Amar Mistry, Chief Financial Officer, LandVault
About LandVault
Landvault is a metaverse builder that uses the latest Web3 technology to provide a suite of solutions for major brands to enter the metaverse and virtual worlds with meaningful interaction and purpose.
As the world's leading metaverse development studio, LandVault employs 120 employees worldwide to establish a powerful community of experts, and a leadership team that is always pushing the boundaries of what is possible for the future.
Q. Can you give us a brief introduction to your career background?
A. I am a qualified accountant, having started out with corporate organisations before transitioning to working with founders in building venture-backed start-ups. I consider myself lucky to have been in the right place at the right time when making my first move to start-ups, and lucky to work with some of the best talent in today's tech scene.
Over my career I have covered a broad range of sectors including manufacturing, advertising, media and production, health tech, gaming and professional services. I now work in the cutting-edge industry of Web3, and I’m excited to see what this means for our personal and business lives.
The big questions
Q. What’s been your biggest success in your career?
A. I am proud to have worked in businesses at different stages. I could certainly list out a long list of turnarounds and expansions that I look back on with pride. However, my biggest success would have to be the professional successes of the people that have worked with me.
Q. What has been the biggest challenge in your career?
A. Getting a job! Or let me rephrase, getting my first job.
I remember coming out of university and trying to get into finance only to meet ‘you need more experience’. I knocked on doors of accounts firms, cold called banks and even accosted commuters with appropriate lanyards. I guess none of it mattered as it was a very diligent recruitment consultant that got me my first appointment.
Funnily enough, the story was the same trying to move out of the corporate world and into start-ups.
Q. What has been the biggest regret of your career?
A. I switched on to my career ‘late’ on, so through my academic career I did not have a view of where I wanted to go or what was needed. Looking back, I could have been much more proactive in seeking out that missing experience or identifying the best universities.
Although that said, university was so much fun I am not sure I would want to change it.
Q. What has been the biggest learning opportunity of your career?
A. I feel like I have lived two professional lives, one in the corporate world and one in start-ups.
In corporate, I distinctly remember at my first PLC year end that lack of experience showing as I had not worked out how to connect my theoretical knowledge to the work environment. I was lucky my boss didn’t have the time for our regular catch up, as I may well have been reassigned.
And then there is my first start-up, all of that best practice goes out of the window when the challenge is making payroll or convincing investors to commit.
Q. Who have you learnt most from?
A. That is easy. Eric Green, my mentor and boss through my early career taught me the discipline it takes to run a finance function. There is also Patrick Carter, who taught me how to navigate a board room.
Outside of people, I find LinkedIn a fantastic tool for learning and engaging with the professional community.
Q. What's the biggest challenge in your marketplace at the moment?
A. Web3 is a concept that the world is catching up with, so there is a big challenge to educate the market on what can be expected in both the short and long term.
Tips from the top
Q. What advice would you give to your younger self?
A. One thing I would definitely tell my younger self would be to make a plan, even if you end up throwing it in the bin and rewriting it, it’s better to have an objective than not have one at all.
Q. What advice would you give to an aspiring CFO?
A. While it may be hard when you get caught up in the pressures of the role, learn to stop doing and start planning. A CFO is a leader so it’s imperative that you set the direction of the team.
Q. What do you think is key to managing a successful team?
A. Aside from the fundamentals (culture, empowerment, development), it’s important to have a system for managing communications and deliverables. This becomes even more important as businesses straddle working from home and office work.
Q. What's your top tip for managing work-life balance?
A. Close the week out by reviewing what you have done and planning for the upcoming three weeks. The exercise clears all those ‘nags’ from your mind, so you can focus on your family and personal life at the weekend.
Future gazing
Q. How do you see the CFO role changing in the next five years?
A. The finance function as a whole is going to continue to automate basic financial operations, which is great as more time can be focussed on adding value to an organisation.
Q. What technological advances do you foresee within your role?
A. The big one is automated reporting, perhaps even automated insights, as more data is captured across the business. Data informs a lot of what a business can and can’t do.
Q. What do you see as the future of work in the UK?
A. Even though it is widely used by a lot of businesses, I think flexi-working is not going away any time soon, and so it shouldn’t it. It’s helped create a brand new dynamic of how we can work effectively and efficiently.
Love Mondays: at Reed we are on a mission to help everyone love their job
Q. What do you love most about your role and why?
A. I enjoy the ability to constantly learn within a role. Learning allows you to be better than you were yesterday.
Q. What does your average Monday look like?
A. I always start Monday with a trip to the gym (CrossFit), followed by a check in on LinkedIn, emails and Discord. I then conduct a team meeting early in the morning to reiterate the focus of the week, followed by weekly update meetings through the afternoon.
If you are looking for a talented accountancy and finance professional for your business, or looking to find your next role, contact one of our specialist consultants today.
