Matt Briers's guest appearances

Matt Briers

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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Wise are set to list this week, and on this episode of The City View, Andy Silvester talks tech with the firm's Chief Financial Officer, Matt Briers.  They touch on the firm's reasons for listing, the future of the fintech darling and how London can continue to thrive as a global hub for exciting, innovative companies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wise are set to list this week, and on this episode of The City View, Andy Silvester talks tech with the firm's Chief Financial Officer, Matt Briers.  They touch on the firm's reasons for listing, the future of the fintech darling and how London can continue to thrive as a global hub for exciting, innovative companies. See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

The City View with Wise's Matt Briers

Among the more transformative chapters of Matt Briers’s finance career was his 3-year stint monitoring and forecasting margin performance inside Google’s UK operations. “The core role was really to understand what was happening in the organization from a revenue and margin performance perspective and then help to operate the organization so that it could better drive that revenue,” explains Briers, who says that his responsibilities included an unyielding effort to expose new drivers of Google revenue “even down to keyword searches.” “My role was to provide a hotline back to product in Mountain View,” says Briers, who notes that UK customers are known to be among the most advanced users of Google’s advertising offerings, outpacing users in the U.S. and other markets by as much as 3 years. The insights gleaned by Briers and his team would become an important strategic voice for both sales and finance at Google and allowed Briers to add an impressive FP&amp;A chapter to a career that up until Google might have advanced in any number of directions. Still, his subsequent hire as CFO of TransferWise might have surprised certain finance career builders, given that Briers’s pre-Google career had largely involved consulting roles rather than traditional accounting or audit work. Today, Briers says, his consulting background has routinely informed his finance leadership as he helps TransferWise’s finance function to sharpen its customer focus and collaborate across the organization. Still, he admits that during his early days at TransferWise, his consulting past led him at times to too frequently focus on achieving “buy-in” across the organization. Eventually, he reports, “the two founders told me, ‘Stop trying to achieve consensus—make up your mind and get on with it!’” –Jack Sweeney Briers: In all my time in consulting, we spent a lot of time working with people driving mission statements, and I can't honestly tell you that I believed in it back then. But since joining TransferWise, it's kind of this slightly religious maniacal focus on mission, which runs deep, and it's pretty amazing. So my challenge is how do I help on this mission of pushing the product forward, such that we get faster, cheaper and easier, for a wide range of customers. The things I focus on:  Are we growing? Are we getting new users? Are they putting volume through TransferWise? We know we're being used and we know we're useful if customers are engaged. ... But when I say volume, the amount of money people are sending across borders,  I worry about those metrics. The second thing I worry about, is what's happening to price, so not just revenue, but price. Price times volume gives you revenue, but price isn't going down. Many CFOs might ask what is he talking about? Why does he worry about price and revenue going down? Surely you want to drive this up? Well, actually, no, because if we're going to be successful in the future, we know that we need to get cheaper over time. Because we believe it can be done and we believe it should be done and we can solve this problem of hidden fees. That's equal to $200 billion and it gets paid to banks. So I worry about price. - Jack Sweeney SUBSCRIBE

Among the more transformative chapters of Matt Briers’s finance career was his 3-year stint monitoring and forecasting margin performance inside Google’s UK operations. “The core role was really to understand what was happening in the organization from a revenue and margin performance perspective and then help to operate the organization so that it could better drive that revenue,” explains Briers, who says that his responsibilities included an unyielding effort to expose new drivers of Google revenue “even down to keyword searches.” “My role was to provide a hotline back to product in Mountain View,” says Briers, who notes that UK customers are known to be among the most advanced users of Google’s advertising offerings, outpacing users in the U.S. and other markets by as much as 3 years. The insights gleaned by Briers and his team would become an important strategic voice for both sales and finance at Google and allowed Briers to add an impressive FP&amp;A chapter to a career that up until Google might have advanced in any number of directions. Still, his subsequent hire as CFO of TransferWise might have surprised certain finance career builders, given that Briers’s pre-Google career had largely involved consulting roles rather than traditional accounting or audit work. Today, Briers says, his consulting background has routinely informed his finance leadership as he helps TransferWise’s finance function to sharpen its customer focus and collaborate across the organization. Still, he admits that during his early days at TransferWise, his consulting past led him at times to too frequently focus on achieving “buy-in” across the organization. Eventually, he reports, “the two founders told me, ‘Stop trying to achieve consensus—make up your mind and get on with it!’” –Jack Sweeney Briers: In all my time in consulting, we spent a lot of time working with people driving mission statements, and I can't honestly tell you that I believed in it back then. But since joining TransferWise, it's kind of this slightly religious maniacal focus on mission, which runs deep, and it's pretty amazing. So my challenge is how do I help on this mission of pushing the product forward, such that we get faster, cheaper and easier, for a wide range of customers. The things I focus on:  Are we growing? Are we getting new users? Are they putting volume through TransferWise? We know we're being used and we know we're useful if customers are engaged. ... But when I say volume, the amount of money people are sending across borders,  I worry about those metrics. The second thing I worry about, is what's happening to price, so not just revenue, but price. Price times volume gives you revenue, but price isn't going down. Many CFOs might ask what is he talking about? Why does he worry about price and revenue going down? Surely you want to drive this up? Well, actually, no, because if we're going to be successful in the future, we know that we need to get cheaper over time. Because we believe it can be done and we believe it should be done and we can solve this problem of hidden fees. That's equal to $200 billion and it gets paid to banks. So I worry about price. - Jack Sweeney <a href="app.monstercampaigns.com/c/kqhh57qyfo94v0vnovj5/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">SUBSCRIBE</a>

633:  Marching to Fintech's New Beat | Matt Briers, CFO, TransferWise

And here are the notes and links for this week’s episode:Zynga buys another Turkish gaming company  Zynga Enters Into Agreement to Acquire Istanbul-based Rollic, One of the Fastest Growing Hyper-Casual Mobile Game Companies (PR)  Zynga acquires hypercasual mobile company Rollic for $168m (GamesIndustry.biz)  Zynga is acquiring hypercasual mobile game firm Rollic for at least $168 million (Venturebeat) Uber buys the UK’s Autocab  Uber is buying a taxi software company to expand its foothold in the UK (CNBC)  Uber is buying its biggest rival in the UK (Engadget)  Uber to acquire Autocab in expansion partnership (Intelligent Transport) Northvolt riding the ‘momentum of electrification’  Battery developer Northvolt raises $US1.6 billion for two new gigafactories (The Driven)  Northvolt secures $1.6bn backing for twin battery gigafactories (PV Magazine) European Commission moves to investigate the Google/Fitbit deal  EU launches ‘in-depth’ probe of Google bid for Fitbit (Euractiv)  EU Regulators Open Investigation Into Google’s Fitbit Acquisition, Cleary Leads (Law.com)  Google-Fitbit takeover: EU launches full-scale probe (BBC News) 🎙 Matthew Briers, CFO of TransferWise

And here are the notes and links for this week’s episode:Zynga buys another Turkish gaming company<ul> <li> <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200805005030/en/Zynga-Enters-Agreement-Acquire-Istanbul-based-Rollic-Fastest" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zynga Enters Into Agreement to Acquire Istanbul-based Rollic, One of the Fastest Growing Hyper-Casual Mobile Game Companies</a> (PR)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-05-zynga-acquires-hypercasual-mobile-company-rollic-for-USD168m" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zynga acquires hypercasual mobile company Rollic for $168m</a> (<a href="http://GamesIndustry.biz" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GamesIndustry.biz</a>)</li> <li> <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/05/zynga-is-acquiring-hypercasual-mobile-game-firm-rollic-for-at-least-168-million/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zynga is acquiring hypercasual mobile game firm Rollic for at least $168 million</a> (Venturebeat)</li> </ul>Uber buys the UK’s Autocab<ul> <li> <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/uber-to-buy-uk-taxi-tech-firm-autocab.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Uber is buying a taxi software company to expand its foothold in the UK</a> (CNBC)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.engadget.com/uber-buys-autocab-uk-operations-taxi-085054177.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFSUQRvuyyKlaN-PA_TCI4HPyDlEEX8ft4UOajLEkMwv3xZJl89T_k4QtrJXNr9K68BUf740YjFj-TA4dEjN5-PkTrZbxdlGycA4IsNumDLbRV_Fc32sbvNnDH6RVdCLByIcz7s0nPjiTQkSoRdob6ZhpiUFMnwCF6WadV57ch_h" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Uber is buying its biggest rival in the UK</a> (Engadget)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/103710/uber-to-acquire-autocab-in-expansion-partnership/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Uber to acquire Autocab in expansion partnership</a> (Intelligent Transport)</li> </ul>Northvolt riding the ‘momentum of electrification’<ul> <li> <a href="https://thedriven.io/2020/07/31/battery-developer-northvolt-raises-us1-6-billion-for-two-new-gigafactories/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Battery developer Northvolt raises $US1.6 billion for two new gigafactories</a> (The Driven)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/07/29/northvolt-secures-1-6-billion-debt-financing-for-two-gigafactories/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Northvolt secures $1.6bn backing for twin battery gigafactories</a> (PV Magazine)</li> </ul>European Commission moves to investigate the Google/Fitbit deal<ul> <li> <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/competition/news/eu-launches-in-depth-probe-of-google-bid-for-fitbit/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">EU launches ‘in-depth’ probe of Google bid for Fitbit</a> (Euractiv)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.law.com/international-edition/2020/08/06/eu-regulators-open-investigation-into-googles-fitbit-acquisition-cleary-leads/?slreturn=20200712074709" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">EU Regulators Open Investigation Into Google’s Fitbit Acquisition, Cleary Leads</a> (<a href="http://Law.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Law.com</a>)</li> <li> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53647570" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google-Fitbit takeover: EU launches full-scale probe</a> (BBC News)</li> </ul>🎙 <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-briers-a321071/?originalSubdomain=uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Matthew Briers</a>, CFO of <a href="https://transferwise.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TransferWise </a>

We talk to Transferwise CFO Matt Briers, and about Zynga buying Rollic, Uber buying Autocab, Fitbit and more