“Crunching numbers” may not sound as flashy as designing a new product, but it’s one of the key drivers for business success.
Tech leaders rely on numerical analysis to shape business strategy, control risk and optimize resources — and that’s where finance teams come in. Without finance teams, businesses would lack the financial knowledge needed to make major business decisions.
Katherine Segovia, a treasury operations team lead at international money management company Wise, knows this well. She and her teammates manage liquidity across a diverse portfolio of currencies.
Segovia said that her team sits at the “heart of everything Wise does.” When a new product or market is launched, her team ensures that the right money is in the right currency at the exact right time, facilitating a seamless customer experience while keeping internal costs low.
“You have a direct, tangible hand in shaping how the business scales,” Segovia said.
Meanwhile, at digital investing company Apex Fintech Solutions, FP&A Director Michael Thomas and his teammates drive business success by examining financial data, identifying trends and providing actionable insights to business leaders. He described the work his team does as “rewarding, challenging, engaging and complex.”
“It can also be an incredibly gratifying experience to know that your expertise has successfully contributed to the strength of the company while enabling opportunities for more people to invest in their future,” Thomas said.
Read on to see what else Segovia and Thomas had to say about how their teams support smarter, more sustainable growth, and what financial job candidates should know about what it’s like to work on their teams.
Wise helps people move and manage money across borders, such as simplifying business payments and making it easy for individuals to spend abroad with the Wise Multi-Currency Card.
What’s it like to work on the finance team at Wise?
Working on the treasury team at Wise is fast, dynamic and genuinely exciting. On any given day, we are managing liquidity across a massive, diverse mix of global currencies, everything from the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso and the Chilean peso in Latin America to the U.S. dollar and Canadian dollar in North America.
But what makes life here so fulfilling isn’t just watching the numbers move; it’s the incredible, cross-functional collaboration. I get to sit down with different teams to brainstorm how we can take manual processes and automate them from scratch. We aren’t just protecting the company from operational and liquidity risks; we are providing scalability needed to launch new products and step into new markets globally. If you love solving complex, real-world puzzles with a brilliant team that always has your back, this is exactly where you want to be.
“If you love solving complex, real-world puzzles with a brilliant team that always has your back, this is exactly where you want to be.”
How does your finance team support financial health and long-term company growth?
When most people hear the term “financial health,” they instantly think of traditional corporate budgeting, accounting spreadsheets and rigid cost-tracking. Treasury often gets overlooked in that conversation, but at a scaleup company like Wise, we are the operational engine of the whole business.
To us, liquidity is the fuel that keeps everything running. Our cash infrastructure has to scale just as fast as the business expands. Otherwise, liquidity becomes a bottleneck that slows down our growth. That’s why financial health to me means constantly evaluating every single new product and reviewing our current ones to ensure they are fully optimized. We are actively managing liquidity risks behind the scenes so we can keep operational costs as low as possible for our customers. We drive sustainable growth by ensuring our infrastructure is always ready for what’s next.
What should candidates know about the impact finance has on strategic decision-making at Wise?
They really need to know that in the treasury we sit right at the heart of everything Wise does, acting as the operational epicenter for new projects.
Whenever we launch a new product or market, our team steps in to map out the liquidity risks and architect exactly how money will flow through global banking rails. We’re aiming for absolute precision: making sure the right money is in the right currency at the exact right time so our customers get a flawless, instantaneous experience, all while keeping internal costs low. In practice, we don’t just manage cash; we proactively build the infrastructure by evaluating public holiday bottlenecks, forecasting queue volumes and building contingency funding plans. You have a direct, tangible hand in shaping how the business scales.
Apex Fintech Solutions’ ecosystem of platforms, APIs and services is designed to help organizations navigate the future of finance, offering fractional share-trading, robo-investing and more.
What’s it like to work on the finance team at Apex Fintech Solutions?
Working on the finance team at my company has been rewarding, challenging, engaging and complex. Our culture — as well as our industry — are such that the only constant tends to be change, so each team member must be highly adaptive and capable of the mental agility necessary to thrive in such changing environments. And for years, I’ve had the pleasure to work with an amazing group of finance professionals that fit that bill to a tee. The team is relied upon as a group of gatekeepers and stewards of the firm’s financials, and we hold each other accountable to the highest of standards. There are high-stress moments indeed, but having the confidence that everyone is working toward a common goal provides the support that is needed to navigate those times.
How does your finance team support financial health and long-term company growth?
My team focuses on improving financial efficiency and evaluating potential investments to help drive business performance into the future. We accomplish this by examining financial data, identifying trends and providing actionable insights to the business and leadership that guide enterprise decisions. Collaboration with cross-functional teams to understand business needs is required along with developing financial models in support of strategic initiatives. Ultimately, we empower our leaders with financial insights that support holistic, fiscally responsible decisions for the benefit and long-term stability of our customers and the firm.
“Ultimately, we empower our leaders with financial insights that support holistic, fiscally responsible decisions for the benefit and long-term stability of our customers and the firm.”
What should candidates know about the impact finance has on strategic decision-making at Apex Fintech Solutions?
Apex is committed to making frictionless access to the markets available to every person on the planet. Such a lofty goal cannot be achieved without thoughtful planning, prioritization and relentless attention to detail — and that’s where our finance team comes in. Whether they’re building long-term plans for new products, client growth and market changes or distilling those plans down into a succinct, intelligible presentation, candidates should be aware that the quality of their work can be the difference between a project being greenlit or not. Is that a lot of pressure? It can be. It can also be an incredibly gratifying experience to know that your expertise has successfully contributed to the strength of the company while enabling opportunities for more people to invest in their future.
