When Vanna Krantz reflects on her career—from the early grind of New York’s financial sector to helping take Grindr public—she’s quick to credit a series of “lucky breaks.” But luck, in her telling, isn’t passive. It’s what happens when preparation meets conviction—and when leaders are willing to bet on themselves.

“I think having a few breaks is important,” says Krantz, who stepped down from her CFO role this month but is still serving in an advisory role at Grindr. “I think I can show a lot of passion, and I give people the sense that I’m here to get this done for you, and that has worked nicely for me.”

That work ethic and presence have defined Krantz’s path through some of the most transformative chapters of her career. Earlier in her career, at institutions such as PwC, Merrill Lynch, and later Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, she learned to navigate the intensity of New York’s financial world. “Those were fairly tough environments,” she recalls. “It forced you to see if you could sink or swim.” The result was a confidence and rigor that would anchor the rest of Krantz’s career.

A turning point came when a senior executive at Thomson Financial took a chance on her, naming her an SVP just months before the company acquired Reuters. Another leader later took an “incredible risk” on her in tapping Krantz to become divisional CFO of Reuters Media. The experience taught her that opportunities often arise when one is perceived as both competent and committed.

At Thomson Reuters, Krantz spent a decade refining what she calls “academy-level finance,” learning what best-in-class looks like when finance isn’t a back-office function but a strategic engine. That foundation would prove invaluable when she joined BAMTech Media, the streaming infrastructure startup later acquired by Disney, where she became CFO of the newly formed Disney+.

That transition, she reflects, was driven more by instinct than by a calculated strategy. “It was a leap of faith,” Krantz says. She joined the fledgling Disney+ team, drawn by the people and the promise of the project, not any guaranteed success. Everyone involved hoped it would take off, she says, but no one could have predicted just how big it would become.

Krantz helped steer Disney+ through one of the most successful streaming launches in history. When Grindr came calling, it represented both a new challenge and an opportunity to apply her experience in leading through transformation. As CFO, she helped take the LGBTQ+ social platform public in 2022, positioning the company as a digital community rather than just a dating app.

Still, she’s the first to acknowledge that not every leap lands cleanly. “When you take a leap of faith, it doesn’t always work 100% of the time—and it didn’t for me either,” she says. Krantz admits that in earlier roles, her certainty sometimes came on too strong. She’d make her case forcefully, armed with data and conviction, but not always tact. Over time, she realized that being right isn’t enough to win people over; persuasion requires connection as much as proof.

“You have to recognize when people need to feel at ease first,” she says.

In recent years, a professional coach has helped Krantz refine that instinct. She jokes that her tolerance for discomfort is unusually high—intense feedback or harsh criticism rarely rattles her the way it might others. But she’s since instilled the instructive feedback she received years ago when someone told her, “‘Could you just find a velvet glove instead of the boxing glove?’”

Krantsz adds: “The velvet glove is an important tool in the toolbox that took me a little longer to recognize how much I needed it, given my ability to withstand pain.”

For Krantz, that blend of resilience and empathy has become her hallmark of new leadership.

Looking back on what first drew her to Grindr, Krantz says the appeal was immediate and undeniable. “It was always my dream to be a public company CFO, and when this opportunity came, it was almost too good to believe,” she says. “When I saw their financials, I literally went to the guys and said, ‘Is there a typo here?’”

Grindr’s financial performance—especially its more than 40% EBITDA margins—was rare in the industry, she says. Krantz seized the opportunity, guiding Grindr through its public debut, delivering 11 consecutive quarters of revenue growth exceeding 25%, while maintaining EBITDA margins above 40%, she says. Along the way, she refinanced the company’s debt, hosted its first investor day, and secured analyst coverage.

Now, having achieved every milestone she set for herself, Krantz says she is ready to take on her next big challenge.

“I feel like we’re on this wave of something pretty big and new out there,” she says. “It’s impossible not to be excited by it and feel that if I don’t join it, I might regret it.”

That wave, of course, is artificial intelligence. “I’m not even saying that I’m going to be fortunate enough to have an opportunity to work in that space,” she says. “I’m just saying I’m going to give it a shot.”

From trading floors to streaming wars: Grindr’s ex-CFO on taking career risks at the right time