UiPath CFO explains how managing the HP split and teaching herself to build bots led her to the $7.1 billion startup
- In January, Marie Myers became the CFO of robotic process automation startup UiPath, which is now worth $7.1 billion.
- Myers first learned of UiPath when she was managing the finances of Hewlett-Packard's split, where she taught herself how to build bots to automate financial tasks.
- After building hundreds of bots, Myers wanted to move from working at a large corporation like HP to a startup, and she saw a major opportunity with UiPath.
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Marie Myers is the CFO of robotics startup UiPath. But to many people, she's also known as GSD — or "get stuff done."
And there's no shortage of stuff for Myers to focus on as she manages the finances at one of the buzziest, and fastest-growing tech startups today.
The robotic process automation (RPA) company, which creates software robots that do the grunt work of tedious tasks, is now worth $7.1 billion. Numbers leaked to Business Insider showed that UiPath grew its revenue by an astounding 5,614% in just over two years. It has signed up marquee customers like the Department of Defense and NASA, and in April UiPath announced it raised $568 million in funding.
Myers started at UiPath in January, and now, she says she basically lives on a United airplane, traveling around the country for work. Lately, she's been helping UiPath build a team in Seattle, talking to real estate agents for the new offices.
"I'm a person who likes to get things done," Myers tells Business Insider. "I find the fast right way to do it. If you want to get into something, become the best you can. Those values just aligned with my personal values."
Managing the HP split
That "fast right way" of doing things is what brought Myers to UiPath, after taking a crash course in building bots at her previous job.
Before she joined UiPath, Myers had spent a large chunk of her career at HP. In 2014, she managed the finances of HP's split into two companies: HP for its personal-computer and printer segments and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise for its corporate hardware and services business.
Myers stumbled into robotics as she served as the finance lead for the HP separation. Because she had to manage the financial structure and applications of the company as the finance lead for the separation, she taught herself how to build bots that could help her out.
"One of my best experiences was going through the split in the company," Myers said. "That taught me so much about having the speed and tenacity and going through a clear distinct vision."
Read more: 44 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2019
To study up on robotics, she called up professors, read case studies, and sat down with developers to learn how to build bots. She also hired industry experts to start building automation software. Myers herself built bots for financial applications, invoicing, cash applications, accounting, and more.
"It was pretty much a self taught journey," Myers said. "There was no real school. It was difficult to hire anyone who knew how to do it back in the day. It was the very early days of the market."
During this time, she says her biggest challenge was becoming the mother of twins. Her twins were still babies when she was asked to lead the legal and financial split at HP.
"I almost said no," Myers recalls. "I turned down a really big job about two years before that. I'm glad I did it because it gave me the confidence to figure out how to be a working mom. You can do it, and you have to figure out how to get the balance right. You have to be realistic about what you can and cannot get done. It's rewarding."
'Several hundred bots later'
As she looked into bots and automation software, Myers first heard about UiPath in 2016. At the time, Myers says, UiPath was not very well known.
Still, UiPath led to a cultural change at her company, Myers says. Her co-workers were excited they didn't have to do boring, manual tasks anymore, and instead, could get into roles that added more value.
Later, Myers met UIPath CEO and co-founder Daniel Dines. They started talking about opportunities at a coffee shop in Houston.
"Several hundred bots later, I decided it was such an incredible experience that I wanted it to be part of my journey," Myers said. "It was the most powerful application I had seen in my two decade career. I had never seen anything that delivered such incredible results. Moreover, had a really positive impact."
The opportunity to join UIPath and be a part of it was too good to pass up.
"I had lived through the journey of split transformations so many times at a large company that I wanted to do something far more entrepreneurial for this stage of my career," she says. "Specifically, UiPath for me had the technology, and finally, it had the culture."
She sees a huge opportunity for UiPath. On a larger scale, the RPA software market grew 63.1% in 2018 to $846 million, making it the fastest-growing segment in the enterprise software market according to Gartner. UiPath is the top company in that category, that same report says.
As CFO of UiPath, she wants to raise the platform for women in tech.
"Being in a lot of circles around digital transformation, it's fundamentally important for women to be part of this conversation," Myers says.
Besides that, she wants to see UiPath become "incredibly successful and make sure it's set up for the long term"
"We got our eye on the prize in the future," she says.
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