Most CFOs learn about cash management gradually. But Catherine Birkett had the dubious privilege of being thrown in at the deep end in her first CFO role – managing a €10m monthly burn rate with barely any revenue. Here, she explains why a crisis isn’t to be feared but embraced as a chance for bold, calculated moves – and highlights how her journey from telecoms to fintech has taught her that sometimes the biggest threat is avoiding risk altogether.

A crash course in cash burn

Now steering the finance function at GoCardless, Catherine’s CFO journey began in the high-stakes world of telecom with Interoute, a company she candidly describes as “nearly bankrupt” when she joined. “We were burning €10 million monthly post-dot-com crash,” she recalls. “Every Monday, I asked myself the same question: ‘Can we make payroll this week?’”

It was undeniably a tough gig, especially for someone stepping into the CFO role for the first time. But known for her pragmatic approach (she is a proud northerner, after all!), Catherine tackled the challenge by creating a “three-horizon framework” that balanced short-term survival with long-term growth. “I asked myself three questions: what has to happen today to keep us afloat? What needs to happen this month to stabilise? And what should happen this quarter to build for the future?” 

That framework, born out of necessity, has become a guiding principle throughout her career, helping to keep immediate financial needs in check without sacrificing long-term strategy.

“When you’re staring down the barrel, you can’t afford to overthink,” she advises. “Sometimes, survival means moving faster, trusting your gut, and accepting that waiting for perfect information is a luxury you don’t have. You just have to get on with it. But having that daily, monthly, and quarterly plan can at least provide an anchor in a sea of chaos.”

To help prevent these kinds of situations in the first place, Catherine advocates focusing on building resilience. “Cash is king, especially when the world is so unpredictable. I’m always thinking about cash reserves,” she says. “Having a cash buffer isn’t just about security, it’s about freedom. As CFOs, it lets us make strategic decisions without the desperation that can come from being cash-strapped.”

Risk can be your best friend (sometimes)

Despite her love for financial security, Catherine doesn’t buy into the conventional wisdom that playing it safe is always best, certainly when it comes to strategic decision-making. For example, there were often times at GoCardless when the need to invest to grow the business had to be considered alongside cost control. This was particularly evident during Covid when, together with her CEO, she persuaded the board not to make such severe cutbacks despite the uncertain macro-economic environment – to ensure the business could continue to grow. A move which proved successful as, after an initial drop in revenues, the business continued to flourish.

For Catherine, risk management isn’t always about dodging uncertainty – although of course there is a large amount of that too – but also about knowing when to bet on it. “I think there’s a myth in finance that caution equals safety. But in a high-growth market, standing still can be the riskiest move of all.”

FX strategy: certainty over speculation

Although she advocates for taking calculated risks in some areas, FX is not one of them. Her approach at GoCardless is to focus on stability over speculation. “You’re not a forex trader. You’re a CFO. Certainty is what matters,” she says. “If you’ve budgeted at a rate, lock it in and move on. Don’t gamble.”

One formative experience stands out for her. In 2016, just months before Brexit, Interoute acquired a sterling-based business, only to see the currency plummet. “Overnight, the revenue value in sterling dropped. Thankfully, we were hedged, so the bottom line wasn’t impacted, but explaining that shift to stakeholders was a nightmare,” she recalls. “You can’t predict everything, but you can prepare for the worst. Locking in certainty always outweighs speculative gains.”

Not hiring clones

Elsewhere, Catherine likes to take a deliberate approach when it comes to building her finance team, with her key consideration being that their strengths fill her weaknesses, and not opting for people just like herself. “Early in my career, I thought I’d made the perfect hire – someone who mirrored my approach exactly. But it turned out to be a complete disaster,” she laughs. “Two people with identical strengths mean identical blind spots.”

Since then, she’s flipped her hiring strategy entirely. Today, her team at GoCardless is intentionally diverse in both thought and approach. “My current financial controller and I have completely different styles. They catch what I miss, and I catch what they might overlook. It’s a balance,” she says. By hiring people who think differently, Catherine ensures her team brings fresh perspectives, fewer blind spots, and a stronger ability to handle complex challenges. “You don’t want clones – you want different opinions, and people who are prepared to question. That curiosity creates checks and balances.”

The human element of the CFO role is becoming more and more critical, believes Catherine. Aside from good hiring strategies, soft skills are increasingly in demand – especially the art of communication with the board. 

To Catherine, board meetings aren’t for show, they’re for setting direction. Recently, she faced a boardroom showdown where competing priorities were stirring up tension. Instead of pushing a single recommendation, she presented a “decision map” that laid out multiple pathways.

“Rather than focusing solely on numbers, we mapped out three paths: conservative, balanced, and aggressive growth. But we didn’t just show figures. We demonstrated how each choice would affect everything: product roadmap, talent acquisition, market positioning, and customer experience,” she says. This approach shifted the discussion to the bigger picture, enabling the board to focus on what mattered most to the business.

“It’s not about knowing every answer,” she explains. “It’s about being able to shift the conversation to speak directly to the target audience, in their language. Which in the case of the board is strategy.”

Changing the CFO playbook

With a unique view across almost every function of the business, Catherine believes a CFO equipped with the right communication skills, team, and tools, is one of the best-positioned people in the organisation to spark real change.

“It’s not just about looking at the past,” she says. “It’s about identifying opportunities that move the company forward. The CFO role today is as much about asking the right questions as it is about giving the right answers.”

One of those questions is of course which technologies to adopt in order to stay innovative, especially in a cutting-edge industry like payments. But Catherine’s best advice when choosing tech is to ask first: ‘what problem are we trying to solve?’. “I’ve seen too many companies invest in flashy systems that end up creating more issues than they fix. Don’t shop for shiny tools, shop for the outcomes you want to see.”

Unsurprisingly, her approach at GoCardless is definitely about pragmatism over flash, and substance over style. “We automate what makes sense, but we’re not chasing tech for tech’s sake, and we’re still happy to use spreadsheets” she explains. For Catherine, technology’s main role is to free up human capacity for the decisions that need it most.

And while she sees AI as invaluable for ‘what-if’ analysis and scenario planning, she insists that human oversight is essential. “You can’t rely on models to make judgement calls, especially when there’s uncertainty. AI can’t replace the nuance of experience – at least not yet.”

Loving the messiness

With a career full of high-stakes decisions and the occasional crisis, the constant evolution of tech, as well as new challenges and strategic demands keep Catherine fully engaged on her CFO path. “I genuinely love my job,” she beams. “I love the numbers, I love the strategy, and I love the people side of it – trying to balance competing interests and make it all work.”

In Catherine’s view, being a great CFO is all about embracing the messiness of real-world challenges and making decisions that have a true impact. Her advice to aspiring CFOs is: “If you’re going to do this job, make sure you actually enjoy it. There will be days when you need that love of the role to keep you going. But it will pay you back in spades. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.