见识一下"eBay黑手党"(eBay Mafia)吧。
Meet the eBay Mafia.
这是一个戏称,指的是过去三年间在硅谷以及硅谷之外成为首席财务长的至少20名高管,他们的共同特点是,都曾在这家电商巨头的财务部门受训。
That is the tongue-in-cheek name for the at least 20 executives who have become chief
financial officers in Silicon Valley and beyond over the past three years after training in the big e-commerce company's
finance department.
这些"eBay毕业生"中有很多人仍彼此联络,经常一起分享初创企业的"成长的烦恼",一起谈论首次公开募股(IPO)的情况。在旧金山时髦的餐厅里,他们一边喝着赤霞珠葡萄酒,一边怀旧。
Many of these eBay
alumni stay in touch with one another,
regularly sharing tips about the growing pains of startups and
initial public offerings, while waxing nostalgic over a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon at a trendy San Francisco restaurant.
曾经供职于eBay、而今成为企业首席财务长的人员名单中包括Yelp Inc.的克罗利克(Rob Krolik)、RetailMe Not Inc.的杰弗里斯(Douglas Jeffries)和Trulia Inc.的阿加沃尔(Sean Aggarwal),他们都在过去两年间把各自的公司上了市。企业财务控制部门内部有前eBay人员的初创公司包括在线服装零售商ModCloth Inc.、数字视频公司Roku Inc. 和在线订票公司Eventbrite Inc.。
The list of eBay veterans who now are corporate-level CFOs includes Rob Krolik at Yelp Inc., Douglas Jeffries at RetailMe Not Inc. and Sean Aggarwal at Trulia Inc., who have all taken their companies public in the past two years. Startups with former eBayers at the
financial controls include the online clothing retailer ModCloth Inc., digital-video company Roku Inc. and online ticketing company Eventbrite Inc.
Trulia Inc.的阿加沃尔说,我们很多人都是从eBay或贝宝(PayPal)出来的,我们现在都互相扶持。阿加沃尔曾在eBay旗下的贝宝担任财务部门副总裁。
'A whole bunch of us have come out of the eBay and PayPal fold,' said Trulia's Mr. Aggarwal, who was a vice president of
finance at eBay's PayPal subsidiary. 'We're all helping each other out.'
eBay已经成了培养首席财务长的温室,部分原因在于,它有足够的资源投资于财务人才的培养,有足够机会的为最有希望的人提供亲手运营自己的业务的体验。eBay说,该公司在全球有大约1,000名财务方面的管理者,部门级和区域级的首席财务长也有10多名。
EBay has become a hot house for CFOs in part because it has enough resources to
invest in grooming up-and-coming
financialtalent and enough
breadth to offer the best prospects hands-on experience
running their own operations. The company says it has about 1,000
financial executives around the world and more than a dozen divisional and regional CFOs.
新手在财务、分析力和领导力方面会得到理论和实践两方面的训练。而且作为一个两年期项目的一部分,eBay还每六个月让业绩明星轮换到不同的部门,在公司范围内拓展他们的专业网络。
Rookies get both theoretical and practical training in finance, analytics and leadership. And, as part of a two-year program, eBay rotates star performers to a different division every six months to
expand their
professional networks across the company.
阿加沃尔回忆说,与华尔街分析师和eBay的高管团队参加季度盈利电话会议的经历让他学会了如何集中精力于他想让投资者了解的
关键点,在Trulia 的IPO路演过程中,这给了他很大的帮助。
Sitting in on quarterly
earnings calls with Wall Street analysts and eBay's
executive team, Mr. Aggarwal recalls, helped him learn how to focus on the key points he wants to make to investors, and served him well during Trulia's IPO roadshow.
eBay把造就首席财务长当作自己使命的一部分。自2006年以来担任eBay首席财务长的斯旺(Robert Swan)说,我们招聘的都是想要成为首席财务长的人,如果在这个过程中他们在外部找到了机会,那也很好;我们有很强的替补阵容。
EBay considers minting CFO as part of its mission. 'We
recruit people who
aspire to be CFOs,' says Robert Swan, eBay's
finance chief since 2006. 'If along the way there are opportunities outside, that's OK. . . . We have a deep bench.'
斯旺说,他每年都会进行评估,以期发现有可能成为候选人的人,为一旦出现空缺的情形做准备,同时还能发现员工在技能方面存在哪些差距。他还与已经离开eBay的高管保持联系,为的是要了解他们现在做得怎么样,以及我们在将他们培养成为独当一面的顶级人才方面做得怎么样。
Mr. Swan says he does
annual assessments to
identifypotential candidates, in case of a vacancy, and any skill gaps employees might have. He also stays in touch with executives who have moved on 'to understand how well they did and how well we did at preparing them to be top notch at what they do.'
科技行业的首席财务长往往会从一家初创企业跳到另一家初创企业。根据德勤( Deloitte & Touche LLP)本月进行的一项调查,他们是最不可能有取代本公司的首席执行长这种野心的人。
Tech-industry CFOs tend to hop from startup to startup. They are among the least likely to harbor ambitions of replacing their chief executive, according to a
survey this month by Deloitte & Touche LLP.
高管猎头公司True Capital Partners Inc. 的联合创始人Joe Riggione说,当然,各个企业也经常从亚马逊(Amazon.com Inc.)、谷歌(Google Inc.)和Salesforce.com Inc.等公司挖人来担任首席财务长,特别是那些曾帮助公司扩张的人。
Of course, companies also
regularly poach
finance executives from Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc., and Salesforce.com Inc., especially those who have helped the company expand, says Joe Riggione, co-founder of executive-recruiting firm True Capital Partners Inc.
但eBay的培训项目是专门为生产首席财务长而设计的。举例来说,该公司的财务部门员工通常会对大数据有所涉猎,这样他们就能在大量信息中进行筛选,发现销售、出货或其他运营领域的趋势。还会有eBay内部的专家开课,向他们传授税收、审计、投资者关系和司库等方面的知识。
But eBay's training programs are specifically designed to turn out CFOs. For example, the company's
finance employees often gain some
dexterity with big data, so they can sift vast amounts of information to
uncover trends in sales,
shipping or other areas of operations. They also get classroom training from in-house experts on taxes, audits,
investor relations and treasury.
一些"eBay毕业生"每年会一起聚餐几次,通常是在旧金山教会区(Mission District)的Flour + Water餐厅,他们喜欢点的餐品包括玛格丽塔披萨和炖羊肉烩宽面。通常,酒水都是在线奢侈品寄售商RealReal Inc.的新任首席财务长古斯特克(Matt Gustke)来选定。古斯特克曾在eBay供职12年,以前曾在盛产葡萄酒的纳帕谷(Napa Valley)有一栋度假屋。
Several of the eBay alums dine together a few times a year, often at Flour + Water in San Francisco's Mission District, where favorites include the margherita pizza and pappardelle with braised lamb. Matt Gustke, the new CFO of online
luxury reseller RealReal, Inc., who spent a dozen years at eBay and used to have a
weekend home in Napa Valley, typically chooses the wine.
Eventbrite首席财务长鲁巴什(Mark Rubash)说,我们称其为"首席的晚餐"。鲁巴什今年4月加入Eventbrite,之前曾在Shutterfly Inc.做过几年首席财务长,并曾在eBay效力了很长年。
'We call it the Chief's Dinner,' says Mark Rubash, the
finance chief at Eventbrite, which he joined in April after a few years as CFO at Shutterfly Inc., and a long
career at eBay.
鲁巴什是上世纪90年代早期审计eBay的普华永道(PricewaterhouseCoopers)员工之一。他回忆说,最初时有人对他说这家公司是销售旧高尔夫球杆的一个好途径。他听信了这一说法,2001年跳了槽。当时,eBay有大约800名员工。2005年已是会计业务负责人的他离开时,该公司增长了10倍以上,他大量招贤纳士,其中有很多人成为后来的"eBay黑手党"成员。
One of eBay's early auditors at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the 1990s, Mr. Rubash recalls that the company was initially described to him as a neat way to sell old golf clubs. He bought into the idea and switched employers in 2001. At that time eBay had about 800 employees. When he left in 2005, as its
principal accounting officer, the company had grown more than tenfold, and he had hired many of the future members of the eBay Mafia.
这些前eBay高管最吸引增长迅速的初创企业之处在于,他们熟悉电子商务和互联网广告业务,熟悉各种经过验证的构建"集市业务"的策略。
Among the qualities that make the former eBay executives most
attractive to fast-growing young companies is their
familiarity with e-commerce and Internet advertising, and tested strategies for building marketplace businesses.
鲁巴什说,他希望利用自己在这些领域的经验将Eventbrite打造成一个音乐会和活动的主要集市。他说,我从eBay学到的经验之一是必须首先形成一定的规模。他说,如果你把这一点放在首位,它会开始推动所有的战略决策。
Mr. Rubash says he wants to use his
background in those areas to build Eventbrite into a major marketplace for concerts and events. 'One of the learnings from eBay was that you have to get
critical mass first. If you put that front and center, it starts driving all of the strategic decisions,' he said.
"eBay黑手党"与"贝宝黑手党"类似。"贝宝黑手党"是在2002年eBay收购了在线支付服务贝宝后形成的,当时数十位高管各奔东西,但仍保持着联系,其中包括贝宝联合创始人蒂尔(Peter Thiel)和列夫琴(Max Levchin)。这些高管创建或投资新的公司,包括Facebook Inc.和本地评价网站Yelp。有时候这两伙人出现重合。Yelp的首席执行长是前贝宝高管斯托普尔曼(Jeremy Stoppelman),首席财务长则是前eBay高管克罗利克。
The eBay gang is a kind of cousin to the PayPal Mafia that formed after eBay's
acquisition of the online-payment service in 2002, when dozens of executives moved on but kept in contact, including PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. They went on to build or
invest in new companies, including Facebook Inc. and the local-review site Yelp. Sometimes the two groups overlap. At Yelp, the CEO is PayPal alum Jeremy Stoppelman and the CFO is eBay alum Mr. Krolik.
"eBay黑手党"有大约一半已是第二次或第三次担任首席财务长的职务。很多人曾在eBay扮演内部首席财务长的角色,其职责范围很广,比如负责国际收购,可以自由决定在年销售额达数百万美元的业务之间分配资金。他们说,他们能够很好地锻炼自己的能力,因为随着eBay业务模式的增长,业务更加全球化,资金对该公司至关重要。
About half the eBay Mafia are serial CFOs on their second or third job. Many held
internal CFO roles at eBay that gave them broad responsibilities, such as
runninginternational acquisitions, and the freedom to decide how to allocate capital among operations with millions of dollars in
annual sales. They say they were able to hone their skills so well because
finance was crucial to eBay as its business model grew and became more global.
举例来讲,拉蒂(Dinesh Lathi)曾在该公司的财务和运营部门效力多年,努力鼓励主要卖家在其网站上更多地开展业务。如今,作为家具限时抢购网站One Kings Lane的首席运营长和首席财务长,他正在实施一项类似的策略。他说,他在eBay学会了必须始终以客户为中心。
For example, Dinesh Lathi spent years in
finance and operations at the company,
working to
encourage its top sellers to do more business on the site. Now, as chief operating and
financial officer at One Kings Lane, a flash-sales site for furniture, he is implementing a similar strategy. At eBay he says he
learned you have to be 'relentlessly customer-focused.'
经验丰富的首席财务长就像超级明星工程师一样可遇而不可求。越来越多的科技公司准备上市,这增加了对财务人才的需求。对财务人才的需求已经扩大到硅谷以外的地区。包括French Connection Inc.和Famous Brands International在内的实体零售商今年都聘用了前eBay高管担任首席财务长。Famous Brands International是冷冻酸奶连锁企业TCBY的母公司。
Experienced CFOs can be as hard to come by as superstar engineers. The bulging number of tech companies preparing to go public has increased the demand for their talents, which has spread beyond Silicon Valley. Brick-and-mortar retailers including French Connection Inc. and Famous Brands International, parent of
frozen yogurt chain TCBY, both hired eBay alums as CFOs this year.
高管猎头公司True Capital的普里焦内说,你通常都可以从eBay挖到一名财务高管,将其放到首席财务长的位子上,他们会非常胜任。
'You can usually pluck a
finance head out [from eBay], put them in a CFO job and have them make that
transition nicely,' said recruiter True Capital's Mr. Riggione.
肖茨(Jeff Shotts)曾在eBay效力10多年,曾先后负责业务孵化团队,管理法国子公司的产品开发和财务部门。去年,肖茨成为ModCloth的首席财务长。他现在正在利用自己的分析能力管理该公司迅速增长的供应链。不过,他说,他在eBay学到的一些最有价值的东西是更加无形的:学会如何招聘和留住人才,进行良好的业绩评估,让来自不同团队的人通力合作。
Jeff Shotts, spent more than a
decade at eBay,
taking turns at
running its business-incubation team and managing product development and
finance for its French unit. Now, Mr. Shotts, who became CFO of ModCloth last year, is using his analytical skills to manage the company's fast-growing supply chain. Still, he says some of the most
valuable tools he picked up at eBay were on the softer side:
learning how to
recruit and
retain talent, do good
performance reviews, and bring different groups of people together.
他说,你在eBay逐步上升的过程中,会建立起一个基础。
'There's a
foundation you build up as you go through the organization at eBay,' he said.
对他来说,eBay的人脉也是学习创建初创公司具体方法的一种途径。他的前同事们有着不同的模式,经历过不同的情况,他们的小贴士和窍门非常好用。
For him, the eBay
network also has been a way to learn the ins and outs of developing a startup. His former colleagues 'have different models and different situations, but those tips and tricks play pretty well.'