Tony Grimminck on how to rally the troops as Scribd’s new CEO: ‘We need to believe in the mission. Follow me. This is a great way to do it’

The San Francisco-based tech company, which launched in 2007 and now has three core subscription-based products: Scribd, which hosts 200 million documents, such as research papers and court filings, in a digital library; SlideShare, which is used for professional content, with over 25 million presentations from subject-matter experts; and Everand, an app with millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, and sheet music, according to the company. Scribd, Inc. Has approximately 2 million paying subscribers.

Courtesy of Scribd, Inc.

Grimminck, formally announced as CEO on Thursday, will be transitioning from his CFO role after Trip Adler, a cofounder, decided to step back from CEO duties but remain on the board. Before joining Scribd, Inc. As CFO in 2019, Grimminck was the CFO of HotelTonight, a senior director of finance, strategy, and corporate development at StubHub, and VP of investment banking at both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

When I asked Grimminck about making the jump from CFO to CEO, he first told me a story. During his time at StubHub, one of his roles was as the general manager of the North American group managing about 800. “I’m ex-military, so my expectations were like, ‘I’m gonna go run things, this is how stuff works, we’re going to do bold and great things,’” he recalled.

But he said he would end up spending a lot of time dealing with the personal issues of the executive team. One day, he was talking with the finance chief of the company who told him: “As a CFO, you have a lot of influence, but you don’t have to deal with all that stuff,” Grimminck recalled. “And I’ve been CFO of three different companies since then,” he said.

However, the role of the finance chief has been evolving, Grimminck said. “The CFO role has been transitioning to becoming more like a strategic leader versus you’re just the numbers person,” he said. “You’ve gone from being downstream of the CEO setting strategy to being a true partner. You understand all the operating metrics—all the levers in the business—which ultimately result in financial outcomes.”

Along with understanding the financials and devising paths for growth, CFOs nowadays are more involved in operations and managing talent, which helps when they move into CEO spots. “It’s a little bit of, ‘Come on, troops, we need to believe in the mission. Follow me. This is a great way to do it,’” he explained.

In competing against the likes of Audible and Spotify, will Scribd Inc.’s mission include pursuing an IPO? Grimminck responded: “I think that’s something definitely in our future.”

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

María Soledad Davila Calero curated the Leaderboard and Overheard sections of today’s newsletter.

Big deal

How does the next generation of C-suite executives define happiness? Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation, in partnership with Dr. Arthur C. Brooks, Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School, released a new survey on April 10 to examine what makes Gen Z happy. 

The research finds that the most influential driver of Gen Z’s happiness is their sense of purpose at school and work. At least six in 10 Gen Zers who are happy also say they feel they do something interesting every day (60%), are motivated to go to work or school (60%) and that the things they do at work or school are important (64%), according to the report.

Leaderboard

Some notable moves this week:

Anastasia Nyrkovskaya was named CEO at Coins2Day Media. Nyrkovskaya succeeds Alan Murray, who began as CEO in 2018 and announced in October that he planned to step down in April. Nyrkovskaya joined Coins2Day in 2019 as CFO and later added the role of chief strategy officer. She previously held senior roles in finance and accounting at NBCUniversal, KPMG, and XpresSpa Group.

Alex Barsk was named CFO at KFC Global, effective June 1. Barsk will also oversee KFC’s financial and planning analysis and strategy functions. She joins KFC Global from its sister brand, Pizza Hut, where she most recently served as global CFO. Barsk joined Pizza Hut in 2015 and has held leadership roles across strategy, finance, development, and supply chain. 

Ankur Dhingra  was named as CFO of Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN), a DNA-sequencing company. Dhingra has been the CFO of other companies in the health care sector, most recently Summit Therapeutics Inc. Dhingra is replacing Joydeep Goswami who decided to leave the company but will stay as an advisor until June 30.

Bill Wafford expanded his role at Qurate Retail Group, part of Qurate Retail, Inc. (Nasdaq: QRTEA). Wafford is keeping his role as CFO but he will also take on the role of chief administrative officer. Before joining Qurate Retail, he held CFO positions with Everlane, Vitamin Shoppe, and JC Penney.     

Mark Khavkin was named CFO at MinIO, an AI storage provider. Khavkin is the former CFO for Pantheon Systems, where he led two funding rounds and helped with go-to-market investment allocation.

Stephen Deitsch  is leaving his position of CFO at Paragon 28 (NYSE: FNA), an orthopedic medical device company, to join OrganOx Limited, a U.K.-based company focused on preserving donor organs. Kristina Wright was appointed interim CFO. 

Going deeper

Here are a few  Coins2Day  weekend reads:

“Goldman Sachs promotes Carey Halio to replace Phil Berlinski, who’s leaving to join a $63 billion hedge fund” by Luisa Beltran

“The topsy-turvy economy just found a new set of boosters—CEOs. Some 87% are confident in the U.S.’s growth prospects, KPMG survey found” by Paolo Confino 

“$1.46 million? $3 million? Financial experts say there’s no such thing as a single ‘magic’ retirement number” by Alicia Adamczyk

“Your boss is probably getting more sleep than you are, survey says. Here’s who catches more z’s than even CEOs, managers, and business owners” by Lindsey Leake

Overheard

“From Meta’s point of view…it gives them a bargaining tool with Nvidia. It lets Nvidia know that they’re not exclusive, [and] that they have other options. It’s hardware optimized for the AI that they are developing.”

— Edward Wilford, an analyst at tech consultancy Omdia, told Fortune about Meta’s announcement that it was doubling down in its AI infrastructure, including chips. Currently, Nvidia controls more than 90% of the AI chip market.