Nasdaq Women in Technology: Langley Eide, Chief Financial Officer, Alation

Langley Eide brings more than 25 years of experience developing and leading corporate finance and operational strategy at Software as a Service (SaaS) and fintech companies, including Mambu and ServiceNow. In her four years at Alteryx, Eide played a key role in scaling the analytics SaaS provider, which saw its value surge by 146% after a successful IPO under her leadership in 2017.

We were thrilled to sit down with Langley to learn more about her career path, tips for success as a financial leader and her predictions for the future of data and analytics.

You recently became the new CFO for Alation. What is Alation, and how would you describe your role?

Alation is a Data Intelligence Platform. We tackle the problem of finding, understanding and trusting data across an organization using search-based foundations. It’s a hard problem because there are so many data sources and so many tools that touch the data. Until Alation, there was no modern system of record to help manage information about data and how it is being used. 

If you think about how dependent large organizations are on data, this is a critical problem!  You have data workers—business analysts, data scientists, ML engineers, even AI applications—all working with data in different capacities but often working in silos and not building a larger situational awareness. With Alation’s search-based underpinnings and ML-driven understanding of data semantics, we are getting ahead of this problem. 

We deliver a powerful, trusted system of record for both metadata and analytic workloads that sits immediately next to the big four data access points: search, spreadsheets, SQL and ML notebooks. That is why 50% of all Fortune 100 companies use Alation today.

My role is CFO, and a big focus for me will be to mature our finance, legal, corporate development and business systems organizations. That said, I have also been a Chief Strategy Officer in the analytics space, and Alation is a standout company that I have been tracking since its round of series A funding .          

How has technology influenced your roles over the course of your career? How important is technology to your role today?

Technology has always been a central focus of my career. In my first job out of college, I was a junior banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, working on software and internet IPOs. That experience fueled my passion for scaling SaaS companies and helped me build a lot of empathy for business analysts.

Technology remains a core focus for us at Alation. Not only are we helping customers drive digital transformation, glean valuable insights and break down data silos, we’re doing the same internally to drive our own business’ success. We use Alation at Alation to promote data culture and data-driven decision making at every level of the business.

How has being a woman in finance and technology impacted your career?

It’s been really fun! When I started, I was often the only woman in the room with 30-40 men. Sometimes I would be asked by male customer prospects to go get coffee while they waited for Mr. Langley to arrive. One boss told me I should wear pantsuits instead of DVF to be taken seriously!

Since then, the world has changed so much for women in these fields, and now we are usually 30% of the room. In most companies I have been a part of, we have had a critical mass of women executives and board members. I think there is an inevitability that women will hold 50% of positions of power in the C-Suite, in government, in the academy and more.

Now, I won’t sugarcoat, COVID was a beast. Being at home with a kindergartner, no childcare and executive responsibilities was really tough. But I think there was such a shedding of old habits that it forged a path to reimagine how to make things work. I hope that’s been true for many women coming out of the past two years.

What steps can we take as an industry to enhance the representation of women who choose careers in our space?

Before I talk about the industry, on a company level there’s plenty we can do to support and represent women. In May 2021, Alation was named one of Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces. To be considered for the list, Alation employees participated in the magazine’s survey, and 79% of women cited that they saw professional growth and career development opportunities for themselves at Alation.

Women need to feel seen and valued, particularly those who have been historically overlooked. At Alation, we have a “Women at Alation” group that puts on quarterly events featuring women leading data culture. We discuss topics like the wage gap, career growth and mentorship. And we welcome all new-hire women into our #womenatalation slack channel, which is a safe and supportive space for all women in the company.

On an industry level, I think SaaS and fintech companies should be doing more to attract and retain top female talent. Awards programs are a powerful way to recognize lady leaders and show gratitude for their unique value in the community.

What advice would you give to young professionals who aspire to emulate your career?

Know yourself and pursue your passion. Do research into the areas that genuinely interest you. Let your passion be your beacon to what you learn about and, eventually, what you do. And don’t be afraid to blend your interests. In college, I double majored in Economics and Art History. You’d be surprised to learn how valuable standing in front of slides and explaining images has been in the world of finance!

I’d also encourage you to embrace discomfort. Be fearless and speak up! Take on new projects even if you’re afraid and be willing to learn by doing as you build something new for the first time. You’ll surprise yourself at just how capable you are.

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