For Melissa Howatson, a move to FP&A software vendor Vena Solutions a year and a half ago entailed more than the usual amount of change.
She’d been with online learning platform provider D2L for 10 years, the last four as CFO. She says she was comfortable there — but maybe too comfortable.
So she shook things up. Whereas D2L is a publicly held company whose customers are universities and school districts, 13-year-old Vena is privately held and directly targets finance leaders with its financial planning and analysis platform. Thus, Howatson herself is an example of the company’s target customers.
A big change for Howatson came last September when she stepped out of her comfort zone and began hosting a weekly podcast called “The CFO Show”, where she interviews other finance chiefs about common challenges and opportunities they face.
Vena’s sales proposition is based on finance workers’ continuing preference for using Excel. Its software incorporates souped-up AI and business intelligence capabilities designed to allow companies to continue using Excel for FP&A work as they scale.
Howatson, who joined the company in December 2022, is an operationally oriented-CFO. In addition to finance, she oversees procurement and facilities; administrative functions; internal controls; team coaching and development; systems implementation and process efficiency; and continuous improvement and lean principles.
![Vena’s CFO Melissa Howatson header](/imgproxy/EySS2cyS8g2LUT5QTjf5bjNDPRtwRJm22huj1EHYxsw/g:ce/rs:fill:250:250:0/bG9jYWw6Ly8vZGl2ZWltYWdlLzE2MzU5ODgzMDY2MTQuanBn.webp)
Melissa Howatson
CFO, Vena Solutions
- First CFO position: 2012
- Notable previous companies:
- D2L
- Primal
- Qwalify
- Bend All Automotive
- KPMG
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
DAVID MCCANN: There’s a lot of FP&A software out there. What is Vena’s differentiation?
MELISSA HOWATSON: From the beginning, the product was based on the philosophy of making it user-friendly around Excel, while a lot of our competitors have chosen to replace Excel with different modeling tools.
Finance people love Excel. It’s a default. So let’s not try to force them away from something they're familiar with. Let's make it quicker and supercharge it with the capabilities we’ve [developed].
Since then we've continued to lean into the Microsoft stack with things like our Power BI solution, and now we’re leaning into Microsoft Azure Open AI.
But isn’t the overall usage of Excel down somewhat from 10 or 15 years ago?
HOWATSON: Certainly there were other tools, such as Google Sheets. But no, what we've seen is that there’s still a lot of usage of Microsoft products. And Microsoft is building up an ecosystem around that, with online versions that allow collaboration.
We see that with customers, Microsoft has gotten cool again. We go through waves in time for what’s in and what’s out. At this point, especially with AI, some of the bets Microsoft is making are paying off. We are very much committed to the path that we're on.
Does Vena work with Microsoft engineers on the products?
HOWATSON: We have a strong partnership with them, and we’ve been selected to be part of their “unicorn” team. That gives us new features pre-release so we can embed them into our products and helps us to leverage some of Microsoft’s resources.
“Microsoft has gotten cool again. We go through waves in time for what’s in and what’s out. At this point, especially with AI, some of the bets Microsoft is making are paying off.”
![](https://d12v9rtnomnebu.cloudfront.net/diveimages/corporate_site/teampage/square_profiles/placeholder-200.png)
Melissa Howatson
CFO of Vena
So, you’re selling to CFOs. Do you have input into product development?
HOWATSON: Me and my team are the target clients, so the product team certainly does ask for our thoughts. We try to push the limits internally in using new features, and at times we’re brought in to talk to customers and see what they're saying.
At our Excelerate conference [May 15-16, 2024] I'll be very involved with the keynote and other sessions. I've always gone to customer conferences at my other CFO jobs, but my participation is a little different at Vena.
Speaking of doing things differently, how did the CFO Show come about?
HOWATSON: If you'd asked me five years ago whether I'd be doing a podcast, I would have laughed. But I was speaking with our CMO last year about different things, including career growth, and we joked about doing a podcast. But then we actually talked about it and decided it would be a good idea in terms of helping to create some thought leadership in the space.
I have a fair bit of experience as a CFO, and I leaned into mentorship and experiences with others along the way to help me be successful in my career. I thought, wouldn't it be great to have a forum for others who may be early in their careers? Or even later in their careers, as we are often looking to solve common challenges. What tech stacks are you looking at? How are you organizing your finance teams? How are you working on efficiency?
Can you provide an example of something you picked up on the show that you then implemented?
HOWATSON: I interviewed somebody who talked about how CFOs can do better with board relations. There should never be any real surprises of course, but they also talked about mixing in the good with the bad.
That was a moment of even reflection for myself. When you’re getting ready for the board you tend to prepare a rosy picture, shining a light on all the good things being done. But are you balancing that with areas where maybe you could the board’s help?
It was a reminder that the board members have great experiences and are there to help. It's not a weakness to ask for help or some different thoughts.
You were at your previous job for quite a long time. I imagine that gave you a very granular understanding of the business. But are there also certain types of growth that can come only through more varied experiences?
HOWATSON: Yes, I think that's right. You can get comfortable. I wasn't looking to leave D2L and was enjoying being part of a public company. But I was getting close to 10 years in the job, and I asked myself whether it might be best to be a little less comfortable.
"I have a fair bit of experience as a CFO, and I leaned into mentorship and experiences with others along the way to help me be successful in my career."
![](https://d12v9rtnomnebu.cloudfront.net/diveimages/corporate_site/teampage/square_profiles/placeholder-200.png)
Melissa Howatson
CFO of Vena
A career is built partly on having different experiences, but also bringing those experiences somewhere else. You may take for granted much of what you’ve learned, but in your new environment, some of those ideas may be new and could help move the company forward faster.
And also for D2L, it might have been best to have somebody else in that seat bringing in some different ideas and experiences.
Why Vena?
HOWATSON: I'd gotten to know Vena partly because I was the target client. So I was familiar with this type of product already. I knew the power it could have for a finance team by eliminating manual tasks and moving the team up the value chain by allowing them to spend more time on insights, analysis, and driving business decisions.
You are an operationally minded CFO — and you have to be, given all the functions that report to you. Do you have any principles for how you juggle all of those hats and establish priorities?
HOWATSON: It’s obviously about the team you build around you. There are different teams for different sizes and stages of a company. Where Vena is in terms of scaling up and moving fast means we need folks to put in place more processes, structure, and automation than what was required five years ago.
As for prioritization, I worked with a leader who talked about A drawer, the B drawer, and the C drawer. In the A drawer are things that make a meaningful difference today or are part of our core strategy.
I empower my team to question new things that come our way — is this a very important thing, or is it more of a B drawer item, which means we might get to it later, but we have to always stay focused on the A drawer items. In the C drawer are things that are “nice to have.”
You led D2L’s initial public offering in 2021. Did you come to Vena in part to run another IPO?
HOWATSON: I always say that you want to run a business that has options and controls its own destiny. So I don't think you ever want to be committed to just one path. If you run a good business opportunities present, whatever those might be.