In 2023, stepping into the CFO role at Twilio, Aidan Viggiano faced a defining reality: “the first hard call was a layoff,” she tells us. The company had surged during the pandemic as digital communications accelerated, but by mid-2022, growth slowed while profitability lagged. “We can’t be slowing in growth and not be profitable and not generating cash,” she explains, describing the moment that forced a fundamental shift in strategy.
Over the next six months, Twilio reduced its workforce by about 40%, she tells us—a decision that tested not just financial discipline but leadership resolve. For Viggiano, the experience underscored a core principle: communication is as critical as the decision itself. “The importance of over communication…being transparent… and treating everybody with humanity,” she tells us, became central to how she navigated the transition.
Read MoreThis moment reflects a broader leadership mindset shaped by aligning growth with accountability. The pivot from rapid expansion to balanced performance required not only cost action but a cultural reset—one grounded in clarity, trust, and execution.
At the same time, Viggiano continues to frame Twilio’s value through its role as a communications infrastructure provider, powering interactions between businesses and consumers at scale. From authentication codes to real-time customer engagement, the company’s reach is often invisible but essential.
For Viggiano, the lesson is clear: finance leadership is not only about numbers—it is about guiding organizations through inflection points with transparency, discipline, and humanity.
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MARKET CONTEXT: Twilio
CFOTL: We’re going to circle back with you with a few more career-related questions a little later, but for listeners new to Twilio, how do you describe what this company does and help us understand what sets it apart?
Viggiano: Yeah, I get this question a lot, especially from people in my family—what exactly does Twilio do? Put simply, we help companies interact with, engage, and understand their customers. We’re an infrastructure company that powers communications for over 400,000 brands. We provide APIs that allow developers to integrate voice calls, text messages, and emails directly into their applications, essentially serving as a bridge between traditional telecom networks and businesses so they can automate communications.
Read MoreIn everyday life, you’ve probably used us without realizing it. If you’ve received a text from your Uber driver, a two-factor authentication code from your bank, or even a fraud alert call—that’s us. Even promotional emails from brands are often powered by us.
Beyond that, we’ve expanded into customer data through our platform, Segment. The challenge companies face is that customer data is often siloed across systems—CRMs, marketing tools, data warehouses—which makes it hard to get a full picture of the customer. Segment unifies that data to create a complete view of the customer journey.
For example, a company like Nike can understand you as an individual—your preferences, behaviors, and purchase patterns—and use that insight to deliver more personalized, relevant experiences. Instead of generic messaging, engagement becomes tailored and meaningful.
And we’re really just getting started. We have a lot of innovation underway around persistence, memory, and channel orchestration that will take this to the next level.
CFOTL: So you stepped into the CFO role in 2023, and clearly the business has evolved quite a bit. But at that place and time, Twilio was at a pivotal moment—what was the first hard call you had to make?
Viggiano: Unfortunately, the first hard call was a layoff. When I joined the company, we had been in a period of very fast growth, which was accelerated during COVID as communications shifted to digital. But by mid-2022, growth began to slow, and we were in a position where we weren’t profitable and weren’t generating cash.
The reality was that we couldn’t sustain that combination. So one of the first decisions I had to make as CFO was to reduce the size of the workforce. Over about six months, we reduced it by roughly 40%, which was significant and very difficult.
What I learned during that period was the importance of over-communication—especially when delivering tough messages. It’s critical to be transparent about why decisions are being made and to treat people with humanity throughout the process. I learned that from our CEO, and while it was a challenging experience, it was incredibly formative for me as a leader.
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