Good morning. Twilio CFO Aidan Viggiano brings an operator’s mindset to the finance role as the company moves through the middle-to-late stages of a turnaround.
Twilio lets companies integrate voice, video, text, email, and other communication channels into their products. But Viggiano told me the company is evolving beyond its communications roots to make those interactions more valuable in the age of AI. In an agentic AI world, she describes Twilio as the “connective tissue,” or “nervous system,” for AI agents: large language models provide the intelligence, data platforms provide the context, and Twilio orchestrates the conversations between businesses and customers.
Most people interact with Twilio every day without realizing it, Viggiano said. “Every time your Uber driver calls or texts you, that’s all through Twilio’s platform,” she said. The company, valued at roughly $30 billion, entered the quarter with momentum: Q1 revenue rose 20% to $1.41 billion, organic growth accelerated to 16%, and the company raised its full-year outlook while generating record non-GAAP operating income.
A GE education
Viggiano’s view of the CFO role was formed long before she became finance chief at Twilio in 2023. Before joining the company in 2019, she spent nearly two decades at General Electric, moving through finance roles that included chief of staff to the CFO and financial planning and analysis leader for GE Energy. She also graduated from GE’s Financial Management Program and Corporate Audit Staff program. If your career goal is the corner office, history suggests GE is one of five employers that give you the best odds, Fortune reported.
The experience gave her more than technical finance training. It shaped how she leads.
“I grew up in GE, and GE has an amazing finance development program,” Viggiano said. “So many people focused on developing me and mentoring me, and I know I wouldn’t be in the seat if that wasn’t the case.”
That early exposure also gave her responsibility quickly. After graduating from GE’s Corporate Audit Staff program, Viggiano was still under 30 and had experience in managing teams of approximately 100 people. The scope, travel, and movement across businesses helped form the view she now brings to Twilio: A CFO cannot simply oversee the numbers. The CFO has to understand how the company works.
An operator’s scope
“I’d say I’m an operator at the end of the day,” Viggiano said. “The role is much more strategic in nature, and I need to have a pulse on all aspects of the business.”
That operating mindset is increasingly central to the modern CFO job, she said. Finance chiefs still play a major role in governance and financial oversight, but they are also strategists, capital allocators, storytellers, and sometimes the company’s internal contrarian.
“We’re often the challenger,” Viggiano said. “When dealing with maybe optimistic business teams or CEOs, sometimes we have to be the one that takes everyone back to reality.”
At Twilio, Viggiano’s role stretches well beyond traditional finance. She oversees corporate development, IT, and security, and her team is leading a multiyear, cross-functional effort to remake Twilio’s order-to-cash process, including billing and customer metering.
“There’s very few people in the company that have that kind of well-rounded view,” she said. “Obviously the CEO does, but beyond that, there’s no one that’s dealing with all those constituents and is making decisions that are company wide. It’s kind of you and the CEO.”
Leading with data
Her leadership style mirrors that broad operating role. Viggiano describes herself as direct, data-driven, detail-oriented, and deeply focused on team development.
“People tell me I’m direct, whether that’s an asset or a character flaw, I don’t know,” she said. “But no one is left guessing. It allows the teams to focus on executing instead of interpreting what I meant.”
She also expects teams to come prepared.
“I will ask questions, I will go deep,” she said. “Opinions are great, they’re fine, but facts are better.”
For Viggiano, data is a management tool. A clear source of truth, she said, “takes the ego out of the room” and helps ensure decisions are based on what is actually happening, not what people hope is happening.
That approach also reflects her GE training, where leadership development was treated as a discipline. Viggiano said developing her own team is now a core part of her job as CFO, even when growth opportunities are harder to create in a company that is not rapidly expanding headcount.
“I want to make sure I’m challenging my team, that they’re getting career opportunities,” she said. “I often find very creative ways to do that.”
Her emphasis on teamwork may also come from an earlier source. Viggiano is a triplet, one of four girls born within a year.
“I’ve been on a team since day one,” she quipped. “It was never about Aidan.”
That mentality influenced her decision to join Twilio, where the culture and people were a major draw, she said. It also shapes how she thinks about leadership in a CFO role that keeps expanding into operations, technology, security, AI tooling, and company-wide execution.
“I’ve never not been on a team,” she said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Recent Comments