As an E&Y audit partner, Jim Sherman logged more than a few miles on the road serving clients and helping management teams to understand what their numbers revealed about the direction of the business. Unlike many auditors, Sherman liked to connect with executives across the client’s organization and answer questions from different areas of the business, such as sales and marketing. Still, after 26 years at E&Y, he was perhaps not the most likely candidate to advance into a CFO role at a small start-up. Join us when Sherman recalls the start-up chapter for Avionos—a digital agency that would grow from 6 to 50 employees in a few short years.
“The role that I wanted to create was one where I could help to devise compensation plans that would inspire and motivate our business development people to sell more services. I want to help evaluate pricing on projects to make sure that we’re thinking of not just the revenue numbers but also our profit number and sharing ideas on how we can achieve more profit. Today this requires more real-time numbers, and we have to have numbers at our fingertips. When the pitch goes up on the door, I’ve seen it, we’re comfortable with the numbers and that it provides value to our clients and our customers.” –Jim Sherman
