Long ago, the power of focus was a lesson that Jeff Bray learned early in his career while transitioning from the role of analyst to that of portfolio manager. He recalls a strategic moment when he realized that narrowing his investments from many down to just three to five key areas would greatly amplify his success. This principle of concentrated effort not only transformed his approach to investment management but also became a guiding principle throughout his career, which includes his latest chapter as CFO of Semperis, a leading cybersecurity firm.
Read MoreAt Semperis, Bray is applying this bit of wisdom to navigate the company through a period of hypergrowth and complex challenges. Semperis has not only been expanding rapidly but also doing so with a focus on strategic areas that promise the highest returns—an approach that Bray appears to be uniquely prepared to execute, given his understanding of financial markets that has been honed over decades and now allows him to discern where to allocate resources to fuel growth and where to cut back to maintain efficiency.
Top-of-mind for Bray is a careful analysis of sales productivity and pricing integrity. Semperis’s CFO insists on a robust framework within which sales efforts align precisely with company goals and resources are invested in segments that drive the most value. This approach is evident in his resolve to restructure the company’s pricing model in order to ensure transparency and consistency across the firm’s quickly expanding number of products.
Here again, Bray once more lets us know that his determined watch on pricing is buttressed by his experience of that one early career moment emphasizing the importance of focus and concentration—which continues to influence his own decision-making, as well as the broader trajectory of Semperis’s success.
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CFOTL: Tell us about Semperis … what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Bray: Semperis is a company about 10 years old that was founded in Israel and has since moved its headquarters to Hoboken, N.J. We are a cybersecurity software firm that provides solutions to help to secure your identity infrastructure. It’s a great space to be in, and we have great products. For the past 4 years, we’ve been on the Deloitte Fast 500, a listing of the fastest-growing technology companies. The reason that we’re there is that we’re solving a really tough problem for enterprises around the world.
Read MoreSo, what is this problem? The nervous system of a company is its identify infrastructure. It allows you to log on to your laptop to get onto your network. It connects to all of the devices that are part of your company’s network. Even your applications are part of your identity infrastructure. So, truly, it really represents the crown jewels of every enterprise. As a result, it’s a high-value target for hackers out there.
Semperis provides solutions that help to optimize your identity infrastructure. We provide backups, and we also provide fast, secure recovery if you’ve been breached or if something else has gone wrong with your infrastructure. The most common identity system in enterprises is Microsoft Active Directory, so that’s what we focus on optimizing, backing up, and being able to recover. We also are adept at dealing with some of the other identity systems that are out there.
There are a few things on which I’m focused this year. The first is to shorten our reporting and reforecasting cycles. We just need to get the books closed a little bit more quickly and to update our forecasts more quickly. In a high-growth business, your ability to invest is the life blood of this growth. Thus, we want to make sure that we’re handling this as optimally as possible. Somewhat related to this, we need to improve the reporting that we’re doing out to the business units and give them budgets on a more consistent cadence. Finally, my goal is to build out some more processes in some of these key areas in which we’re expanding, as well as to ensure proper governance in the same endeavors. jb
“Make sure that you understand any significant changes that have happened over the past year. If a leader or process has changed and ‘past performance may not be indicative of future results,’ then you need to prioritize understanding how this may be reflected in current forecasts.” –Jeff Bray, CFO, Semperis
Semperis | www.semperis.com | Hoboken, New Jersey