Profile: Audrey Kahn, Shaping Activa's Financial Future

In this article from The Drawdown by Silvia Saccardi, discover our Chief Financial Officer Audrey Kahn's career path, from her unexpected entry into private investments to her strategic role at Activa. Learn about her insights on the private equity landscape, her experiences balancing professional responsibilities and motherhood, and her vision for digitalising fund management.

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As I am welcomed into Activa’s meeting room (albeit virtually), I am warmly greeted by the company's CFO Audrey Kahn.

Her broad smile and easygoing manner suggest someone who is completely comfortable in her skin. Someone who has taken on a variety of roles, both professional and personal, and achieved consistent success.

We begin the conversation talking about Audrey’s career beginnings. 

When asked how she came into private investments, she explains it was by pure coincidence. As Audrey was looking for financial controller vacancies, she stumbled across the role of operation controller at real estate fund Immovalor Gestion in 2012, after she had spent nine months in a similar junior position at chemical manufacturing company Air Liquide.

She is now five months into the role of CFO at the Paris-based midmarket GP Activa.

The firm appointed her on a permanent full-time basis after they spent a year outsourcing their CFO function to fund administrator IQ-EQ. Before that, the position was occupied internally between 2019 and 2022. 

“Activa sees the CFO role as a strategic function and they wanted to take time choosing the right person to fulfil the role. So, that’s why they took a year before hiring me on a permanent basis,” she explains.

Internal versus external

Audrey is no stranger herself to the outsourced CFO function. With more than a decade of experience in alternative investments senior operations roles, she spent a good chunk of that time (five years) employed as an outsourced CFO for the French financial advisory firm Prodensia.

At Prodensia, she held overlapping senior finance roles at French mid-cap buyout GP Abenex, tech VC firm HCVC and global investment group Eurazeo.

The outsourced CFO function can be appropriate for some GPs but might bring with it additional complications regarding fiduciary responsibility and accountability. Provided the LPs and the regulator are on board, the model should work. It is particularly popular in the US in comparison to Europe.

When asked why some firms prefer an outsourced CFO function, Audrey believes it depends on the individual firm. She says: “In my experience, the workload of the operation team in PE firms can suddenly increase, which means they need someone senior to fulfil part of the finance function straight away.”

She clarifies that none of the CFO roles she undertook at Prodensia were interim positions. Rather, she was placed for the longer term; expected to stay for years instead of months. In some instances, the role was part-time and fulfilled a necessary requirement to have an experienced professional join the team immediately, without needing to join full-time.

Audrey had her own reasons for becoming an outsourced CFO for five years. She wanted to gain more experience and responsibility in a variety of different roles and believed being outsourced would give her exposure to different kinds of assets.

Audrey was CFO at HCVC for the majority of her time at Prodensia. She switched roles from deputy CFO at Abenex to finance director at Eurazeo in 2022 after she became pregnant with her first child.

“Before I joined Prodensia, I had spent six years as financial controller at Committed Advisors. I thought perhaps I was becoming too specialised in fund-of-funds and I wanted to be involved more with direct funds. This would allow me to become more confident in structuring funds and overseeing all aspects of the CFO role,” she shares.

One of the things she liked most about Prodensia was the small team environment; when she joined it comprised five people. While she remains overwhelmingly positive as she reminisces on the experience, there came a point where she craved being part of an internal team again. Joining Activa full-time in 2024 meant Audrey was able to fully immerse herself in the role and get stuck in.

Two hats

Thus far, one thing Audrey is really proud of is managing to combine her career as a CFO with her role as a mother. 

“Obviously, it can be a lot, but I think a person’s experience as a parent and senior finance professional can really be shaped by the company in which you work. For example, I know of fellow CFOs in other firms who found it really difficult to make the balance; and that’s a mother or a father.”

One perception in the PE industry is that it’s easier to juggle both in the operations team, rather than in the investment team. But Audrey isn’t sure. She says: “I believe it could be as challenging in the operations teams as it is in the investment team, especially because there is no overlap at a senior level in operations teams as there can be in the investment team.”  

She is grateful to Activa for providing her with the flexibility needed to simultaneously have a successful career and parent. This was an important discussion she had before joining during the interview process.

Flexibility means being able to organise her time schedule by working from home twice a week to pick up and drop off the children, for example.

One other thing that would improve the entire workforce – not just the PE industry – is similar rights for maternity and paternity leave. She anecdotally shares the perception from many companies, and in France in general, that the responsibility still lies with the mother, and not both parents, to take care of their children. A gradual change in attitude is required to make the balance between personal and professional life easier for everyone.

To digitalisation and beyond

A key priority on the agenda for the year ahead is fund digitalisation. Audrey acknowledges she is an Excel fan and that the software has served the PE industry well for decades. However, one main reason to digitalise fund management is to provide additional security measures.

“We want to keep our data safe for our investors – there are a lot of mutual wins. We need to prioritise the areas where we are most at risk.

First up, the firm is developing an investor portal to secure all information shared between parties. As firms rapidly scale-up, Excel should no longer be considered the only tool to keep track of all the necessary levels of data.

A good CRM will meet the increasing LP demands to include the right information in a secure and automated manner. Automated tailored analysis and reporting would assist the firm in being able to focus on its core business model.

While Audrey cannot share which tech providers Activa might be partnering with to perform this function just yet, she’s in the process of choosing the right one.

Five months into the job and there is already plenty to be getting on with!