Today, the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is steadily expanding beyond the finance function, an evolution that also highlights the indispensable hub role that finance plays within an organization. For newly appointed Finzly CFO Adam Carson, "finance is by no means a passive or secondary function," he told CFO Dive, "but rather a driving partner that moves forward alongside the business."

Carson is the first financial chief of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company, and his appointment took effect earlier this month. According to a press release issued on July 17, this move comes as Finzly seeks to further expand its operations and broaden its market reach. Alongside Carson, the company also appointed Robert Coakley as head of partnerships. The company provides payment infrastructure for financial institutions, supporting payment channels such as ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, and real-time payments.

In his first few months as financial chief, Carson has focused on ensuring that the finance function can strongly support Finzly's strategic expansion goals. He said that for any new CFO—whether the company's first or a successor—the primary task is to assess whether the enterprise is effectively positioned for future growth. "You need to evaluate the existing people, technology, partnerships, and processes," he said in an interview.

"What you are ultimately seeking is: how do you get from the current state to the future state required by the corporate strategy, and how does finance contribute to that rate of growth?" Carson said.

Building a culture of "interconnectedness"

As a veteran of the software industry, Carson was drawn to Finzly's top finance seat not only by the company's past successes—its clients include financial institutions such as Arvest, Banc of California, and EverBank—but also by its future growth potential. His background aligns closely with the ambitions of Finzly founder and CEO Booshan Rengachari "in terms of the company's direction," he said when discussing his assumption of the role.

Carson's past experience in the software sector includes roles at Intuit, Barracuda Networks, and Cyence. According to his LinkedIn profile, he most recently served as CFO of Movista, a private equity-backed SaaS company. During his tenure as vice president of finance and investor relations at Barracuda, Carson helped the cybersecurity vendor complete its initial public offering in 2013, after which the company was acquired by Thoma Bravo for $1.6 billion in 2017, according to reports from Reuters and Dark Reading at the time.

After becoming Finzly's CFO, Carson's primary task is to help the company continue to "evolve, grow, and scale," he said, noting that the company's processes and customer orientation are "very solid."

However, in terms of "delivering insights at speed and scale," Carson believes "there are a few areas that need strengthening." This means taking a close look at how the company's teams communicate—ensuring they get the details they need from the finance department to effectively achieve their respective goals.

As the head of finance, "I have the opportunity to work directly or indirectly with every employee in the company, because their day-to-day work, the way they deliver for customers, and the decisions they make ultimately show up in the financial numbers," he said.

"I want to create a culture where that cohesion and interconnectedness truly become part of everything we do, because people are already operating that way—I just want to help them with financial information so they can see the bigger picture more transparently," Carson said.

Preparing for long-term growth

Carson joins the banking payment infrastructure provider as the company plans further expansion—its strategic focus remains on striving to become "one of the key platforms for the future bank," he said.

Among other recent initiatives, Finzly has helped its client banks adapt to the new ISO 20022 standard—an international protocol for exchanging electronic messages between financial institutions—which was implemented by the Federal Reserve ahead of the July 14 deadline, according to a company press release.

Over the past few years, the company has also reported rapid growth, noting a 400% surge in payment platform transaction volume and a doubling of revenue from 2022 to 2023, according to company releases. In 2023, the company also completed a $10 million Series A funding round led by TZP Group, as Banking Dive reported at the time.

The company's liquidity is currently not a major concern for Carson, he said, noting that funding and liquidity always depend on corporate strategy. For now, the financial chief plans to ensure the company continues to deliver products successfully to customers, which means meeting the eternal challenge of the CFO role—setting long-term goals while "trying to minimize execution risk at the same time," he said.

"When you balance those two, you have to answer with extreme clarity: 'Why are we doing this? What value does it bring us in the long term? And how can we better serve our employees and customers?'" Carson said.