doing this. Yeah. Taken the chance of moving somewhere else. And I thought, for me, what I was missing was that creating, shaping, defining. I was missing that somewhere at 17. Although it was growing exponentially, we were raising five billion each time. For me, that kind of that entrepreneurial side of the earlier funds was for me was missing. So I thought, okay, well, if it's missing, I need to move. And if I move, let's find a place or a new home where I can actually be part of our growth journey again. So Claret came along in the middle of last year and the two founders and I, we just jelled into the interview side. of it and also the conversations there after as well. They're very open. Look, this is where we are today, this is where we want to go to and less, less enjoy the ride together. And that kind of sealed the deal for me. I really wanted to take some time off in between. So I left 17 in September last year and I took some time off to this really down tool, enjoy myself, enjoy time with the family and reflect on what I've achieved so far and really hit the ground running in January when I started this year. Super. Okay. Still, we're recording this in June, so it's still, well, you're six months in. It's relatively early days. So this might be a tough one to answer and there might not be an answer to it yet. But it seems that you are very deliberate in your thinking about why you chose to go to Claret specifically and you, you know, up for that entrepreneurial challenge and that building challenge again, which I totally relate to. But how has this six months been? Is there anything that you weren't quite prepared for anything that's been unexpected about joining a small, learn, younger firm? For me was what I wanted to do is remain in private credit, ideally. That's my background for last 13 plus years. So if I want, if I can't stay in private credit, great, but a different asset class, ideally. So least I'm still then learning, not I've already learnt it. So what I do, I ideally stay in Nav finance because I know there's a lot of competitors coming through. That would be an ideal opportunity to move somewhere else. So this came along, venture debt, growth lending, you know, it's a huge part of the jigsaw of what we try to achieve in the UK, for example, of the whole growth story and that government are pushing for. I mean, I read a stat, David A was OECD said, the UK is fared in terms of supporting startups, but we fall behind the 13th for scaling up. Okay. All we're doing at cloud is scaling up and helping those companies that are looking for further financing, we're having to delete the sheldon in the form of debt. That's where we come in that jigsaw piece. Okay. And that's where that fraction for me came along. And also being in a environment where we're all on our fared and for fund, we're growing and we want to turbocharge our growth. So what we've done is fantastic, well in terms of setting up the business. My remin is now now to the next level. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't think of someone better place to do that. Hopefully. Yeah. So we've covered your education. So what was it? Yeah, so I started internet engineering. Internet engineering. So it's really at the time where internet was coming through and so I was earning about programming, C++, Java, HTML, networking, not networking people wise, but networking in terms of systems and PCs, etc. So that was really the kind of IT sort of education. Yeah. Okay. So that I think that really sets you apart from the typical CFO who's come up through kind of the more classical classic audit routes. So then I'm particularly keen to get your views on the tech stack available within private markets and specifically for the finance function. For a long time there's been fairly common agreement that the tech available isn't amazing or it hasn't kept pace and particularly this current market environment, everyone's trying to do more with less. What's your take on the available tech for the industry? Yeah, if I think back to 10, 15 years ago when I first started out in private markets, there's very limited choice. So when I looked at what was out there to help us, there's probably a CRM and probably a portfolio monitoring system. Again, those kind of choices were limited. There was only few providers providing those kind of tools. Fast forward today, we have so much more choice. So as a CFO and CFO, it's so much more choice that we have. You'll filtering that choice as well. I mean, if I let them link in, there's some graphics that I'd be provided and you have some of it, like probably 15, 20 providers of CRM's today, that's relevant. 15, 20, probably even 30 providers of portfolio monitoring or data rooms or the choice is so much more. So it's probably got other way. We have too much choice. Yeah. But actually, it's helpful because then you can filter down actually what is it that you need? What is it that you want? What is it? It will actually fit your purpose where you're trying to achieve. And I always think that in a good reporting helps you look backwards, a good infrastructure, let's see, look forward. So if you can put the right infrastructure in, tech led, but I think above all, it's actually people led. So the people, the culture, the leadership, providing that kind of guidelines and framework and the empowerment to the rest of the team to say, actually, this is how we want to grow. So having that kind of people backing is really important. And the choice available to us now is so much more, which is great. Yeah. Okay. So is it fair to say then that? Yes. I mean, I mean, maybe then that's the challenge, right? Is in figuring out what actually is going to work for you and what works in what you're trying to achieve? Yeah. And it's also dispatching of those ideas with other people in your industry as well, within the industry. So other peers of yours, like, see other CFOs and other similar size funds or firms, which will really help just to navigate some of the challenges they're having with what you're having as well. So for me, that kind of bouncing off ideas, like, this is what we have and this is what I'm missing. Have you done this? Have you gone for this journey? And that kind of bouncing off those ideas are really important. Yes. I'll say. But also just making sure we're cognizant of the pace of change as well with tech is, obviously, I'm sure we'll come on to AI, but there's so much more technology that's innovating very quickly. So we just need to be mindful of that as well. System that you put in place today may not always be relevant to you for years time. So as long as that mindset's there, that's the key. Yeah. Yes. And well said, I mean, that definitely seems to me that that would be the biggest challenge. If you're making these decisions about which system to use or, you know, even how to design your system, knowing or trying to predict the years time down the line, that just, yeah, I don't envy anyone being in that position. Yeah, especially because if I think back to my 17 couple days, you know, how we grew, you know, we had in fun one, a very simple master feeder structure. Mm-hmm. Then fun, T came along and we added interesting dynamic to the fun structure, where we had more Luxembourg based funds. Fun free was a parallel of a you can Luxembourg, for example. So again, we over time organically grew the funds and the fun structuring became more complex. Yes. And then as you grow, you have more LPs and you have different LPs, different types of LPs, different geographies of with LPs coming from. Everyone has learned certain requirements and, you know, obligations that you need to manage. And then your team needs to evolve as well. And then within that, hopefully tech will play a role. And that's where we try to be mindful of all in terms of if we're going to keep growing, we can't keep adding people. Technology needs to play a role. And today's environment, I think that's where people are now getting a sense of that technology will help you solve much of the open up challenges you have today. Yeah. And they can't just keep trying people at it for sure. And if I look at conferences, I go to today as well. If I think back to 10 years ago, very little on tech. Today, you have at least a dedicated sessions on tech, or one or two sessions at a very, very least. And you'll have more providers around the conference area as well, tech-focused. Yeah. Yeah. 10 years in the finance and operational side of the industry, the tech conversation just it dominates now. Well, to your point, it only just used to be a kind of one slice of the pie. Okay. Let's really get into that. All the lessons that you've learned from going on that scaling journey and it being a very successful adventure. I guess what I want to know, I think probably anyone speaking to you would want to know, is there a mindset or a philosophy that you've developed that could be applied then to anyone looking to scale? And as you pointed out, kind of doing more with less, not just throwing people at the problem. Is there a principled based approach almost? Yeah. I think it's probably more top down, either cultural firm. Yes. And the people at the leadership level. So the culture, what I mean by that is really thinking about, make sure everyone knows where you're going. And you articulated your vision. And this is how we want to grow. You may not always know how you're going to grow, but at least this is where you want to get to. So 70 people, we knew each of our sites, for example, where we are today and where we want to get to. I was really articulated, really well to us. That this is our aim today. This is where we're going to get to and how we get this. That's the offsite basically. Yeah. That communication side of top down, making sure everyone understands where we are, where we're going. That's critical for sure. But a challenge for us in our operational roles is that the company is not going to stop growth because you're not ready. So you're going to be proactively thinking, okay, well, we're looking at this strategy. Or we're looking at this structure. What do I need to do to support that? Not in six months time, but now. So you're planning in advance. You're proactively looking at those topics. So for me, it's that kind of culture piece for sure one and then making sure you're in those conversations and you're not then reacting to your proactively out there in the market, talking to providers, talking to technology professionals and thinking about what skills that you have and what you don't have and what's missing. So one thing we looked at, well, I looked at it in my team, I would say five years ago now, and what was missing in my team was probably the big firm experience. So we had a couple of people from very big firms, probably 25 billion plus, because we knew we wanted to get to those levels, but my team didn't have the kind of a year experience of what it takes to be in those firms. So again, we looked at hiring as well to make sure we get the right skillset in and right experience levels as well in into the business. Okay, yeah, there's a lot in that that I want to double click on. Sure. I think I'm really seeing this with the AI conversation and how a question I often get asked is, are you seeing some firms adopt AI more quickly or having more success of the AI? And I think the obvious thinking is larger firms with bigger budgets and bigger resources are just going to naturally be better at this. And actually the only difference I see is totally irrespective of a UM or firm size. It is entirely down to leadership and the culture. And I think even within that, it boils down to the managing partners, either their pro tech AI, let's move, you know, let's be bold and creative or they are, I don't know, maybe a little bit nervous or resistant or fearful and kind of want to stay where they are. That to me is the key dividing factor right now. Yeah, for sure. I think there's a top down and bottom up prepared. So top down, I mentioned one as well pushing as well. And bottom up, we need to push as well. Yes. So I think there's balance somewhere to strike there. Yeah. And a good thing, I think by AI is that it's a level playing field. It's not expensive in the grants to come of things. So you have the ability to compete with the bigger firms for sure. Yeah. Because AI makes it available to everyone pretty much at a very low cost. Well, I'm sure we're coming to cost side of as well. But the good thing is it's available to everyone now. I five years ago, it's open AI and topic is so much more choice in terms of how people are using it. And the good thing is if I think back to probably January of this year, most people were just looking into it. Everyone's looking at experimenting with it. I think now we're actually rolling out to the whole firms. So I mean, that's what we're doing at Cloudart. We've got Copilot, which is probably a Microsoft stack. And then we're now looking at Claude as well. So we want to make sure everyone has their tools available. Alongside that, we need to provide training as well to make sure it's used adequately. Yes. And that we have the cost side of it managed and the governance side of it as well. Looking to you. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Again, there's so much richness in what you're saying. So this bottom-up approach as well. And then what you talked about your time at 17, if you were clearly given the direction of travel, this is where we want to be. And then it sounds like you felt quite empowered to just be like, right, I'm going to figure out then what is my responsibility and what I'm accountable for to get us there. And yeah, I just, yeah, that's that's it. Yeah. I would say two things on that. One is the environment I was in and also the environment we're at Cloudart is very entrepreneurial. Yes. So the partners are very entrepreneurial in their ways of thinking and the vision they had. And one of the values that 17, couple was, makes things happen. So I don't wait to round. Yeah. Just get it done. Just go ahead and go ahead and obviously if there's a budget in this cost, let's get it approved. Yeah. Otherwise, don't wait around. Yeah. Because we're not going to wait around. So I don't think why why should you wait around. Yeah. So for me, it was just that empowerment was given indirectly and directly as well for the values that we held. Yeah. Mixing's happened. I mean, it sounds so obvious when we talk about it, right? But I think, you know, it does need to be reinforced in an organization that just, just, yeah, go and get it. You are encouraged to do that. I think it's really important. And clearly, you know, that has garnered incredible results. Yeah. I mean, for example, going back to AI, I've been using AI probably 20 years ago when I did my dissertation. I'm using AI and I built an AI model. Yeah. So it's not like AI is not new. It's been around for a long time. It's just become open to everyone. So I think just the way internet came along, now AI has come along. We just need to be mindful that, you know, people are not missing out on that journey. So what I said to my team, I would say two years ago, at least half an hour of your time, spend on AI tools, they're cheap, they're not expensive. There's chat, GPT, there's co-pilot, there's Claude, there's low bull, there's so many other tools that you can use in this experiment. See what works, what doesn't work and share those ideas back to everyone. That kind of environment, you know, if you can foster an environment where people learn from each other and see what works, what doesn't work, then everyone will benefit. 100%. Yeah, I'm kind of caught up on that training piece at the moment. I think just because I'm reading a book about it and I'm realizing how little I know. And yeah, I think that's all we can do right now, right? It's just learn. Just learn, just push, because I think with AI and that's my philosophy as well, it's not just going to be speed and efficiency, it's going to bring, but it's going to also redesign your workflow. Yes. So what you're doing today may take 10 steps. Would you have done that 10 steps if you had AI now? I mean, not. So with AI now, you can actually redevelop or redesign that your workflow of particular process you have. And that makes it a lot more powerful. And therefore, I'm sure you will come into next generation piece, but also how we look at the next generation in terms of training development and giving them the space and opportunity to make mistakes. Which I'm sure will. It's risky. Yeah, within that then, and kind of given the success you've had in and seeing a business scale, what's your approach on thinking about now starting again? Well, you know, I know you're yeah, but you know, thinking about scaling another business. How are you thinking about that in terms of processes versus systems? And is, and is AI starting to encode on that thinking enormously? Okay. I always say AI has changed how I think anyway in terms of systems. Yeah. And the question I'm having to myself and asking my team as well, do we need to put that system in or can we use AI? Do we need to spend on a fixed cost per year on a outsource provider? That's providing a solution. Or can we do ourselves? So is that kind of buy versus build question? It's not just that we're pausing our target operating model roadmap and implementing it. The pace of change of AI has been phenomenal. So it's a question I have mulling over every day, you know, do I say yes to a system or process or that needs to be redesigned or put it in because we're missing that today or do I just wait until AI's got a little bit more better? So I think we can actually use it. Yeah. It's that kind of idea generation of, you know, yes, we can either say AI or actually this is probably going to be better city because it's already gone through the kind of rigor of governance and implementation with other firms. So it should really work for us as well. So again, it's just trying to get a balanced right between the two, which is going to be a challenge for a lot of firms today, that are small, that may have still items in Excel for today, for example, and you'll be moved away from Excel into a system environment, is that going to be Claude or TGP2? Or is it going to be a system that's already off the shelf example? Yeah, okay. And what about, because it feels that maybe you're slightly in advantage in an operating road map still being built and still a lot of like, you know, a clean slate to work with, let's say, what about if for slightly more established firms, I was going to say middle of the road, but you know, maybe more mid in their journey, what if you were in that position, how would you go about that? You know, you've already got a certain amount of process and system that's legacy, you can see something coming along and being really disruptive, you still want to get to the same point. But like, is that going to be tougher to start changing things and checking things up? Yeah, it's always difficult one. It just depends how embedded you are with that system. If it's something that actually you can see a real clear benefit of AI's weather rate, then actually you should maneuver yourself very quickly. Okay. shouldn't wait around because you start seeing the efficiencies and hopefully the benefits coming through quite quickly and the low hanging fruits could be something to display back to business. If it's something that really is hard to change, then I will just wait and see. So I would say, it's striking of our balance. Yeah. Okay. But it's a pace of change and nobody really knows what six months time from, I December, it's only six months time, what AI will look like. I know we're looking at AI agents. There's something new workflows. There's co-workers. There's new Fable 5 came out yesterday, for example. So again, that pace of change is phenomenal. Yeah. And the creativity side of what people are doing out there in the market is super cool. Yeah. It is. So it's interesting. A lot of what you're talking about is the speed at which you can make decisions or how quickly or slowly you should act on something. I thought it seems a lot of things come down to. I'm curious to know and I think it might be helpful. Instead of speaking on such a theoretical level, is there anything, if you're at the beginning of a scaling journey, is there anything concrete where there are certain systems or things that need to be done where you just have to make fast decisions? Is that, could it be around the data? That's obviously such a key part of the whole finance function, the whole firm. There are things that are a bit more tangible that's like you need to act fast. on, I don't know, tax data and yeah. Yeah, I think you know the interest is data. Okay. But obviously coming back to the people culture piece, as long as you get a right, then data is next really important piece of the jigsaw. Okay. So making sure you know what's right, what's wrong, you know to know where your data sits, you need to make sure data is structured. A lot of people say what does that actually mean? They're just making sure we know how that number came along, for example, has built up what the processes are to get to that number in the first place and making sure it's locked away so that it can be audited. There's a governance behind it and it can be displayed back to the business and it can be relied upon as well. So that when we are fundraising or talking to investors, we know that number that's been produced is 100% accurate because it's gone through a process that's rigorous and it's gone through to rejects and balances, for example. So I'll make sure at least you have a system in place that will capture that data correctly and displayed back to the business correctly. That's hard in itself because you have funds, you have some e-multiple investments, you have multiple LPs, is a jigsaw in itself. I've been a lot of friends have gone down the route of warehouse and whether they build it themselves or whether they have it house sourced and we're connecting parts are. So if you have admin then obviously you need to connect that data source in. If you have your own valuations typically done, which is quite typical in private code firms. So you want your loan admin system to be connected to that as well and you want your CRM. So that journey can take 18 months, two years, three years sometimes to put in place. I think that's critical to make sure your single source of true FISDAR and the very, very released. Then you need to think about what's meaningful for you. Where does it can add value? As I said, good infrastructure will let you look forwards. So I would add data you have now. What insights are giving to you? Where is going to make your decision making process easier? And what insights are giving you to be able to build, you know, even be able to be supporting to your investors for example. And so look at your my gross net for example is too high or too low. Why is that? So you can ask of why questions now. I read dive deep into your numbers. Okay. And that's for me is the beauty of having a single source of true FISDAR. You can do much more with that. Okay. So if I say like that's the fundamental building block like from there, then sky's the limit. And then you can really build some really cool graphics behind it and you can display that numbers, no numbers back to you to the investors for example. And so like this is how we look at the world. This is what we've noticed and this is what we're going to be doing. And you can see the lessons learned over time as well. So like an example, if you weren't utilizing your RCA for your subscription facility well, you can select over time we've done this. Or if your management fee was too high over time, you can show that you've done better into how you managed that. Or it could be that you are better recycling your proceeds you received. So again, if you can start sharing the lessons learned over time because you were a day to back it up, it's a more powerful story to LPs. Right. That unbiased, factual, evident base. Because yeah, I imagine that we as humans, we so often think that we're doing something one way, but that data story could be really eliminating. And that's where I think CFO is a big role in terms of the storytelling part. Yeah. Because you have so much data anyway. Yeah. Yes, you can leave it at IR team to think about the messaging, but you're at the forefront of that. So for me, when I was, you know, at 17, couple, I was involved with a lot of IR topics. For example, supporting the AGM process, supporting the pitch books, writing parts of the GPM with founders. So being involved at that kind of messaging side and communication side has really helped me think about what data do I need to put the message back to investors. Okay. So let's, I'm really, this is another kind of obsession of mine at the moment and let's kind of turn down that avenue now onto that LP communications, investment, relationship side of thing. Because I think I was reading an article actually the other day and it was, it's aimed at CFOs, but of not private markets, a bit more generic. And it was saying, particularly for listed businesses, right? So many more CEOs were previously CFOs. And the story had looked into the commonalities that a CFO come to EO has. And the key things that they could find was it was a CFOs who owns the tech and the CFOs who owns the investor relations piece. And I talked so many CFOs now and talk about the tech piece and they are really owning it, that's become fairly default within other capital fans. But I'm really interested in CFOs that look at that LP side of things. Because I often, you are at the first point of contact post-rave. So then I said, well, why aren't you more involved in the race? But I'm right in thinking that it's clear at you, you are taking on more of a business role. Yeah. I was at CFOs, I also involved in the fund race as well. Okay. So typically when you're doing operational due diligence or you're onboarding that investor, there may be other questions around the LP, for example. So again, you're involved anyway. Here at Claret, what I'm doing is more on the fund raising side itself. So I actually pitching to investors. Yeah. Speaking to existing investors as well, I'm giving them updates on Claret, for example. So now I'm getting more involved. That's probably my stretch as well, which I was looking for, to be more involved with that kind of front end or the front office side. I'm actually going out and speaking to investors and new investors and seeing that part of business as well. CFOs get involved with every other aspect they're on, but not the beginning bit. So for me, that was a missing piece of my experience. Yeah. I was doing some of that indirectly by being involved with the documentation side at 17. But here at Claret, I'm actually more out there. Okay. I don't think that's many CFOs do that. Yeah. And it's not a comfortable situation or place to be because you're not always, I would say, out there typically. Yeah. But as CFOs, we're always building relationships indirectly anyway. So all you're doing here is just representing your firm. You've got all the knowledge of the business. You've got all the knowledge of the numbers. You know how the back office works, middle office works. You may not know all your deals because that's not really your area of expertise, but at least you can bring in one of your investment team members to help you in that conversation. That's what we have done in the last six months. We have been involved with discussion with investors. I've always had somebody either a managing partner or a deal person with me. And that helps just break down the barriers sometimes of some of the numbers or the questions I may have from under LPA or one of it is I should know and therefore you know, it helps because once the investor typically found they'll have most interaction with the middle of back office anyway. That's reporting or Kebble calls the distributions. So why not add out set? Yeah. So for me, it's a natural journey I have taken. Yeah. And I'm sure CFOs and CFOs out there will also do that next step as well. Yeah. I'm convinced of it. I just, you know, particularly given the current environment, it seems to me that from the get go, those initial conversations need to get really well and really into the numbers very quickly. So you know, you mentioned, this is the first time you're doing it, you're six months in, how has it gone, how have you found it? I'm really enjoying it. Okay. It's really good fun actually. Yeah. That's hard to business is it's hard. Yeah. It's challenging. Fun raising is not easy. No. I was told anyway from a lot of people in IR, no, it's a very difficult environment and I'm seeing it for myself. When I'm speaking to investors or potential investors, I'm trying to pitch or I'm trying to hustle at a conference, for example, it's hard. Yeah. It's enjoyable as well. Yeah. When you see an investor coming to you, you're new fund because you were part of that conversation. Yeah. That's, yeah, it's a big cutoff. Yeah. The rewards are amazing. Yeah. And then obviously there's a lot of work to be done anywhere after that because you have to represent your firm and you're going to make sure you're delivering on what you said to them. But it's, it's, I would say a lot of fun. And I'm really enjoying what I'm doing because there's a lot of variety in my role. Yes. It's very, very good team behind me as well. To support the initiatives and the ambition of the business. But yeah, I do it for me to just help the business, help the firm. And if I can do that in a very meaningful way across the business, not just in terms of finance or operations or tech and again, what would HR, marketing, how you message things to investors and really being out there representing the firm, even better. I love it. And what are you, what are you picking up in terms of LPs and terms of their expectations? You know, we were kind of in our fourth year and have a continually tough environment for the industry. What are you picking up from them? Like how, yeah, what is it that they want? I think they want two things. One, just because in the environment we're in, where M&A has been very, very low or little activity. So they're looking at DPI. How much money have you sent back? We're spending a lot of time in terms of how we articulate that really well to them because that's our strategy. That's what we do. We have our learn time at eyes. So we get a lot of money coming back. We aim to get that back to investors very quickly. So our DPI is very good. So we can, if you can articulate that great. Two, they look at reporting in terms of what data they can collect from us and how much they can gather from a cloud, for example. So for us, it's how do we meaningfully make sure our systems and processes can cater for that as well. So it's not just a quarterly account. They have a lot of other silat obligations, for example. A lot of monitoring that they need to do internally themselves on cloud and our investments. So this thing about the quality information and how timely we can provide that information back to them. I'm still surprised. Even in today's environment, we're still reporting to investors, probably 45 days, six days. That's unheard of in non-profit market environments. I've come from a listed environment where we used to produce accounts, draft accounts within three days, every month and report back to shoulders within 10. In this environment, with industry, we're still reporting to investors within 60 days, or 120 or 90 days for year ends. That's changing. You see other big firms doing more daily pricing or thinking of daily pricing and obviously edge funds do that anyway. I think the market's going in a way that reporting this to be a lot more quicker and more slick into the production. There's a lot more emphasis on getting information back to investors, not more quicker than it currently is. Absolutely. I think that really is the emerging frontier for the industry. Every development and evolution that's going on right now, but clearly the big catalyst being non-institutional capital coming in and leveling up to public equities is that speed on reporting, speed on valuations. What's your take? Do you think we can get there? How quickly do you think it will happen? Do you think it's inevitable? Yeah. I think it's going to happen. Making sure there's enough appetite for mouthpiece, which is the way there is enough appetite internally within your firm, which they should be. If those two align, then everyone else will fall into shape. If you have fun admin, they'll have to deliver on that basis as well. If you have any third party software or systems or processes, again, they'll have to fall in place as well. You'll be driven by investors and be driven by internally by ourselves. Yes, so I just stick on it. The valuations point in private markets is the real tough not to crack, right? From my very limited outside knowledge and what I see, whilst you've got LP's wanting, fast to turn around on the reporting, that hits up against LP's also wanting very robust valuation processes. Sure. And I think many of the credit funds I speak to, they need third party marks on a lot of their big swathes of their portfolio, which is just naturally is a very cumbersome lengthy process. So how do you think we can square away those two competing demands? It's hard. It's making sure you have a good dialogue with LPs. How important is, well, really rewind. Obviously, valuation is very important, for sure. It needs to be robust, it needs to be governed and it's be auditable for sure. But the inflation is available. It just needs to be put into place for a process that's a lot more slick than it is today. And therefore, you should be able to based on your internal processes and also hopefully you have good assay days with your third party firms that you can bring down the timeline. Still, we're not accurate. That's 100%. But timelines should be reduced. I'm not saying we go from 60 to 45 to 30. It's more how do you report quicker? That makes it still meaningful for investors because they also have to report internally to their own ICs or own boards in terms of performance of your fund, your firm, so that I know community too. It's trying to get a right balance between two. It's always hard. But it's a constant dialogue with your investors. Yeah. And to make sure they know how you're producing it first of all and two, they know that their own internal passions are communicated to you as well. Okay. Yeah, I love that. It sounds like everyone moving in lockstep, your investors, the fund manager and your advisors kind of regressing together on the job. Yeah. And plus, obviously, it depends on the products you have in your fund. So if you have like a semi-liquid product versus a closure product versus open, you know, a fund, for example, it varies and you need to be able to be adapted to that, which is even more harder with systems and processes because every fund that looks different will have different requirements. Like, for example, LTIF program will be different from a levered program to an unleaved program to a rated no feeder to every green funds. They all will have different requirements and different ways of reporting. LPs just need to be cognizant of that. Same as us as fund managers and CFS and CEOs. It's just trying to get a right balance. And have that constant dialogue between yourselves and your own piece. Yeah. That's ultimately where we'll go as an industry for sure. Yeah. That's nice thing. Right. So, I think we'll take another turn of the wheel. You've mentioned, well, I mean, a common thread running through this conversation is, you know, dialogue, relationships, open communication. But particularly when we were talking about tech, you know, it sounds, it's already becoming clear that to you, it's really about how this is impacting people. Sure. People at the end of the day, right? And, you know, this is a common, I think, you know, well agreed in the industry, you can have all the most amazing tech, but it's the people. Is the human oversight? Is the people, the culture and the people understand what's been produced is what you're expecting? Yeah. That's hard. That's hard in itself. Right. So, what's your approach? How do you do it? For me, it obviously is based on experience. Is what's been produced? Is it delivering the right or self-results? Is it, from my perspective, I got feel sense check of the numbers. Is it what I'm expecting to be seen? Can I articulate that back to the business that was being produced? So, it's trying to get the right balance between the two. Where I feel for the kind of next generation or the kind of people coming into the industry and I'm not sure of AI, not going for lessons to learn, not going for judgment piece, not going for the experience of making mistakes. That's hard because I lost them, you know, the wise questions, the why questions and the how questions. How has this been produced? And what is it with it's sending us and why it's sending us this? That's the question to myself, I'm asking, you know, how do I make sure the next generation fulfills their experience in a good way as what I've received and not have that shock of AI only because that's always going to tell a number, what is going to give out a number that may not always be correct. AI is not going to give you 100% results always. It may take few iterations to get it to the right result, but the first stab at it will be probably incorrect. Yes. And then what's your take? So I've got a couple of CFOs who have already mandated that junior analysts can't use AI on certain tasks and they have to do things manually. Where are you on doing that kind of, you know, being quite arbitrary like that? Yeah, I'm not that fixed on that too much. I would say let everyone experiment in our firm, make sure everyone understands the pros and cons of it and the limitations behind it and spend time on reverse engineering that number order results if they can. So if they can, if they produce a model great, receive, you can put an Excel as well yourself to build up an Excel yourself and see if that gives rise to all because as a analyst, you're still learning your trade. So you want to make sure you learn your trade in the old fashion way as well as the new way as well. Yeah. I'm sure in two, three years time, we'll probably be sitting back and say actually this is the right way of doing it now. For me, I'm not there yet and I still want to have that reverse engineered version to make sure we're giving the right results. Yeah, and with you, I think, yeah, there's still a, you, because you know what you know and you're comfortable with with what you know and how, you know, anyone in the senior position how you got to that place. So of course, the knee jack reaction is you've got to go through the same learning, but if these new tools and new ways of working are completely ubiquitous, then there's a different type of training. I imagine. Yeah. But a good thing is, you know, there's some examples of what you can do with AI that's going to give you the right results hopefully, not just in that particular way, accurately. So for example, David, one of our magic partners asked me to have a look at the people attending super return. There's about 2,000 people attending super return plus and who we should speak to different us 2,000 people who should at least target to speak to. So we just put that into your co-pilot, we put it into your Claude and say look at the firm list of people who should we be speaking to your investors first of all in private credit to they have an interest in venture debt reflending and then put that list together in a word document that's got photos, their names, their companies, anything about them that we can mention that's publicly available. So I'm ever to take it over there's an invention that I've graphed at within 10 minutes, Claude produced a four page document, 20 investors, here you go, this is a issue, speed 2. That would have taken an analyst or somebody else three, two days at the very very least to go for that list and actually digest it. So there's some really easy wins for sure or like a few days ago we had an offsite, we just put some notes into Claude of what we want to talk about and then within that, those are produced a offsite kind of presentation. So that would have taken probably a day or two of thinking time and presenting it and no, the formatting of that, those slides, Claude and that, very, very good. So things like that, I think it's really easy wins for sure. What is analyzing documents like LPAs or sub letters or so there's a really easy wins in that sense. But it still goes on to making sure you review because as people we still make sure what's been produced is correct. And with you, I think that's going to be the hardest discipline because when mammals were inherently lazy and so if the documents produce it looks okay to then force yourself to sit down and spend the time to really go over it or you could just see if you can go. Yeah. Yeah. But if I think back to how you work and especially in finance, we probably If you look at under percent, I think 90%, maybe even 80% is the time of producing. We probably spend 10% or less on reviewing insights, judgment. What does it mean to us? We don't have that much time to review and understand and articulate that back to business, because we've spent so much time in producing. So now these tools are available to us. I think that percentage will come down. Our 90% will become maybe 70%. So we have more time to review, more time to understand, more time to give us insights. What does this mean? How can we use a stator? We're going to use this stator. How do we articulate this back to the business? So I think it's going to be a game changer, that sense, game changer, in that sense as well. We'll have more time to think about these topics. I mean, today, for example, most board meetings I'm going to, I'm listing the documents, probably two or three days before the board meeting. Sometimes in 100 pages long. So you have 40 pages of reporting, then you have a A from report, you have a deposit report, you have RC report, because you're Luxembourg based funds. So you don't have much time to review. But the production took 45 days, maybe 50 days. And then you're giving me as a Luxembourg manager, probably two or three days to review. So hopefully, long term, that production cycle will come down, such that we do have more time to review, analyze. What does it mean, the judgment side of it, which I think is going to really, really help us for show going forward. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I love that. That's such a great perspective and way to look at it that, yeah, the doing parts done. It's the bit that comes after that we can really focus on. And not many people, yeah. I was going to say, not many people want to spend too much time on production. I didn't become an accountant to just produce. I've become an accountant because I want to understand and think about what does this actually mean. What a variance analysis telling me, where are we spending money? That we shouldn't be spending money. And is it actually adding value, etc, etc. So that's where I want to spend more time on. And now I can do that, hopefully, with these tools available to us. Genuinely be strategic. 100%. Yeah. Okay. Talking about being strategic, I think one thing that's always really interesting to talk to to guess on this podcast is in their progression to their leadership roles. And it's all too common. There's not just for CFOs and not just in our industry, but you can be, you're obviously really technically proficient and you're good at the thing that you've done every day. And then suddenly you find yourself in a leadership position, management position. And the skills that you need there are very different. Talk to me about that step for you into a senior management leadership role, how you did it and how you able to do it successfully. I think it's a common notion of being an environment where you can learn and make mistakes and learn and do some really good work as well. So for me, it's just being part of an environment where it gives you that opportunity for sure. And I was fortunate of being at 17 capital. I was able to do that really well. I had a really good kind of leadership program or leadership team as well behind me to support me in my own growth and also help me be part of different parts of business as well. In that sense, giving that empowerment is really key, but it's 5550. So IE 50% from the company giving to you and 50% you go to make yourself as well. And therefore it's a partnership approach. So IE, you have to go and get things done. You have to go and push. But also the tools and the support and the resources need to be there from the business as well to you. It's kind of a, for me, it's our partnership model that has to work and make sure it has to case. And I think what really helped me get to today is a mixture of my peer group and a mixture of coaching as well. I think without those two, I think I'll probably wouldn't be who I'm today. Obviously alongside all the good stuff we've done over time, until the experience and knowledge and lessons learned, but those two things I've really helped me as well. Just to understand, what other peers in the industry have done as well in terms of a CFO and CFO is what they've done in terms of getting those positions. Also coaching, I wouldn't understand the value of coaching is so, so important. As that's really helped me in terms of just understanding some of the challenges down facing, some of the conflicts that may have come through or some of the strength I should play more of. And with that's presenting, with that's involved in writing skills or just being available to your team and how you communicate those kind of softer side. And not the technical side, that should be a given. Yes. There's more the softer skills, dilant along the way. That was really, really beneficial for me. Yeah. And so please, you said both of those things. I mean, because obviously they're lying, the whole principle is bringing people together and facilitating those relationships. Other standards. Right. And because there's an absolute understanding of how beneficial that is to individuals and then to their firms, but something that's since setting this up that's really become apparent is it goes hand in hand with that coaching piece. And it's been so interesting to see how focused people are in the community, are on career progression and how under that understanding is growing around coaching. And so I've had a few coaches on the podcast and work with them regularly. Because yeah, I don't think we talk about it openly enough. And so I love that you've brought it up and you credit your success to it. For sure. Yeah, give me some more specifics on it. Like, I don't know, was it around people management or dealing with stress or communication? What have been the key things that came out of coaching for you? Yeah. I think for me, it's just getting the right balance between the responsibilities you have to the founders of business, also the responsibility you have to your team as well. And also within that, it's making sure you have a good balance as well in terms of your own work, life balance. Because otherwise it can take over your life work. So you need to have that balance between the two and how do you do that? So is this working for you? Those topics that was really helpful. Founders will obviously want to push you, which is great. And your team will want to push you as well, which is even greater. That comes in a point of time where it's only you. You don't only find a strike to see if you're the only person there. And the challenges of those two is really, really difficult. So having a coach just really helped me walk me through the two kind of parallels. Yeah. Also, making sure you're getting enough time to down to support yourself as well. That meant the health side of it is really, really important. So now I deal with going to gym or playing some golf. We're just getting out away from the office environment sometimes and just down to lean yourself and really spending time with family. What of it is to get a balance right? Because I was probably going that way. I was probably too focused on work, which is good. But it comes a time where you need to also support yourself as well. So for me, that was really important to make sure there's good balance. And that's probably one example of where it helped me a lot in terms of getting a balance right, which it was probably not the way I should have been. Okay. Thank you for that. That is great. So one final question then. Sure. You know, given everything that you've embarked on and succeeded within your career, everything you've seen, what would your advice be to younger aspiring CFOs or any kind of oppressing professional in this industry? Yeah. I've been as pretty few. Advices I would give. One is absolutely know your business. So I understand not just your lane, IE your finance function, but also understand what I are team are doing and how they're doing it. Understand what the deal team are doing or how they're doing it. If you have dedicated HR teams and marketing teams or legal teams, understand their functions and their operations and their challenges. Because ultimately you're the glue that brings all together. You're the only one that will have knowledge of all those areas of the business. And you want to make sure that you're part of that business in that sense to absolutely go out and make real ships. So whether that's with other CFOs in the same industry as you or same masterclass or actually probably even better different ones because they'll have some different perspective of doing things. Free get a coach. Yeah. It's really important to get balanced right between the technical side and the softer side for sure. For, goes back to my philosophy of making things happen. Don't wait round. Your gut feeling will tell you or your gut will tell you where it's right or wrong and then follow that piece for sure. But you just go out and get done. But ultimately enjoy it. It's such a fantastic job we're in. We're such a privileged position we're in. I really want people to understand that it's such a cool place to be in your role because it's such a fantastic opportunity you have to make it even better than it currently is. It's tough that's going on going into what we're doing in a really good way. So enjoy it. There's so much to do to get out of it. Love that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more on the fun side. That's my ultimate focus. And it should be. And it should be. I mean, we all work really hard. Enjoy it as well. Yeah. There's so much more to do what we do and enjoy along the way. Well, I have hugely enjoyed this conversation. Are you welcome? Thank you so much. So much wisdom. So many wonderful pearls and nuggets of information. It's been such a rich and very conversation. So thank you very much. Oh, thank you. And thank you for listening. (upbeat music)