The MoneyPot Live: In Conversation with CROs Phoebe Wallis (Griffin) & Meryem Habibi (Bitpace)

Exactly.

Interesting.

We just ran a round table of CROs.

So there were around 15 CROs from across the ecosystem here at Money2020 and the theme of revenue growth versus profitability and how those two things coexist.

And actually the response from the room was more, they coexist, but they have to coexist and it will ebb and flow where one is more of a priority at any given time.

But the common thread is also the pressure that comes with either dimension of that particular piece.

So as we manage the pressure in these types of roles, how does that impact your priorities? And it'd be interesting to hear from you, given the scope of your roles and the rapid evolution of the industry, of your customers, of the technology, how is that shaping your priorities for the second half of this year? And as you think about 2027, are you feeling there's new priorities coming to the forefront?

I think I also spend a lot of my time fundraising, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the next year, two years, five years, and what the priorities are.

But I obviously have a forecast that I need to hit for the end of this year, and that guides my priorities and it guides the decisions I make.

But I think I started the year with a very clear target of...

X million in ARR and my entire year of my prioritization is around how I get there.

Is it people? Is it product? Is it changing the way we deliver? And I think the greatest asset you can have as a revenue function is flexibility.

I'm a strong opinions, loosely held kind of person.

And I think that you need to be willing to admit that sometimes you're wrong and you've made the wrong call and be prepared to recover from it quickly.

So my priority is to be going to the end of this year.

We've had a good first half of the year.

I've got lofty ambitions as we move into next year, and I want to make sure that as we move into 2027, it's a really exciting time for finance and fintech because some of the businesses I've met here this week are very, very nascent, but technology is moving so fast that if we think about agentic payments or something of the like, Whilst they've got the tech now and ambition, by January 27, that will be in market and we need to be ready and prepared to serve them.

And so I think a lot of the second half of my year is going to be looking at the new technology that's incoming, how Griffin fits into that, how we can make sure that there is the brand awareness and that we're open and ready while still servicing the rest of our customer base and not being caught out by the world moving quickly.

Yeah, I love the thing of the right personality type and not being so hell bent on you have to be right all the time because actually there is...

It would be impossible to accommodate everyone and everything and make progress if you were fighting everything along the way.

It would be impossible, right? I

think in this industry, right, I learned that earlier, but in more stable industries already, you learn that the cost of not making a decision can be even higher than making the wrong decision.

Yeah.

But in the fintech industry right now, and I'm talking again about the crypto industry that whatever is the right decision today may be the wrong decision tomorrow.

And trust me, we've seen that with Phoebe, just before getting to this podcast, we were talking about all these changes that are happening.