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For every top sales leader who confides to friends that he or she is really a numbers freak at heart, there\u2019s an Andrew Hicks, who, as CFO of Advanced, would be just as apt to boast about a sales funnel innovation as he would about the adoption of a new accounting rule.

In fact, it would probably not surprise Hicks\u2019s past and present business colleagues to learn that when asked to identify a mentor from his past, Advanced\u2019s CFO chooses the head of sales for a former employer.

\u201cIt was because of this relationship that I first experienced an inkling of how people can think about the business differently and think differently about what drives value in the firm,\u201d explains Hicks, who found his mentor after being transferred to Austin from London by Misys, a UK-based software developer that today is part of Finastra.

\u201cI had moved across the world, and the sales leader took me under his wing a bit as someone new in the U.S. who didn\u2019t really have family or friends nearby. Talking to him really piqued my interest in learning more about how the business worked,\u201d recalls Hicks, who would remain in the U.S. for nine years before being recruited for a CFO role back in London.

Along the way, Hicks\u2019s professional network became energized via a budding relationship with private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, which enlisted him as an advisor after Vista bought a portion of Misys\u2019s healthcare business. \u201cVista is continually working its network to find talent, and I was found by that means,\u201d says Hicks, whose CFO career chapter has to date been populated by multiple Vista-owned companies. \u2013Jack Sweeney\xa0

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