In choosing former Wayfair CFO Michael Fleisher as chair of its audit committee and its newest board member, wholesale retail platform Faire was seeking someone whose expertise fell at the “right intersection” of having seen complexity, who can be strategic, and who has a wealth of experience in the industry, Faire CFO Jason Lee said.

Lee worked closely with the San Francisco-based company’s co-founder and CEO Max Rhodes in thinking about the company’s board construction and how it could help to benefit the company’s plans for accelerating its growth. In looking for potential candidates, Faire wants “board members that have sharp perspectives and a lot of lived experiences to push our thinking,” Lee told CFO Dive in an interview.

Making room for debate  

Faire has been “deliberate” about the construction of its board for some time. While leaders at the business, which connects retailers and local brands, want guidance from its board surrounding governance and compliance, “we kind of view that as table stakes,” Lee said.

Individuals come to board meetings “ready for discussion and debate, and we want that. We want the diversity of perspectives,” he said.

“We want to deeply discuss strategy and key business decisions around, where’s the direction?” he said. “How do we, where do we prioritize?”

Fleisher slotted neatly into that board construction strategy, describing how he crafts an engaged approach as a board member in his interview with CFO Dive. The former Wayfair and Gartner leader brings “a ton of richness there that complements our kind of existing board today and so that's kind of been part of how we've been thinking about our board,” Lee, who led the search and selection process for Faire’s newest board addition, said of Fleisher’s appointment.

Lee joined Faire in 2013 as its head of finance, corporate and business development and investor relations, before taking on the CFO role in July 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to Faire, he served an 11-year span at payments firm Square, now Block, in roles including VP, head of finance and strategy and head of investor relations.

It’s also important for the company to create the space the board needs to be engaged: for instance, asking the board to read a lengthy, multi-page document with 24 hours notice does “nobody any good,” Lee said. Having too many voices can lead to friction as well, because it means the board doesn’t have the time they need to go into as much detail or to provide quality insights.

“You can have so many smart people, but if you're only going one or two inches deep, and you're not getting to the heart of something, and getting enough back and forth debate, that can be quite challenging,” Lee said.

Gaining perspectives  

To Lee as a CFO, an “engaged” board is one that helps to push the management team and the business forward toward its strategic goals.

“That doesn't mean you agree on everything, but that you've heard and you've gotten the advice and a number of different vantage points so that you're making the best decision, most informed decisions for the business,” he said.

Faire, for instance, has “quite a lot of runway with our retailers in terms of capturing more of their spend,” he said, a metric the company calls “share of wallet.’ As such, a large chunk of the company’s focus is around, “how do we make it easier to expand easier for more retailers to do more of their business on Faire?”

As CFO, the number one focus for Lee is portfolio allocation, he said. The business is only 13% penetrated in the North American market, and is growing with larger retailers, and has an international segment representing 10% of its business, he said.

The question for Lee as a finance chief is, “how do I very deliberately deploy the dollars to where it strategically matters and where there's performance and execution and good returns as well?” he said.

Though Fleisher has only formally been on Faire’s board for the past few months, Lee has established what is effectively a weekly cadence to talk with the newly-minted audit chair on such topics, as well as where Fleisher needs to get up to speed, he said.  

Those discussions have ranged from everything from investor philosophy to capital structure and how to think about liquidity — areas where Fleisher, whose background includes serving as CEO of Gartner and CFO roles, can offer a unique and broader perspective, in Lee’s view.

Fleisher is also getting to know the other members of Lee’s team, recently conducting a “deep dive” with Faire’s chief accounting officer to understand what the finance team is doing on the accounting side, he said.