Going Public

The CFO Playbook When Preparing for an IPO

Former investment banker and CFO, Nathan Chadwick, thought he knew a thing or two about IPOs – then he oversaw his own company’s listing.

Before Nathan Chadwick led the IPO for online marketplace Airtasker, he spent more than a decade in investment banking. Part of his role was to advise companies on preparing for public listings – aiding them with due diligence, board composition, liquidity requirements and legal considerations.

Yet, as Chadwick tells CFO Magazine, nothing could prepare him for the challenges of leading his own IPO during his four-year stint as CFO at Airtasker.

“You would think that I would have an armchair view on how to do an IPO, yet I was surprised by the extent that my experience didn’t really prepare me for the intensity of managing the IPO process internally,” says Chadwick, who is now the role of CFO at Sonder, an employee health and wellbeing platform.

“There’s just so much more that (external) advisors don’t necessarily see, and, typically when I was advising, we were executing IPOs for more mature businesses.”

Airtasker was a “growth company”, Chadwick notes, which naturally meant it was mature in some respects, but still growing in others.

“And I think that challenge of delivering a lot of improvement projects, in parallel to setting the business up to withstand the rigours of the listed market, was really an eye-opener for me.”

The CFO Playbook When Preparing For an IPO

Whether you’re helming a large company or a rapidly scaling start-up, there is no doubt that an IPO is a stressful process.

The trick is to plan as much as possible, according to Chadwick.

“When the window for IPOs opens, you don’t know how long it is going to be open for,” Chadwick says.

“I think that whatever preparation you can do in advance is always beneficial. The more advance notice you have of the IPO, the better.”

Chadwick recommends keeping the following points in mind when readying for an IPO:

Focus on liquidity >

Before deciding to proceed with an IPO, ensure there will be sufficient free float to make the process worthwhile so the company can avoid becoming an illiquid, small-cap “zombie”.

Work with investors >

Understand the motivations of your lead investors and set expectations around their ability to monetise during the IPO, including the likely need to lock-up part of their holdings for a period as a listed company.

Select your Board & Advisors early >

Kick off the Board composition and selection process early – you want the Board to be well provisioned ideally with experienced directors, who have the time to complete due diligence. Also select and engage auditors and legal advisors early. Once you start the process of executing on the IPO, it’s very difficult to build the right team in the moment.

Look at your resources >

Ensure the internal team is well resourced with both people and systems to not only survive but thrive in a listed environment.

Complete a fire drill >

Close the books as a listed company before you become one. This will ensure that you are ready for an IPO and know what to expect.

Assess your risk management >

Ensure you have an appropriate risk management framework in place as far in advance of listing as possible.

Understand how your work life will change >

Set realistic expectations with yourself and your team about the permanent change in your roles upon listing.

Chadwick notes that there is growing local interest in IPOs, largely owing to the increased valuations of US listed companies, especially the Magnificent 7 tech behemoths and their eye-watering valuations. This has laid fertile ground for a number of high-profile and successful US IPOs in 2025, such as that of design and product development platform, Figma.

“These companies have been performing incredibly well and that makes investors feel wealthy, and they often are looking to recycle some of those proceeds, some of that excess money, within their mandates to newly listed companies,” he says.

Nevertheless, not all growing companies need to list on the ASX. Sometimes the wisest decision a CFO can make is to recognise when the company isn’t ready to go public.

“You’re better off not to proceed with an IPO than have a failed IPO,” Chadwick says.

“The tolerance for error once you’re listed is next to zero. That is a very different environment to an unlisted company, where you might have half the number of reporting obligations and greater flexibility to focus on longer-term value creation.”

The Enduring Appeal of Disruption

Chadwick has notched up many notable moments over his career in finance.

He has overseen two acquisitions as a public company CFO, including one US cross-border acquisition; led the in-house execution of a listed ASX merger proposal; and overseen strategy and budget of RBS Equity Capital Markets in the Middle East and Africa. Then, of course, there was the high-profile Airtasker IPO in 2021, which Chadwick refers to as a “banner moment” in his career.

“In terms of career highlights, I’d say that’s definitely a standout one,” he says.

“I look back on it and think that the most enjoyable part was to be able to work together, shoulder to shoulder, with a group of people who were all rowing in the same direction.

“Maybe it’s my age now, but I tend to think that in the seven years of experience that I’ve had as a CFO, it’s less about the banner moments like the IPOs, and it’s more about the day-to-day and working with an incredibly strong, intelligent group of people.”

He was drawn to the Sonder role partly because of his interest in the emerging health tech space (he was previously CFO at health data platform Prospection), as well as the company’s credentials.

The Sonder platform has some 500-plus customers and more than one million members. It offers round-the-clock medical, safety and mental health support to employees via its app.

“We’re seeing the government provision of healthcare becoming strained, and so we’re looking for technology to take up some of that slack,” he says.

Moving Fast

Helping to guide a health tech company at a time of huge advancement in AI is especially gratifying for Chadwick.

“Through the use of AI, we’re able to cycle so much more quickly through development phases; we’re able to get to those decision points much faster,” he says.

This pace of change and lack of friction is what excites him the most about being a CFO.

“We used to think that any material change in the product set that we offer to our customers required a 12- to 24-month timeframe, and I think what we’re seeing now is material advancements within three-month cycles,” he says.

“I’m pleasantly surprised at the rate of that product velocity.”

Chadwick’s role, his “North Star as a CFO”, is to ensure the most efficient and effective allocation of capital. And the ability to move faster through AI advancements is a game-changer.

“That job is made a lot easier when you’re seeing product development and feature development at this high velocity that we’re seeing in the business today,” he says.

“So it’s an exciting time to be in business in general, especially as a finance leader.”

Which, of course, leads us to the question of Sonder’s future: does he see an IPO down the track?

“We’re still very early in the journey,” he says.

“What we’ve identified through the use of AI is we can have a much greater impact on our industry and on society than perhaps what we would initially have felt was possible. But, we’re still quite early in the process of building out those insights and enabling our customers and their employees to fully benefit from them.

“So I see a really long runway for value creation before we’d be starting  to look at a monetisation event, of which, of course, an IPO is only one.”

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