611: An Acquisitive State of Mind | Jon Nguyen, CFO, Kyriba

Jon Nguyen got his first taste of M&A-related work in the early to mid-2000s when he served as the finance partner for the auto lending unit of HSBC.

“In consumer lending, you end up doing a lot of portfolio purchases rather than equity ones, but I have become more involved in the execution of deals over the past 8 years,” says Nguyen, who, distinguishes the past 8 years as a standout chapter -one that has allowed him to certify his M&A credentials and enter the CFO office at Kyriba.

Turn back the clock 8 years, and Nguyen is vice president of finance for Mitchell International, a $600 million software and service business. As the company’s FP&A leader, Nguyen was tasked with supplying key insights to management decision-making behind the sale of Mitchell to KKR in 2013. Meanwhile, 5 years later, Nguyen was once more in the M&A diligence mix when KKR sold Mitchell to Stone Point Capital. Along the way, Nguyen’s M&A resume quickly expanded.

“At Mitchell, we were very acquisitive, and during my tenure there, we acquired 12 to 15 companies,” says Nguyen, who frequently became charged with leading the integration of Mitchell’s latest bounty.

In mid-2018, following the sale of Mitchell to Stone Point, Nguyen joined cloud treasury and finance solutions company Kyriba as senior vice president of FP&A. Roughly a year later, he was named Kyriba’s CFO—a development that came on the heels of Kyriba’s sale to private equity firm BridgePoint. There’s little question that Nguyen’s latest career chapter has a familiar ring to it and is perhaps part of a larger M&A volume that he first started creating 8 years ago.

Says Nguyen: “It’s interesting how life can take you where you belong.” - Jack Sweeney