In March 2020, as global lockdowns disrupted industries worldwide, Chris Nagy encountered a pivotal moment as CFO. Overnight, his company lost 25% of its revenue due to the closure of in-person focus group facilities. Responding swiftly, Nagy redirected resources to fast-track a shelved video conferencing product. By year-end, the initiative recovered half of the lost revenue, reflecting his capacity to navigate crises with focus and efficiency.
Nagy’s strategic approach didn’t stop there. He brokered a merger with a close competitor, Confirmit, to form a new entity, Forsta. This move restored growth momentum and ultimately led to Forsta’s acquisition by Press Ganey in 2022. These milestones underscore Nagy’s ability to address immediate financial challenges while positioning organizations for longer-term opportunities.
His career journey, spanning roles in pricing and market dynamics to strategic planning at BlackRock, shaped his approach to finance leadership. Early commercial roles helped him develop a keen understanding of operational efficiency and value differentiation. At BlackRock, Nagy gained exposure to large-scale finance operations, insights he later adapted to smaller organizations with impactful results.
Now, as CFO of SalesLoft, Nagy applies this blend of crisis-tested agility and strategic planning to the SaaS sector, focusing on balancing growth and profitability in a dynamic market environment.
“Business fundamentals don’t change, regardless of the macroeconomic environment… you really have to try to build a company that’s got sound fundamentals and is built for a generational type of lifecycle. This means focusing on sustainable growth rather than chasing trends or reacting to market volatility.” —Chris Nagy, CFO, Salesloft
Made Possible By
CFO Playbook:
Balancing Growth and Profitability: Focuses on aligning growth with sustainable profitability to ensure long-term success.
Data-Driven Decision-Making: Builds from reliable data to generate insights and drive performance.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partners with key teams to align efforts and enhance efficiency.
Agility in Dynamic Markets: Adapts quickly to market changes using driver-based models and actionable insights.
CFOTL: Tell us about this company, what does it do and what are its offerings today?
Nagy: I was very excited to join SalesLoft about a quarter ago. SalesLoft powers durable revenue growth for the world’s most demanding companies. It has created an AI-powered revenue orchestration platform, which essentially represents a quantum leap forward in sales enablement by introducing an AI-driven system of action. Let me unpack that a bit.
Read MoreThe platform uses AI to help teams prioritize which actions to take and identify the actions that matter most—from the first interaction through customer renewal. To put this in context, a few decades ago, customer relationship management (CRM) systems were introduced. These systems of record, around since the late 1990s, supported go-to-market and revenue activities. Before CRMs, it might have been something as simple as a Rolodex (though I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one used in action).
Over the past decade, there’s been increasing demand for enhancements to these CRM systems. Clients want more than just a system of record—they’re looking for tools that incorporate action and analytical intelligence. This has led to the emergence of point solutions aimed at improving workflows, such as structured workflow tools, forecasting, deal and performance tracking, and sales executive coaching.
During the pandemic, we even saw the rise of conversational intelligence. With sales calls often conducted via video, these tools captured, transcribed, and analyzed conversations for sentiment analysis and actionable insights.
Now, with the maturity of AI, this functionality has been supercharged. SalesLoft’s platform can ingest both first- and third-party buyer signals to determine where buyers are in their journey. It then creates workflows that provide an AI-assisted view of the best actions to optimize outcomes for buyers and sellers.
In essence, SalesLoft has built a single, enterprise-ready system of action that integrates these point solutions into one seamless platform, elevating the entire go-to-market motion.
Salesloft | www.salesloft.com | Atlanta, GA