Ep 39—Neal Miller-Decades of Financial Strategy Across 70 Companies and Still Going
Episode Summary
Neil Miller, a partner emeritus at Tech CXO with 19 years at the firm, shares his journey from public accounting through CFO roles at multiple public companies to fractional executive work. He discusses his involvement with 70+ companies including Cloud Sherpas and Boomtown, offering insights on fundraising challenges, the fractional executive model's value during economic uncertainty, and how AI is compressing business cycles while changing capital requirements.
Key Quotes
"The skill sets that you need you can't afford. You need somebody like me with my experience but you can't afford me as a full-time hire. The person that you can afford by definition does not have the skill sets."
"The best thing I delivered to Boomtown was a piece of paper with two sides on it—showing the CEO his org structure with everyone reporting to him, then flipping it over to show what it should look like with proper delegation."
"Companies are going to need fractional executives more than ever in difficult times because they're not going to have the money. You can give me fifteen minutes notice and tell me you don't need me anymore and I'll pick up my backpack and go."
Transcript
Hi, welcome to Tales from the Sky Lounge. It's a podcast about business, consulting, and venture investing. We get out there in the world, we talk to people who are making it happen, and we get their stories. If you can like and subscribe, it makes our producer James very happy. He wanted me to mention that we have a sister channel called Speedrun Through Claude where we talk about all things AI and practical aspects of it that can make your life and business go faster.
So today's guest in the Sky Lounge is legendary Neil Miller. Hi Neil, how are you?
Great, thanks. So everybody knows Neil at least around Tech CXO, but Neil, who are you and what are you working on these days?
Well, as you mentioned, I'm a partner at Tech CXO. I was one of the early partners in the firm. I started in late 2006. I think it was partner number five. I had a career of about 25 to 30 years before that in technology. I started my career in public accounting, but right now what I'm doing is I'm making the move towards relaxation and retirement. I'm now a partner emeritus at Tech CXO, which means I'm sort of involved but I'm not doing client work anymore. I'm still on the board of managers of the firm. Besides that, I am working on trying to improve my golf game, which I didn't spend enough time on for many years. I'm getting a little bit better at it and playing a couple times a week. My wife and I just recently purchased a property in Costa Rica, and we're starting to spend some time there, getting it ready to have friends and family who are lining up to come down and visit us.
Yeah, I've heard awesome things about Costa Rica. That's well deserved. That's an awesome place down there. Well, you mentioned a lot, and one of the cool things I think about your background story is that a lot of people, and in particular, we sit down for lunch and we talk, and everybody knows Neil, and it's surprising how many people came through Neil Miller to get to Tech CXO or an investor in Atlanta or have had contact through that positive interaction. I guess you and I had a brief, well, not brief, but for me it was four years at Higher IQ, so that was kind of fun. And then Joe Gr was there for a minute. And then several other partners at Tech CXO came through you. Do you are you surprised at how many people come back around in your career? Do you probably have a million stories like that where you planted a little seed and then five or ten or twenty years later something comes back around where you know that person, there's an opportunity, and you can play matchmaker again. How frequently does that happen?
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