There’s no one who knows a company’s inner workings like a chief financial officer. So, when three high-profile CFOs leave their jobs at richly valued, late-stage startups in quick succession, we notice it.
This week, OpenSea CFO Brian Roberts left the web3 company less than a year after taking the job. Days later, Brex CFO Adam Swiecicki left the expense management company to join Rippling, another company that recently expanded into the expense management space. The shuffle came on the heels of Brex announcing it had to slash 11% of staff. (Its former CFO, who stepped down so Swiecicki could take the helm, is back in his original position).
“The first person who is going to know if it’s possible to grow into these valuations is the CFO.” Continuum CEO Nolan Church
But that’s not all. Noom, a diet and health coaching platform, confirmed that its CFO, Mike Noonan, is leaving the job two years after joining, hours before TechCrunch learned that the company was executing a round of layoffs.
While the CFO departures are reportedly unrelated to the layoffs, is anything ever that simple? After all, layoffs were a result of needing to strengthen financials ahead of an uncertain market, quite literally the job of a chief financial officer.