A Day in the Life of a Chief of Staff Finance at PagerDuty
A Chief of Staff in Finance at PagerDuty begins each day meticulously organizing tasks and reviewing the CFO's calendar to ensure timely preparation and support. The role then involves managing numerous cross-functional projects, preparing meeting materials, tracking key financial metrics, and conducting financial analysis to "make sure we always have a good pulse on our metrics," ultimately contributing significantly to the company's financial health.
Project Management, Data Analysis, Communication, Executive/Leadership, Financial Analysis
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Andrew La Follette
Chief of Staff, Finance
PagerDuty
University of Arizona, 2012
UCLA MBA
Political Science, American Studies
Technology
Finance
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Transfer Student
Video Highlights
1. A Chief of Staff in Finance needs to be highly organized, prioritizing tasks across multiple projects and meetings.
2. The role involves preparing for meetings, including agendas and content, often coordinating with various VPs and leadership.
3. A significant part of the job is tracking key financial metrics and performing financial analysis, requiring written communication of insights.
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a chief of staff or finance look like?
The number one thing you need to start with is organizing what you need to accomplish that day, that week, and even that month. As a chief of staff, so many things need to happen, and you're pulled in so many directions, so you need to ensure you're organized.
I start the day by looking at my spreadsheet of to-do items. These relate to each of the projects and tasks I'm assigned to. This helps me make sure I'm not missing anything and that I'm prioritizing things, so I can get them done in a timely manner.
I also review the CFO's calendar to ensure he's covered for his meetings. I make sure he's prepped for anything he needs and that any outstanding items he's requested are handled in a timely manner.
The majority of my day is then spent taking action on those to-do list items. A lot of this involves preparing content and agendas for our numerous meetings. These can be with the core leadership group of the CFO org or with various VPs across the company. I organize all these different types of meetings, which takes a good chunk of my time.
In addition, I work on many of those cross-functional projects I manage. It's not just one project; I'll be working on multiple projects simultaneously. I need to balance my time between them throughout my days, or however many I have.
I also keep an eye on our metrics and how we're progressing as a company on our key financials. I run the process for tracking these key financials as well. Ensuring we always have a good pulse on our metrics is really key to running a business.
Finally, there's always some sort of written component to my job. As I mentioned before, I have to do financial analysis and write out the insights. So, there's a bit of that in my day as well. That kind of wraps it up; it's a pretty full day.