CFO on the Spot: NiCE’s Beth Gaspich

I started my journey as a CFO in a private company that was an enterprise software company. My finance journey over the last 20 or so years has been very oriented in enterprise software.

My first role, I was actually recruited out of a company where I had been a VP of finance. We had just completed taking that company on the New York Stock Exchange, and I spent about 10 years there. So I was recruited from being a VP of finance into a privately held company as the CFO there.

I spent a few years at that company and then was subsequently recruited into a divisional CFO role. I have been at NiCE for 14 years at this point. I spent close to five years initially supporting the leadership of one of our businesses, which is enterprise software for financial crime and compliance.

I worked closely with colleagues and executives across the company, and over time the CEO asked me to step into the CFO role at NiCE. I have been serving in that role for many years now as CFO of the public company.

At NiCE, we are always moving. Transformation and change are one of the reasons I have been here as long as I have.

I would highlight two areas. First, we recently upgraded our ERP and are replacing our foundational order to cash infrastructure. As a nearly $3 billion revenue company, this allows us to continue scaling and gives us more flexibility in how we operate with customers. We are already live with the core ERP.

Second is our transformation around next generation AI. We previously shifted from predominantly on premise delivery to the cloud. When I first became CFO, less than 5 percent of our revenue was in the cloud. Today, more than 70 percent of our nearly $3 billion revenue is cloud based. Now we are focused on becoming an AI first company, and we are proud of the progress we have made so far.

Everything is changing at the moment. We are a fast growing business and have acquired several companies in a short space of time. What started as a relatively small Irish company is now building international operations.

What excites me is helping put the foundations in place so the company can scale properly. That means building systems, processes, and reporting that allow the business to grow while still giving leadership the information they need to make decisions.

AI is a tremendous opportunity for us and has always been core to what we do at NiCE.

At the same time, there are many new AI players, and sometimes there is a perception that newer competitors could replace what we do. But we have more than 30 years of domain experience around customer journeys and interactions between organizations and consumers. Our platforms are used by some of the largest global enterprises.

Our software supports the full journey, from an initial web search through AI driven interactions and, when needed, all the way to a human agent. All of that information flows seamlessly across the experience.

That combination of domain expertise, integrated capabilities, and the data processed through our platform is not easy to replicate. We are excited about what that means for our continued innovation in AI.

Not only is AI applicable for the offerings we put in front of customers, it is also essential to me personally and to my role in driving efficiencies and productivity across the organization.

Even on a personal basis, I use Large Language Models, or LLMs, as part of my day job now. So I think that is a great opportunity to use tools as part of what I do day to day.

The best advice is probably to hire people smarter than you, and then empower them.

I feel very proud of the team I have at NiCE. I have a lot of domain experts who bring innovation, efficiency, and the ability to brainstorm and drive success in the way we operate.

It helps promote success across the organization, and it brings people together to collaborate and drive innovation and thought leadership. Ultimately, success cannot be achieved on a standalone basis. It requires collaboration with others.

One of my favourite books in finance is a book on Warren Buffett called The Snowball.

It is a very lengthy book, but it is interesting and inspiring. It shares a lot about his life, the risks he took, the decisions he made, and how he ultimately became tremendously successful.

The title comes from his analogy that a snowball starts small when it rolls down a hill, but it grows larger and larger. It is the idea of continued discipline and focus over time, and how that builds. I love the analogy, and I would recommend it.

I like to engage in activities where I can slow down my mind and not continuously think about work. Generally, that means some kind of physical activity.

Personally, I like yoga. Yoga gives me the opportunity to focus on physical activity and turn off my brain for a few minutes. It helps keep me grounded.

I also have an offsite every year with my team, and I always bring in an activity that requires everyone to leave their phones in another room and focus on something where they are not thinking about work for a few minutes. It shifts their mindset, helps them breathe, and then step back in with more energy.

We have been through several major transformations, and I would highlight the most recent one.

AI has always been part of our core, but since large language models became mainstream in late 2022 and early 2023, we have very quickly built a significant revenue stream around next generation AI.

The company had the vision to adopt this technology early, and we recently made an acquisition of a conversational AI leader as well. That combination is transformative.

I am proud to have been part of that journey, and I am excited about what it means for our continued leadership in our space.

I really like journalism. I like engaging and listening to others. I like hearing about innovation. The opportunity to engage with others and bring different perspectives would be very exciting.

There are a lot of things that help me find inspiration.

One thing I have been following recently is a journalist named Emily Chang on Bloomberg. She has done some interesting podcasts and interviews with AI leaders like Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates.

I find it inspiring to listen to those stories and understand how they took risks that ultimately drove success in their organizations.

I have also made more of a focus in the last year to join a couple of CFO organizations. I like business, technology, transformation, and innovation, so it has been inspiring to hear what others are doing and how they are making an impact. I always walk away with ideas about things we should consider doing differently or implementing.