955: When It’s Time to Raise Your Hand | Lauren StClair, CFO, NerdWallet

It was back in 2016 when Lauren St. Clair realized that it was time to raise her hand.

Online marketplace giant eBay had just completed a deal to acquire the Spanish online ticket platform Ticketbis, and St. Clair, a 9-year eBay veteran, was itching to get overseas.

eBay had entered the online ticket business in 2007 with its acquisition of StubHub, and the addition of Ticketbis now promised to fatten StubHub’s international revenues, a development that St. Clair realized would likely require eBay’s finance function to beef up its leadership overseas.

“People knew that I wanted to live overseas, and it was just good timing with regard to me leaving the group to which I had been assigned,” explains St. Clair, who arrived in Bilbao, Spain, in early 2017 eager to open a career chapter as CFO of StubHub International.

Of course, St. Clair had already spent some time overseas as a student and a finance adjunct on various international FP&A assignments. However, an overseas appointment was different, and in fact the opportunity for such a coveted stint called to mind for her some valuable advice that she had once received from one her early mentors.

St. Clair recalls: “He told me, ‘Build your reputation and take time to build a connection to the corporate office, so that when you raise your hand to go abroad, you’ll be top-of-mind there.’” –Jack Sweeney