What does it take to lead a mission-driven, fast-growing fintech company? In this episode, host Jack McCullough sits down with Jennifer Loo, CFO of Tala, a company revolutionizing access to financial services for the 52% of the world’s population that doesn’t have access to traditional banks. Jennifer shares her career path from LegalZoom to Reformation to Tala, revealing the lessons she learned from mission-focused businesses and how they have shaped her leadership style.
She also discusses the evolving CFO role, how to balance social impact with financial sustainability, and why being a chief flexibility officer is the key to navigating an unpredictable world.
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We have a really interesting and fantastic guest. I’m really excited to have her. Her name is Jennifer Loo, CFO of Tala. Tala is a Santa Monica-based fintech company providing financial services to the global emerging middle class. Jennifer, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Jack. It’s great to be here.
I’ve been looking forward to it. I will have to admit, unfortunately, I wasn’t familiar with Tala until you reached out. I knew it at a very superficial level, and I gave a one-sentence description, but do you want to fill in the blanks for our readers?
Sure. I’m excited to share that. Tala is the first consumer financial platform specifically targeted at the global majority, a term we use to describe the 52% of the world’s population that lacks access to traditional financial services. Think major banks and so forth. We’re excited to serve this massive population with $10 trillion in economic power. Our customers are currently in East Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
One thing, when I was reading a little bit, and it’s a for-profit company, you’ve raised a good amount of cash and a very impressive valuation, by the way. In a way, you have a very philanthropic mission, don’t you?
Yes, we do. We believe in combining the two.
Nothing wrong with that. To me, that’s the best of both worlds.
It is how we drive scale.
Sounds like Tala is just one of the most exciting places to work and grow a career. I look forward to returning to that. I want to ask you a few questions about yourself before we get into it. Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
Were you with a big family?
I am an only child, so quite the opposite of that.
I’m in the middle of two sisters, so I was like the most spoiled human being that there could possibly be, the only boy amongst girls. What was your first job? I don’t mean your first professional job, but like in high school or college or something?
My first paying job was as the copy editor for the UC Berkeley student newspaper, The Daily Californian. I was really excited to get paid for my neurosis. It was a really great job.
Law Background
On your education, I think you studied economics in undergrad. It’s not as unusual as it used to be, but you have a law degree and you became a CFO and that’s an interesting combination. I’m wondering how that degree supports you in your role as a CFO.
Something that many people may not know about the CFO job is that it’s closely tied to legal matters. I have either managed the legal department or been very closely partnered with it. Much of what we do through contract review and negotiations actually relies somewhat on my background. It’s been nice to have actually had formal training on that. I think it helps my job on a fairly regular basis.
I was a CFO for a lot of companies back in the day, and the best lawyers aren’t necessarily just the best at legal and compliance. They’re business people, and they think strategically and can solve problems. Whether you’ve thought about it or not, I bet that helps you so much in your role as CFO.
Absolutely. Frankly, my favorite legal partners are those who are very business-minded. I think if you look at the GC role, for example, they can’t be afraid of numbers because a lot of what they will be doing in-house is how do you drive the business forward? How do you find the best economics in a partnership, and so forth, and vice versa?
CFOs cannot be afraid of words. That is so much a part of what we have to go through. The other layer is that I think both roles are very focused on not only helping the company pursue opportunities. They have to help the company manage risk. I believe that, in partnership, these two roles are crucial in navigating a business through its ups and downs.
You did go to college. You were educated overseas, I believe. Is that correct?
I’ve had some overseas, but mostly, it was here. I went to undergrad at UC Berkeley, did my Exec MB there too, and also got my law degree from New York University.
You’re one of the few CFOs who’s a lawyer.
I know. It’s a pretty painful combination.
No, it actually makes a lot of sense. Unlike in my era of CFOs, where we studied accounting and the went to a public accounting firm, that was 98% of us, your generation of CFOs, there are just so many ways to get to that role. Lawyers are great problem solvers, so it makes all the sense in the world.
It helps with all the contracts and negotiations we have to do.
That’s true, I guess, as well. In fact, one of our most popular programs is called Law School for the CFO. The reason we developed it is that many of our members didn’t realize how much the CFO job is a de facto in-house counsel-type role.
Actually, for a short period, I had to wear the GC hat. I’m glad to be refocused on finance, but it is actually very much a part of our day-to-day.
Inside and Out
You’ve had an interesting career in the LA entrepreneurship climate. I want to talk about your most recent jobs. One that’s particularly interesting to me because this company was using the tools, you worked at LegalZoom. That was one of the great companies. What was that like?
It was a lot of fun. That’s really where I cut my teeth in the finance department. Also, I started my career at a company where it wasn’t just about profits and growth. It was really about a mission. I think that’s where I got hooked on this idea that great businesses can actually do great things. It was a great place to start for me and a part of my journey that I’ve been really proud of.
By reputation, it’s one of those companies that’s known for having a world-class finance team. I’m curious, who are some of the critical mentors you might have had along the way, and what are some of the lessons that you learned?
Yes, actually, my boss and CFO there, Fred Krupika, was definitely a huge part of how I’ve developed my own leadership style. I learned a tremendous amount under him, both as a finance leader and as an executive. He’s definitely a huge part of my own career.
You worked at two companies, which I believe are relatively small. Your first CFO jobs were mitu and Reformation. It’s exciting to work as a CFO for small companies because you see it all. I never worked for a company anywhere near as big as LegalZoom or your current employer. What were some of the things that you’re exposed to and lessons learned that prepared you for the current role, which you’ve been in for several years?
I would say you’re exposed to everything. That’s actually pretty much part of every CFO role now, where I think the trick is really understanding any business inside and out, any industry inside and out. There’s no part of the organization that you’re not having to really dive into, be it sales or marketing or operations.
In terms of lessons learned, I think Reformation is a real standout. For those who don’t know, it is a women’s apparel company started in LA and really one of the first to put fashion and sustainability into the same sentence. What I learned there was that building a brand from the inside out is really critical for the business. From a reputation perspective, Reformation is a company that really focuses on not taking itself too seriously. It is pretty irreverent. You’ll find that its marketing is very humorous. Actually, can I redo that piece?
Sustainable Apparel
Sure, absolutely. Your experience at LegalZoom sounds like it was phenomenal, and you were later the CFO of Reformation, which is another intriguing company. I’m wondering what you could share about that experience.
For those who don’t know, Reformation is an LA-based women’s apparel brand that was one of the first to combine fashion and environmental sustainability in the same sentence. If I look back in terms of what I learned there, lots on the apparel size, supply chain, all of that, but I think what really stood out was the importance of being authentic to your brand from the inside out.
As a fashion brand, Reformation was known to be very irreverent. Its marketing was playful and humorous. It didn’t take itself too seriously, but it was also very hyper-focused on making women look and feel great. That approach permeated the entire business, particularly from the design and marketing side, but it also impacted how we created our board decks. It was just a very cohesive end-to-end.
The other critical tenet of the brand is its focus on environmental sustainability, which not only impacted the supply chain, what fabric we bought, what dyes we used, but it even impacted what pens I was allowed to buy. I think it showed how if you have a strong belief and you build your company around it, it should be in your DNA and impact all your decisions, big and small. That is a lesson that I very much carry into Tala. Being a mission-oriented fintech, as you noted earlier, is not an easy thing to do. Always having the orientation towards that North Star, that customer service, and that brand is critical.
You’re obviously very proud of your two previous employers and how they set you up for your current role. What was it that attracted you to Tala that said, “This is the one?” Clearly, you’ve had a great run here.
I love the mission orientation of all the companies I’ve worked for. I think Tala is the most audacious of all the businesses I’ve been a part of because it is solving a global problem. What really attracted me was our CEO’s vision. She started out by saying, “There’s this massive unmet need. Folks that need credit and access to financial services but aren’t served because of infrastructure. How do we solve that?” It just so happens that it is also an incredible business. I think it’s such an amazing combination to be a part of.
CFO-CEO
It sounds like quite a great combo. You mentioned your CEO, Shivani Siroya. I’m curious because CFOs, for a few years now, have been saying that their most important partnership is with the CEO, but I’ve observed in the last couple of years, CEOs are saying the same thing, that the CFO is their most important person. It’s not just being polite in front of me. They’re saying it a lot. I’m curious what your relationship with Shivani is like and how you work to build a true partnership.
I think that was something that I had to really think about before joining Tala. I do agree that the relationship is hypercritical, certainly from my lens. If I look at all the things that we go through as a team, as a partnership, it really necessitates honesty in the relationship. Before joining Tala, Shivani and I had numerous conversations about what it meant to have a partnership. We realized it was really about being open, being transparent, no matter what the circumstances were. It’s not about me delivering what she wants to hear; it’s about what we need to talk about and what we need to go through as a team.
I actually distinctly remember over dinner, Shivani said, “It’s like eating vegetables.” I shared with her that I don’t like eating my vegetables, but she’s like, “It’s important. We have to do it. It’s good for us, so we’re just going to commit to it.” That meant that, regardless of how tough the conversation is, I will always share my perspective, even if it’s hard to say, hard to hear or hard to act on.

Actually, I had a boss that said it was like flossing your teeth. A similar sentiment. It’s such a critical thing. It’s great to hear that you have that type of relationship, the back and forth and we all recognize the CEO’s the boss and there comes a time when, in your case, she needs to make that decision. You need to be listened to as a CFO. It’s critical to know that you’re heard.
It’s my job to do my homework, to understand the ins and outs, the risks and opportunities, and to present them fairly.
I think you’re about our 45th or 50th guest. You’re the first person to have described her place of employment as audacious.
We’re bold. We’re doing big things.
People who play safe don’t change the world. One thing that jumped out at me as I was preparing for this and getting into the company’s mission, but 5 of the 6 top executives at Tala are female. I’m curious how that plays out. I realize you’re just doing your job and gender disappears, too, but you don’t see it a lot in your industry.
Certainly not in finance or tech. Having that at a fintech is pretty incredible. I think it’s been like that for so long that I don’t really think about it anymore. I actually love when people remind me of that because I realize it is not the case at a lot of places. Even if you look deeper into the organization, we have such a wonderful balance of men and women. Diversity is just core to our DNA. We function in so many countries and in so many cultures. I think that diverse perspective is hypercritical to being empathetic to our employees and to our customers. It’s been phenomenal.
It’s such a critical thing, and you’re absolutely right. It isn’t just at the top where there’s diversity. It’s up and down the line. Hopefully, the day will come and it won’t be too far where people like me don’t ask questions like that and it’s just a very natural thing. In fintech I can’t even think of more than 1 or 2 CEO and CFOs that have been much less a dominant slice of the management team altogether.
We’re excited to be at the forefront of that, but I am happy to see that the industry has evolved. Don’t take offense. I used to go to CFO events or finance events, and I would be one of few women, if not the only one. It’s actually pretty wonderful to see that it’s massively changed in the last several years.
You may know, Jennifer, I did predict that in ten years, the CFO role would be female majority. Not 80-20 or anything like that, but just looking at the demographic trends in the profession and then some of the requirements of the job. It just seems like a great way for women to make a living.
I’m happy to be contributing to that ratio.
The good news is i’ll be long since retired in ten years, so if I’m wrong, no one will know who I am or if I’m right, i’ll come out of the woodwork.
I’m hoping you’re right.
Talent and Customer Centricity
I’m pretty confident of it. I may be a little off on the years, but it’s happening. You’re in LA in an interesting company and every CFO I talk to, and perhaps more so in Southern California, the biggest challenge relates to talent, recruiting the best and the brightest. You’re in such a competitive industry, such a competitive city and whatnot. What’s your secret to building a world-class team when it seems almost impossible for CFOs to do that these days?
Talent is always top of mind, especially in finance. Especially in a business like ours, which is so complex and global, it takes months to train folks to really understand the ins and outs. When I think about building a team, I would say that I really look for, first and foremost, good humans. We’re talking about finance, function, integrity and a solid foundation on that front is absolutely critical.
High octane because it is a fast-paced role at a fast-paced company in an ever-changing industry. I would say folks that are genuinely interested in what we do and how we do it, a lot of the technical skills can be taught or adapted, but I would say those three things have to be fundamentally within the candidates themselves because that can’t be taught. Having that combination, I think, really helps us get through the oftentimes long days and nights and the tough questions and challenges that the team frequently faces.
That makes all the sense in the world. You’re a rapidly growing company and you’re going to continue to need to attack the best and the brightest to come and take this thing to the next level. You seem to have a great philosophy. I want to ask a few questions about the company and your role in particular because, as we referenced earlier, it feels like a nonprofit.
It’s not. You’ve got very savvy investors and a mission to make money, yet you are serving underserved markets and your mission benefits society if you’re successful at it. In your world as CFO, how do you balance those things? You want to make the social impact, make a difference in the world, so to speak, and yet you have to do it in a fiscally responsible way. How do you juggle those two things that, at times, might be at odds?
Always the tightrope. I think customer centricity is key for us as a company. They are the ones that tell us what they need, what they want and how they want it. I think it’s really actually important to call out that doing good, being mission driven and building a great business are not mutually exclusive. If anything, our mission makes us very customer-centric. I think that is actually foundational to any strong business.
Customers are the focal point. They are the drivers of your revenue, and they will tell you what they need and want. I think what the responsibility of the company is, is how do we bring our strengths, our competitive advantages to really service the customers in the best way possible. At Tala, we started out with data. Our thesis is that we could leverage alternative data to really understand this customer and be able to, one, develop the right product for them, and then also drive the economics that make it make sense for this business. I say ten years in, we’ve been extraordinarily successful on both fronts.
I don’t know your industry at all other than what I’ve learned preparing for this conversation, but you’re relying on a lot of data to assess creditworthiness. Is the data in the places that you go to as reliable and as easily attainable as it is in the United States? Forgive me if that’s a dumb question.
That’s such a great question. In the U.S., banks typically rely on credit bureaus. I would say that one, we know it’s actually pretty imperfect in the U.S. You can only imagine what that looks like in the rest of the world. I would say most of our customers are either have very thin files or no files, or the credit bureaus themselves are not very sophisticated. What we rely on is actually alternative data that comes directly from the customer. That is a huge part of our secret sauce and what we’ve really built the business on.
Challenges and Opportunities
It’s interesting because there’s a leap of faith that a traditional lender might not have. That’s great, but you’re making it work. That’s what it’s all about. I want to chat a little about what are the, some of the biggest challenges that the company is facing. Not only that but what are some of the biggest opportunities that are ahead of Tala to in the next few years?
I would say some of the challenges that Tala faces are similar to every business right now post the COVID world. The macro environment is just so volatile and dynamic. Regulations are changing and geopolitics are shifting. That has massive implications for the broader economic markets and individual consumers. We deal with all of that on a daily basis much like every other company.
I think being thoughtful and focused on the right risks and opportunities is always a certainly what we’re doing in our seat as CFOs. That’s been a core focus since the global pandemic. In terms of opportunities, I think what’s exciting about Tala is that we never have a dearth of things we want to do. The problem itself is so big, it’s global.
Fifty-two percent of the world’s population doesn’t have the level of access to financial services and credit that it needs. That’s massive. How we solve it, I think, is what’s exciting. We have a combination of new products as well as geographic expansion that we can continue to do to better service and reach more folks.
Forgive me for this question because it’s dull, but I’m legally required to ask you it to keep my show license. How are you using gen AI and other technologies? Maybe gen AI is not as important to you as some of the other things that you’re working on, but you’re in a very competitive space in some ways. How do you use technology to give yourself long-term advantages?
Technology is really the core of our business, and in a lot of ways, machine learning and AI are where we started. The thesis was that we can pull in different kinds of data to understand this customer. We can leverage machine learning models to really adapt our offerings to get the right products to the customer at the right time. That has always been a tenet of the business itself.
I think what’s exciting is that there are now more tools. For us, we don’t dive into technology just for the sake of doing that because it’s the hot thing. We really evaluate what will take us to the next level. The way we look at AI is, one, it’s more of the same of what we do. We can do it better and faster. We also leverage AI or we are leveraging AI to better communicate and engage with our customers. We’re excited about that.
On the finance side, the way we see it, AI is here, and it is actually an enabler for us that we really need to embrace. The goal for my team is to replace some of the more rote things that currently absorb a lot of time, leverage AI so that the team can really focus on the tough stuff and the fun stuff around analytics and insights.
That’s what some people don’t understand about AI. It’s making all of us better strategists because it is taking away a lot of the day-to-day and the mundane types of things. I want to ask this partly because I don’t want to say you’re a non-traditional CFO because, as we mentioned earlier, that concept doesn’t exist anymore, but yet you’re a non-CPA CFO. I’m sure you know GAAP well enough. What are some of the ways that you measure business performance outside of the world of GAAP? I guess to ask more efficiently, what are your favorite KPIs in your business?
Having been in consumer-facing, consumer-focused businesses, my favorite KPI is always customer lifetime value. I think it is the best summary of how we’re doing as a business in terms of driving top-line revenue, driving the right levels of margins and managing the variable costs associated with that.
I think it’s also important to note that we’re not transactional. We’re not about that one loan or that one engagement. We’re about how we service this customer over time because we want to be their financial partner. That measure, as much as it’s a financial and economic measure, it’s also a measure of how successful we are at engaging and retaining our customers.
I want to ask, I understand your CEO, by reputation, she is actually very financially savvy as well, but you are the financial expert in the company. How do you blend the strategic vision that she has with the financial realities and the financial challenges that the CFO faces? It’s because you’re like one of the rare financial experts in the company, probably, who also thinks strategically.
Yeah, actually having Shivani be very financially minded is a great thing for me. It makes my job easier, but I think where things are divided and conquered between the two of us is she gets applied in a way that’s much more product-focused and customer-focused. Both of us always have to keep that in mind, but then I take it and apply it to how you make the company sustainable. How do we make sure that we’re servicing our customers well? At the end of the day, when money is our product, I have to ensure that we have enough of that inventory to continue servicing as many customers as best as possible.
Evolution of the Role
I just have to ask you because I read an article in which you were quoted. You said the CFO is now the Chief Flexibility Officer. I love that quote, but why don’t you share what you mean by that?
As I noted, I think the world is constantly changing right now. You can’t approach it with the level of structure and rigidity that I would say CFOs in the past were known for. I think about the finance world, and you noted that a lot of folks have CPA backgrounds. Accounting was a core focus. What that means is it’s very much about capturing what had happened.
I think the CFO role has really shifted towards looking ahead. Part of that is really being dynamic and embracing the fact that everything is in flux. Everything will be in flux and being ready to react and respond to that. That means there will be new risks around the corner. That also means there will be new opportunities around the corner. In the days past, we might have been able to survive off of one forecast, but how do we get to this one scenario? I think in our seats now, we really have to be nimble and adaptive and ready for really any scenario.
You’re speaking to my heart because I don’t know if you know the tagline for this show. It’s close to what you just said. CFOs no longer record history. They make history.
I like that.
It was so simple and so brilliant at the same time. I love it. It seems like you and I are aligned on that, to say the very least. With all that said and it’s gone through a tremendous change. I say the evolution has become a revolution because it was slowly changing for several years. I’d say it was put on booster rockets around COVID. The job has just changed. How do you see the very nature of financial leadership continuing to evolve in the years ahead?
You called it out. It’s been changing for a long time. It’s no longer about what happened. It’s about what can happen. It naturally is shifting. It leverages the foundations around data. That’s the superpower of the CFO office. We have access to all the data. We have the ability to interpret it, but it doesn’t stop there.
It’s how you are going to use what you have access to, to really drive the business forward? How do you adapt and evolve strategy to deal with competition, to deal with economic change, to deal with regulatory change even. I think that will continue. Aside from the CEO, I would say the other executive function has a bird’s eye view of everything and needs to leverage that to steer the business.
One of my personal missions, Jennifer, is to change the perception of CFOs and financial people in general. A lot of people think we’re dull. We are not. We’re pretty interesting and fun people. Do you have like a fun fact or an interesting hobby or even like a go-to joke that you can share with our readers?
I can’t say I have a go-to joke. My hobby of late has actually been ceramics. I share that because, to your point, a lot of us finance folks are presumed to just be number crunchers and not very creative. I don’t think that’s actually allowed anymore in this function. To highlight that, what I like to do for fun is ceramics. It is something I actually picked up during COVID at the urging of one of my team members. It’s just such a great way to use a different part of my brain, number one. Number two, when your hands are deep in mud, you can’t actually be checking your phone and your Slacks. It actually gives you a little quiet time to just think a little differently and pull out from the day-to-day.
We all need that so much. I’ve actually asked people to hide my phone on me because I’m so addicted to it. It’s like, “Just take this away from me so we can have a meaningful conversation.” I never thought of ceramics as having that benefit. The other thing is that you have a lot going on in your life. You’re the CFO of a rapidly growing, very important company. You’re on a board seat and you have a growing family. How do you make it happen? How do you achieve that work-life balance thing? It’s so critical.
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a work-life balance. The way I view it is work is part of life alongside your family, your friends, your hobbies and the things that you want to spend your time on. For me, it’s about how do you balance those things? What I’ve really learned is that with different seasons of your life, your priorities change. It is important to just check in with yourself periodically to say, “Where am I in this given point in time? Where do I want to spend the hours that I have?” Commit to that. It’s ensuring that work works for your life for a finance seat. It’s hard to step away from, but that is where you find creative ways to do it.
I always like to close by asking CFOs like yourself, what is some advice that you can impart for the next generation of CFOs? Maybe people who are going to get their first CFO job in 6 weeks to 18 months, or even people who are in their first-ever CFO job and still trying to figure it out.
I think the theme that we’ve talked about throughout is that really the only constant in life is change. Historically, the stereotype has been that finance is rigid. Finance is based on patterns. Finance is there’s one way of doing things. I think the goal and the critical thing to embrace in this role now is that you have to be nimble. You have to embrace change. You have to actually see that as an opportunity.
Yes, it may blow up your models, but that’s probably a good thing if you look at it in the right way. I think you also have to be really plugged in to the world around you. Change isn’t just happening within your four walls. It’s happening very rapidly outside of them. Being able to have a finger on the pulse, understand where the world is going, understand where your stakeholders are going, and what they’re thinking, what they’re needing and trying to thread that needle is going to be hypercritical. Dynamism is part of the role. It’s part of the world around us. The sooner that’s embraced, the better.
I think this has just been fantastic, Jennifer. I want to thank you on behalf of my readers for giving of your time. I know you have a lot of things going on these days, so thanks so much for being here. I look forward to maybe meeting in person at some point down the road.
Thank you so much for having me.
That wraps up this episode. A huge thank you to our sponsors, Planful and the CFO Leadership Council, for their amazing support. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and visit us at RockstarCFOs.com. Until next time, rock on.