To celebrate Women in History during the month of March, we are honoring a talented female Chief Financial Officer in the Twin Cities.
Betsy Horton, CFO at Miller Milling, sat down with Katie Kelly, Managing Director of Ambrion, to discuss her career journey and how she strives to be the best version of herself as a CFO. We hope this conversation inspires you to continue to explore your passions within your career and, as Betsy recommends, “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable to build your experience.”
Katie Kelly:
I’m excited to have you here today, Betsy. Can you start by sharing a little about Miller Milling and how you have impacted the organization?
Betsy Horton:
I joined Miller Milling a couple of years ago, and I am proud of the strides the finance team has made in helping the business understand how we make money.
As finance continues to dig in and ask insightful questions, more questions bubble up. We have worked hard to be a trusted resource, and it’s exciting to see our team so involved in helping answer critical questions such as “How profitable is this activity with this customer”?
Our team’s passion for driving change is helping to inspire improvements across the company.
Katie Kelly:
I love what you’re saying about momentum and inspiration and how it starts to trickle throughout the organization. Regarding motivation and inspiration, as you look over your career with Cargill and joining Miller Milling, what decisions do you think you made over the course of your career that helped you become the CFO you are today? Are there decisions you can point to that you felt added value throughout your career?
Betsy Horton:
I’ve always been willing to take risks with my career. Taking a new job often meant leaving somewhere I found success to try something I was uncertain I’d be good at. I was often nervous about it, but I made the change anyway. After a while, I discovered that with each experience, my comfort zone grew.
All those earlier risks really helped me with my journey to become a CFO.
My best advice is not to worry too much about taking the wrong job and that you might make a bad decision. You grow in every path that you take. Even though some of the decisions I look back on and think may not have been the best choice, I don’t regret them because I can tell you ten things I was able to learn.
Katie Kelly:
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable certainly isn’t easy. Are there certain skills you gained that prepared you for your CFO role that you would recommend?
Betsy Horton:
I think broad experience is going to be the biggest benefit. Knowing foundational accounting is critical, along with having a strong finance acumen. However, I think one of the greatest skills you can add is business operations experience. That experience can be in getting commercial experience or through an FP&A role that partners with the business.
The CFO is not just an individual who manages the books but a key partner to the CEO in making sound business decisions and driving strategy. So, roles that you might not view as a traditional path to CFO help you better understand the business more broadly—and sometimes mean even stepping out of finance.
I took a sales role for two years, knowing that I wasn’t going to be a salesperson forever. However, the skills I learned in those two years have been so valuable in shaping how I present myself and understanding what it’s like to focus on serving a customer. There isn’t always a pre-defined path to CFO. Take risks and have broad experiences. You learn a lot about what you like and what you’re good at when you take chances and do something different.
Katie Kelly:
I think that’s a great point. It’s okay to try and fail – you’ll learn something along the way. Sometimes people beat themselves up if they’re in a job where they don’t love what they do, and often feel like they have failed. Finding growth out of the challenges is such great advice. Has there ever been a time that you’ve struggled or been challenged in your career and struggled to know what was next?
Betsy Horton:
Yes, absolutely. I used to believe that if I’m really good, I can thrive anywhere. Put me in any situation, and I will make it work.
I took a job once and it just didn’t play to my strengths, it just wasn’t the right fit. I fought through it, I learned a ton, but I wasn’t at my best and it made me really unhappy.
The difference between figuring out if you’re unhappy because you’re uncomfortable or if it’s truly not a good fit is really important.
Sometimes those two can feel the same. One of them is good; the discomfort will eventually go away as your comfort zone grows. The discomfort when you’re not in the right place for you – that’s when you should look to move on and not feel like you’ve failed. I realized it wasn’t the right place for me at that time, and I could be happier and more effective elsewhere.
How do you know the difference? I was fortunate to always have a good mentor to talk this through with, and that would be my advice to others. Find someone you trust to help you with your journey.
Katie Kelly:
Is that some of your best advice, to have a really great mentor?
Betsy Horton:
I would say to have multiple mentors. I think a lot of people get really hung up on a formal mentor relationship, but when I look back through my career, I’ve had multiple people that I could trust. My husband is included in this, but former colleagues and bosses who know me well and have intimate knowledge of the situation were extremely valuable.
Having mentors and other strong leaders advising me when I have to make hard decisions or am struggling with a problem has been key.
Katie Kelly:
I love that advice. What keeps you motivated to keep driving for more?
Betsy Horton:
I love to learn and constantly feel like I’m growing – that’s a huge motivator.
The other motivation is my team; I love seeing them grow and enjoy what they’re doing. We spend so much of our lives at work, and it has to be worth it.
At Miller Milling, my team is working on so many exciting projects right now, and they are making a difference in the business. I not only look at what the future holds for our company but also where my team will be, and that gives me energy.
Katie Kelly:
I’ve heard nothing but phenomenal things about your leadership and know your team very much enjoys working for you. Is there anything else that you wanted to add to inspire other women?
Betsy Horton:
I used to think that getting promoted just meant working harder. I used to worry about how I would balance starting a family, having kids, and balancing it all. When my girls were newborns, I remember one night I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about them starting kindergarten and how I was going to manage that. I often need to remind myself not to worry about things so far in the future and have faith that I will figure that out later.
My advice: Don’t hold back your career aspirations now because of some problem you may have five years from now.
As I have continued to build my career, the work has changed. In some ways you work harder; I have more of an obligation to make sure if something’s going wrong and we need to figure it out, I’m there with my team.
However, it doesn’t always mean more hours. It’s a different kind of work: more decision-making, more advice, and more coaching. It’s less hands-on doing. As your role changes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have less of an ability to balance your personal life. You actually have more control.
A lot of the things that I worried about earlier on in my career that made me hesitate to want to keep advancing have not turned out to be true. I held myself back earlier in my career because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it all when I imagined some future life that didn’t end up coming to fruition.
Katie Kelly:
Good advice. Thank you so much for your time, Betsy!