🏠︎ | Past Sessions | From Startup to Stock Market, BuzzFeed’s Finance Function as a Growth Engine
- Event: Finance Forum 25
- Date: 7 October 2025
- Speaker: Autumn Coleman, Vice President, Strategy, Finance & Corporate Development, BuzzFeed
- Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
Quick summary
This session explored how a modern finance function can actively drive growth, not just support it.
Drawing on BuzzFeed’s journey from startup through public company readiness, Autumn Coleman outlined how finance can evolve from reporting and control into a commercial engine. The emphasis was on operating finance close to decision making, building adaptable planning capability, and earning trust through clarity rather than complexity.
The core message was that growth stage finance is less about perfect forecasts and more about creating a system that helps leadership make better trade offs under uncertainty.
Finance as an operating partner, not a back office function
Autumn Coleman framed BuzzFeed’s finance evolution around proximity to the business. As the organisation scaled, finance moved beyond historical reporting and became embedded in strategic conversations, including content investment, international footprint decisions, and corporate development activity.
Rather than positioning finance as a gatekeeper, the function focused on enabling momentum while maintaining discipline. That meant translating financial signals into commercial implications leaders could act on quickly.
The role of finance was not to remove risk entirely, but to help the business understand which risks were worth taking, and under what conditions.
Scaling requires judgement, not just better models
One recurring theme was that growth brings complexity faster than structure. As BuzzFeed expanded, finance had to operate in an environment where historical data was often an imperfect guide, and where speed mattered.
Coleman emphasised that this shifts the value of finance from technical accuracy alone to judgement. Models still matter, but only when paired with context, narrative and a clear view of trade offs.
This is where the finance function as a growth engine becomes visible. Instead of presenting a single answer, finance frames options, consequences and constraints so leaders can decide with confidence.
Public company readiness changes the bar for finance
Preparing for life as a public company raised expectations across governance, controls and transparency. Coleman described how this required finance to balance two pressures at once, building credibility with external stakeholders while keeping internal decision making agile.
Processes had to mature, but without slowing the business. Communication had to become clearer, not more complex. Finance had to explain performance and strategy in a way that made sense beyond the organisation.
This transition reinforced the importance of trust. Leaders needed confidence that finance could support scrutiny without losing commercial perspective.
Corporate development as a finance capability
BuzzFeed’s experience with divestiture and restructuring highlighted how finance capability extends beyond core accounting and planning. Corporate development required deep understanding of the business model, operational realities, and long term strategic intent.
Coleman described finance as the connective tissue between creative ambition and commercial outcomes. That meant aligning deal logic with what the organisation could realistically execute, not just what looked attractive on paper.
The lesson for finance leaders is that growth events amplify both strengths and weaknesses. Finance needs to be ready to test assumptions early, not retrospectively.
Clarity beats complexity when the stakes are high
A consistent thread throughout the session was communication. As decisions became more consequential, the value of finance lay in simplifying without diluting meaning.
Coleman stressed that leadership teams do not need every number. They need to understand what matters, what is changing, and where attention should go next. Finance earns influence by making the implications of data obvious.
“Our job is to turn complexity into something leaders can actually use.” Autumn Coleman, Vice President, Strategy, Finance & Corporate Development, BuzzFeed
This approach reinforces finance as a strategic partner, not a reporting function.
What this means for finance leaders in growth environments
BuzzFeed’s journey offers several practical signals for finance leaders operating in scaling organisations.
Questions to ask your team- Are we close enough to the business to understand why numbers are moving, not just how
- Do our outputs help leaders make choices, or simply confirm what has already happened
- Where does judgement matter more than precision in our planning process
- Are we building credibility through clarity, or hiding behind complexity
- Whether finance is involved early in strategic conversations or brought in to validate decisions
- Whether leaders ask finance for perspective, not just numbers
- Whether planning cycles adapt as the business model evolves
- Over engineering forecasts in environments where uncertainty is structural
- Treating public company readiness as a compliance exercise only
- Allowing finance to drift away from operational context as scale increases
What good looks like
A strong finance function in a growth stage business acts as a translator between ambition and execution. It creates enough structure to support confidence, without constraining momentum. It is trusted because it explains trade offs clearly and consistently.
Conclusion, growth demands a different finance mindset
The shift from startup to public company is not just a change in scale, it is a change in expectations. BuzzFeed’s experience shows that finance leaders who succeed through this transition focus less on perfect answers and more on better questions.
Finance becomes a growth engine when it is embedded in decisions, grounded in reality, and relentless about clarity. For senior finance leaders, the opportunity is to design a function that helps the organisation move faster with confidence, not slower with caution.
Key takeaways
- Finance creates most value when it operates close to strategic decisions
- Growth environments reward judgement and context, not just technical accuracy
- Public company readiness raises the bar for clarity, credibility and communication
- Corporate development requires finance to align ambition with operational reality
- The finance function as a growth engine depends on trust, not control
Speaker
Vice President, Strategy, Finance & Corporate Development, BuzzFeed, Strategic finance leader specialising in corporate development, operational strategy and guiding businesses through high growth and structural change.