Finance Growth and Development
Welcome to the GitLab Finance Growth and Development Page
The GitLab Finance Department is dedicated to the growth and development of our team members. To ensure that this is a focus area, we have come up with five programs for FY22.
On-Boarding Growth and Development
Finance Team Member on-boarding will include specific tasks and information to foster a culture of continued development. This will include:
Work Style Assessment
We will use Simpli5 assessments to help us develop a standardized set of terms for us to all communicate more efficiently. Simpli5 gives you the power to understand YOUR natural tendencies as well as the natural tendencies of your co-workers. This awareness will help you gain a new perspective of yourself and your teammates.
Career Plans and Growth Ladders
Every individual is ultimately responsible for their career plan and managers are responsible for providing an environment to develop a plan. We will work on a structure that clearly lays out a career plan progression and tools to communicate a plan by aligning to the GitLab Career Development handbook page.
Cross Training, Mentorship and Shadow Programs
To align with career development plans, we will create opportunities for cross training with other team members. This will not only allow for knowledge transfer for growth, it will also allow leadership opportunities for team members that wish to train.
With the success of several mentorship programs at GitLab, we will create a similar program for the Finance Org. An example for us to align to is the Women in Sales Mentorship Program.
We will create opportunities to shadow finance leaders for team members to gain perspective and business acumen.
CFO Shadow Program
In FY23Q1, we are implementing a CFO Shadow Program which will initially by available to Finance Division team members. The CFO Shadow Program will be modeled off of the CEO Shadow Program which has proven to be a differentiated and impactful development opportunity for GitLab team members. The goal of the CFO Shadow Program is to extend that opportunity to team members with an interest and background in Business and/or Finance who are interested in learning more about what it means to be a CFO at a publicly traded company. The exposure from this experience is intended to support both the long and short term career development of the shadow.
The CFO Shadow Program is a rotation that runs over the course of 2 weeks, with the shadow attending meetings with the CFO for 3 days per week (Tuesday - Thursday) during each week (aligned with EST). More information about the program logistics can be found in our CFO Shadow Program page
Training Aligned to GitLab L&D
Together with GitLab L&D, we created the Finance Learning Hub, a curated learning channel in Level Up.
To align and support the broader GitLab L&D efforts, we will promote the training made available by the People team. This will allow us to give back and contribute in a way that makes this program even stronger. We will continue to look for ways to create a curriculum that fits the different areas of the finance org.
Overview
The CFO Shadow Program is an immersive 1 or 2 week assignment where team members can apply to shadow the CFO. The 70:20:10 model for learning shows us that most adults gain ~90% of their knowledge through experiential learning. While formal “classroom” style training plays an important role in teaching new concepts, real life experiences are critical to helping adults develop and retain new skills. The CFO Shadow program is a unique growth opportunity for team members who are looking to experience a “day in the life” of a CFO of a publicly traded company, gain greater cross-functional insight, and develop their general business and Finance acumen.
Welcome to Learning and Development for the Finance Department at GitLab! The resources in this page are meant to support team members by providing consistent frameworks through which to evaluate their career and role growth. This page compiles content that is both GitLab-generic and finance-specific as listed below.
GitLab General
Competencies
Career Resources
Finance Specific: Job Families & Competencies by Level (WIP)
Accounting
Tax
FP&A
Data and Analytics
Procurement
Enterprise Applications
IT
Welcome to Learning and Development for the Finance Department at GitLab! The resources in this page are meant to support team members to expand their knowledge and skills. This page compiles content that spans soft and hard skills in different formats. Everybody is welcome to contribute to this page with content they have found useful/interesting that might benefit other team members.
The content can be mostly accessed through GitLab Learn but any content requiring payment can be reimbursed following the GitLab reimbursement policies.
Update: The Finance Mentorship Program is not currently active. We will update this page in the future if that changes. For information on GitLab Mentorship programs, see this page
As discussed in GitLab’s Remote Playbook, the intentionality behind communication, especially in remote settings, is a critical element of success. This pilot program aims to support GitLab’s communications plan by purposefully creating and cultivating opportunities for mentors, mentees, and connection.
In the finance team, there’s a great untapped opportunity for cross-training and relationship building. We are launching our first mentorship pilot program to establish whether mentorship is a good way for the finance team to facilitate learning and development and normalize knowledge sharing in our department.
FinBT Mentorship at GitLab
Mentorship is an opportunity to learn from personal experience, background, and perspective. Mentorship builds trust, provides a safe space to make mistakes, and encourages growth for both the mentor and mentee.
Starting in Q1FY24 the FinBT Department will pilot a limited mentorship program for FinBT Team Members. The purpose in having a specific mentorship program for FinBT is to provide opportunities for Team Members to get mentorship to develop the specific skills that are important for members of this team and will provide opportunities for career development and networking.
