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No matter how many phone calls Matt Gustke receives during the span of his finance career, none will likely be more memorable or important than one he received nearly 22 years ago.

At the time, Gustke, a research analyst for a major bank, was spending his days assessing the carnage piling up in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble burst.

\\u201cThe times were really weird, and uncertainty was everywhere,\\u201d comments Gustke, who despite the tech sector\\u2019s dotcom bust chapter assures us that he thoroughly enjoyed his research days\\u2014and in fact he may well have remained in research if not for a fateful phone call.

\\u201cHe was without a doubt my favorite executive at my favorite company,\\u201d comments Gustke, recalling the late Rajiv Dutta, who as the CFO of eBay at the time called Gustke to invite him to lunch.

\\u201cThe lunch turned into a full day, which then became a dinner and a meeting with the whole team, which then a week later led to my joining eBay to build out its IR function,\\u201d recalls Gustke, who as a research analyst had already established a rapport with Dutta by having frequently queried the CFO and summoned his comments as part of his regular research coverage.

\\u201cAt the time that I joined eBay, I honestly viewed it as sort of a 1- to 2-year working sabbatical during which I would get to see a company from the inside, but I eventually ended up being part of the eBay family for 12 years,\\u201d continues Gustke, who once more credits Dutta with extending his \\u201cleave\\u201d and ultimately helping to point him down the CFO path.

Gustke tells us that Dutta was often known to be generous with praise: "I guess it was a couple of years into my eBay journey when Rajiv came up to me and said, \'You know, investors don\'t want to talk to me anymore because they just want to talk to you, which is freeing up so much of my time to do other things\\u2014so I want to say thanks.\'\\u201d

However, as it turned out, Dutta had more than praise in mind.

\\u201cThe next thing he said was, \\u2018And now I need you to go into a different role\\u2014what would you think about leading FP&A for eBay International?,\'\\u201d reports Gustke, who after giving Dutta an affirmative response first began serving in his new international role from California before relocating to Switzerland for additional finance responsibilities that would eventually lead to heading up eBay\'s European finance team.

As he continued to grow his experience across multiple finance disciplines, Gustke became a candidate for more senior leadership positions. In 2010, he garnered what would be his first CFO appointment when he was named CFO of StubHub, the online ticket broker acquired by eBay in 2007.

Still, Gustke wants us know that one of his most important lessons wasn\'t gleaned from life among finance\'s rank-and-file but instead at a research team\'s conference table\\u2014and perhaps the very one where he first met Dutta.

Says Gustke: "Long ago I stopped worrying about asking stupid questions in meetings. I figured that if something wasn\'t clear to me\\u2014and I\'m at least of average intelligence\\u2014it wouldn\'t be clear to someone else. It turns out that more often than not, my questions led to better conversations, new insights, and a clearer mandate as to what was to be done after the meeting." \\u2013Jack Sweeney\\xa0

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