Incoming ZipRecruiter CFO Carmen Chan is already “deep in the weeds with the team,” as she prepares to step into what will be her first turn in the top finance seat, she told CFO Dive.

“Right now I am in what I call a learning tour of the business,” Chan, who is slated to assume the CFO role for the Santa Monica, California-based job marketplace operator effective Aug. 17, said in an interview.

That’s included “going deep” with ZipRecruiter’s most important product and revenue functions as well as with the heads of its finance department so she can understand, “what are the levers we have within each of those businesses, but also, what are the biggest opportunities for continued transformation [and] innovation,” she said.

The end of a long courtship  

Chan’s hiring at the company, which operates an online employment search marketplace, came at the end of a “long courtship” process between the finance executive and the business, she said.

Her appointment comes several months after then-CFO Timothy Yarbrough announced he would leave the company for another opportunity, according to a Feb. 23 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Chan will take over as CFO from interim finance chief David Travers, a 10-year company veteran, who has assumed the interim seat since Yarbrough’s departure, according to the filing.

In association with her appointment, Chan is set to receive an annual base salary of $500,000, and will be eligible for an annual bonus based on performance metrics, with a minimum 2026 bonus of $100,000, according to the filing. She will also be eligible to earn an onboarding bonus of $200,000, payable in two installments 90 days and 180 days following the start of employment, respectively.

The company was  “really thoughtful in terms of my onboarding,” exposing her to things and key decisions “prior to officially starting as CFO, so it doesn't feel like I'm doing everything for the first time or answering questions for the first time,” Chan said.

One of the green flags that went up before she officially took the CFO seat with Zip was the way in which they treated Chan regarding key financial decisions such as capital allocation and structure, she said.

“I felt I was read in on as a partner, so I'm not inheriting things that I don't feel comfortable continuing to work on or continuing to perpetuate once I'm here as CFO,” she said.

Additionally, Chan sat in during ZipRecruiter’s most recent earnings call which took place on Aug. 5, joining the financial team as it closed its most recent earnings cycle, she said. For the quarter ended June 30, the business reported net income of just over $43 million, compared to a net loss of $9.5 million in the prior year period and a net loss of $4.7 million in its first quarter of 2026, according to its shareholder letter.

Chan has also spent much of her time with Travers in the weeks before her start date. Travers has served as company president since December 2021 following six years as its finance chief, and will retain his role as president when Chan takes the CFO seat, according to the press release.

A “key stakeholder” that has a lot of wisdom to impart, Travers and Chan have “remained in like very much in lockstep through this transition process, and even through the process of bringing me on board,” she said.

A focus on value

Chan is joining ZipRecruiter as it looks to keep pace with a shifting jobs market. The introduction of AI, for example, is much more nuanced than the technology simply overtaking existing jobs, while the labor market has remained relatively stable. In such an enviornment, companies like ZipRecruiter are thinking carefully about how job search platforms like themselves need to evolve.

Chan is very focused on ZipRecruiter’s investor relations and capital allocation strategy as the company seeks to drive value in a rapidly changing job landscape, she said.

“As we think about the capital set that we have, the growth opportunities set that we have, what do we prioritize first?” she said. “How do we think about ROI within that framework, and then how do we very prudently and efficiently allocate capital and people towards each of these priorities?”

Chan is leaning on her strong capital markets background to help ZipRecruiter “re-articulate its equity story to investors in the hopes of attracting a deeper and broader bench of investors over time, as we continue to transform the product that is ZipRecruiter today,” she told CFO Dive in an interview.

Before accepting the role at ZipRecruiter, Chan served at Barclays as its managing director for the internet coverage segment of its technology investment banking division, according to her LinkedIn profile. She has also held roles at UBS and Goldman Sachs, and was employed as VP, head of corporate development and investor relations for wellness service Noom Inc, and as head of revenue and partnerships for internet publisher theSkimm.

That expertise has given her strong patten recognition skills, particularly within the consumer technology space, “for good, moderate, bad, in terms of how businesses are scaled and how they operate,” she said.

“I understand what it means to really drive strategic thinking, but also accountability within a business,” she said.

“I've spent so much of my career advising founders and management teams on financing and strategic transactions,” she told CFO Dive. “And the heart of that really is, how do you take, this internal company story and translate it in a way that investors really understand in terms of how does this business work?”