Cfo Thought Leader

When Sharif Metwalli decided that the time was right to accept a CFO position with Vantage Data Centers, he was confident that he had found a company that allowed him to check all of the boxes when it came to his finance leader search criteria. Box #1: Know and respect the management team. Box #2: Know and respect the owner. Box #3: Know the industry and be bullish on the sector. Says Metwalli: “After 19 years of banking, I wanted to apply my skillset on the corporate side, and an opportunity arose to work for a client that I knew very well.” As for the nearly two decades that he spent inside the world of investment banking, Metwalli says that he was fortunate to have latched on to opportunities and roles that shielded him—not once, but twice—from the mayhem brought on by economic downturns. “Back before the dot-com bubble burst, I had started off in a group that was heavily focused on equity and M&A, and I made a proactive effort to move to a different industry group,” explains Metwalli, who may have lan