CFO Profile: Simon Grantham, CFO | XCircle

Ambitious CFO, part-time entrepreneur and deep down, a true geek. All of these ingredients earned Simon Grantham recognition as one of Western Australia’s best young executives and entrepreneurs in the 2026 Business News 40under40 Awards.

Here, the CFO of engineering and fabrication powerhouse XCircle shares his career story as well as his insights into what he believes finance leaders need to succeed.

Simon Grantham cut his teeth in finance at Perth Airport, where he learned early on that accounting wasn’t in his future.

“I lasted about six months in that role just doing the old boring asset reconciliations and to activity-based costing before realising I had a bit too much of a pulse to be a straight up accountant,” he said.

“They transitioned me into looking after all of the business case analysis and approvals for the organisation.”

Flying high

The multi-faceted nature of airports meant Grantham was exposed to a variety of different business models, giving him a thorough look at what made them work and what didn’t.

“Airports are quite a complicated beast at the end of the day – they’re five businesses in one really,” he said.

“You’ve got a retail business, a parking business, obviously the aviation business and there’s a shopping centre in there as well and they all do quite a lot of property development as well.

“So, I did over 700 different business cases over there in my time and it gave me just an immense grounding.”

This experience, along with the guidance of a good mentor in the form of his manager, essentially prepared Grantham for the role of CFO.

“We did some long 60 and 70-hour weeks, but I never regretted it,” he said.

“I always saw it as a sacrifice that if I made that in my 20s, that it would sort of pay dividends in my 30s as far as accelerated career development.”

Circular career progression

Grantham next career move was to communications designer and manufacturer AVI as commercial manager, but he was only there for less than 18 months before being beckoned back to Perth Airport. He spent the next three years at the airport and in that time, worked on a $1 billion capital deployment project involving 34 airlines and completed an MBA.

He circled back to AVI for almost six years before landing the role of CFO at XCircle, which provides customised ICT services and communication solutions. The company is at the forefront of data centre infrastructure including switchboards, batteries and back-up power systems.

“I think as far as opportunities in industries in Australia that are going to be rapidly growing and have good margins, that to me is the place to be and there’s just more demand than there is supply in the market,” Grantham said.

“So obviously that allows you to command premiums for your product and XCircle has got product in the market already in that data centre space that’s quite attractive and has got a reputation in the industry for high quality and reliability.”

Scaling up

The modular critical infrastructure units manufactured by XCircle are designed for high-performance applications, particularly powering data centres with one to two megawatts of capacity each. The company is currently producing one to two of these units per month. It will soon expand with a new facility in Perth’s Neerabup area, lifting total output to around six units per month with a manufacturing footprint of approximately 10,000 square metres.

“We’re also looking at the east coast so our next venture will probably be somewhere in New South Wales in the next 24 months,” Grantham said.

“Overall, we see the demand for this product that we’re building. Five thousand of these units are going to be required between now and 2030, and there’s less than five real providers in the market that can produce these.

“No one has the manufacturing capacity to do 5000 units over that period. The industry wouldn’t even have the capacity to do half that at the moment. We’re sort of first to market and we’ve got that first mover advantage, and we’ve got the credibility in the industry – all of those things that attracted me to come here.

“It’s an organisation with, we call it good bones, so it’s got a lot of opportunity there and it’s really, it’s up to us to, we can only blame ourselves if we don’t pull it off.”

Leading by example

Grantham prides himself on seeing the company through more than just a financial lens. He regularly checks in with XCircle’s operational staff and customers to be familiar with any pain points from different perspectives.

“You don’t want to just be seen as the money man in the corner office. You need to be down there and fixing the problems and making life better for the staff,” he said.

“I spend a lot of time with the customers and understanding what it is they really want and not trying to tell them what they want. So many times in business you can have a product and then you try and take your product and then tell the customer what they want.

“But if you can listen to what they want and relate to it, and take them on the journey, I find that you get a better outcome on that.”

Like many leading CFOs, Grantham’s role requires oversight in many parts of the business. The entrepreneurial side of his job is something he relishes.

“It’s not for everyone this wearing the multiple hats type thing,” he said.

“For me, running a business and scaling at five or 10 times, that’s what really makes me tick. And I think running a business of between $10 million to $100 million dollars comes with incredible highs and incredible lows. The exhilaration you get from signing a new $10 or $20 million dollar contract is just when everyone’s on cloud nine and then you get those low lows where your key staff member leaves or your supplier can’t deliver your product.

“It’s a rollercoaster it really is.”

It was this entrepreneurial approach that saw Grantham win a 2026 Business News 40under40 Award last month, which recognises emerging business leaders. He was the only finance professional in the list of 40 winners, but expects more people in finance will enter in the future as the role of CFO continues to evolve.

“I don’t see (the CFO) as that traditional person anymore,” he said.

“You’re as much of as a salesman as the CEO needs to be, essentially, for the business to be a great success. You’re selling to suppliers, you’re selling to employees, you’re selling to key stakeholders. It’s not just the bank and the investors that you need to be able to pitch a dream to.”

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Simon will be appearing on a CFO Panel at the upcoming Perth CFO Symposium on 23rd July 2026, at the Perth Pan Pacific where he’ll share further insights on AI, automation and the modern CFO Tech Stack!

To Register visit > www.WACFOSymposium.com