In today’s fast-paced and increasingly complex business world, having the right financial leadership can make all the difference. Meet 9 finance leaders from the OpCo community who are building, growing, and scaling iconic companies:
Elena Gomez
President & CFO, Toast
Elena has over 30 years of experience in leading large global organizations, with expertise in scaling SaaS businesses into multi-billion dollar operations. At Toast, she leads the company's finance organization, overseeing accounting, treasury, financial strategy, and business operations for the restaurant tech platform that serves nearly 50,000 restaurants. Before Toast, she helped scale Zendesk to over $1B in annual revenue as CFO. Elena currently serves on the Board of Directors at PagerDuty and the boards of Haas School of Business and The Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco.
Simona Jankowski
CFO, Lightmatter
Simona leads finance at Lightmatter, a photonic computing company that recently raised a $400M Series D at a $4.4B valuation. She joined Lightmatter after spending nearly seven years at NVIDIA, where she was VP of investor relations and strategic finance during the company's growth from a $117B market cap to ~$3T. With a background in engineering and 20+ years experience at the intersection of finance and tech, Simona previously served as managing director at Goldman Sachs for 16 years, leading equity research for hardware and communications technology sectors and managing the Global Investment Research office in San Francisco.
Janine Korovesis
VP of Finance, OpenAI
Janine has spent over six years at OpenAI, joining in 2018 as the founding member of the controllership and growing the finance team to match the company's unprecedented evolution. She leads numerous organizations at OpenAI including Controllership, Technical Accounting, Procurement, Equity Programs, Tax, Treasury, and Real Estate and Workplace. Prior to OpenAI, Janine was a Project Controller at Google X, Alphabet’s R&D lab, where she helped build the controllership for Waymo, Loon, Wing, and Chronicle. She has leveraged OpenAI technology to enable her teams to scale at an extraordinary pace in a company without traditional benchmarks.
Christina Liu
CFO, Sigma Computing
Christina brings 20+ years of finance leadership experience to her role at business intelligence platform Sigma Computing. She’s taken two technology companies public - Zendesk in 2014 (scaling from $70M ARR to over $1B) and Confluent in 2021. At Confluent, she served as SVP and Chief Accounting Officer, overseeing global accounting, financial operations, systems, controls, accounting policies, financial reporting, tax, and procurement. Christina’s expertise spans M&A, international expansions, business risk assessments, and business model transformation, making her a valuable leader for companies navigating complex financial transitions.
Gina Mastantuono
President and CFO, ServiceNow
Gina leads a team across Finance and Corporate Strategy at ServiceNow, which recently announced its acquisition of Moveworks and marked a key milestone in ServiceNow’s M&A strategy. Gina oversees all aspects of Finance including Accounting, Risk & Compliance, Payroll, Tax, Investor Relations & Treasury, and Real Estate & Workplace Services and is a member of the executive leadership team. Her career includes leadership roles at industry leaders like IAC and Revlon, where she developed her ability to navigate complex challenges. She also serves on the boards of Gong and Roblox, bringing her financial and operational expertise to growing tech companies.
Shannon Nash
CFO (former), Wing
Shannon oversaw all corporate finance, strategy, accounting, investor relations, fundraising, and regional/partner operations at Wing, Alphabet's drone delivery company. With over 25 years of experience helping scale companies through strong financial and operational leadership, Shannon serves on multiple boards including NetScout Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: NTCT), Lazy Dog Restaurants, and SoFi Bank. Beyond her finance career, Nash is a fitness instructor teaching Zumba and U-Jam Fitness and an award-winning documentary film producer, with her film "Colored My Mind" winning best short at the 2013 American Pavilion in Cannes.
Yolis Ruiz
VP of Financial Planning and Investor Relations, Grindr
Yolis brings more than 20 years of experience in finance and operations leadership positions at high-growth companies ranging from pre-revenue to post-IPO. After joining Grindr post-SPAC, she built the finance and investor relations functions and spearheaded the restructuring of the company's lending facility, enhancing profitability. Yolis collaborates closely with the product team to drive monetization strategy for Grindr, which serves as the number one social network for the LGBTQ+ community with more than 13 million monthly active users globally. Her experience spans marketplace, consumer, and enterprise software businesses, having held senior finance positions at Coursera and Eventbrite.
Kelly Steckelberg
CFO, Canva
Kelly leads the global finance organization at Canva, supporting the company's mission to empower the world to design. Canva has become one of the world's most valuable private companies, generating over $2.5 billion in annualized revenue and serving more than 220 million users globally. Previously, Steckelberg served as CFO at Zoom, guiding the company through its initial public offering and the subsequent period of hypergrowth during the pandemic. Her leadership experience also includes roles as CFO and CEO of Zoosk and divisional CFO for the Consumer Segment and WebEx at Cisco.
Alka Tandan
CFO, Gainsight
With over 20 years of corporate finance experience in the technology industry, Alka has raised more than half a billion dollars in venture and debt financing throughout her career. She was part of the executive team that scaled Gainsight to a $1B unicorn valuation and has led several successful exits at companies including SAP, Actian, and MetricStream. Alka is a founding member of TechCFO and part of the Forbes Finance Council.
