Navigating Market Downturns as a CFO in Retail and SaaS: Bryan Wolff, CFO, AllVoices

If you’ve visited any retail or SaaS industry website in the past year, you’ve seen these headlines:

‘X Company lays off 20% of staff’

‘Y Retailer files for bankruptcy’

‘Z Company reports 80% drop in profitability in Q2’

Retail and SaaS are going through financial headwinds in a major market downturn. What can CFOs of these companies do to navigate the current market environment? We brought on a veteran CFO who’s had experience in both industries to share his perspective: Bryan Wolff.

Bryan Wolff is the CFO of AllVoices, an employee communications platform. He was also CFO of apparel retailer Bonobos and grocery retailer Thrive Market. He’s led finance teams of all sizes across a variety of business models, and we were lucky to get him on the show. 

In this conversation, Bryan and Chris discuss a range of finance-related topics, including:

• The financial tools retailers should leverage in a downturn
• Retail vs. SaaS financial models
• Why retailers should be constantly scenario planning
• Bryan’s concept of “exhaust” in retail businesses
• One killer strategy for retailers to lower their customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Bryan goes incredibly deep into the financial mechanics businesses need to survive right now. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Connect with Bryan on Linkedin

Connect with Chris on Twitter and Linkedin

Check out AllVoices

About Bryan:

Bryan has worked as a technology investor and executive for over 15 years; having held senior positions at numerous Venture Capital-backed start-ups and other Institutional Investment firms. He is currently the CFO at AllVoices, a Los Angeles-based employee communications platform. Recently Bryan was a Managing Director at Anthos Capital Management, a Santa Monica-based private equity firm, where he had worked from 2017 to 2020. Prior to that, Bryan was the CFO of Bonobos, Inc. (acquired by Wal-Mart), DogVacay (acquired by Rover, Inc.) and Thrive Market, all privately held companies. Bryan has sat on numerous boards over his career, both public and private. Bryan holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BSE in Computer Science from Princeton University. He and his wife, Melanie, live in Santa Monica and have 3 young children.