Jared Poff

Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Chief Administrative Officer, DESIGNER BRANDS INC

Jared Poff, CFO, Designer Brands (Episode 871)

🎥 Feb 09, 2023 📺 CFO THOUGHT LEADER ⏱ 3m 👁 84 views

Effective storytelling helps business leaders gain the management leeway required to execute complex strategies and ...

About Jared Poff

Jared Poff, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer at Designer Brands, discussed his approach to financial communication in two September 2023 appearances. Poff said that a former CEO advised him to stop bringing a binder of numbers to board meetings and to avoid quoting specific figures when presenting, telling him that a CFO should focus on storytelling rather than data. Poff described this as a "pivot" that distinguished an operational finance executive from a senior CFO, adding that because most of the business is not numbers-oriented, he aims to convince and move people by explaining the impact of numbers through narrative. He noted that his monthly and quarterly presentations are well-received internally and that he uses references to 1980s movies or songs to make financial stories more engaging. In a separate discussion about investor communications, Poff reflected on the challenge of providing the right level of detail at investor days. He said that what is clear to someone inside the business is often not obvious to an outside observer with fragmented attention. Poff credited Edelman Smithfield with helping him assess whether to offer more or less detail, and he emphasized the importance of acknowledging that internal clarity does not automatically translate to external understanding.

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Transcript (2 segments)

Interviewer0:00

And detect what was coming, whether it was a risk or an opportunity, and respond to it. What comes to mind when we ask for a finance strategic moment?

Jared Poff0:12

Yeah, you know, it's funny. One, when we were having our pre-discussion, you kept using the word 'storytelling,' and then two, you just used the word 'looked into the numbers.' I will tell you, when I think of the finance strategic moment for me, it was more around the difference between being the CFO versus even being an SVP of Finance, where you're still very much in the operational piece of running a finance department. You're the controller, you're the treasurer. I remember when I got the interim role, I had this massively huge binder which I had memorized inside and out, but it was huge because I was going to my first board meeting. I had no idea what I was going to be asked, so I knew every number, I was able to flip to wherever. We're coming back from that meeting and the CEO tells me, he says, 'I never want you to bring that binder anywhere again. So if you need it, find a technological solution, but I don't want to see that. You're not showing up the way that a senior CFO should.' And then he told me, 'And I don't want you using a number when you're presenting. If a CFO is using numbers, they are not telling the story. He goes, 'You've got people who tell the numbers. I need a partner, I need an executive who's going to be storytelling. They're going to wrap around what this means financially for the business, but to 90% of the business, they don't understand the numbers anyway. But they need to understand the impact of the numbers.' So I said, 'You want me to be a CFO and never quote a number when I'm talking?' And he said, 'Absolutely, that is what I count as success.' And it really was a pivot for me when I said that is the difference between being an operational finance executive and being a senior CFO executive. You really are trying to convince people, you're trying to assure people, you're trying to make them move in the direction you need them to, and when 90% of them are not numbers-oriented people, you're not going to do that with a number. So I would tell you, I think if you were to ask anyone inside of Designer Brands when I give my monthly presentations to leadership or my quarterly presentations with the whole company, they actually look forward to it. I've got a little gimmick where I always tie something back to an 80s movie or an 80s song, that's just a decade I loved, and that's always a connection I have. But it can tell a financial story without scaring them with a number. That was it. It's way more about storytelling and influencing once you're a CFO than it is about seeing a number and trying to get people to appreciate that number.