Runway changed how I think about work and finance

I wasn’t planning to join Runway.

When Mike Madden from Runway’s CX team sent me a message on LinkedIn, I was a few months removed from my time selling Fintech and somehow found myself back in healthcare sales. Truth be told, I had forgotten how much I disliked the industry, so the timing was just about perfect.

Mike’s message was a delightful surprise—it’s always flattering when a prior prospect floats recruiting me to the other side. He mentioned Runway was expanding the sales team, and I was open to having a conversation. I’ll always entertain taking a call. Aside from my first-ever sales role, I’ve never had to apply to a single job. Conversations and connections have always led to great learning experiences and the best opportunities.

I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but by the end of the conversation, I was left intrigued and curious to learn more.

My first impression of Runway

Life is funny sometimes. Mike was actually the first person to put Runway on my radar two years prior—I was selling at Mosaic, and he was the VP of Finance at Plural. We were deep in a sales cycle, and I was convinced that I was going to close him.

Then, out of nowhere, he tells me that he’s choosing Runway, a company that I’d never even heard of. It caught me off guard because not only did I think I knew the competitive landscape better than anyone, but I'd also never been so wrong about a deal at the finish line. He said the product was great, and I had no rebuttal. From my perspective, the website was barely there, I couldn’t tell what the product actually did, and I wondered how the product could be far enough along without any buzz until now. It was all very mysterious.

Over the next few months, Runway continued to pop up in sales cycles, especially with their elusive Rippling integration that no one else seemed to have. And yet, we didn’t know much about the tool and why they were lasting through the end of sales cycles.

All of this led me to initially take the call just to scratch the itch that was never quite satisfied when I was selling competitively. I wanted to know what Runway was all about, and why they stuck out as the one interesting competitor in the FP&A space. The fact that it was also exactly in my sweet spot of company maturity—Series A, where the product works, there’s traction, and sales drives the trajectory of the company— laid the groundwork for a great match.

The interview

I got hints along the way that Runway did and thought about things differently. It kept me curious enough to continue having conversations and meeting more people. When I met Siqi [CEO of Runway], everything started to make sense.

My conversation with Siqi caught me off guard. It felt so big and so different. I'd ask a question and be surprised by the answer, often leaving me speechless. I wondered if I'd been asking the right questions at all. I'm rarely without a response, but I found myself thinking about why I was expecting something different and why my mental model was so off. That doesn't happen to me often.

What I learned is that Runway doesn’t share the same objective as other FP&A tools on the market. Now, the typical mission of making finance faster and more efficient seems small-minded and not at all groundbreaking. In contrast, Runway’s goal is to change the way teams interact with finance entirely. Almost like un-financing the finance team. Democratizing decision-making so that teams are empowered to model strategic initiatives and make informed decisions for themselves rather than give up their expertise to someone who just happens to be great in Excel. Runway knows that finance is still the main user, but instead of asking, “How much headcount do we have the budget for?”, teams are thinking, “Based on our customers’ product usage and logins, how can we predict churn and prevent it before our next renewal cycle? Do we need more headcount to accommodate an initiative like this? What’s the ROI?”

The whole company felt different—from the website to the product. Everything seemed experimental—like Runway was willing to push beyond what's proven and see what happens. So far, it appeared the experiments were proving successful.

Joining Runway

When I joined, I thought I understood finance pains and use cases. What I quickly realized was that I had to unlearn a lot of what I'd accepted as truth from working at Mosaic—the workflows, the priorities, and even the way finance people think. The scope seemed so small in comparison.

Mosaic, to me, was like bowling with bumpers—you have clear guardrails. Runway, on the other hand, felt like bowling without lanes. Here, finance is integrated into every team’s decisions. It's not simply a separate department, but rather, it connects the product roadmap, the marketing plan, the sales strategy, and everything else into a unified result.

The shift wasn’t just in the software; it was in how I thought.

It took me three weeks to break down and rebuild my understanding. Runway's approach just forced me to think in new ways. I started questioning myself: "Did I ask this question because it is important universally, or was it just important because of the confines within which I was selling?”

Runway doesn’t tell you how you need to think about the business and model. It encourages you to think strategically and connect the dots across departments. The best finance person isn’t just someone who knows the numbers—it’s someone who can take all these moving parts and build a strategic plan that ties everything together.

It’s an entirely new way of thinking about finance. That’s why, even during those three weeks of questioning everything I thought I knew, I was excited.

A different kind of culture

The consistency I’ve found at Runway is that things are not status quo, normal, or what you’d usually expect. The culture at Runway is something I’ve never experienced before. Throughout most of my career, I've been told to make myself smaller—fall in line, don’t speak up. Being opinionated hasn’t always been appreciated.

In my first sales job, I learned to "shrink the audience." If I asked a question in the broad sales Slack channel, which had over a hundred people, my manager would pull me aside and say, "That's not for the whole group.” Even harmless questions were supposed to be one-on-one to avoid stirring things up. It became a constant calculation: Is this the right question? Is this the right time? Is this the right audience?

At Runway, I had to unlearn that, too.

One of Runway's core values is creating clarity, and clarity comes from asking questions. Here, you don't shrink the audience. If you want to know why something is happening, you just ask. Not only is it okay—it's actually expected. It creates clarity, and it also shows you give a shit (another core value).

Sometimes I still hesitate, wondering if I should stay in my lane. It’s been so ingrained in me for so many years. Then, I see others asking great questions to big audiences, and I remember that this is a place where that's encouraged. It pushes everyone to be better and not accept the status quo. At Runway, challenging the norm is safe and raises the bar.

For the first time in my career, I feel like I can bring my whole self to work. Runway has made me think bigger, pushed harder (on myself, and others), and asked more of me in the best way. I feel energized, motivated, and appreciated for what I bring to the table.