We're closing the corporate finance month with Dhivya Suryadevara, Chief Financial Officer at Stripe, one of the most valuable private tech companies.
Who is she?
Dhivya is the newly appointed CFO of Stripe, a fast-growing, online payments company based San Francisco. She became well-known in the male-dominated automobile industry after 18 years of outstanding work in finance roles at GM, where she lastly held the position of CFO for 2 years until 2020.
How did she start?
After studying business in the University of Madras in India, Suryadevara moved to the United States where she obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School and a certificate from the CFA Institute. She has dedicated her entire career to finance, starting in PWC and passing through the WB and UBS before joining GM in 2004 and finally Stripe in 2020.
How did she get there?
Dhivya’s roles in GM were essential for the financial delivery of the company, and her remarkable trajectory led Mary Barra, CEO of GM, to name her as CFO in 2018. This made the company one of only two Fortune 500 companies that had both a female CEO and CFO. Her achievements caught the eye of Stripe, which after an 18-month search for a CFO, finally found the perfect fit, ready for a new challenge in the tech industry.
What is her advice?
“You can’t just give up. You’ve got to keep going at it and it’s a long journey. You have to work very, very hard... Having said that, try to have some fun while you’re doing all of that as well...Try to keep things in perspective and take time for yourself once in a while.”