The workforce is global by default, pay expectations are changing, and new technologies are reshaping the way companies hire and manage talent. CFOs who understand the financial aspects of these changes will be better prepared to guide their companies through what comes next.
James Loftus, CFO of Palo Alto, California-based employer records provider Pebl, has many best practices when it comes to hiring in multiple countries.
With more than 20 years of experience leading high-performing teams in fintech, M&A, and venture capital, Mr. Loftus was previously a managing partner at PayPal Ventures, where he led over $1 billion in early-stage fintech investment funds and helped launch the firm's AI investment strategy. Prior to joining PayPal, he founded and led the corporate venture capital program at Cash App and held senior corporate development positions at Block, Yahoo!, A16Z, and Google.
In an interview, Loftus talked about how CFOs can transform hiring from a cost-to-revenue transformation to a financial strategy lever, the role AI will play, and the power of a distributed workforce.
As companies expand their search for talent across borders, what is the smartest way for CFOs to redesign their cost structures and benefit from recruiting in multiple countries rather than relying on a single labor market?
The most effective way to benefit from hiring in multiple countries is to move from a local headcount model to true talent unit economics. Breaking down labor into its actual cost drivers such as salaries, social taxes, benefits, overhead, and administration reveals that geography is a strategic tool.
A practical way to achieve this is to construct a “talent cost curve” for your most important roles. Compare the full cost by role in several viable markets, starting with the skills needed, not the location. The goal is not to chase the lowest cost country, but to understand where you can get the right level of functionality in the most cost-effective total package.
Approaching it this way allows you to move away from the old defaults of “hiring engineers in Silicon Valley” or “staffing finance in London.” Simply because that's what it always has been. A few years ago, most companies looking for senior engineers automatically ended up paying the highest salaries in Silicon Valley because there were no viable alternatives. Disciplined CFOs can now compare what it would mean to hire for the same role in Vancouver, Toronto, or Warsaw, Poland, considering compensation, legal fees, and collaboration implications. When talent is modeled as an input from multiple markets, it is no longer constrained to a single pool of workers.
As AI transforms how roles are structured and where work gets done, which financial metrics should CFOs prioritize to measure true ROI for their global teams?
CFOs often rely on the most quantifiable metric, even if it doesn't reflect actual productivity. Measuring ROI starts with understanding how work is actually done within your company.
This means looking beyond headline metrics such as “days to completion” and looking at the underlying workflows, such as the number of handoffs required by work processes, how long adjustments take, how often work is reworked, and where data is manually moved between systems. Without this standard, we risk declaring victory over the wrong things.
A good starting point is to conduct a quick work inventory and walk through the process with your finance and operations teams. Plan your key workflows in plain language and identify which steps are repetitive, rule-based, or error-prone. These steps are the best candidates for AI assistance or global team support.
The mousetrap to avoid is assuming that AI “productivity” will automatically show up in traditional output metrics, or using headcount reductions as the primary ROI signal. In knowledge work, a more meaningful strategy is to reduce manual steps, reduce adjustment cycles, and reduce errors that require rework.
Benefits come from eliminating manual steps, reducing rework and shortening process cycles. Global teams and AI create value when they remove friction, not by speeding up inefficient processes. The priority is to map your workflow, find bottlenecks, and measure how much work is lost.
This is the clearest financial signal you'll get, and it also frees up core finance teams to spend more time analyzing, planning, and partnering with the business rather than chasing numbers.
Increasing geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty is putting business continuity plans to the test. How can a distributed workforce help CFOs strengthen resilience and reduce exposure to endemic disruptions?
Decentralizing your workforce is one of the most practical ways to reduce geopolitical and regulatory risk. When important jobs are located in a single market, we are at risk. Spreading across multiple regions quickly reduces continuity risk. Recent turmoil, from the war in Ukraine to repeated currency instability in Argentina, has shown how difficult it is to maintain operations when talent is concentrated in one hub.
Unlike traditional domestic employment, modern global workforce models allow for work to shift rather than pause when disruptions occur. If employees relocate or local conditions change, you can continue to employ the same team in the same location rather than rebuilding infrastructure in a new country. Time zone diversity also adds natural redundancy. For CFOs, this is about more than just talent decisions. This is a resilience strategy rooted in diversification.
The economic impact is significant. A decentralized model reduces sunk costs associated with a single country, limits expensive entity unwinding, and keeps delivery to customers stable even when regions are offline. Rather than locking continuity plans into a single region, you have the ability to rebalance them in real time as political and regulatory conditions change.
From multi-currency payroll to new digital rails, payroll innovation is accelerating. What steps should CFOs take now to build a compensation strategy that supports flexible payment options without increasing financial risk?
Compensation is rapidly evolving. CFOs need a framework that supports flexibility between currencies, digital payment rails, and possibly stablecoins without increasing financial risk.
Start by standardizing your global compensation architecture. Fix base pay in local currency, define clear rules for variable pay, and control currency exposure. Stablecoins can be useful in markets where traditional banking is slow or unreliable, but they require strong governance, including financial policies, compliance checks, and clear conversion rules.
The goal is simple. Provide your global team with reliable, fast payment options while limiting financial risk.
