ACT Group CFO: Finance partnering with sales and marketing creates strategic advantage

Video interview
August 2025

IN BRIEF

  • “I think finance has, just in general, moved beyond just reporting the past and now helping to shape the future and the whole strategy of the organization.”
  • “Working with sales has been really powerful for me, also in understanding how salespeople think and how I can show that I'm providing value and actually prove that point out, rather than just say ‘You have to listen to me.’”
  • “Ultimately, insights rule. It's no longer about just looking back and having clean financial statements, that's par for the course; it's now adding that second layer of value.”
 

Michael Vigario, Chief Financial Officer for North America at ACT Group in New York and board member for Green Project Technologies, talks with Heather Hall, Director, Digital Customer Experience & Digital Transformation Strategy at Protiviti, about how the collaboration between finance and sales, specifically around data, can be a big strategic advantage for companies.

In this interview:

0:56 – How finance data can boost go-to-market strategies

3:08 – A pivoting role for finance

6:04 – Building trust and proving value

11:57 – A new model for CFOs


Read transcript

ACT Group CFO: Finance partnering with sales and marketing creates strategic advantage

Joe Kornik: Welcome to the VISION by Protiviti interview. I'm Joe Kornik, Editor-in Chief of VISION by Protiviti, a global content resource examining big themes that will impact the C- suite and executive boardrooms worldwide. Today, we're exploring the future of customer experience, and I'm happy to be joined by Michael Vigario, Chief Financial Officer for North America at ACT Group in New York. He is also a board member of Green Project Technologies. Today, Mike will sit down with my Protiviti colleague, Heather Hall, Director, Digital Customer Experience and Digital Transformation Strategy, to discuss sales strategy and customer experience through the lens of the CFO. Heather, I’ll turn it over to you to begin. 

Heather Hall: Thanks, Joe, so Mike, thanks for being a willing victim in this. People are probably wondering what you and I are doing talking when you're a CFO, and we're talking about sales strategies. So, you and I have had a number of conversations over the years about the role of finance with sales, and the role that plays in acceleration. And as I thought about it, I wanted to pull the curtain back on the conversations that we’ve had out in the public. So, to set the stage, I want to talk a little bit about the role that you've played with your sales organization and how sales can collaborate with finance on go-to-market strategies. 

Mike Vigario: Yep, awesome. Thanks, Heather… and I’m a willing victim. So, all good there. Yeah, I think finance has become more and more working shoulder to shoulder with sales, which I think has been really my experience over the past eight years and even before that. It's a way for finance to show that their data-driven strategies and all the access to information that finance has can turn into actionable insights. So I think finance has, just in general, moved beyond just reporting the past and now helping to shape the future and the whole strategy of the organization. So bringing the data lens to some of those questions that you mentioned there, you know, which segments are the best potential, how pricing impacts margin and win rates… we want to win, but not at all costs, as there are bad deals, right? 

And so you may want to have a loss leader here and there, but overall, in general, that doesn't make sense. That's not sustainable business. And then how do you allocate territories for maximum impact? Does it make sense that a salesperson cover Florida and Minnesota? Probably not. Setting things up just in a smart way, so we can also be cost effective, and making sure the go-to-market strategy is built on opportunity, of course, but then sustainable business. And then, most importantly, I think we always need to remember to be able to change based on the data. So, as we take in more data, maybe it makes sense to make some changes, to make some updates. And so, I think that's important, to be able to be agile and change things when necessary. 

Hall: And it's interesting you bring that up because that's a substantial pivot from what historically has been maybe more of a lagging point of view. I think of sales historically being the one pushing and driving, whereas finance would be more “well, this is how you perform. This is the margin we’ve got,” right, as opposed to taking that proactive lens? So with that shift, how can you partner with sales to bring that level of discipline, you know, the introduction of data? And thinking about the classic things like pipeline health, the forecast accuracy. You know, you started to talk about deal prioritization, too. It's a very different role. How did you introduce that in the world?

Vigario: Yes. And kudos also to the sales team that I've been working at the table to take in some of this data and be open, which is really important. If the sales team is not open to it, then you can't really go very far. But the sales teams that I've been working with have been open to it, and so they're open to looking at pipeline data, and they understand the importance of forecasting with pipeline data, because, you know, we ultimately, we are basically PE-backed, and so having insight into our numbers and forecasts and being able to predict what's going to happen, not only talk about what did happen, is really important to us as a company and to our equity disciplines, as well. So, I think the whole organization really sees that this is important, but it all starts with data. 

So trying to get the sales team to actually put data in the easiest way possible—so removing friction through apps, through plugins, through all these different ways, so that our CRM system does actually contain the information that we need it to contain, and so it does actually have predictive ability from our conversion rates, our time to conversion, all these different types of things, and that helps us validate forecast accuracy, but also have a forecast, just in general, right? So, I think some of these things are really important. 

And then, to your point about deals, I mean, there are more and less profitable deals. And when we're looking at the customer cost of acquisition, I think that's an important metric for us to understand where we're getting profitable deals from. And maybe it's logo driven and not necessarily deal profitability driven, and so that logo can help us get more logos. And, you know, there's that whole thing, but I think for the most part, we want to prioritize having deals that do make us a healthy margin in order to be a sustainable business.

Hall: I find the role that you play at ACT really interesting because you're so integral into the entire selling process, from the point that you're concepting where to go next, as well as how people are getting onboarded through the commodities purchasing process, the whole thing; you're an integral part of the puzzle. How do you get there? And I'll strike it from two lenses: How did you, Mike, get there? How'd you build that trust in that relationship, but extending that to your peers… how should they think about becoming more integrated in with sales and with marketing too?

Vigario: Yeah, so I think it's not always easy to sell the sales people on the value finance is bringing because, I think traditionally, finance sends the invoices and collects the money. You go do your thing, and that's kind of it. But I think what we've tried to do is show that we can enable deals by, you know, if I look at the trading side of the business, enabling deals through cash usage, enabling deals through knowing what our stock levels are and exactly what type of stock we're holding so that we can go to the market and sell that, and maybe it's sell it for a particular period of time, or, you know, being able to optimize what inventory we do have.

And if I look at the SAS piece of ACT’s business, we also look at what our pricing should be. I look at competitor pricing and see when we should get discounts, when we shouldn't, and how we can continue that moving. And look at also our historical business. So historically, we've traded with 1,000 companies, and now this year, only 750 have come up so far. Why? Or the amounts we've traded with, or volumes, or the regions we've traded in, and try to get more out of those particular spots. And on the SAS side, what industries are we working with the most, and so what industries need help on this, on this carbon accounting journey that they're on? 

So we’re thinking about how we can do this with customer behavior and with the sales cycle in general, and looking at where we are now versus where we expected to be in our budget, and how can we bridge that gap? What assumptions were in the budget that were underlying, that were helping us get these numbers in the first place? And so where are we compared to that? And I think working with sales has been really powerful for me, also just in understanding how salespeople think and how I can show that I'm providing value and actually prove that point out, rather than just say “You have to listen to me,” because that doesn't really work very well. I may work once or twice, but that's about it. So, it's really partnering and showing the sales team that you do have valuable data for them. It takes a little bit of time, of course, but I think it becomes powerful in the future.

Hall: Flipping the question, and I think back to my time in industry. I wanted to stay out of finance’s office. That usually meant I was having to deal with the PO or something had gone sideways. Right? What can someone in sales or marketing do to improve their relationship with finance, collaborate, better establish those channels of communication?

Vigario: I think for us in finance, you know, we've talked a lot about data so far already, and  transparency and data is so important for finance. To pull a fast one over on finance is not really going to work, because ultimately, the buck stops here… literally. And so I think it's really important to just be transparent and collaborative, you know, sharing or even jointly constructing some pipeline data, or maybe it's the underlying CRM system has to be designed jointly. Or, you know, if we're talking about marketing campaigns and tagging customers and tagging leads, then jointly create things like that, and that helps everyone, right? Because, from finance, I can see more top of the funnel, and from marketing, we can then measure what actually works versus what doesn't work, and we can hopefully ratchet up what does work and increase our conversion rates. 

And so I think designing things like that together, focus on on what metrics, what KPIs, we actually want to monitor not only shows marketing what's successful, but shows sales what's successful, and ultimately, shows finance and our executive board what success really looks like. And the predictive ability of those KPIs—so not only your current customer base, but also what's in your pipeline and what your time to convert is, so that we can then look three, six, nine, months into the future and have some expectations of where we're going to land. 

Hall: How do you think about that balance of finance with go-to-market investment? So you guys are growing green project, and there's a lot of things going on there from a carbon accounting perspective. How do you balance that aspiration of, I think, that I can grab that next great piece with other priorities in the business, because there's a lot of other things that are going on. What's that model look like for you? 

Vigario: I think for us, it's all about ROI. So what we've done for the past 15 years, 16 years, was build the business on mostly riskless trading platform. And so that kicks off a good amount of cash. And so what can we do with that cash? How can we reinvest it into the business in order to grow the business and allow access to our core products to more and more and more customers in an efficient way? 

And so that was the Green Project play, which we worked on about two-and-a-half years ago. I was acquiring Green Project technologies in order to now go a little bit further up upstream and be able to meet our customers before they necessarily have a CSO or they necessarily have a built out sustainability function, and so helping them measure their carbon footprint, whether that be on Scope 1, Scope 2, or, which is a bit more difficult, Scope 3. And so that's really what we’re focused on, is how can we go further up the chain and be able to offer these same clients, which we already deal with, differentiated product, but also clients that we haven't even touched yet.

Hall: So let me hit you with a parting thought. Let's say that I plunked a CFO down in front of you, and I said, “Mike, I want you to look at this peer of yours and tell them what you think the most important evolution is  and how finance is going to support go-to-market strategy, with the intent of helping the CFO have the same type of impact on your on their business? What would you say?

Vigario: Yeah, I think the most important evolution has been that finance is becoming a strategic partner. And I think without that, I don't know that finance would be as exciting for me personally even. And so, it's really been an exciting evolution that I've gotten to see a good amount of, and just evolving to that strategic partner, the days of just backward-looking financials and the variance analysis and saying, “Oh, we predicted we were going to do 10, and we did six,” is hopefully kind of done. I think with AI, which we didn't really talk much about, but I think with AI, a lot of that is going to be done for you, and you're going to be looking deeper and deeper, more detailed into it and more into the future. Because ultimately, insights rule. It's no longer about just looking back and having clean financial statements, that's par for the course; it's now adding that second layer of value. 

So, I think finance now helps to underpin and drive growth initiatives, both with a view of profitability and sustainability from a business perspective. And so that's what I think has been the biggest evolution, at least for me, and has been the most exciting part, honestly. Looking at measurable KPIs, looking at predictable KPIs, we've just really moved on from looking in the past—although having clean financials and looking in the past and reporting what happened is still incredibly important—but moving to predicting the performance and really underpinning how we get there. And so, that's what I would say the biggest evolution has been. 

Hall: Awesome. Thank you for carving out the time. As always, it's great to catch up! Joe,I'm going to hand it back to you. 

Kornik: Thanks, Heather and thanks, Mike! And thank you for watching the VISION by Protviti Interview. On behalf of Heather and Mike. I'm Joe Kornik. We'll see you next time.

Close transcript

Michael Vigario is Chief Financial Officer for North America at ACT Group in New York where he owns end-to-end financial control for the North American business of a global commodities trader and associated SaaS platform, overseeing clean external audits, full trade cycle at scale. He is a strategic and results-driven CFO with more than 15 years of experience driving growth, capital efficiency, and financial transformation across high-growth companies in trading, with a proven track record managing more than $3 billion in revenue. Vigario is also a board member of Green Project Technologies.

Michael Vigario
Finance Director, ACT Group
View bio

Heather Hall is Director, Digital Customer Experience & Digital Transformation Strategy, at Protiviti. Heather has spent more than 20 years leveraging data and insights to transform customer-facing operations to optimize the flow of revenue through organizations. With extensive experience in blue chip companies such as AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Acxiom, as well as nimble startups, she has built a deep understanding of what it takes to build scalable, impactful strategies that correlate to rapid insights and quantifiable outcomes. 

Heather Hall
Director, Digital Strategy at Protiviti
View bio
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