The Operator’s Edge: Charlie Talbot’s Path to CFO and Ongoing Impact

Michael Burcham: Welcome to Microcap Moments, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the stories of founders, investors, and leaders who have taken on the challenge of transforming ideas and small companies into high growth organizations. The journey of building and scaling a business takes one down many unexpected paths. It’s a journey where we learn from our mistakes fall down often but have the entrepreneurial grit to pick ourselves up and persevere.

Within this series, we will share these stories of success and failure of the challenges and the rewards faced by those who dare to dream big. And through their lessons learned, we hope to inspire others who are on a similar journey of becoming growing and leading.

Anderson Williams: In this episode, I talk with Charlie Talbot, Executive

Partner at Shore Capital. Charlie has been a highly successful Chief Financial

Officer and worked with several brands many of us are familiar with, including Yum Brands and Potbelly Sandwiches. But Charlie didn’t start his career as a finance guy.

He spent almost two decades in brand operations and corporate development roles, really learning what it takes to grow and scale a business before he even stepped into the CFO role. He describes this experience developing a deep understanding of business and what growth and scale mean for various functional areas as key to his eventual success as A CFO.

Charlie talks about the importance of the CFO enabling other functional areas, almost as a facilitator of the business, and discusses what makes a successful partnership between A CFO and A CEO. He shares advice, particularly for young CFOs or those aspiring to become one, about the importance of building relationships and knowing all aspects of the business as the way to build your early credibility.

Finally, Charlie offers some of the best advice he ever got as a CFO. Always aspire to never be surprised.

Well, welcome Charlie. Thanks for joining me today. Will you just introduce yourself and give us your name and what you do at Shore Capital?

Charlie Talbot: Sure. Thanks for having me. It’s an honor to be here. You guys do a great job with these, so appreciate the opportunity.

I’m an Executive Partner at Shore Capital. I sit on a few boards across the firm, and I do a bunch of formal and informal advisory work as well.

Anderson Williams: So, you had an incredible career as a multi-time CFO and senior level finance leader with brands most of us have heard of like Northern Trust, Yum Brands, Potbelly Sandwiches, Athletico, and most recently Tend.

Will you just start by walking us through your evolution as an executive through that career?

Charlie Talbot: Sure. You know, first I’d say I’ve had the pleasure and opportunity to work with some great businesses and great people. More importantly, I’ve always enjoyed taking companies through growth cycles, and I’ve had the opportunity to do that.

So, you know, and the last thing I’d say is I enjoy working with consumer facing brands. They’re exciting. You always get feedback on how you’re doing it as a leadership team from your consumer base, and so that’s always been exciting for me.

Starting at Northern Trust, you know, your typical first job outta college. I learned a lot of things at Northern. I learned how to work in a professional environment. I learned how to build relationships and then, you know, just, I

learned how to manage people at a very early age, which was really terrific. The other thing that happened when I was at Northern is that I pursued my MBA at night, which was a lot of work, but it was a really kind of a career changer for me.

It set me up to be more on the finance track relative to where I started. So, I also started a family around the same time. So, while I was at Northern, a lot was going on, very busy. But you know, I got a great foundation from the 10 years that I was at Northern.

Anderson Williams: And when you were there and started your career, did you know you wanted to be in finance? Was that a path that was clear to you?

Charlie Talbot: No, I really not. I mean, I was, you know, my parents were both teachers, so you know, there wasn’t an obvious path there in terms of a role model. But I did have a role model in terms of people development and building character around younger people. So that was always in my genetic DNA.

I was a chemistry major going to college. So, we had a pivot from that. But you know, I got into banking and started to learn to love it in terms of working with numbers and working with people and working with businesses in general. So that’s kind of how I got down that path.

After I finished my MBA, I really wanted to get into an operating company, and so I took the opportunity to go down to Louisville, Kentucky and work with Yum Brands, which was at the time spinning off from PepsiCo.

So, great DNA, a big business, but acting much like a startup, given that they were starting their journey as an independent company. At Yum, I spent a number of years working in brand leadership roles, worked my way into overall corporate business planning, which gave me a lot of exposure outside of the US where they had a big business. And then worked as the head of strategy for the company.

And you know, the great thing about Yum looking back was they had an incredible group of leaders at that company that I learned a ton from. And you know, it’s a group of people that I really watched how they worked, you know, how they made decisions, how they handled adversity, and how they celebrated success. And having that kind of exposure at that age point in my career was tremendous.

Anderson Williams: Did you know at the time when you were there that you were experiencing something special in terms of leadership?

Charlie Talbot: I did, and that’s why I stayed there 10 years. You know, it was something that I grew to really appreciate, you know, being part of that culture and part of that organization.

And so, I knew that I was getting a lot of tools in my toolkit by being around those folks. So that was a really important time in my career.

Anderson Williams: What was it about that? If you had to capture a couple of the kind of leadership lessons from that experience, what are a couple of things that stood out to you that made that unique?

Charlie Talbot: Yeah. I think the power of culture and the power of putting people first as a mindset in how you run your business. You know, that was a giant business, $9B of revenue and businesses in a hundred countries. And so, you know, they built that culture post spinoff, and it was really powerful and you could see it how that impacted the business.

I really learned how to operate a business at scale. So, the important thing there is that I learned what good looks like. You know, as I think about my future, the experiences, you know, I look back at that and say I learned a lot during that time about where I needed to go with a business.

And then it all goes back to the unit economic model. So, that was a real focus of the organization, how to run great operations, how to not compromise on your operational excellence and leadership. And those are things that carried with me throughout my career.

Anderson Williams: And how about, what was the transition there from Yum Brands to Potbelly and then Athletico?

Charlie Talbot: Yeah.

Anderson Williams: I mean, you sort of continue to find new and compelling companies as or so it seems on paper.

Charlie Talbot: Yeah. You know, I think I had a toolkit, right? And you know, at the time I moved back to Chicago for both personal and professional reasons.

Landed at Potbelly. I came in as a CFO. Potbelly is a great story. You know, rewind the tapes 15 years. I lived around the corner from the original Potbelly store.

Frequent customer, love the business as a consumer. And then you fast forward and I’m sitting in the chair, you know, being asked to build infrastructure and then scale the business. And so, I got there when there was about 70 shops, as we called them, an incredible consumer facing business that just needed help building the infrastructure and support.

So, we did that. We got the unit economic model, right? We did a lot of the things that I learned at Yum Brands in terms of culture and focus on people, and built the business out to over 400 units, took it public in 2013. It was just a fantastic outcome and a great time for me personally in my career.

Anderson Williams: Tell us a little bit about the Athletico and Tend, and then I want to come back to that first experience as a CFO ’cause Potbelly was your first in that role, right?

Charlie Talbot: Yep. Independent. Company, CFO.

Anderson Williams: So, tell us about the move to Athletico and Tend, but then let’s come back to what that first experience was like in that environment.

Charlie Talbot: So, few years after we went public. You know, one of the things that I was always concerned about was I was turning into a quote unquote restaurant guy. And so, I’ve always wanted to keep learning and met the founder of Athletico, who’s an incredible human being, and he built a great business and ultimately, he convinced me to leave my public company job and join his 70 clinic, physical therapy business outside of Chicago.

And I saw what he was trying to do, and he was just bringing private equity money in for the first time. And again, he needed help building the infrastructure and getting it ready for scale and dealing with private equity friends that he had just brought on.

So, it was a new adventure, a new opportunity for me with a really outstanding brand. And so, I, um, ultimately jumped at the opportunity. Which was, you know, a great decision looking back, I love that business. We did a transformational acquisition almost immediately after I got there, which took us from roughly 70 clinics in Chicago to over 300.

So, we bought a business almost three times our size and put us in 13 states. And so that gave me a lot of exposure to integration, to quick scale, if you will, and how to pivot towards that. And so, anyway. I think we did a terrific job integrating the business. 18 months later, we sold to a, a large private equity firm. It was a terrific outcome.

And the other thing I learned is that about myself and about my ability is my ability to play outside of restaurants is so much of what I learned in the restaurant business travels. You know, especially when you’re dealing with multi-unit and growth. So that was something that was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

Anderson Williams: Tell us about that first CFO role with Potbelly, and a little bit about what you had to change or grow to meet that opportunity.

Charlie Talbot: Yeah, well, I think, you know, certainly I felt really confident about what I had learned in my days at Yum. Like I knew what good looked like as I mentioned earlier. And so, a lot of it was just getting from here to there, you know, starts with people.

You gotta get the right people on the team. And so, we spent a lot of time recrafting the team and setting it up for where the business was going versus where it had been. And then in terms of just being in the role in the chair, if you will, you know, one of the things I always prided myself was really understanding the business from a 360 perspective, meaning that I knew operations.

I knew market, I knew HR. I spent the time understanding how those parts of the business worked. And so, you know, I never was confronted with an issue that seemed foreign to me. Like I always understood sort of what was happening and how it was happening within the context of those functions. So, you know, I worked hard at it, but, you know, I think the main thing was coming and really spending the time to learn the business and be able to contribute beyond my functional role that I had.

Anderson Williams: Is it fair? As I listen to you, I think about it sounds through your experience and strategy and brand roles and you know, business planning and all of these other things that you were sort of a multi-tool growth business guy. That became a CFO. Not a finance guy that then figured out how to be a business guy.

Does that seem reasonably accurate?

Charlie Talbot: That’s that’s very accurate. And I think part of it was by design. Part of it was was by, I was an operator who sat in the finance chair, and that’s the mindset I had about running a business. I never thought that managing the finance organization was rocket science.

Not because it’s hard, I understand that, but my mindset was to get past that part and just focus all my attention on how do I set my functional peers up for success. You know, I had the advantage being in the CFO seat of having all the information and having all the insights and data and sharing that with the people around the organization would ultimately make my job reporting results a lot easier if they were successful.

Anderson Williams: And talk a little bit about that relationship that the CFO carries with all of those other functional areas. I think that’s something we don’t talk enough about, of just what a critical role it is. For bringing the company together. And aligning the company. Can you just say more about that almost facilitative and connector role that you play within the company?

Charlie Talbot: Yeah, I worked really hard at. Building relationships as a foundation for discussions that ultimately needed to be had, whether they’re easy discussions or difficult discussions. But whenever you build relationships in a setting like this where you’re on a team and you’re trying to build something together, you know, I think trust in those relationships are critical to be able to work through things.

And so I spent a lot of time, whether it was in the field with my operators or you know, working on marketing or HR issues with my functional leaders and I really tried to understand their mindset, you know, what motivated them and account for that as we went through the work that we did together.

Anderson Williams: Yeah.

Charlie Talbot: And you know, I think that opened a lot of doors for me to play a bigger role in organizations beyond just being a finance guy.

Anderson Williams: Given that, just to pull that thread a little bit more, what do you think are some misconceptions people have about the CFO role that you lived maybe differently given your route to the CFO role, but are there any misconceptions you see as you talk to coach support CFOs or aspiring CFOs?

Charlie Talbot: Yeah, I think some of the misconceptions that people have you know, they pigeonhole CFOs as really numbers people. And so, I think the best CFOs are business people that happen to have an expertise in understanding a business from a financial perspective, forecasting a business, et cetera. So, I

think that that’s one, and you know, I worked really hard not to be pigeonholed there, just again, through learning the business.

I also think that most of my time, I would say as I got further into my CFO career, most of my time was spent looking forward versus looking in the rear view mirror. I think that the reason why that’s important is because if you can spend the time looking down the road and understanding what decisions are being made and what the implications both intended and unintended consequences of those decisions, it allows you to have conversations with people about, you know, sort of what the outcomes could be and make sure that you’re covering all your bases and solving problems before they become problems.

So, I guess in terms of misconceptions, back to your question, you know, I think some of the best CFOs spend most of their time looking forward in the business and then helping their functional peers think that way as well. And I just think you’ve run more effective business that way.

Anderson Williams: Yeah. And when you think about this, there’s part of that that’s like, well, that makes sense. You’re looking forward to the business. You’re planning, you’re doing those things. That seems typical.

So, what is the counter to that when you are comparing that to looking backward, that would be another approach or a mistaken approach in your experience, what does looking backward then look like?

Charlie Talbot: Well, I think that you’re, you know, reporting on the business’ table stakes, I mean, you have to do your functional role as a CFO and business in general, being able to report results and understand why the results are what they are.

I think the problem is that if you get stuck there, you don’t ever apply learnings from the past into the future. And so, understanding the business and understanding what drives a business from a retrospective standpoint allows you to build intuition into the future. And that’s something that was always a focus of mine.

Anderson Williams: So, one of the critical relationships is obviously between the CFO and the CEO.

Charlie Talbot: Yeah.

Anderson Williams: Can you talk about what that looks like when it’s working?

Yeah, and, and maybe what it looks like when it’s not working in your experience.

Charlie Talbot: We could do a whole podcast on that relationship.

Anderson Williams: We may, we may come back to that.

Charlie Talbot: but I think importantly, like the mindset I had in my relationships with my CEOs, which I always had terrific relationships with them, and my mindset was always like, we’re a partnership.

Our job is to make each other’s jobs and lives in general easier. And so how do we identify the past and clear the past for each other so that you know we can be more effective as a team?

Again, starts with respect and trust and understanding of what, who each other is and how they. Think and operate. And then beyond that, it’s really being transparent and being very open to conversations, even if they’re very difficult to have. And then, you know, that’s easier to do once you have that trust.

I think the role definition between the two were very important. I always tried to identify what I was gonna be focused on in a relationship, whether it was a PE firm or the public marketplace, or whatever the case and what the CEO’s role was to make sure that we weren’t talking over each other.

Internally, you know, it was just a function of what are you doing and what am I doing, and let’s make sure that we’re not overlapping or delivering counter messages. But again, it starts with the relationship. It starts with making sure you have the right partner and that you have the right mindset about how you’re going to work together.

Anderson Williams: You’ve given some relationship kinds of things between the CFO and CEO, but from the CFO seat, if you had to name. Two or three things that make a great CEO. For A CFO, what would those things be?

Charlie Talbot: That’s a great question. I would say, you know, someone who is going to be consistent in terms of strategy and execution, you know, because then as a CFO I’m not chasing things.

I’m not sort of, I know how we’re going to operate collectively, and I can anticipate that. I think the other thing is just being open and transparent with me as a partner. I think that’s really important. ’cause if I’m guessing how that the CEO is thinking, then I got a problem.

Anderson Williams: So, we’ve talked a little bit about your experience and knowing the business and being relationship focused.

These were obvious strengths for you as you stepped into the CFO role. That prepared you for that finance lead. What weren’t you good at? So, when you stepped into that role, maybe for the first time, and maybe over time, just things that you knew you weren’t good at and either needed to develop or needed to hire around you.

Charlie Talbot: Well, the glaring one was, I was not a CPA. I was not an accountant, so that was always my first hire. And it wasn’t just fill the seat, it was like, make sure I have the right person in that seat. And I got pretty proficient over the years in the accounting world. But early on in particular, I knew that was a gap, and I knew that I had to fill that gap with someone that was both excellent and that I could trust.

Anderson Williams: You do a lot of work with a lot of aspiring CFOs, both within Shore and I imagine otherwise, what advice do you give an aspiring CFO, particularly let’s say in the microcap space, your career has been in building and growing as well. They’re stepping into microcap or lower middle market companies.

That are doing the same thing. What is the advice you give someone trying to prepare to succeed in that role?

Charlie Talbot: One thing is not all the companies I stepped into were larger companies. I mean, I went through that growth journey, so I do try to make sure that they recognize and I can empathize with what they’re looking to do and how they’re doing it.

I always tell ’em to make sure you take the time, as I’ve mentioned already on this conversation, make sure you take the time to truly understand the business from all angles. It’s an investment. You have to find the time to do it ’cause everyone’s really busy. But spending time in the field or you know, however, whatever the context is in your business, and making sure you understand at the very lowest level of the organization how they operate will make you better.

And that’s consistent feedback I give people. Again, not to beat it dead horse here but people have to invest the time to build relationships across the organization, it’s critical. For especially young people in their careers, maybe first time CFOs. They have to establish credibility and context. And in my opinion, the best way to do that is to build strong relationships with the people and help them understand how you can help them as leaders or others in the organization. So, I think that’s critical.

And then the last thing I’d say is especially early, and I was fortunate to have great mentors, but building a cohort of people or people that you can pick the phone up and ask the questions ’cause you’re gonna run into things that you have no idea how to handle. And being able to talk to someone about those situations is really important.

I see the mistake people make as they try to muscle through things and oftentimes that just doesn’t work as well.

Anderson Williams: So, what are some common things that you see, or you get when you’re on the other side of that call that people are looking for? Like, okay, what do I do here, help? What are some common things you hear on your side of that call?

Charlie Talbot: A lot of it’s personality driven or really, you know, things that come up in the course of business and they just don’t know how to handle a personality or a situation that seems to be going down a path that they can’t seem to get in front of. Yet, they know that it’s not gonna end well, at least in their minds.

And so, you know, I think a lot of that, especially year in their career, people are hesitant to step in front of those things. You know whether it’s a, a tough person to deal with or tough situation to deal with. But I just encourage them, it’s like, this is where you gotta practice. This is where you have to step into, lean into those situations.

And, you know, again, try to understand where the person’s coming from and try to navigate that conversation to, if it doesn’t work this time, maybe it works the next time.

Anderson Williams: Did you ever have that call from you to somebody else saying help? And if so, what was something that you struggled with, that you needed somebody on the other end of the line for?

Charlie Talbot: You know, I think there are situations where, you know, I learned really early and, and I remember a call I had with one of my mentors about, you know, hey, how do I deliver bad news? ’cause you know, that’s one thing that I hadn’t had a ton of experience doing, you know, up until I was in the role. And so that was just, I was trying to navigate how to not disappoint people or how to not, whatever the emotional state was. And so, it was good to be able to talk to someone who had been through that and gave me a little more confidence to go have those conversations.

Anderson Williams: And in that spirit, what’s the best advice you ever got?

Charlie Talbot: Best advice, I would say, especially in the context of being a CFO is always aspire, never to be surprised.

So, you know, it changes your mindset around not being reactionary and always thinking about the possible outcomes of what you’re doing and what the business is doing and being prepared to deal with those outcomes before they are realized.

Anderson Williams: And I imagine setting expectations with the people around you to don’t surprise me.

Charlie Talbot: Sure. That’s, that’s the whole point. It’s like, again, it’s easy for me to sit in my office and think about that stuff, but if I see a range of outcomes, the most important thing I can do is communicate that and work with the team to figure out, you know, if I’m missing something or they’re missing something, then how do we work together to make sure that we get the best outcome possible.

Anderson Williams: So, you work with Shore Capital as an Executive Partner.

I’m curious at this state of your career and stage of your career, why an Executive Partner? Why Shore? Just any context for, I’m sure you had myriad things you could be doing with your time. Why Shore?

Charlie Talbot: Well, why Shores? You know, there’s a couple ways to answer that question.

One, you know, I’ve gotten to know the Shore team over the years was introduced to Justin about nine years ago and have kept in touch with him and gotten to know the team. I’ve always admired the way that the business is run and how they think about things. And more broadly speaking, I’ve worked in large public companies, I’ve taken a company public, I’ve, you know, done private transactions.

I’ve worked in the VC space. I’ve kind of done a lot of different things, which a lot of it was curiosity and just building my tool set. And you get to a point where you look back and say, I have been so fortunate and part of the reason I’ve been so fortunate is ’cause I had people around me that were willing to, you know, gimme a hand up or you know, help me out in any way.

And I just got to the point in my career where that’s really what I wanted to focus on is how do I get back to folks who are going through the journey that I have gone through? Not to say my journey’s over, but certainly, you know, using my experience to help on a broader scale, a group of businesses that are going through some of the things I have.

It was so natural to step into this Executive Partner role because I have gotten to know the people here and I have grown to appreciate how they operate, and they’re giving me a platform to do that. So, I couldn’t be more appreciative of the opportunity.

Anderson Williams: And in that spirit of being clear that your journey isn’t over, uh, or wrapping up anytime soon, what are you still learning? What are you still growing? What are the things you’re still curious about as you do this work and other work that you’re involved in?

Charlie Talbot: Uh, it’s fascinating to see all the different platforms that are being built and the different business models and the different people running the businesses, and certainly on the investment side, you know, the Shore side of the table, just how they think about things.

It just gives me more and more context to walk into situations where I can be helpful. I understand the players from an operating standpoint as well as from an investment standpoint. I think I can bridge those gaps.

Anderson Williams: If you enjoyed this episode, check out our other Microcap Moments episodes at www.shorecp.university/podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts. Here you will also find our Bigger. Stronger. Faster. and Everyday Heroes series, each highlighting the people and stories that make investing in the lower middle market unique.

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners and recorded in the Andrew Malone podcast Studio with story and narration by Anderson Williams. Recording by Austin Johnson. Editing by Reel Audiobooks. Sound design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.

Special thanks to Charlie Talbot.

This podcast is The Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.