“The CFO role is about leading the entire business—not just finance—and it is about relationships.” –Evan Fein, CFO, TextNow
According to Evan Fein, when he accepted his first CFO position more than a decade ago, his focus as a finance leader was too narrow. Today, in a moment of self-reflection, he can’t conceal his exacerbation.
“’Ashamed’ is not the right word, but I’m such a better CFO now than I was then,” remarks Fein, who gives his younger self some kudos for having helped to champion the company’s business model as well as extend the organization’s lines of sight into the future.
Read MoreStill, there’s little question that Fein finds the notion of time travel appealing.
“What I would now tell my younger self is that the CFO role is about the ability to partner and build relationships and grow other people—this is the special sauce that I bring to my job now,” he observes.
Asked to better expose his former CFO mind-set, Fein adds: “At the time, I had decided that if everybody stayed in their own lane and we each ran our trains on time, things would come together. It’s just not that simple.” –Jack Sweeney
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CFOTL: Tell us about TextNow. What does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Fein: TextNow was founded in Waterloo, Ontario. Today, there’s a big office in Waterloo and offices in San Francisco and even Seattle. I’m in the Seattle office now, and our mission is to democratize reliable phone services. What this means is making free, reliable phone service available to you and me. I’ve been a customer of AT&T Wireless for 20-something years. I pay a lot of money and don’t have a great experience. We can offer very reliable phone service to people for free, which is really groundbreaking. This creates a huge opportunity for us. I get passionate about the mission because I want to provide communications availability to all of us, including the people who don’t want to pay big bills to the large wireless carriers.
Read MoreWe’re an app that you download on your phone. Even if you’re not on a wifi network and you need access to a cellular network, we can get you that for free. You have a banner ad experience, and we’re able to provide high-quality voice, text, and FaceTime for free for customers, whether they’re on a wifi network or not.
The company is enjoying terrific growth this year, as seen in a press release that we put out recently with some of our financial metrics. In 20-something years of being a CFO, I have never been a part of a business that has had the growth tailwinds that this business has had in 2021.
We have this awesome opportunity to grow and democratize reliable phone service to more and more people. I want to help to lead us through investing in the business so that we can achieve more of our mission. I want to help our leaders grow to become the best humans that they can be, and I want to help our employees grow to become the happiest humans that they can be as well. I want to lead the business, and I want to help other humans grow. Sometimes I call myself a “gardener” because I’m trying to grow leaders throughout the business and get myself out of the way. TextNow has offered me the opportunity to do this, and I needed it. I try to help us to prepare for growth and to help the people at TextNow achieve their human potentials.
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TextNow | www.textnow.com | Waterloo, Ontario