Nancy Erba credits her ability to make connections for her successful journey to the top financial seat. Now CFO of tech firm Infinera, she advised that other women do more networking. 

Graduating with a degree in math from Smith College, Erba came up the financial ranks through a science, technology, engineering and mathematics program, or STEM, “before it was known as STEM,” she told CFO Dive in an interview. 

After receiving her master’s in business administration with a concentration in finance and economics from Baylor University, Erba began her journey to the CFO seat. For around 20 years, Erba was at a U.S. data storage company known as Seagate. 

“I kind of grew up there in terms of their finance organization, and I got to see a lot of different roles and move throughout the organization, in and out of finance, so I spent time in sales and marketing and running corporate development and then moved through the finance ranks,” she said. 

Erba was introduced to Infinera by a female member of the board who was also a colleague of hers at a company she was previously CFO at. “I think this happens a lot with men, and I am here to show people that it can happen with women too,” she said. 

Infinera is a provider of network infrastructure systems, automation software and professional services. Founded in 2000, they have over 1,000 clients in over 100 countries and six continents, according to the company website.

Starts with culture  

When it comes to bridging the gender gap in industries like that of tech, it starts with the culture set at your own organization, according to Erba. 

“We really made a concerted effort to try and reduce the gap between male and female in terms of the number of employees at our company. We just announced in our 10-K that we, as a company, are now 19% female,” she said.

At Infinera, a collaborative and transparent communication style is what allows the company to be successful, according to Erba, and it is a big part of how the recruitment process works. 

Erba is responsible for all of the run of the mill CFO duties —  accounting, FP&A, tax investor relations, and she also handles a lot of the IT and government affairs, “but my experience has been one where the culture at Infinera was really attractive to me,” she said. 

By example

A big part of how Erba and the leadership team at Infinera practice what they preach is building a pipeline of candidates from the start. 

“So we're looking to hire more at intern level and at early in career, bringing folks in and recruiting at colleges,” said Erba. “Some people think ‘well there just aren’t that many women engineers or women in tech’ and that’s just not true,” she said. 

Infinera also looks to set an example within by implementing mentorship programs. “It started as programs for women in the company, but we saw such success that we now have expanded to the entire organization,” she said. 

“It's leadership throughout the organization, male or female,” that makes a difference, according to Erba. 

If programs like those that Erba spoke of had been around when she was working her way up the financial ranks, things would have been different for her, she said.

“For starters, I certainly would not have been the only woman in the room, but to flip it, I think the companies I was at would have benefited as well with more women representation,” said Erba, noting that companies benefit from broader diversity in decision making, and in running programs and in growing an organization. 

In terms of how Infinera in particular holds itself accountable, Erba believes that “what gets measured is what gets done, and so by measuring these types of things like who are the decision makers and is it as diverse as it can be, is how we hold ourselves accountable,” she said.