Partnerships are a critical way for businesses to drive material growth or create value — and in her role as chief partner officer for AI-powered financial close solution provider Trintech, Mekaela Davis is focused on doing just that.

That requires having a seat at the table across from other key business leaders like the CFO, and for those leaders to understand the unique perspective on key performance metrics a specialist on partnerships can bring to that table. That doesn’t mean that the KPIs surrounding partnerships necessarily differ from traditional metrics, but that a role like a CPO brings “maybe a little bit of a new flavor,” Davis said in an interview.   

“The CFO and the CPO really need to be in lockstep on that, because we have to make sure the CFO understands, ‘why are we looking at these things a little bit differently, and how are they nuanced?” she said.

Getting granular

Davis has served as CPO for the Plano, Texas-based provider of financial close solutions since 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile. Prior to joining Trintech in 2021 as VP of its global advisory practice, she logged an eight-year tenure at Grant Thornton in roles such as managing director, and has held various positions for companies in the SaaS industry including MarketSphere Consulting — an Oracle practice acquired by Grant Thornton — and Data Systems International.

The chief partner officer role represents one of the fastest-growing positions in the modern C-suite, with its rise outpacing the growth rate for roles such as the chief marketing officer or chief revenue officer, a 2025 blog post by Hockey Stick Advisory found.

Companies including Microsoft and Dell Technologies have appointed leaders to CPO roles in recent years, with Denise Millard having served in the CPO seat at Dell since 2024 and Nicole Dezen assuming the then newly-created CPO chair at Microsoft in 2022, according to their respective LinkedIn profiles.

Partnership-focused executives or CPOs “almost feel like we're running a little mini company inside of a company,” Davis said. “And we feel that way because it's important that we master; what are the KPIs and what are the core points for every other functional leader inside of the organization? We have to understand that.”

However, it’s equally important for the finance chief to understand how CPOs are approaching KPIs inside of the business. While standard KPIs don’t necessarily change, “the flavor changes a little bit when we're talking about partnerships,” Davis said. “And really what we want to do is get even more granular on some of the standard KPIs that you would track in a sales function, for example.”

For example, when talking about pipeline, “something that we'll do on the partner angle of things is that we'll get very specific about how that pipeline occurred,” she said. “So was it sourced by the partner? Is it simply being influenced by the partner? And if it's being influenced by the partner, how is it being influenced?”

Relieving partnership pain points 

Ensuring there’s an open dialogue between the CPO and the CFO can help alleviate many of the pain points or stressors that can come up as businesses move forward with new strategic initiatives or decisions. On the CFO side, for example, the unpredictability of external partners or third-parties can often be unsettling, “so when you have a strong and experienced partner executive by your side who's really mastered that pattern recognition over the years, it can make the CFO’s job a lot less stressful,” Davis said.

Additionally, on the partnership side, open communication with the finance chief is essential to ensure partnerships can continue to run smoothly. Many CFOs today are taking on the responsibility for purchasing decisions within their company: a 2024 report by software company G2 found 79% of finance chiefs have final authority surrounding software purchases, for example.

Oftentimes, the tools under consideration are solutions that are offered by the company’s partners, “so when at all possible, we really want to make sure that we're selecting vendors and solutions that we're already in partnership with and not their competitors,” Davis said. “And so having a really close relationship with the CFO helps you get to that conversation a lot more quickly, so that you can suss out that risk and prevent one of those major missteps that, frankly, can kill a partnership pretty quickly.”