What the First Finance Hire Actually Does
It’s not about closing the books. It’s about giving the company a way to see itself.
A while back I had a conversation with Ed Park that’s stayed with me.
Ed built FP&A at Facebook through the IPO, joined Asana around thirty people to build finance there, and later became CFO at Enjoy. Few people have lived the “first operator” role as deeply as he has.
We were talking about what actually makes a great first finance hire. Not the surface-level stuff like closing the books or running payroll, but what separates the people who just do finance from the ones who change the trajectory of the company.
Ed said something I’ll never forget:
“The first finance hire gives the company a brain.”
That’s it. The job isn’t to report what happened. It’s to build a model that explains how things happen, how growth, monetization, and efficiency work together.
When Ed joined Asana, that’s exactly what he did. He mapped out what he called a multivariate equation for the business. What drives revenue? What predicts conversion? What behavior precedes monetization?
Every team was focused on their own piece — marketing, product, sales — but nobody was stitching it together. Finance became the glue.
He found that three active free users in an org, engaged within 28 days, was highly correlated with conversion. They called it 3D28.
It wasn’t perfect causation, but it gave everyone a shared language. Marketing started telling the collaboration story. Product made it easier to invite teammates. Growth refined the new user flow. Suddenly the whole company was optimizing toward the same goal.
That’s the hidden leverage of the first operator. You turn chaos into a shared narrative that can be measured, challenged, and improved. You create a discipline of prediction and review. Set targets, miss them, learn, iterate. The point isn’t to be right; it’s to teach the company how to think.
Of course, you still have to feed the body before you can grow the brain. If payroll is slipping or reimbursements are a mess, fix that first. But don’t chase A pluses on low leverage hygiene. Good enough is fine if it buys you the hours to unpack the funnel and build the model.
Ed also reminded me of something I learned the hard way at Intercom. Finance people tend to under resource themselves. We pride ourselves on being scrappy. But if your work is helping the company make faster, better decisions, raise your hand. Ask for help. Pull in an analyst or a data engineer. Automate. The company needs you at your highest leverage, not buried in spreadsheets.
What I love about Ed’s framing is that it captures the spirit of this role. You’re not just analyzing the business. You’re creating the language the business uses to understand itself.
If you’re walking into your first operator role, start there.
Map the equation.
Pick the line in the sand.
Get everyone saying it out loud.
Review it every week.
Ask for help when it starts to work.
Keep the body fed. Build the brain.