First CFO is scaling When I Work for continued growth

Greg Wallace, When I Work's first chief financial officer, is helping to carry out growth strategy as the hourly workforce management company seeks to triple revenue and reach millions of additional users globally.

Wallace's hiring as CFO after six years as When I Work's vice president of finance marks the second significant addition to its senior leadership team in a year.

Last February, CEO Martin Hartshorne joined When I Work as the company's first outside chief executive, with founder Chad Halvorson, who had served as CEO since the company's 2010 launch, moving to chief experience officer.

Wallace said he and Hartshorne had set a goal of tripling When I Work's revenue over roughly the next three years, after it had grown 900% since Wallace's 2015 arrival. Wallace declined to specify revenue figures.

When I Work, which offers an integrated scheduling, time tracking, and team messaging solution, has headquarters in Minneapolis but primarily operates remotely. The company has 130 employees and expects to top 200 by year's end, Wallace said.

The company serves more than 1 million employees worldwide in more than 150,000 workplaces. Those organizations range from 10 to 30,000 employees.

When I Work reduced full-time staff by about one-third in April as pandemic-related shutdowns challenged customers and slowed business. The decline was not as sharp as forecast, however, and business has grown year over year but ended short of 2020's original plan, Wallace said. Wallace previously was senior finance manager at Code42 and held several financial roles at HighJump Software.

Q: Why is When I Work a good choice for hourly workforce management?

A: The ease of use in the onboarding process, the fast realization of return on investment and the collaboration and communication between employees and employers. It saves a business owner or a manager a ton of time in making schedules. An employer can publish a schedule based on information employees put into the system and employees can grab open shifts or swap and drop shifts. It takes a lot of the burden off that manager, saving them time to focus on running and growing their business.

Q: What appeals to you about the CFO role?

A: As we continue to grow, when you think about the next chapter of the business, I think we have another great story that we're going to tell especially in the Minnesota tech community. The opportunity to continue to help hourly teams work better together and to partner up with Martin and the rest of the team to do that is exciting.

Q: What is your role in pursuing revenue growth?

A: Building out the teams that report up through me: finance, legal, IT and data science. When I think about the goal of tripling the size of the company, it's going to come with adding a lot more people. From a finance side, making sure we scale but also provide the appropriate level of financial reporting to the different business leaders. From a data science side, supporting the teams and being smarter about how we go to market and how we build product. From a legal side, helping close larger customer deals and continuing to partner with the sales team to best serve that organization, to help close and win business. With IT, it's to continue to support customers with their requirements.

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo. His e-mail is todd_nelson@mac.com.