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When Charles Freund was named CFO of FLEETCOR in 2020 \u2013 his arrival in the c-suite became the latest chapter of a varied and lengthy career journey that paralleled the rise of the $2.6 billion fintech. \xa0

Accepting a position in FLEETCOR\u2019s corporate development department, Freund joined the firm in the year 2000 when it was generating roughly only $30 million in annual sales and struggling to manage its cash flows.

\u201cOn two separate occasions, the corporate controller called me and said, \u2018Charles, I know we normally pay you on a Friday, but we\u2019re not going to make it this week. Can you wait until next week?,\u2019\u201d recalls Freund.

In the years that followed, FLEETCOR found its strategic footing and Freund entered a succession of roles that would ultimately advance him into leadership positions overseeing FLEETCOR\u2019s corporate strategy and global sales. What\u2019s more, along the way FLEETCOR\u2019s future CFO served as a general manager for the company\u2019s developing markets.

\u201cI know and understand what\u2019s behind the scenes more than others who haven\u2019t had these kinds of experience. This is no knock on anyone\u2014it\u2019s just because I\u2019ve lived it,\u201d reports Freund, when asked whether he had missed out from not having pursued a more traditional finance career path.

Asked to provide some insight into how his past experiences might influence his approach to the sales function, Freund explains: \u201cI say \u2018Look, I want your business to grow 10% next year.\u2019 I then layer in my retention assumptions and other things to create a model that basically drives this performance, with what types of investments are required and so forth.\u201d

Still, Freund\u2019s most pressing challenges as CFO are likely tied to the more than 80 acquisitions that FLEETCOR has completed over the past two decades.

According to FLEETCOR\u2019s finance chief, the fintech is embarking on a finance transformation designed to better integrate its operations around the world, beginning with the numbers.

\u201cOver the next 12 months, we\u2019ll be implementing a new global chart of accounts. What this means is that we\u2019ll be cleaning up the chart of accounts around the world so that we speak kind of the same language,\u201d remarks Freund, who adds that it\u2019s also time to replace the company\u2019s patchwork quilt of different ERP systems\u2014another legacy of FLEETCOR\u2019s acquisitive past.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney

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Freund:\xa0First, FLEETCOR is a FinTech, so we\u2019re a technology driven provider of financial services, but we\u2019re not a bank. I want to make sure people know that. We\u2019re really in what we call the spend management space. What we provide to businesses are tools to control what gets purchased by employees and what gets paid by the AP department, so you can control it on the front end by either allowing a purchase to happen or not. Or if someone has already made a purchase that\u2019s outside of policy, I could control it on the backend with what gets paid or not. What we have found is that these smarter payment methods help our clients to spend less, they have greater insight and greater control over what\u2019s happening. By spending less, they retain more profit. That\u2019s the real value proposition of all of our products around the world.

I\u2019d say we are on a multi-year transformational journey over the next 12 months. A couple of things that we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re implementing a new global chart of accounts. We\u2019ve grown a lot through acquisitions. FLEETCOR has done some 80, 90 acquisitions over our 20 year history. I\u2019m cleaning up the chart of accounts around the world, so we all speak the same language, which should be helpful. We are going to implement that global planning tool this year. I\u2019m also transitioning off of a legacy ERP system this year and have plans over the next three years to reduce the number of ERPs. Again, many of which we inherited through acquisitions, sourcing new tax software for next year. And...