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Few finance leaders have better revealed to us the career-transforming powers of IPOs than CFO Tony Tiscornia.

Turn back the clock to 2015, and Tiscornia is the accounting-minded VP of finance for spend management software company Coupa.

\u201cI was really a controller\u2014a business controller, but still a controller,\u201d explains Tiscornia, who notes that his world began to change following the appointment of Todd Ford as CFO.

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Ford, a finance leader with a rich IPO resume, would join Coupa as CFO in June of 2015 and quickly begin to assemble an IPO-ready team.

\u201cWhen Todd first came to Coupa, he asked me what I wanted to do with my career, and I told him, \u2018I want to be a CFO,\u2019\u201d recalls Tiscornia, who adds that Ford quickly tagged him for an investor relations role.

Over the next 16 months, Tiscornia says, he learned all of what was required to achieve the milestones that led up to the company\u2019s October 2016 IPO. During its first day of trading, Coupa\u2019s shares would reach a high of more than $41, to more than double the $18 initial public offering price.

\u201cI think that a lot of people who go from pre-IPO to a big bang IPO like we did here at Coupa often focus on that day, but what sticks out to me was what began to happen on the next day,\u201d comments Tiscornia, who observes that the post-IPO period at Coupa became an \u201ceye-opener\u201d for him with regard to understanding the resources that were then required to operate Coupa as a public company.

\u201cThe bankers, consultants, and accountants had all gone away, and we were now expected to report on a quarterly basis\u2014it wasn\u2019t just practice any longer,\u201d remarks Tiscornia, who quickly found that his investor relations tour of duty had now positioned him along the front lines of the ongoing discussions with industry analysts and shareholders.

\u201cThat role really became my bridge from controllership to CFO-type work,\u201d comments Tiscornia, who first joined Coupa in 2012, when the company had fewer than 100 employees.

Last year, Tiscornia was named CFO when his CFO mentor, Todd Ford, exited the office to be named Coupa president and CFO emeritus. \u2013Jack Sweeney