Brazil |  VP of Finance

Sergio Wuensche

Even with 28 years of career experience (seven years at Big Four companies and in CFO positions), Sergio is tackling a steep learning curve at Crossover (working for Crossover’s client Trilogy). “I have had previous experience with lean manufacturing tools applied into finance and saw very good results using them. But I think Crossover has a much more developed way to monitor tasks. It’s teaching me to be a better leader and manager, and helping me drive my teams.”
Sergio Wuensche, VP of Finance

What were you looking for personally or professionally when you decided to join Crossover?

I have about 28 years of career experience, with seven years spent at Big Four companies and my entire career developed on accounting and controlling, and CFO positions more lately. I have also worked abroad in Chile and had regional (LATAM) responsibilities in my previous roles, working for multinationals and covering multiple locations.

What attracted me to Crossover in the first place was the opportunity to work remotely and the compensation. When I saw the finance positions posted at the compensations we pay, I couldn’t believe it was real. But I applied through the tournament and through that process, I realized that the compensation is real and the work is too. I am a VP of Finance now for Crossover’s client Trilogy.

What are you learning at Crossover, given your extensive previous experience?

Well, two main things. I didn't have much experience in terms of detailed international treasury operations. As a CFO (i.e., in my previous roles), I usually looked at a 40,000 foot approach, thinking more strategically. But at Trilogy, you need to dive into the details. In Finance, this means that I get to go to the portals and do banking transactions and retrieve statements.

But what really impressed me about the model was how Crossover helps you focus on deconstructing large, aggressive goals into daily and weekly tasks. This helps not only in monitoring my teams, but ultimately myself.

Is there a specific project that you are working on at Trilogy that you think is particularly interesting?

I’m working on the automation of some treasury tasks like the uploading and processing of payments from NetSuite directly into the banking portals. Ideally, we transfer the files as an EDI, but there is a difficulty on when and how you should approve the payments. We’re building a process to allow us to place payments on hold in the banks for review prior to releasing, instead of processing entirely through NetSuite, which doesn’t allow a “parking lot” of on hold payments. We’re in a phase of heavy testing now and it’s working.

I’m also working on an automation for the cash forecast. This is very important for Treasury because you have to monitor it on a daily basis. We do a weekly cash forecast, and currently the work you have to do to get there is highly manual.

I also think our management philosophy is super interesting. It helps managers really understand their teams’ processes and how they can achieve their goals while improving performance on a weekly basis. Sometimes we need to revisit the metrics - in fact, I’m in the process of revisiting my metrics for next quarter. We are in the middle of a change in processes and systems, so our current metrics will no longer be relevant when we have a fully automated P2P process.

Has Crossover enabled you to do anything personally or professionally that you weren't able to do before joining Crossover?

Professionally, I’m getting more in-depth exposure to international banking operations than I had before. I also have never been in an environment where we are processing acquisitions at such a large scale - one company per week. This is a big challenge for us because the pace does not seem to be slowing down, and we still need to build seamless processes to transfer finance workflows from acquired companies into our own.

It’s a truly massive challenge. But there is no better way to learn than when you’re in a war. It can be stressful in that regard, but it’s fun.

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