Most Important Skills for a Strategic Finance Manager at DoorDash
A Manager (Strategy & Finance) at DoorDash prioritizes three key skills: proficiency in "operational modeling," using tools like Google Sheets to "illustrate various scenarios," and the ability to identify trends within large datasets to formulate a clear thesis. Equally crucial is effective teamwork and communication with "multiple stakeholders," including product managers and engineers, to navigate evolving business needs.
Financial Modeling, Data Analysis, Teamwork, Communication, Strategic Thinking
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Justine Lee
Manager (Strategy & Finance)
DoorDash
University of Pennsylvania, Wharton, 2016
N/A
Economics
Technology
Finance
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. Financial Modeling: Proficiency in financial modeling, particularly operational modeling, is crucial. This involves using tools like Excel or Google Sheets to build models that forecast outcomes and illustrate different scenarios. Examples include cohort and retention models to understand customer behavior.
2. Trend Identification: The ability to analyze large datasets, identify trends, and synthesize information into a clear thesis is vital. This involves distilling complex data from various sources (dashboards, advertising spend, wait times) to pinpoint key issues or opportunities.
3. Teamwork and Communication: Effective collaboration with multiple stakeholders (finance team, product managers, operations, engineering) is essential. This includes clear communication of expectations, needs, and maintaining ongoing dialogue as business needs evolve.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
Here's the cleaned transcript:
I'll give you the short version and then go into more detail about each point. Financial modeling is very important in a finance role, especially in strategic finance. The ability to identify trends or trend breaks in the numbers or data is also key. Finally, the ability to work well in a team is crucial.
I'll break down those three skills. First, financial modeling. I do a lot more operational models at DoorDash. Typically, financial modeling relates to dollars, budgets, or financial forecasts. Operational modeling, on the other hand, involves things like cohort or retention models.
For example, if you acquire 100 consumers a month and see 10% churn each month, what does that look like at the end of the year? I classify that as operational modeling. For both types, you need to be comfortable with Excel, though at DoorDash I actually use Google Sheets. Forecasting is also important, as is illustrating various scenarios with numbers to show a clear picture.
The second skill is the ability to identify trends or trend breaks. At DoorDash, you have access to a lot of data, and these models should help tell the story within that data. We also have various dashboards covering everything from advertising spend to average wait times in Seattle.
It's important to distill this data into a clear thesis. You need to synthesize what you know about the business and tangential trends or knowledge to identify issues or opportunities. This leads to questions like: Should we dig deeper into this? Should we solve this? Is this a problem?
The last skill is the ability to work with a team or multiple stakeholders. I work with other finance team members, product managers overseeing experiments, and people in operations and engineering. It's about clearly communicating expectations, needs, and understanding what your stakeholders require from you. This includes maintaining communication as things change and business needs develop.
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