Tony Grimminck on how to rally the troops as Scribd’s new CEO: ‘We need to believe in the mission. Follow me. This is a great way to do it’

Good morning. Tony Grimminck is a native of Bundaberg, Australia, a former officer in the Australian Army who's traveled the globe, and holds two advanced degrees, including an MBA. He can now add to that list of accomplishments becoming CEO at Scribd, Inc., promoted from his role as CFO.

The San Francisco-based tech company, which launched in 2007 and now has three core subscription-based products: Scribd, which hosts 200 million documents, such as research papers and court filings, in a digital library; SlideShare, which is used for professional content, with over 25 million presentations from subject-matter experts; and Everand, an app with millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts, and sheet music, according to the company. Scribd, Inc. has approximately 2 million paying subscribers.

Grimminck, formally announced as CEO on Thursday, will be transitioning from his CFO role after Trip Adler, a cofounder, decided to step back from CEO duties but remain on the board. Before joining Scribd, Inc. as CFO in 2019, Grimminck was the CFO of HotelTonight, a senior director of finance, strategy, and corporate development at StubHub, and VP of investment banking at both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

When I asked Grimminck about making the jump from CFO to CEO, he first told me a story. During his time at StubHub, one of his roles was as the general manager of the North American group managing about 800. “I'm ex-military, so my expectations were like, ‘I'm gonna go run things, this is how stuff works, we're going to do bold and great things,’” he recalled.

But he said he would end up spending a lot of time dealing with the personal issues of the executive team. One day, he was talking with the finance chief of the company who told him: “As a CFO, you have a lot of influence, but you don't have to deal with all that stuff,” Grimminck recalled. “And I've been CFO of three different companies since then,” he said.

However, the role of the finance chief has been evolving, Grimminck said. “The CFO role has been transitioning to becoming more like a strategic leader versus you’re just the numbers person,” he said. “You've gone from being downstream of the CEO setting strategy to being a true partner. You understand all the operating metrics—all the levers in the business—which ultimately result in financial outcomes.”

Along with understanding the financials and devising paths for growth, CFOs nowadays are more involved in operations and managing talent, which helps when they move into CEO spots. “It’s a little bit of, ‘Come on, troops, we need to believe in the mission. Follow me. This is a great way to do it,’” he explained.

In competing against the likes of Audible and Spotify, will Scribd Inc.’s mission include pursuing an IPO? Grimminck responded: “I think that's something definitely in our future.”

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

María Soledad Davila Calero curated the Leaderboard and Overheard sections of today’s newsletter.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com