My Code’s CFO Puts a Price on Cultural Relevance

In the advertising business, cultural relevance can help sell a campaign, but any CFO still wants to know what’s left after the production bill gets paid. 

At My Code, which helps brands reach multicultural audiences through advertising and custom content, cultural relevance means understanding how an audience’s background shapes the messages it responds to. CFO Ying Miao’s job is to make sure that expertise translates into profitable work, while keeping production costs and client payment timelines from eating into the returns.

“I do not challenge whether the campaign matters culturally. I am not the right person to judge that, and the creative team is usually right. I challenge the math,” Miao told CFO Upside in a recent interview. Miao, who joined My Code in August, was drawn to the job’s reach across the company, including decisions about sales compensation and hiring. Her early work there has involved rebuilding financial reporting while adjusting to clients who are taking longer to commit. 

A Different Pitch

Asked how political contention around diversity, equity and inclusion is affecting clients, Miao said the language has changed more than the dollars spent. Marketing briefs increasingly emphasize growth audiences and cultural relevance, and My Code’s largest enterprise accounts are ahead of last year, she said. “The budgets for reaching Hispanic, Black and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] consumers have not gone away, because those consumers have not gone away,” she said.

It’s the buying process that has become more complicated. Some spending previously designated for multicultural marketing now sits within general marketing plans, requiring My Code to compete for it on performance. Smaller campaigns tied to cultural moments are particularly vulnerable when clients get nervous, she said. “So we watch the stage of our pipeline, not just the size of it.”

For Miao, that makes the progress of a prospective deal more useful than the headline value of the pipeline. She examines how much business needed to finish the quarter is already in negotiation, compared with opportunities still at the proposal stage. “A big pipeline of early-stage deals that take longer to close is not the same thing as revenue, and this year it has been taking longer,” she said.

My Code reforecast conservatively this year, according to Miao. Its 2027 growth plans emphasize connected TV and programmatic advertising, without counting on a rebound in identity-driven budgets. “If that comes back, it is upside, not the plan,” Miao said with no pun intended.

Winning the work is only part of the calculation, however, because custom content and integrated campaigns can become more expensive after the contract is signed, leaving My Code to absorb additional production costs.

“The first step was simply getting production costs tracked by month and by campaign because you cannot find overservicing if the only person tracking the cost is the person doing the work,” Miao said. Monthly budget reviews with department heads now help surface those costs, she said. The 2027 budget will put revenue alongside delivery expenses by division, giving managers a clearer view of what the work earns.

Payment terms belong in that discussion, too. “A large client that pays in 90-plus days is less profitable than the rate card says it is,” she said. Miao runs a rolling weekly cash flow forecast and expects some December collections to slip into January.

Weekly updates to the board and lenders explain changes in the sales pipeline, while tracking client response rates helps her spot trouble earlier. “Activity slows before revenue does, and I want to see the slowdown before it hits the P&L,” she said.

Making the Case

Those frequent decisions require financial information that managers can use. When Miao arrived, the accounting system’s structure did not match the organization, making departmental budget comparisons a manual monthly exercise. “You cannot manage what takes three weeks to see,” she said.

She said her team is aligning the chart of accounts with the organization and simplifying the department structure. My Code has also signed with a new FP&A platform, which it plans to connect to its major financial systems. Miao pushed for uncapped licenses during contract negotiations so employees, with appropriate permissions, could see performance against the plan.

The same demand for visibility extends to campaign results at the company. Much of the evidence sits with clients, she said, and she wants more post-campaign data to compare performance with their general-market benchmarks. “I want us building the case with numbers, not with conviction,” she said.

She also rejects the idea that cultural targeting and consumer behavior have to compete as marketing strategies. “Behavior tells you who is in market, and culture tells you how to talk to them so they actually respond,” she said.

Ideas for Sale: Internally, a campaign that loses money can still earn her backing if the team can show a specific payoff, such as a renewal or content the company can reuse. “Sometimes they can, and then I will defend it to the board as an investment. Sometimes they cannot, and then we scope it down rather than kill it,” Miao said. Making that exchange productive is part of the CFO’s job. “Once the numbers are on the table, both sides are usually closer than they think.”