Beyond the Numbers: Darrell Cox on Revenue-Connected FP&A

 

The interview features Darrell Cox, a veteran finance professional who has guided some of Canada's fastest growing tech companies, discussing his philosophy on finance leadership and the solutions offered by Una Software, where he currently serves. Darrell notes that a consistent theme throughout his career, working at big and small growth-oriented companies, has been the imperative to "push the limits". This drive is manifested in his focus on the data side, where he frequently built custom databases to collect crucial non-financial data, married it with financial data, and used the resulting insights to drive and measure performance. He finds this FP&A-focused work, pushing beyond traditional financing, to be the aspect of his career that has "really added a lot of value" and makes him feel most proud.

This long-standing challenge of integrating operational and financial data led directly to his excitement about Una Software. Darrell explained that previous FP&A tools often required costly, custom IT solutions and external databases to connect detailed revenue data to financial results. Una, however, is specifically designed to solve this problem by providing a revenue-connected and operationally connected planning approach, enabling powerful forecasting and budgeting that allows users to "see around corners" by leveraging actual sales data rather than just invoice data from the financial system. Una targets mid-market companies, defined roughly as those with revenues from $50 million to $500 million, appealing specifically to those struggling to connect their financial and non-financial data without the excessive cost and complexity of high-end CPM solutions like Oracle or Cognos. Darrell contends that the ability of modern software to reduce implementation costs and time to value significantly lowers the risk and improves the ROI of moving away from fragmented tools like Excel, which is still used by 70% of customers despite its well-known flaws.

As a CFO, Darrell's playbook for scaling a business involves building a robust foundation, often focusing on the FP&A function, to support scale. When entering a new role, he prioritizes areas for the highest impact, which often involves enhancing communication with the board, developing stronger KPI reporting, and building agile budget/forecast models that incorporate more data to ensure team alignment. He stressed that the budget and forecast process is primarily designed to "align the team" towards shared objectives. When analyzing data, he advises finance professionals to speak the language of the operational teams they support and provide ideas on levers they can influence, rather than simply pointing out cost overruns. In terms of data quality, he offers a pragmatic view: finance people should not insist on 100% accuracy in areas like sales and marketing data, as 80% accuracy can still yield highly valuable insights that drive action. This detailed data analysis is critical, especially when calculating SaaS KPIs like LTV to CAC; drilling down to customer cohort levels is necessary to avoid mismatching acquisition costs and revenue streams, potentially revealing unexpected profitability or illuminating highly productive channels.

Darrell views the modern CFO as a "storyteller" who must "collect all your data, sift through it, organize it, [and] find the patterns". The communication of this story requires art, distilling complex metrics into a few important, positively framed points that resonate with the specific audience, whether internal teams, the board, or investors. The core of effective storytelling is aligning with the company's and the individual stakeholder's objectives, aiming to help them "get there faster" or even help them achieve their bonus. Looking forward, Darrell suggests the CFO is evolving into a "Chief Metrics Officer," who masters all metrics, drives performance, and balances the essential task of mitigating risk with focusing on performance maximization. His personal "secret sauce" for success is embracing "the struggle"—always pushing hard, maintaining creativity, and maximizing technology to attempt things others deem too difficult. He sees the current landscape, rife with technological innovation like AI and new CPM tools, paralleling historical periods of rapid development, reinforcing the importance of continuous learning and pushing limits.

Chapter Summary

(00:01:03) CFO Background and Data Focus: Darrell shares his career theme: leading growth companies by consistently "push[ing] the limits" on data. He integrates non-financial data with financial data into the FP&A function to drive performance, which he views as the most valuable aspect of his career.

(00:03:07) Una: Solving Data Integration: Una Software s