A Different Point of View

By Roger Buss

I was the CIO of an insurance company in California that was looking for a new system. The CEO said he knew a company in Michigan that was having a very good experience with their vendor, so I should reach out to them and find out more. It turned out that company was using Finys.

We went through a whole due diligence process with Kurt [Diederich, president and CEO of Finys]. That’s how I got to know him. In the end, our Board decided to stay with our existing platform. That was in 2018. I didn’t talk to Kurt more than once between then and the fall of ’23 when I got an email from him saying, “Hey, I may have an opportunity for you. We’re doing this client partner thing, and we’d like to bring in some experienced, seasoned people who really can work with clients, and can understand the issues at a higher, more strategic level. Would you be interested in this?” His timing was perfect because I was just wrapping up a consulting engagement and was ready for a new assignment.

Since I’ve been here, it’s been fun to interact with a number of different clients and to deal with issues on the ground as they occur. In my C-level jobs, I was pretty far removed from the detail most of the time. It’s much more hands-on here. For example, one of our clients insisted one particular report we were developing had a very subtle error. He’s a very meticulous accounting type of person. So, I sat in front of my computer, went through the report step by step, and discovered that what he was saying was in fact true. We were able to prioritize correcting that report. I was able to help with that, perhaps because he and I were at the same level and the same age. There was an immediate connection.

I hadn’t worked in a software company before. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but my career just went in other directions. What’s impressive about being here is that we have many younger employees who feel they’re doing something meaningful. It’s rewarding to them, and there’s a tremendous sense of enthusiasm. You get a lot of that here. It’s really pretty exciting. I’m sure there are probably times they’re wondering, “What’s that guy with the gray hair doing here?” But I’ve been treated with great respect here. No one has come across as arrogant or not being receptive to what I can contribute and offer in any situation.

The excitement of the opportunity is that it’s a smaller company. We can all have a bigger impact. We compete against some large vendors with thousands of employees. That’s a very different kind of opportunity because in those bigger companies you have to fit into an existing structure. At Finys, we have the chance to really make a difference because we’re small, and we can strengthen our internal processes by applying our experience from other companies. More importantly, we can leverage our expertise to help our clients. To me, that’s what makes this job so exciting.

We’ve been able to put meaning and substance into the concept of a client partner. We’re partnering with our existing clients who are going through implementation or adding some additional lines of business to their Finys systems. We work with executives on the client side to make sure things get done, shepherding the effort along, dealing with issues that arise, and making sure they’re getting value. It enables us to keep our clients happy, which is the ultimate goal.

And I think the positive environment we’ve created here accounts for the fact that our turnover is so low. I can tell you from my own prior CIO experience that every time I reached out to one of my vendors, I’d be told the person I worked with last had left, and there was a new person in the role. That seemed to happen every three to six months. It would drive me crazy. I’d have to bring the new person up to speed and explain the whole history. Then that person would be gone. That just doesn’t happen here because of the way we develop leaders and build teams.