She starts with tape from the field, not the spreadsheet. Listening to enterprise sales calls, Amy Foo heard customers whose usage rose and fell with seasons. Fixed per-seat pricing “wasn’t quite hitting the mark,” she tells us, so she piloted a pooled-seat model that flexed monthly within an annual commitment—turning smaller clips into “one to five million” deals and lifting revenue “six to seven times per customer,” she tells us.
That instinct—to meet the customer where they are—threads through her journey. Early at Zendesk, she was “employee number one in the region,” handling FP&A, accounting, taxes, and team-building as the business scaled, she tells us. Trust won her a dual path: SVP of Global Finance Operations (deal desk, billings, shared services) and APAC managing director, aligning teams across seven countries, she tells us. Mentors’ unvarnished feedback helped her shed imposter syndrome and lead without geographic ceilings.
Today at Ignition, she reduces complexity to a few levers—ARR, payments volume, cash flow—and aligns accordingly, she tells us. She monitors top-of-funnel quality and pipeline coverage daily to steer marketing spend and sales motions, she tells us. On pricing, she watches what customers pay and repackages value by segment, she tells us. She leads with customer insight, she tells us.
As for AI, she calls it “not a magic pill,” advocating first for AI built into existing vendors, then new tools where capabilities are missing, she tells us. Finance, after all, is “about narrative and conviction”—numbers that move people to act, she tells us.
Made Possible By
CFOTL: You stepped into the CFO role at Ignition at the start of this year. What was the opportunity you saw, and can you tell us about the company?
Foo: Ignition is a SaaS and payments platform for accountants, bookkeepers, and professional services firms. As a CFO, I’ve lived the reality of spending too much time chasing invoices, reconciling payments, and managing complex revenue cycles—time that could be better spent on value-added work and leading strategy. That’s why what we do at Ignition resonates deeply with me.
Read MoreWe help firms and agencies sell, bill, and get paid—while giving them control over their revenue growth and cash-flow management. In many ways, Ignition automates everything from prospects to payments, allowing finance leaders and business owners to focus on driving growth rather than managing the grind.
When payments are automated and attached to signed agreements, you can imagine a world with zero accounts receivable—that’s what we create for many accountants, bookkeepers, and professional services firms. It takes the stress out of managing cash flow, and that’s what truly sets us apart. We’re focused on helping companies grow, not just on helping them increase productivity.
Recently, we launched our new AI Price Insights, which sits on top of many years of proprietary benchmarking data. It’s designed to help professional firms price their services with greater clarity and confidence.
Ignition | www.ignitionapp.com | San Francisco, CA