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Symend’s CFO Shares Career Journey Before Symend

Aly Khan Musani

October 28, 2020: Symend’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Aly Khan Musani, joins Shubham Datta’s The Backbone podcast to highlight how Symend is transforming the debt recovery industry, share his career journey leading up to Symend and reveal Symend’s secret to success in its recent Series B raise.

There’s a myth that you can manage every aspect of your career path and that it’s a linear progression–Aly shares that his journey was the complete opposite. His efforts to put himself out there and surround himself with talented people and mentors are how he ultimately landed senior opportunities and made it into the C-suite.

Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, Aly dove into a career in the energy sector as that was the gravitational pull of Calgary’s market at the time. After working with Western Energy Services up until the oil price crash, he realized it was time to transition out of the energy sector, take a risk and do something different. The result? His tenacity eventually landed him a CFO position at Symend; he saw its promising potential to disrupt the way large enterprises engage at-risk customers through behavioral science, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics.

“Symend was always an interesting prospect for me because the model is so unique and the value proposition is so strong,” Aly said. “I really enjoyed working with Hanif, so I made the leap and took the full-time position almost a year ago.”

He shares that there’s a huge lack of empathy and understanding in how companies help customers navigate difficult financial situations which rings true especially now. Fortunately, he notes that Symend’s enterprise solution is addressing this need in the market by helping clients embody empathy and compassion when engaging with their customers to provide a mutual win for everyone involved.

Aly explains how he’s seen first-hand the hardship Calgary has faced as a result of the reliance on the energy industry. Yet, he’s excited to see many smart and motivated Calgarians seizing new opportunities and creating new businesses that would have never been possible just a few years ago. A strong case can be made that these businesses, Symend included, are using data and analytics to unleash new forms of value creation. At a time of economic uncertainty, Aly is excited to join forces with Symend to accelerate Calgary’s tech ecosystem while helping clients increase positive engagement with their customers for generations to come.

Listen to the podcast to learn more about:

  • A go-to online resource for all things finance related and Aly’s favorite productivity hack
  • Aly’s biggest learnings from Symend’s $52M USD Series B raise
  • The top misconception about the finance function within growth stage software companies
  • Similarities and differences between startups and early stage companies in technology and energy

The Backbone podcast invites finance directors, VPs and CFOs to share their story of how they entered the world of startups, explain what their company does, describe unique challenges they face in their roles and share expertise relating to specific top of mind topics for finance leaders. Topics include preparing for board meetings, determining key metrics and when to think about raising capital, amongst others.