As CFO of Vancouver-based UrtheCast (TSX:UR), a company streaming images and video from outer space, Issa Nakhleh, not surprisingly, has a worldly view of both the company and the role he plays within it.
A certified general accountant since 1989, Nakhleh has helped UrtheCast expand from 15 employees to a staff of about 110, and has overseen the opening of offices in San Francisco, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Working closely with the board of directors and external advisers, he helped facilitate UrtheCast’s initial public offering in 2013 by raising about $50 million. Successfully managing this quick rate of growth and securing financing have been among Nakhleh’s greatest successes so far.
“Getting the company to be a fully listed TSX public company with public reporting and governance practices was an incredible challenge,” he said from UrtheCast’s waterfront headquarters in Canada Place.
Nakhleh, who joined the company in 2012, earned his MBA in 1995 from the University of Warwick in the U.K. During the past 15 years, Nakhleh has been CFO of technology and medical device companies, both public and private, including Heart Force Medical. He helped expand TIR Systems, a publicly held lighting technology company, from $2 million to $30 million in annual revenues.
The role of CFOs has grown in recent years to include more active involvement in areas such as strategic planning, a trend which Nakhleh welcomes.
“The CFO position is really changing, especially in public companies,” he explained, noting that he wears two hats – one as “internal” CFO dealing with corporate governance, finance, accounting, HR and IT issues, while his “external” CFO hat allows him to be a key part of strategically forming the company’s future.
“To do the fun stuff of being a CFO, first you have to take out the garbage, which means you have to make sure the financials are done, the taxes are taken care of and those sorts of things,” he explained. “Once you do that well, then you can start doing the external items, and that’s working with the sales and business development team on contracts and strategic issues.”
Being CFO of a small public company has its challenges, particularly when it comes to selecting opportunities for future growth.
“There are a lot of opportunities that the company has in front of it, and trying to decide which to pursue with limited resources is challenging,” said Nakhleh, who is past president of the Vancouver chapter of Financial Executives International.
In Nakhleh’s opinion, what makes a great CFO?
“I think it’s having that time available to really be strategic in that position and being a valuable member of the executive team versus somebody that’s just told to go take out the garbage,” he explained. “It’s very important to have a good relationship with the CEO and the board as well.”
In UrtheCast CEO Scott Larson’s opinion, Nakhleh has been instrumental in guiding the company forward.
“We have very difficult and broad accounting and governance requirements,” Larson said. “Going from a pre-revenue tech start-up into an IPO points to a very difficult and detailed accounting requirement, and [Nakhleh] has been able to not only set up our structures, which were not established before he started, but also put the company into a position where we can grow.”
Balancing work and life while employed by a company with a global focus can be challenging due to the demands of travelling, which often require Nakhleh to venture overseas.
“Having four offices across North America and partners in Russia, customers and investors globally, there’s been a very heavy travel component in the last couple of years, so it makes it more difficult to balance work-life issues.”
When he’s back in Vancouver, Nakhleh, who is originally from Jordan, likes to spend time at home with his wife, Susan, and their 15-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter.
As for life lessons, the 52-year-old said he has learned to not shy away from taking risks.
A common perception is that the CFO is “the anti-risk guy on the executive team, the guy that’s always saying no,” he said. “But I found if you are being entrepreneurial and take that risk, there are some really good rewards that come along with that. It’s being able to give people guidance to go after the entrepreneurial spirit, but also to manage the risk in the background.”
And what does the future hold for the video and space imagery industry?
“Frankly, we don’t know,” Nakhleh said. “What we do know is there’s a lot of demand for images from space and fresh data from space. What we’re doing is building that platform to deliver the data and then the market will come up with great ideas.
“We know we can supply the current customers with data, but where this industry is going to really grow is by making this data much more available in a much more user-friendly manner.”
Issa Nakleh will be honoured at the BC CFO Awards gala dinner on June 2nd at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel. For tickets and event info visit www.biv.com/events/cfo .
