Adore Beauty CFO on steering a beauty industry IPO

My role: macro and micro

I think the role of CFO gives you a helicopter view of the whole business. It’s a very privileged position to be in because you are involved in decision-making and then you see those decisions come to life.

The CFO needs to know the business and be a key part of the management team.

Those decisions at Adore Beauty can be as immediate as helping with what goes onto the promotional calendar, to working on an acquisition, doing the due diligence, wand seeing that come to fruition.

In fact, we recently acquired iKOU, an Australian beauty and wellness brand, for A$25 million in an all-cash deal. I was involved in the due diligence process of the acquisition, and it is rewarding to see that work materialise.

On a larger scale, we're expanding into physical stores, which is a first for Adore Beauty as we’ve been an exclusively online business until now. It’s an exciting development, and while I can’t always share everything until it’s public, it’s incredibly fulfilling to see these major milestones come together and be able to talk about them.

As a CFO in a listed company, the breadth of the role ranges from market reporting, understanding listing rules, working with the board, shareholder engagement, financial reporting and leading a finance team to support the business.

We’re a relatively small company of about 170 people, which means I’m often hands-on with various aspects of the financial side of the business, from the strategic to the everyday.

For example, we include a packet of Tim Tams [chocolate biscuit] in every order. Though it was introduced before I stepped into my role, I oversee the evaluation of the costs involved in that gesture, and how it affects the unit economics of our business.

We know that when customers receive that Tim Tam, it's more than just a treat – it’s like sending a little hug. It creates a delightful surprise, and that emotional connection can be just as impactful as any financial return. We constantly ask ourselves, "If we stopped this, would it be the right decision?"

There’s also a great deal of operational work that keeps the company running. On any given day, I could be preparing board papers, signing off on store leases or approving bank payments.

Game changers: saying yes

The biggest game changers in my career have been saying yes and advocating for myself.

I don't have a traditional CFO background and it wasn’t on my bucket list, to be honest. It happened because I studied economics, majoring in industrial relations at Sydney University, and thought I’d pursue a career in that field; but I realised it wasn’t for me and found myself in a business analytics role, where I became involved in finance systems.

I really enjoyed being the interface between the business and tech teams, helping to implement systems that made operations more efficient.

 

"I think the role of CFO gives you a helicopter view of the whole business. It’s a very privileged position to be in because you are involved in decision-making and then you see those decisions come to life."

 

I worked in different roles at the University of Sydney and later at St.George Bank, handling everything from Y2K testing to implementing budgeting and forecasting systems as a project manager.

It all led me to Coca-Cola Amatil, because I had a speciality in a budgeting and forecasting system that no one else had. After a couple of years, an opportunity came up to move into a commercial role, which involved moving to Melbourne and I said, “Yes, absolutely, why not!”

I think that attitude has set me up for all the other roles I’ve had. I could have been pigeonholed into being a finance systems person, but instead I moved to Melbourne and was able to gain a lot of different experiences by moving around the business.

Listing Adore Beauty on the ASX has had a profound impact on my career. Though I was already in a CFO position, I hadn’t anticipated being the CFO of a publicly listed company so soon.

The listing process was both quick and intense – it took just over 60 days, all during the height of the pandemic, which meant it was all conducted over Zoom. The timeline was accelerated because we saw a narrow window for listing.

The process was challenging. At the time, my team was even smaller than it is now, and the finance team is heavily involved in the listing process. While we had great support from advisors for things like forecasting and modelling, the responsibility of validating all the financials in the prospectus fell largely on us. It required a lot of hard work and attention to detail.

I think another challenge was how the pandemic forced us to be incredibly agile. I had only been with the company for four months when we suddenly had to pivot, forecasting how long we could survive if we had to shut down. But, during that time, we saw record sales as people bought beauty products online while at home.

It was a period of intense learning and growth for me. Balancing the day-to-day operations with long-term growth initiatives remains one of the most demanding aspects of the CFO role.

Some days, I find myself focusing more on immediate tasks rather than the broader strategic initiatives, and it can be challenging to carve out time for innovation. Having a strong team in place is critical and I work closely with our CEO and the leadership team to ensure we create space for growth initiatives while keeping an eye on our current performance.

As a publicly listed company, we also have specific reporting obligations, both half-yearly and annually, which adds another layer of pressure. It’s essential to be organised and strategic about our financial planning to meet these requirements, while still fostering an environment that encourages innovation. 

Lessons learned

1. Build trusted relationships: It is hard to do your job successfully if you don’t have good relationships with the people you are supporting.
2. Develop a breadth of experience: Get as much experience in different roles as you can before taking on a CFO role.
3. Know your limits: You can’t do everything, so know when to bring in people who can do the things you aren’t an expert in. For me, that is the more technical elements of accounting!
4. Ask the right questions: You can better help people if you ask them why they need a particular finance report, because sometimes they might benefit from something completely different.