Ben Averis’s journey toward becoming CFO of Yoto was shaped by many diverse experiences in finance, ranging from his early days at PwC in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to leading roles in private equity–backed businesses. His exposure to the “buy and build” strategy during M&A transactions taught him the challenges of scaling businesses while at the same time maintaining their core values. His work on transactions involving the integration of smaller, family-run businesses into larger corporate structures revealed to him a key financial risk: While large companies can gain operational efficiencies through acquisitions, at the same time, they often lose the customer-centric magic—aka revenue—that had made their target smaller businesses special to begin with.
Read MoreReflecting on these experiences, Averis notes: “What you sometimes find is that when you get to that ‘buy and build’ moment and actually integrate the businesses, some of the magic can be lost—and you lose a bit of the customer obsession.” This insight has become central to his strategic mind-set as CFO of Yoto, a founder-led company with a strong customer-first philosophy.
Averis’s understanding of the “buy and build” moment continues to shape his leadership at Yoto, where he balances the need for growth with preserving the company’s entrepreneurial spirit. He recognizes the unique passion that founders bring—especially through their deep connection to customers, which can become diluted in corporate acquisitions. As Yoto scales, he is committed to ensuring that this customer obsession remains at the heart of the business, reinforcing the proven notion that a well-run, founder-led company often thrives because of its focus on continuing to deliver tailored customer experiences—a prosperity that can sometimes be lost in the pursuit of sheer scale. –Jack Sweeney
“When you get to this ‘buy and build’ moment and start to integrate businesses, some of the magic can be lost, and you lose a bit of the customer obsession. Today, in finance, the focus is increasingly on the customer, and I have found that working for a founder-led business has been all about caring for the customer.” –Ben Averis, CFO, Yoto
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CFOTL: Tell us about Yoto … what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Averis: Well, it just so happens that I’ve been walking around at SuiteWorld today, evangelizing about Yoto. I think that we’re best described as a kids’ audio platform, a mix of carefully designed hardware and some really smart software. It’s all there just to make it super-simple for kids to enjoy audio—with them in control. There are no screens, no microphones, no cameras. We’re just a good simple way for kids to listen to audio.
Read MoreCFOTL: Are you for “kids” of all ages, or do you have a specific target demographic?
Averis: It’s all about the range of content. In this world of Goliaths like Netflix and Amazon, we focus on having a really good curated set of content. Our age ranges are normally from about 3 up to 10, 11, 12. We’ve worked really hard to get Harry Potter into our library and were able to release it last week, so this has been a huge win for us.
CFOTL: Please help us to understand what you mean by “content.” When you say that you’ve added Harry Potter, what does this mean? Your website looks quite extensive.
Averis: We have quite a range of titles, which are mainly audiobooks of classics like Winnie-the-Pooh, The Magic Faraway Tree, and works by Roald Dahl, just to name a few—stories that parents have known since their childhood. We have music, too, including vintage stuff from the Beatles and Queen, for example. This all presents an opportunity for kids themselves to discover music or for parents to share with their kids their history of listening to music that they love. We have lots of educational content, too—from science-based stories explaining volcanoes, for instance, to articles explaining the game of football and how the rules work. In our educational content alone, we have this broad mix of more than 1,200 titles.
Yoto | www.yotoplay.com | London, United Kingdom