Between her multiple CFO positions and extensive experience in auditing as well as financial planning, Heidi Crane has seen it all when it comes to steering the financial wheel in the right direction. 

“Being a CFO for 15 years now, I have seen a lot of changes,” said Crane in an interview with CFO Dive. “What is shifting is really being a business partner and working cross functionally, so what’s happened is the role now requires a lot more people and communication skills because to partner with other functions to optimize the value chain, you need to be able to understand what’s important to these other groups and be less technical in how you approach your job,” she said. 

Crane most recently took the financial helm at FightCamp, an at home boxing gym company, in August after leaving her position at BH Cosmetics following its sale to Revolution Beauty in 2022. 

Corporate versus emerging leadership styles

After several years of working at a publicly held company, Crane said she missed working in the entrepreneurial environment that is common at smaller companies. FightCamp is a fast-growing connected fitness company in its early stages of growth, said Crane. 

“Given my experience, I can really help the team with prioritizing and ensuring that we go after the best opportunities at the right time, because there's so much low hanging fruit to go after. We're at a really early stage, so there's so much that we can do to build a surplus which just makes it so exciting,” she said.

From Crane’s experience, there’s a big difference in the leadership styles between CFOs at larger corporations versus smaller companies. 

“Being at a smaller company, we have the opportunity to be really nimble, we don’t have a lot of rigid processes and administration that we need to deal with to build a business, so we really can focus on growth,” explained Crane.

Beginning her career at Ernst & Young in 1984, Crane took the lead on audits in the entertainment, manufacturing and insurance industries. After three years, she went on to be the director of corporate FP&A and manager of SEC reporting at Dole Food Company for six years, before taking on the role of director of operations and finance there for two more years. “Working with these companies gave me great foundational experience in corporate finance, operations, sales and marketing,” said Crane. 

Crane then went on to be VP of finance for multiple companies including Diageo, a beverage company, Netsmart, a B2B business funded by Citigroup and 99 Cents Only Stores, a valuestore retailer.

Crane said she loved the collaboration aspect of working with private equity backed companies. “There is something to be said for that entrepreneurial spirit that exists there and focusing on common goals,” said Crane. 

TechStyle Fashion Group, the company which created the technology platform on which companies like Fabletics, JustFab and Dermstore Brands were built, was one of Crane’s largest endeavors, as she served as both CFO and chief operating officer (COO) for eight years beginning in 2008, according to her LinkedIn profile. “We sold Dermstore to Target and we focused on JustFab, Fabletics and Shoe Dazzle, and all those companies grew to 700 million in revenues in about six years,” said Crane. 

Before her current position at FightCamp, Crane gained a lot of subscription and e-commerce experience not only at TechStyle but also at SurfAir — a venture capital backed all-you-can-fly private air travel business that gives members access to charter flights for a fixed monthly fee, where she was CFO as well as BH Cosmetics.