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Forterro is a London-based software company with around 11,000 SME manufacturing customers across Europe . Paul Smolinski , Chief Financial Officer of Forterro , tells us more about the company and how he is a people person who likes to be open with his staff and hopefully empower them .

Describe your current job role

Forterro is a software company , with a London HQ , with around 11,000 SME manufacturing customers across Europe . We employ 1,600

people . I joined in 2021 to help transform the business . As CFO , I manage our corporate finance function , banking and private equity investor relations , financial discipline and governance . More strategically , I ’ m a business partner to the CEO , Dean Forbes , the management team and our investors . I have significant input into strategic planning and delivery and how we grow the business . I ’ ve been closely involved in our move from one-off licence sales to a recurring revenue Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) model . That ’ s proving a success and right now , we ’ re growing rapidly , faster than the market .

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement ?

At Forterro , that would certainly be my role in the company being acquired in March 2022 by Partners Group , a leading global private markets firm . It bought us from Battery Ventures in a deal valuing Forterro at € 1 billion and making us one of very few privately owned ‘ tech unicorns ’ in the UK ! It was an enormous amount of work over four months . We created a strategic five-year plan to quadruple our value and made Forterro ready to work with Partners Group . We constructed the mechanics by which on-going metrics , KPIs and other information could be presented . There was a great deal of due diligence work too .

What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position ?

I ’ m a real people person . Throughout my career , I ’ ve built highly motivated teams who have robust personalities and really want to be at the front of the business . My management style is very open , very empowering for my staff . I have an incredibly strong finance team here at Forterro ; people who are really interested in the company and helping drive its success . Also , I believe the CFO can have an important positive influence on corporate culture . At Forterro we ’ re transparent and very open with employees about successes and challenges . We ’ re good at communicating why we ’ re doing things , we ’ re clear on company goals and what each of us needs to do to achieve them . We reward people on those metrics .

What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in your industry ?

In Forterro ’ s space of enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) software , it ’ s the move from on-premises solutions to cloud that ’ s now a major thrust . Manufacturing has lagged behind other industries in this move . Certainly , at Forterro , we ’ re very much right there having invested heavily in research and development and in customer communication . Also , mergers and acquisitions feature frequently in the software industry , and at Forterro , in keeping with our plan , we ’ re looking to acquire more ERP software firms from across Europe .

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