Your weekly go-to guide to transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.

Welcome CFO Techstack Community 👋,

In last week’s newsletter, Ryan Pearcy shared how to build a personal brand by showing up consistently, blending business with personality, and staying authentic. Whether you’re already posting or still watching from the sidelines, Ryan’s insights offered a practical roadmap for building a brand people trust.

This week, Corinne Thompson shares how she made visibility part of her strategy, why consistency beats perfection, and what happens when you stop hiding behind a logo and start showing up as yourself.

FEATURED ARTICLE

Beyond the Numbers: Exploring how finance leaders build influence, identity and opportunity outside the spreadsheet.

In today’s finance world, technical expertise will get you in the room, but visibility keeps you top of mind. For Corinne Thompson, building a personal brand wasn’t just a nice-to-have, it became a strategic part of growing her practice. From shifting her mindset around self-promotion to using LinkedIn as a platform for connection, Corinne has learned how to stay relevant and relatable in a space that’s often reserved and behind-the-scenes.

In this final edition of Beyond the Numbers, she shares how finance professionals can use social media to build influence, create opportunity, and show up with confidence, without pretending to be someone they’re not.

From behind the scenes to front of mind

Corinne’s journey into personal branding didn’t begin with a social media strategy, it started with a shift in how she saw her role. After years in commercial finance roles across the tech space, she stepped out on her own in early 2023. “When you go independent, your name becomes your business,” she explains. “People don’t just buy your skills, they buy into you.”

That shift pushed her to think more intentionally about visibility.

“I realised I couldn’t rely on a company name or logo anymore,” she says. “If people were going to find me, it had to be through my own voice.”

For Corinne, showing up online became a way to bridge credibility with connection and to attract work by being known, not just good.

Using LinkedIn with purpose

For Corinne, LinkedIn isn’t just a place to lurk, it’s a place to build relationships and credibility. But she admits it didn’t start that way.

“I used to be really shy about putting myself out there,” she says. “But someone once told me: the people who don’t post are the ones judging, and the people who do are the ones getting ahead.”

 Her shift came with a change in mindset. 

“I now see it as a way to document what I’m doing and share things I’m genuinely excited about. That energy is contagious. People buy into it.”

Rather than curating the perfect post, Corinne values consistency and relevance.

“I try to show up regularly, even if I’m just sharing something small. It keeps me top of mind.”

Lessons from being visible

Corinne has learned that visibility compounds.

“I’ll have people message me saying, ‘I’ve been following you for months, I love what you’re doing and I’ve never seen their name before. But they’re watching.”

That presence has led to opportunities, clients, and a growing professional network. 

“I don’t think I’d have been able to build this business as quickly without it,” she reflects.

Her top advice for other finance professionals thinking about posting online?

• Don’t overthink it. “You don’t need to be a thought leader. Just share what you’re working on.”
• Be useful. “The most engaging posts solve a real problem or answer a common question.”
• Let your personality in. “People want to work with people, not faceless profiles.”

Showing the behind-the-scenes

One thing Corinne does well is blend professional updates with behind-the-scenes insights.

“I’m not just talking about what we’ve achieved,” she says. “I share what’s hard, too. That’s what people relate to.”

She’s intentional about balancing wins with honesty, and results with reflection.

 “There’s this temptation to only share the highlights. But people connect more when you show the journey, not just the outcome.”

Branding while delivering

While it’s easy to assume Corinne’s brand just runs on autopilot, that's not quite true.

“I make time for it,” she says. “Even if it’s just 10 minutes between meetings. It’s about creating small habits that build over time.”

And her final reminder to fellow finance pros?

“You already have a brand. It’s just whether you’re choosing to shape it or letting other people do it for you.”

In a world where finance often happens behind closed doors, showing up online isn’t self-promotion, it’s a strategic advantage.

COMMUNITY INSIGHTS

🎤 How I stacked it

Byron Cowie, Director of Finance at Elliptic, reveals his tech stack

Elliptic is a blockchain analytics and crypto compliance solution headquartered in London, with presence in the US, Japan, Middle East and Singapore. Elliptic provides the world’s largest blockchain identity dataset, trusted by the world’s leading organisations to trace every transaction through the entire crypto ecosystem to gain a truly holistic view of risk.

Here’s what Byron and their team are using:

1. 1. Xero for Accounting Software: We use Xero for many reasons, but ultimately, its plug-and-play API, extensive marketplace, broad direct bank feed coverage and overall user-friendliness make it adaptable to our ever-changing environment. We’ve certainly embarked on a tech stack longevity journey, leveraging marketplace apps to eliminate manual processes. Additionally, as a SaaS business, Xero’s recurring invoice functionality is a lifesaver. 
   2. Satago for Credit Control: Satago is an excellent tool for automating credit control. It's affordable and easy to set up, delivering value from day one. Each week, we receive a wealth of information from our customers, ranging from basic updates like missing purchase order numbers or address changes, to requests for calls to discuss upgrading their package. A big shoutout to my colleague, Lindsay Britten, for implementing this.
   3. Tipalti for OCR and Payments: We recently implemented Tipalti to replace the “classic stack” of Dext, ApprovalMax, and Expensify, which had served us incredibly well for years. Tipalti offers robust, enterprise-grade controls (like global bank detail verification) and payment rails for a seamless order-to-payment cycle. While Tipalti is more complex to implement than some of the simpler Xero apps, it was essential for supporting scaling and consolidating our tech stack. A big shoutout to my colleague, Sam Mohungoo, for leading the efforts on this implementation.
   4. Stripe for Credit Card Payments: We use Stripe to enable customers to pay with a credit card. I really appreciate how the Xero integration works, with invoices being marked as paid as soon as the customer completes their transaction in Stripe, and the bank reconciliation being automatically suggested (even when Stripe settles multiple invoices in bulk). More recently, we've also allowed new customers purchasing small packages or educational courses to buy directly from our website, with Stripe powering these transactions.
   5. Hubspot for CRM: We’ve recently integrated HubSpot with Xero’s upgraded API connector to flow information from Xero into HubSpot. This allows our customer and sales teams to see which invoices are outstanding, helping with payment follow-ups. More importantly, it serves as a valuable customer health data point (e.g., a non-paying customer who isn’t using our tool may be at risk). A major benefit for finance is that we no longer need to provide updated age analyses to the business, as everything is now visible in real time. A big shoutout to my colleague, Nima Barzin, for implementing this.
   6. Mayday for Intercompany: With the growing number of multi-currency intercompany accounts and transactions, transitioning from a manual process to an automated tool became essential. Mayday not only saves time by pinpointing missed transactions, but it also goes a step further by providing the foreign exchange entries monthly to balance these at a consolidation level. A big shoutout to my colleague, Vanessa Rheeder at Iridium (our cloud accounting partner), for implementing this.
   7. Syft for Reporting and Consolidation: Undoubtedly, the biggest change I made to our tech stack was implementing Syft to automate our management accounts consolidation tool. Syft transformed a well-designed but manual spreadsheet that took hours to compile into a simple click-of-a-button solution for management accounts, offering views that slice and dice our reporting in numerous ways. A big shoutout to my colleagues, Chay Stockdale and Vanessa Rheeder at Iridium (our cloud accounting partner), for implementing this.
   8. Payfit and Telleroo for Payroll: With most of our employees based in the UK, Payfit is an excellent tool as it integrates with our HRIS software (Bamboo) to automatically update payroll for the majority of the monthly changes. This allows finance to focus its time on the more material changes. Telleroo is a handy add-on that integrates with Payfit once payroll is processed, pushing all individual employee payments and bank details into a payment batch for release by the payroll reviewer. As an added bonus, Telleroo integrates directly with Xero. 
   9. Brex for Virtual Cards: Brex’s virtual credit card service helps our employees travel, run events, and pay for minor goods and services on the go in real time. The direct integration with Xero ensures that all expenses are pushed into Xero and automatically reconciled with the bank feed. The convenient missing receipt tool allows us to focus on what’s missing and proactively request these. Additionally, our wider team often mentions that the email and Slack integrations make it especially easy to provide support using tools they use daily.

Special mentions: Although these tools aren’t directly connected to Xero, they are ones I use daily.

• Coinbase wallet and Coinbase commerce - A large portion of our customers are crypto-native businesses that operate almost entirely on-chain. Providing a mechanism for them to pay in stablecoins (such as USDC or USDT) is essential.
• Capdesk - Every employee in our company is an owner through our Employee Share Option Scheme. Combined with an extensive investor base (as a venture-backed company), this makes managing the administration of the cap table and share option scheme straightforward in one place. The platform also offers advanced functionality for valuations and accounting journals, which we make full use of.
• Juro - We use Juro to store both our supplier and customer contracts. It’s easily indexable with smartfields, making searches and renewal prompts hassle-free. While a Google Drive folder may work for a small, early-stage business, adopting Juro early with a structured process to ensure completeness is essential for scaling businesses. 

Keen to share how you stack it? Email to  hein.vanzyl@getmayday.com

THE STACK EXCHANGE

🧵 This week's top threads, from The Stack Exchange

1. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has used Fiskl AI or just knows much about it?
2. Has anyone had any success with India specific payment gateways or have any suggestions?
3. Has anyone got a better way to deal with invoicing on Xero?
    

NEW IN THE WORLD OF CFO SOFTWARE

🗞️ News from the stack-o-sphere

• G-Accon releases new Rolling Month Reporting feature. Learn more.
• Airwallex announces their Series F funding. Learn more.
• Mayday introduces Mayday HQ: Your new multi-entity control panel. Learn more.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS

📊 Stat of the week

97% of accounting firms say they’re inefficient with technology.

Research by CFO

UPCOMING EVENTS

🗓️ Save the date

Voices of Sustainability: What accountants, tech, and advisors need you to know

Thu, 19 Jun, 2pm BST

Curious about how accountants and technology are driving sustainability reporting? Join industry experts from Sumday, Bishop Fleming, and Spotlight Reporting to explore the evolving role of technology, accountants, and advisors in driving sustainable business practices.

Introducing Mayday HQ: Your control panel for managing Chart of Accounts and Tracking Categories across your group.

Wed, 04 Jun, 11am BST

Join us for a 30-minute walkthrough of Mayday HQ: Our new control panel designed to help you manage Chart of Accounts and Tracking Categories across every entity, all from one place. 

The Ultimate guide to FinOps: automating, saving time and reducing waste

Thu, 19 June, 4pm BST 

Finance is no longer just about reporting and compliance. It’s about creating smart, scalable processes that actively support business growth.

Financial Operations, or FinOps, is about using technology to optimize workloads, reduce waste, and help Finance teams work more efficiently. It includes managing software and technology spending and making sure the Finance function stays closely connected to what’s happening across the company.

MORE OF THE GOOD STUFF

And lastly, our top picks!

🎧 Podcast: How AI Is Transforming Accounts Receivable with Ben Winter, ep 235, GrowCFO

📝  Article: Mastering multi-entity finance: How to unlock control, clarity, and confidence at scale.

😆  Joke: Why are accountants so unhappy? Because it's accrual world.

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