Conor O’Donoghue: 2022 Housingwire Finance Leader

At Ocrolus, one of our core values is appreciation: we appreciate that our employees are the reason Ocrolus is a success. It’s their enthusiasm to continually outperform expectations that drives our growth. From recruiting, to engineering, to our finances, we have an amazing group of professionals collaborating as a team to help create solutions that meet the needs of lenders everywhere.

Ocrolus isn’t the only one showing our team the appreciation it deserves. Our Chief Financial Officer, Conor O’Donoghue was named one of Housingwire’s 2022 Finance Leaders! Award winners were recognized for their work driving financial performance, expanding margins, improving liquidity, and helping their businesses access the capital markets. More specifically, these professionals were chosen for their work enabling, supporting and navigating the growth and innovation of the rapidly changing mortgage market. As Ocrolus has become a leader in automating mortgage workflows, executives like Conor have helped drive that growth behind the scenes.

Conor explains what makes his role crucial to business success and what lies ahead for Ocrolus.

What is the greatest contributor to your success?

COD: A business, and thus its CFO, is ultimately judged on financial success. On a more granular level, this means a CFO needs to be able to look across every department and translate resources, effort, and success into financial terms. Even more critically, they need to ensure that a business is prioritizing all of those elements appropriately to hit short, medium, and long-term goals. 

For myself, this means being data-driven but also recognizing when decisions must be made without perfect data, especially at startups where business signals usually aren’t perfect. My ability to make those decisions, and lead the company in a specific direction, can help bind departments and teams together and better align them with the company’s strategic goals.

How do you stay motivated?

COD: The dynamism of startups keeps me energized. Having been at both large blue-chip companies as well as tiny Series A startups, I’m always excited to be a part of the journey that takes a company from the latter to the former. This rapid scaling means no two days are the same and any factor, from a client contract to a product release, could be essential to company success. Urgency and limited resources are conflicting forces that need to be managed every single day and it means every day brings new challenges and new skills.

How do you help Ocrolus prepare for setbacks?

COD: It’s always about managing the conflicting priorities of resource allocation and urgency. I try to take emotion out of the equation, balancing growth against runway. Through this methodology, I’m able to drive better outcomes for all Ocrolus stakeholders, fueling momentum while also maintaining staying power.

What’s happening in the document automation industry today? Where is Ocrolus headed?

COD: Much like the evolution of the manufacturing industry, the financial sector is evolving to focus its domestic resources in high-skill, high-value roles and top-level customer service. Companies like Ocrolus are supporting financial services companies through that difficult transition and bringing advanced technology to an industry that has traditionally been very set in the past. In the next five years, I see Ocrolus developing from a lending-focused document automation service to an essential underlying infrastructure platform providing solutions across all financial services organizations.

How do you feel about this award win?

COD: I am extremely humbled to receive this award. While finance and the CFO can provide essential strategic guidance, it’s the broader company that provides the support to make those changes happen. I’ve been fortunate to be part of the Ocrolus rocketship and have an amazing finance team and broader finance professional network that has supported me along the way.