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When an inquisitive software analyst takes a seat across the table from TIBCO Software CFO Tom Berquist, the inquisitor may not know that TIBCO\u2019s finance leader once sat on their side of the table and in certain ways still prefers it.

From 1996 to 2006, Berquist added a distinguished equity research chapter to his career when he became a marquee analyst inside the software realm for a string of Wall Street investment houses\u2014namely, Piper Jaffray, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.

Seated across the table from the likes of Oracle\u2019s Larry Ellison, Bill Gates (at the time, Microsoft\u2019s CEO), and many others, Berquist asked probing questions and listened to the carefully crafted narratives designed to achieve \u201cbuy-in\u201d on the company\u2019s strategy from discerning analysts.

\u201cYou would get pieces of information from each of the different companies, which gives you this incredibly powerful view of the market,\u201d recalls Berquist, who even today seems to envy the analyst he once was.

\u201cThe CEOs and CFOs would read your research and then come back and complain and try and explain why you are wrong by supplying you with even more data points\u2014which is helpful because you can then create an even bigger mosaic,\u201d continues Berquist, who ultimately exited software research when he was offered a CFO role at a newly minted company formed from a group of technologies spun out from CA Technologies that was then known as Computer Associates.

\u201cWe had to build the finance function from scratch,\u201d remembers Berquist, who quickly set about building processes and hiring finance professionals to lead the company\u2019s different functional groups. \xa0

As the finance function grew up around him, Berquist says, he observed firsthand how finance acquires its \u201cbottom up\u201d view of the business organizationally, whereby data is first captured and then finance projects trends according to what\u2019s already happened.

\u201cI\u2019ve found this in every finance function that I\u2019ve encountered since that time, so I view it as a universal truth,\u201d states Berquist, who set out to remedy finance\u2019s traditional \u201cbottom up\u201d approach by applying some \u201ctop down\u201d macroeconomic insights.

\u201cI put in processes to run a \u201ctop down\u201d model after actually building it myself. I compared and contrasted it to the traditional finance model and we reached common ground, allowing us to get in front of the trends,\u201d says Berquist, who, even today after serving in multiple CFO and CEO roles, can\u2019t help but linger on the other side of the table. \u2013Jack Sweeney

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