Q&A: Pleo’s CFO on the real test of efficient growth

Søren Westh-Lonning has learned that growth can be as dangerous as it is exciting. As CFO of Pleo, one of Europe’s fastest growing fintechs, he has had to confront the point where ambition outpaces infrastructure. The Copenhagen based spend management platform has expanded rapidly across Europe, but Westh-Lonning insists that speed alone is never enough.

In this conversation with The CFO, he explains why Pleo chose to reset its growth path, how he draws the line between tech platform and financial institution, and why visibility is the only foundation for sustainable scale. He also shares the lessons he believes will define the next chapter of spend management and what it really takes for finance teams to become strategic partners.

Let’s talk about that tension every scale-up hits – growing fast, but realizing the infrastructure isn’t keeping up. What was that moment like for Pleo, and what did you have to change or slow down to get back on solid ground?

What served us incredibly well in our first decade was staying very close to our customers. That proximity gave us the insight and speed to iterate, build trust, and scale with confidence. But as we grew, we found ourselves at a crossroads: the pace of go-to-market ambition was outpacing the maturity of the infrastructure underneath.

There came a point where we had to be honest with ourselves: if we kept scaling at the same pace without reinforcing our backend, we’d eventually trip ourselves up. That realization meant deliberately prioritizing certain areas – not stopping entirely, but focusing our energy on building the systems and foundations that could truly support the scale we were moving toward. Part of that shift was also bringing in people with experience from larger-scale companies, whose perspective and expertise helped guide us through the challenges of building for the next stage of growth.

One of the biggest lessons from that time was the importance of being in control of our own success.

So we doubled down on building more internally, owning more of our ecosystem, and making sure the infrastructure could support our ambitions. It was a reset of sorts – not a slowdown in vision, but a rebalancing between speed and sustainability.

As a company, you’re handling spend, credit, liquidity. That comes with risk. How do you draw the line between being a tech platform and being something closer to a financial institution?

We’ve definitely expanded the bench of services we offer. From spend tracking to credit and cash management tools, we’re now operating in areas that touch some of the most sensitive parts of a business’s operations. But here’s the important distinction: while money flows through our platform and we carry responsibility for managing that safely, we’re not a financial institution in the traditional sense – and we don’t try to act like one.

At Pleo, control remains with our customers. We build solutions that empower businesses to make decisions themselves, rather than handing them over to us. That means designing products that are agile and intuitive, but also sharp on risk. We’re mindful that working in this space requires us to operate in different modes – moving fast and flexibly when innovation allows, while being uncompromisingly focused on regulation, security, and fraud prevention when the stakes demand it.

What makes our approach unique is that we balance these two dimensions. Our tools and insights are crafted by experts who understand both the practical needs of financial decision-makers and the risks inherent in managing money at scale. Advice is built into the product experience; guidance shows up in the way features are designed, guardrails are built, and risks are mitigated.

At the heart of it is this belief: businesses should remain in control of their own decisions. Our job is to equip them with the right systems and safeguards so they can act with confidence. We’re not here to take the reins – we’re here to make sure they can hold them securely.

A lot of finance leaders are reassessing how they define “efficient growth.” What’s your internal lens for evaluating whether growth is still worth it, or too expensive to chase right now?

For us, efficient growth starts with visibility – because if you can’t see clearly, you’re not really making decisions, you’re taking risks.

We constantly monitor and stress-test our financial health to understand how aggressive we can be as a company and exactly where the best investment opportunities are. That clarity is what lets us decide whether a growth opportunity is worth the cost, or whether it’s better to pause.

I’m a strong believer that finance leaders have to master a balance of offense and defense. On the offensive side, that means resource allocation, AI investments, organic growth, shaping strategy, building market clout, and business partnering. On the defense side, it’s about monthly reporting, compliance with financial authorities, cost management and anything that frees up time, resources and money inside the organization.

When you have true visibility across both sides, growth stops feeling like a gamble. Instead, you’re making choices with confidence and sound logic based on metrics such as payback, lifetime customer value to cost, NPV – which is the only sustainable way to grow without overextending.

You’ve introduced credit, invoice management, auto top-ups… Each product adds operational risk. How involved is finance in evaluating product-level risk, and how do you decide what’s acceptable?

Pleo operates in a high-trust space – and that shapes how we think about product-level risk.

Every tool we launch has to meet both our customers’ and our own very high standards. That’s non-negotiable. But one of Pleo’s core USPs is to democratize trust – to empower the workforce of our customers by giving them appropriate visibility and access to company finances. From our very first customers 10 years ago to today, we’ve seen the emotional impact of teams being trusted – it changes how people engage with their work.

That’s the balance we’re constantly working to strike: enabling that trust while protecting against unnecessary risk.

For us, control is the key benchmark. We’ve built spend controls into every corner of the platform, so companies can set individual boundaries that work for them without creating bottlenecks.

So when we talk about what’s “acceptable” in terms of risk, it looks like this: giving companies the freedom to democratize finance, without sacrificing security. It’s always a balance between flexibility, control, and accountability – and finance – as well as our risk team – plays a central role in defining and stress-testing that balance for every new product we introduce.

You’re live in multiple countries with different tax systems, currencies, and compliance rules. What’s actually hard about building finance ops across Europe, and how have you tackled that without slowing everything down?

The hard part about building finance ops across Europe isn’t just the complexity – it’s the nuance.

Each country comes with its own tax codes, compliance standards, currency requirements and regulatory expectations. But the real challenge isn’t just navigating that technical variety – it’s understanding the context behind it.

The key to building a European business is achieving that balance between global clout and local insight. It’s not enough to take a one-size-fits-all product and roll it out everywhere. What works in Denmark won’t automatically work in Spain or Germany – and that’s where regional expertise becomes critical.

We’ve tackled this by investing in regional managers and teams who deeply understand not only local customers and the technical landscape, but also why Pleo is needed in their specific market – and how to shape the product, positioning, and support accordingly.

Without experts on the ground, you can only go so far in helping local customers manage their spend. But with them – and by trusting them to shape decisions – we can go much further, without slowing ourselves down with layers of central bureaucracy. At the same time, we’ve learned to be deliberate about how many countries we expand into at once. By focusing on a select set of markets, the product team can ensure the experience is truly great where we choose to operate, rather than spreading ourselves too thin.

In short: European expansion requires infrastructure, yes – but more than anything, it requires empathy, context, and trust in your local teams to make the right calls.

We all say we want our finance teams to be “more strategic.” But that means different things in different contexts. What have you had to change inside the team to make that real? Org structure? Decision-making? Culture?

One of the biggest shifts we’ve made is around decision-making. Finance teams are often seen as value accelerators – but in reality, they’re frequently burdened by the sheer volume of decisions and responsibilities that can actually slow them down. Decision-freeze is real: when leaders are expected to weigh in on everything, especially high-stakes calls, it can create paralysis. And when everything feels critical, it becomes hard to focus on what truly matters.

That’s why we’ve been deliberate about freeing up capacity. Tools and now AI play a crucial role in removing the burden of rudimentary and repetitive tasks, allowing finance teams to direct their time and energy toward decisions where judgment, expertise, and context are essential. By streamlining processes and leveraging the right technology, we can help teams stay agile and focused on mission-critical work instead of being buried in admin.

It’s also about recognizing that finance isn’t one monolithic function. Each area requires something different: in core accounting, it’s about efficiency and control; in tax, treasury and accounting standards, it’s about deep functional expertise; and in business finance, it’s about analytics, strategic acumen, and communication. By tailoring our processes and tooling to support these differences, we ensure that every part of finance is equipped to focus where it adds the most value.

Ultimately, making finance more strategic isn’t about a new org chart – it’s about freeing up space for the right decisions, encouraging a culture of ownership, and building teams that are just as comfortable with automation and data as they are with accounting and compliance.

Do you think we’re heading toward a shakeout in spend management? If the market tightens, what’s going to separate the winners from the rest – distribution, cash flow, product depth?

I do think we’ll see a shakeout in spend management – it’s a natural outcome as the market matures and capital becomes more selective. What will separate winners from the rest comes down to two things above all: quality and differentiation of the product and the efficiency of distribution. Customers want the best solution and it’s not enough just to build it – you have to get it into their hands in a fast, efficient way.

Over time, breadth of offering and geographical reach will also matter more, depending on which customer segment you serve. For some, deep product specialization will win; for others, the ability to deliver a comprehensive platform across multiple regions will be the edge. The strongest players will be those who can adapt their approach without losing focus on delivering real value to their core users.

But perhaps most critically, it’s about financial resilience. Managing and stress testing financial health – your own and your customers’ – will become non-negotiable in a tighter environment. The companies that not only grow but do so sustainably, with sound unit economics and a robust balance sheet, will be the ones still standing when the dust settles.

Comments are closed.