When Tom Steer joined Sokin as CFO, he already knew the international payments company unusually well. As an investment banker at FT Partners, he had advised Sokin through a capital raise during a difficult period for fintech funding. He knew its leadership, its financial projections, and the ambitions behind its growth.

What he had yet to experience was the challenge of building a finance organization capable of keeping pace.

Sokin helps multinational businesses manage cross-border payments, currencies, and treasury operations across fragmented banking systems. Its infrastructure supports payments to 170 countries, while a growing embedded-finance offering allows other companies to bring Sokin’s capabilities to their own customers.

For Steer, the challenge is deciding where to place the next investment. North America has emerged as Sokin’s fastest-growing market, while embedded payments and AI-enabled treasury tools present additional opportunities. Each requires capital, talent, and organizational attention.

The assumptions behind those decisions can change quickly. An anticipated shortage of engineers, for example, became less pressing as AI improved productivity, shifting attention toward sales and partnerships.

Inside finance, Steer encountered a different constraint: a lean team trying to accomplish too much. Three months into the role, he and his finance director stepped away from their daily responsibilities to map the work ahead.

“We can’t get this done on our own,” he recalls.

Today, Steer is building systems and teams designed for substantially greater transaction volumes. His guiding question is less about what finance can accomplish today than whether its infrastructure will still work when the business doubles in size.