Roy Hefer is the Chief Financial Officer of TravelPerk, one of the fastest growing European unicorns, building the #1 travel platform for SMBs. Prior to TravelPerk, he spent a decade scaling hyper-growth tech companies and helped raise over $1.2b in private and public financing including through two IPOs (NYSE: HIPO, NASDAQ: LMNS). He began his career with McKinsey & Company advising leadership teams of Fortune 500 companies. Roy believes that the role of the CFO has fundamentally changed from a scorekeeper to a trusted thought partner and is passionate about building world-class finance teams that help their companies win.
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Why the modern finance leader is steering—not just supporting—company strategy
As capital markets reawaken and IPO chatter intensifies across boardrooms, the spotlight has returned to a role once seen as purely functional: the Chief Financial Officer. But today’s most effective CFOs aren't scorekeepers—they're mission control.
Roy Hefer, CFO of TravelPerk and a veteran of two IPOs, represents this evolution in real time. Having helped companies raise more than $1.2 billion across public and private markets, he’s seen firsthand how finance teams can transform from back-office operators into strategic accelerators.
And the transformation isn't optional anymore.
Public readiness starts long before the roadshow
In an environment where even strong companies are delaying listings, readiness for public markets has become less about checklists and more about conviction. According to Hefer, companies need to demonstrate not just growth but control—control of their path, their numbers, and their narrative.
Public investors demand predictable execution. The market doesn’t reward volatility, even when paired with rapid top-line expansion. That means consistent forecasting, operational visibility across the business, and financial discipline are now prerequisites. If a company can’t deliver clarity eight quarters out, it risks eroding trust long before any filing hits the wire.
And while those conditions are well understood at the surface, Hefer makes an important distinction: going public is not an exit—it’s a starting line.
M&A vs. IPO: A strategic trade-off, not just a financial one
From a CFO’s seat, weighing an acquisition against a public listing means much more than comparing term sheets. Each path requires its own tolerance for visibility, control, and culture.
An IPO offers autonomy and long-term independence but brings with it the constant pressure of public scrutiny. In contrast, M&A may accelerate scale and liquidity, but often comes with the loss of strategic control and brand direction.
Financial leaders need to be clear-eyed about those trade-offs. And as Hefer notes, philosophical preferences often bend under the weight of valuation. Vision may guide the journey, but price still steers the wheel.
What makes a finance team mission-critical
Hefer draws a clear line between finance teams that support growth and those that drive it. The difference isn’t only in technical skill—it’s in strategic depth, organizational embeddedness, and operational foresight.
The finance function of a scaling business needs to resemble mission control at NASA: not flying the rocket, but monitoring every system, every anomaly, and ensuring the mission stays on course. That means three non-negotiables:
- Top-tier talent: Precision, resilience, and clarity under pressure.
- Deep integration: Real-time insight into all departments—not siloed reporting.
- Predictive modeling: Forecasts must be a strategic asset, not a formality.
This level of contribution demands that finance leads understand the business intimately—its product, customers, competitive dynamics, and internal rhythm. That knowledge doesn’t just enable better reporting. It earns finance a seat at the decision-making table, early enough to shape outcomes.
Why today’s CFOs must think—and act—like founders
The shift in capital markets from growth-at-all-costs to sustainable scale has made CFOs central to strategy. In the past, they were tasked with explaining what happened and why. Now, they must define where the company is going and how to get there.
Hefer’s perspective is blunt: the modern CFO is an extension of the CEO. To be effective, they must anticipate investor questions, drive alignment across departments, and tell the story in a way that builds lasting trust. This isn’t about spinning numbers—it’s about delivering results and explaining them in plain terms.
And while forecasts and dashboards matter, leadership remains at the core. World-class CFOs build world-class teams. They attract, retain, and multiply talent not just through expertise, but through culture and accountability.
The investor lens is shifting
The funding environment has cooled from the fever pitch of recent years. As Hefer points out, investor expectations today are grounded in fundamentals: efficient growth, disciplined capital allocation, and demonstrable paths to long-term value creation. Revenue alone isn’t persuasive—profitability, retention, and repeatability are.
This applies equally across private and public capital markets. Investors want clarity on where the business is heading, confidence in the team executing the plan, and conviction that the numbers support the story.
What comes next for finance leaders
For finance professionals looking to grow into strategic leadership roles, technical proficiency is no longer enough. According to Hefer, three capabilities now define success:
- Strategic understanding of the business, beyond the balance sheet.
- Narrative clarity—the ability to turn complexity into insight and action.
- Team leadership that scales with the business and upholds its values.
It’s not just about knowing the numbers. It’s about owning the outcome.
Enjoy the full interview with Roy Hefer!
1. You've helped lead multiple tech companies through high-growth stages and public market transitions. What signals have you learned to look for when evaluating whether a company is ready to pursue an IPO?
From a pure financial perspective, in order to go public there are 4 key components: First, there’s a minimum scale, and that benchmark shifts with the market. A few years ago, the median forward revenue for IPOs was ~$350–400M. Today, it’s more than double that number and over the next few years, I expect it’ll land somewhere in between.
Then comes growth, strong and sustainable. Ideally +30–40% and above, depending on your scale, the smaller you are, the higher the expectations. But growth alone isn’t enough. You need efficient growth, with solid unit economics: gross margin, net revenue retention, CAC payback, LTV/CAC.
Every incremental dollar spent on growth should generate clear positive ROI. And of course, a clear path to profitability if not already profitable, then at least a credible, near-term plan to get there.
But the real question isn’t just how to go public, it’s how to thrive once you’re there.
One of the biggest misconceptions about IPOs is that they’re an exit. In reality, they’re just the starting line: because public investors who buy your stock at the IPO are expecting you to execute and deliver quarter after quarter in a consistent and predictable way.
In my experience, predictability is key: if you can’t forecast with confidence at least eight quarters out of the gate you’ll quickly lose trust with the markets. So to be a successful public company, you need to have crystal clarity on where you're going. And then you better actually get there, and beyond. Then rinse and repeat.
2. When considering acquisition vs. IPO as an exit or scale path, what are the most misunderstood trade-offs companies face from a financial leadership standpoint?
IPO and M&A aren’t just financial outcomes, they’re fundamentally different journeys. And you as a founding/leadership team need to be brutally honest about what you’re solving for.
If you want to keep control of vision, strategy, brand, and culture and you're comfortable being in the spotlight, held accountable by the public markets every quarter, then IPO might be your path. M&A often means giving up that control, but in return you get speed, scale, resources, and faster liquidity.
In an IPO, you stay single and live on your own, you call the shots and control your destiny. But, you also pay full rent, carry the pressure, and the whole world watches every single move you make on Instagram. In an M&A, you’re moving into someone else’s house- the fridge is stocked, the bills are paid, and there’s a cleaner coming twice a week. But the couch might be ugly, you don’t control the playlist, and you might need to fake smiles to your mother in law. So it all comes down to what you’re looking for.
But here’s the thing: no matter what you think you’re looking for, ultimately, in my experience, price plays a huge factor in the decision. Because everyone has a philosophy and a vision. Until the valuation is high enough….)
3. You've worked across both private and public capital environments. How does the finance function need to evolve operationally when a company is preparing for external scrutiny at that level?
A world-class finance team is like NASA’s Mission Control. We’re not the ones flying the rocket that’s Product, Engineering, Sales, Customer Care etc. But we are the ones with the 360° view, tracking every metric, every signal, every anomaly and ensuring the mission stays on course.
To play that role at the level a public company demands, three things are non-negotiable:
- Top Talent: You need the best sharp, precise, mission-driven finance professionals who can work in intense circumstances and deliver.
- Deeply integrated into the business: The only way to steer the ship in real time is if reliable information flows to you in real time, unfiltered. That means you need deep trust, strong partnerships, and being embedded in every department.
- Predictive Power: The forecast model is our flight simulator. We fine-tune it obsessively, hold ourselves accountable to its outputs, and build credibility by getting it right again and again backed by high-quality data.
A world class finance team is not just reporting the numbers. It’s steering the mission.
4. The role of the CFO has clearly expanded. How do you see the balance shifting between financial stewardship and strategic decision-making in today’s high-growth companies?
There’s been a major shift in the CFO mindset, from looking backwards to looking forwards. Traditionally, the CFO's job was to report today’s reality in the most accurate way and explain how we got here. Essentially answer the question: what’s the score? And why/how did we get here.
Now, that role is still critical but it’s no longer the full picture. The modern CFO is obsessed with what happens next.
You help define the long term destination and the plan to get there. And then every single day you ask yourself: where are we, where do we need to be, what needs to happen to get there. You also need to make sure every single department understands its role in delivering for the bigger picture.
5. In your experience, what separates a finance team that supports scale from one that actively accelerates it?
Three things separate a finance team that supports scale from one that accelerates it:
- Strategic depth: You need to know the business, product and competitive landscape as well as, if not better than, anyone in the room. A good litmus test: could you pitch the company end-to-end to investors and handle the full Q&A?
- Proactive partnership: Great finance doesn’t react to decisions, it helps shape them. I always ask: when the big, company-defining conversations happen, are we in the room early? If not, it’s already too late to influence the outcome.
- Talent density: A world-class finance team is a force multiplier. That means hiring exceptional people who are not just great at their craft, but who embody the culture and values you want to scale.
That’s how you earn the right to be Mission Control, where you’re not just tracking the numbers, but helping steer the rocket.
6. Across the fundraising cycles you've been part of — from private rounds to IPOs — how have investor expectations changed, especially in the current capital market climate?
Investor expectations have shifted dramatically over the past few years, especially as we've moved from a zero-interest environment into one where capital has a real cost. In the private markets during the boom years, it was growth at all cost - the faster, the better - even if unit economics were shaky or the path to profitability was vague or non-existent.
Today, whether you're raising a private round or preparing for an IPO, expectations are far more balanced. Growth is usually still the key metric but it has to be efficient, capital disciplined, and clearly tied to long-term value creation.
7. For finance professionals entering tech today, what skills or instincts do you believe are now essential to grow into a modern, strategic CFO role?
There are three core skills I think are essential for anyone aspiring to be a modern, strategic CFO:
- First, strategic thinking and business intuition: Think of yourself as an extension of the CEO so you need to understand the product, the market, the competitive dynamics etc. Without that you won’t be able to build trust with leadership and your investors and your added value will be limited.
- Second, storytelling: The ability to simplify complexity is a superpower. Whether you're speaking to your board, your team, or the public market, you need to turn data into a clear, compelling narrative that builds trust and drives action.
- Third, leadership: You can’t be a world class CFO without a world class team. Attracting, hiring and retaining A players, and creating the environment for them to thrive, is one of the most important parts of the job.
