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Effective financial management is crucial for any business—big or small. However, smaller companies, especially startups and SMEs, often struggle to hire top notch talent in this space because of the inability to offer premium salaries like that of larger players. After two close friends from successful startups told Srinivasan V about this gap, he launched CFO Bridge in 2012, a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) service provider, which offers world-class finance talent and expertise to SMEs and startups who are looking for virtual, part-time, interim or shared CFO services.

The company offers services modelled on fractional C-Suite services, which offers strategic solutions for businesses who need high-level expertise and leadership without committing or paying for a full-time executive.

Now, as CFO Bridge approaches its twelfth anniversary, it plans to drive fractional C-suite services across India—beyond the finance department. The company is expanding its offerings to Chief Technology Officers (CTO) and Chief Human Resources Officers (CHRO) for SMEs. The founder of CFO Bridge Srinivasan V Swamy; co-founders of CTO Bridge Satyanarayanan Visvanathan and Sundar Sampath, and the founder of Kedge Foster Widen, Suresh Bethavandu sat down with YourStory to discuss the SME ecosystem, the search for the right CTOs, choosing CHROs in the time of turbulence and the way forward for all three verticals under the CFO Bridge umbrella.

YS: In the past, you have shared the intriguing story of how you started CFO Bridge. With the company’s anniversary drawing near, how do you feel about its journey?

Srinivasan Swamy: A lot of things have happened in the last 12 years. We have completed servicing and working with over 500 clients.

Our first significant step was in identifying our client base—SMEs. As we began focussing on SMEs, we realised that the primary needs in this sector were formalisation and professionalisation. With the boom of public markets and the rise in valuations, SMEs were eager to grow, but lacked the CxO leadership that would help them grow into a successful entity. We decided to provide leadership in the realms of Finance, Tech and Talent, or FTT. Our goal was to identify Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) who are experts and agile enough to adjust to the unique SME culture.

Sundar Sampath: We began with CFO Bridge 1.0 where we would offer these fractional capabilities to the SME ecosystem. Once the concept of CFO Bridge was well received, we moved on to the next phase, CFO Bridge 2.0 where we expanded across the country, across multiple domains, and added 40 CFO partners to our roster. The current phase, CxO 3.0, involves adding other adjacencies such as technology and talent.

YS: What value do CFO Bridge partners bring to their clients?

Srinivasan Swamy: The biggest change that our CFOs have brought to SMEs is to drive a culture of data-driven decision making. Our CFO partners have helped SMEs identify and analyse the various dimensions of data—from the origin of data, to data integrity and data consistency. We help them ensure that the quality of data is pristine, allowing them to make informed decisions. Also, being experienced CFOs, we helped our clients achieve healthy growth of both top and bottom-line by partnering with the Promoters.

YS: CFO Bridge has grown tremendously in the last 12 years. What are your plans for the future?

Srinivasan Swamy: In the future, we want to make sure that CFO Bridge is the one stop shop for SMEs. We have made sure to cover every aspect of CFO capabilities—from deep financial knowledge to proficiency in risk management, taxation support and advisory services to regulatory and compliance services. In terms of geography, we have opened a subsidiary in the United States, with two CFO partners on ground.

We are also looking to expand in the Gulf, with headquarters in Dubai. And where CFO Bridge goes, CTO and CHRO Bridges will follow. Our plans for the future, in essence, is to bridge the gaps between various departments. When a client comes to CFO Bridge, they can also access the capabilities of CTO Bridge and Kedge Foster Widen, which will be our CHRO Bridge platform . Our focus, now, is to deliver a seamless experience across these three verticals—finance, technology and talent. Ultimately, we want to pioneer in evolving fractional CXO services in India.

YS: What are the core capabilities and qualifications that every CTO partner must bring to the table?

Satyanarayanan Visvanathan: I’m expanding this question to include Chief Information Officers, Chief Information Security Officers, Chief Digital Officers and Chief Technology Officers. Let me put it this way, our partners need to excel in the three components that I would call ‘a good ECG’. ‘E’ for Expertise and Experience. ‘C’ for Cultural adaptation and Collaboration, and G for Geo proximity and Growth mindset. An excellent CTO or CIO partner needs to have a growth mindset for the organisation.

So far, all the Partners whom we have onboarded are silver jubilee specialists—all with more than 25 years of experience. We also have a policy in place, where at least 2 of the co-founders evaluate a partner before they are onboarded. This way, we have a multi-dimensional view of a persona.

YS: Technology is making sweeping changes in every sector. How has it impacted SMEs and how can CTO Bridge partners

Satyanarayanan Visvanathan: Security is a big conversational point for our clients. People have this worry of ‘Am I really secure?’ Even the organisations that are well fortified ask us if our team could assess their IT infrastructure and see if they are really secure. Some of our clients are worried about theft of intelligence, others are worried about competitors snooping.

Our CTO partners are rolling up their sleeves and enabling these companies in their tech transformations. We are helping companies upgrade from their legacy systems. In some cases they require a DevSecOps approach, others may require cloudification, cloud consulting, or cloud economics, and some require a plan for modernization.

The final area where CTO Bridge is making a change is in startup stories. Many startups typically have CTOs with mid level (say around 15 years) experience, who may need guidance to take them to the next level. That’s where we come in.

YS: The latest arm of the business will offer reliable and expert leadership as well as HR tools and talent solutions in Human Resources. Why HR, and how do you believe that it will impact SMEs?

Suresh Bethavandu: My belief is that whether you’re an IT company, product organisation, Global Capacity Centre (GCC), in manufacturing or in the FMCG sector, successful organisations need successful people. That means leaders who are committed to creating ethical, compliant, employee-first cultures in the office. We are at the point where organisations are dedicated to hiring successful people who create meaningful outcomes. CHRO Bridge will play a key role in creating impactful outcomes for SMEs no matter the segment.

Sundar Sampath: These days, mature organisations have started to realise that they need trusted and experienced Human Resources professionals. However, access to vintage and pedigreed HR leaders was reserved for the biggest companies in India. SMEs, who were previously working with individual consultants, reached out to us, asking if we could connect them with HR partners who could provide institutionalised knowledge.

YS: There have been huge shifts in HR in the last few years. Remote and hybrid work has changed the way companies work. How is that impacting HR strategies today?

Suresh Bethavandu: Absolutely. I would argue that the life of employees, work styles of employees and the elements that the human resources organisation and talent organisations were focusing on prior to COVID-19 have undergone a 180% change. The old cookbook that we were used to, is no longer relevant, because prior to 2020 everybody was coming into the office. Now, I’m seeing attrition and a decline in employee motivation.

Today, organisations lack the mechanisms to capture performance management or neglect to offer employees an effective development strategy. I think over time, HR has gotten used to dealing with the same set of issues. Post-COVID, I believe that the script for Human Resources has changed dramatically.

How has this shift affected CHRO partners?

Suresh Bethavandu: The challenge for CHRO leaders is that while company objectives remain the same, hybrid and remote working have made achieving these objectives even more complex. In spite of employees joining the company, they have never met their supervisors and colleagues or been to the office. So, how do we make sure they feel like a part of the organisation?

In this case, I like to think of CHRO leaders as conductors of a symphony. They know the players, they know their audience, but they have just been given a brand new sheet of music and asked to improvise. I believe that people who have the ability to handle chaos will thrive in the talent function.

Srinivasan Swamy: I believe that significant pattern changes are witnessed in talent usage in India, primarily fractional and “on demand” usage. Economic tailwinds are ushering in growth in business, leading to access of funds from public markets. This makes the fractional CXO model ideal for SMEs and CFO Bridge is happy to be of service to these enterprises.

Sundar Sampath: Apart from Indian SMEs, we also believe that the FTT platform can help nano-GCCs (companies from outside India trying to set up smaller global capability centres in India) by offering them a one-stop shop for their Finance Tech and Talent strategies.