Shopify Changes Its COO and CFO - Stock Price Likely an Important Reason

Shopify today made some major leadership shakeups and in doing so, revealed its priorities.

The biggest news is CFO Amy Shapero is moving on and Jeff Hoffmeister is coming to Shopify, after spending his career at Morgan Stanley, and leading the IPO from the other side of the table.

The CFO could have been someone who had been at large, Enterprise or SaaS companies their entire career. That is not what just what happened. That selection would indicate a focus on SaaS fundamentals like ACV, attrition, and growth.

Jeff Hoffmeister has never worked at a software company as a financial operator. This tells me their focus is not necessarily on typical software company CFO tasks. It's more about managing Wall Street, and having Shopify "look like" a company that Wall Street will keep investing in.

In other words, what is the most important question on Jeff's mind at the moment?

"What the hell is happening to the stock?"

Of course that's the same question that Shopify investors are asking who are "buying the dip" and are learning it might be a falling knife instead - at least in this market.

Shopify also made a change at COO, promoting VP Product, Merchant Services, Kaz Nejatian.

One way to think about the role of COO at a software company is it is the connection between Revenue (Marketing, Sales) and Delivery (Product, Service. Technology). Previously, Kaz was Head of Product Management at Shopify, so he likely knows exactly what he is getting into here and Tobi trusts him with product roadmap decisions. It appears Kaz's scope expands from just Merchant Services (payments, capital, etc) to Subscription Services as well.

COO is kind of a hybrid role, and Kaz brings more Product-thinking to the function rather than previous COO Toby Shannan who was previously on the Revenue side of the equation.

One role I keep waiting for them to fill? Chief Supply Chain Officer.... tick tock...