CFO THOUGHT LEADER
CFO THOUGHT LEADER is a podcast featuring firsthand accounts of finance leaders who are driving change within their organizations. It shares the career journey of spotlighted CFO guests, discussing their struggles, perseverance, and what makes them successful. The podcast aims to inspire finance professionals to take a leadership leap by learning from the successes and failures of others.
Episodes
Inside the IPO: Three CFOs, Three Perspectives
Taking a Company Public: What CFOs KnowWhat does it really take to prepare a company for life as a public company?In this special CFO Thought Leader compilation, we revisit three conversations with finance leaders who helped guide some of the technology industry's most recognizable companies through the IPO journey. Rather than focusing on the transaction itself, these CFOs share what happened beh
1196: Your Next Finance Hire Should Think Like a Founder | Martino Cadoni, CFO, DeepL
When Martino Cadoni joined DeepL, he arrived with an unusual perspective—he already knew the company’s product firsthand. Earlier in his career at Klarna, he had helped introduce DeepL as a translation solution, making the transition from customer to CFO especially meaningful. Today, DeepL is backed by investors including HV Capital, Benchmark, Index Ventures, ICONIQ, and Atomico, Cadoni tells us.
1195: When Finance is at the Center of the AI Code Revolution | Jean Compeau, CFO, Sonar
When Jean Compeau joined Sonar as CFO in March 2025, AI coding was not yet dominating industry conversations. By the summer and fall that followed, however, the landscape had shifted dramatically. Today, AI agents are producing software code at a pace that humans cannot easily verify, creating both opportunity and risk.That shift sits at the center of Sonar’s mission. The company is the global lea
1194: Why Curiosity Creates Better Finance Leaders | Stacey Jenkins, CFO, Aerotek
Each day, Stacey Jenkins watches a different set of indicators than the quarterly financial results that eventually appear on a report. Candidate applications, recruiter activity, and other throughput measures help tell the story of where Aerotek’s business may be headed. Financial results are “the lagging indicator,” Jenkins tells us.That perspective reflects how she views both finance and leader
1193: Building Finance Functions That Shape Outcomes | Jesse Waldron, CFO, Thyme Care
When Jesse Waldron describes Thyme Care’s work, he begins with the patient experience. Cancer patients, he explains, are often thrust into a healthcare system that can feel overwhelming both financially and emotionally.That reality sits at the center of Thyme Care’s mission. As an oncology care navigation company, Thyme Care helps patients move through their cancer journey while also partnering wi
1192: Building Through Disruption | Christina Spade, CFO, Catalant
Five weeks into her role as CFO of Catalant, Christina Spade is helping guide a company that she believes is positioned for a different era of consulting.Catalant was founded out of Harvard Business School in 2013 and began as an independent consultant matchmaking company, Spade tells us. Today, she describes the firm as a “Consulting 2.0” business built around agile, fit-for-purpose consulting de
1191: From Complexity to Clarity: Building Operational Maturity | David Forlizzi, CFO, Salsify
When David Forlizzi describes Salsify, he begins with a simple observation: “We all use it every day.” Unlike some of the highly technical software businesses where he previously spent his career, Salsify’s value proposition is visible to anyone who shops online.Product content sits at the center of the company’s platform, Forlizzi tells us. Whether consumers are browsing a brand website, Amazon,
1190: Fixing What Growth Tries to Hide | Jaylene Kunze, LegitScript
When Jaylene Kunze was asked to help rebuild a struggling subsidiary in the United Kingdom, she packed up her family and moved overseas with her nine-month-old daughter. The assignment was one more example of the type of challenge that would come to define her career. Rather than following a traditional finance path, Kunze gravitated toward what she calls “the fixer” role, stepping into situations
1189: Why Finance Should Lead with “Yes, And” | Bruno Annicq, CFO, Wellhub
A conversation from years earlier still stands out to Bruno Annicq. While working at AOL, he was supporting business leaders and helping tell the story of the business through data and analytics. Then a senior executive, Holly Hess, approached him with an unexpected suggestion: Why not become the CFO of AOL’s platforms business?Annicq’s reaction was immediate. “Wait, me? Are you sure?” he recalls.
1188: Testing Assumptions Before Burning Capital | Kevin Hettrich, CFO, QuantumScape
Kevin Hettrich walked into a conference room with a whiteboard full of numbers and a problem no one had fully articulated. QuantumScape’s leadership team was discussing how to scale an expensive R&D tool used to produce early battery materials. Hettrich had spent two weeks gathering data, talking with engineers, and analyzing manufacturing economics. Then he laid out the comparison: QuantumSca
Bonus Replay: Building Luxury Growth Without Losing Financial Discipline | Paolo Poma, CFO, Lamborghini
In early 2009, Paolo Poma found himself navigating what he recalls as a “really tough” period. At the time, he was helping steer Ducati through a leveraged buyout negotiated before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Debt obligations had arrived just as markets were “plummeting,” Poma tells us, while lenders closely monitored covenant compliance and private equity owners pressed ahead with the deal.P
Bonus Replay: Building an Early Warning System | Patrick McClymont, CFO, Hagerty
Patrick McClymont still remembers the moment at IMAX when the numbers began moving in the wrong direction. Hired to help drive external growth through acquisitions and partnerships, he instead found himself sitting with CEO Rich Gelfond building what he calls an “early warning system.” Together, they agreed to monitor the next three film titles and “hold ourselves accountable” to a short-term scor
1187: Pattern Recognition: How CFOs See Around Corners | Alex Chun, CFO, NEOGOV
Alex Chun already knew the management team at NEOGOV long before he became its CFO. As an investor at Warburg Pincus, he spent more than four years “in the trenches” with NEOGOV’s leadership team, flying to Los Angeles to work through operational challenges alongside them, Chun tells us.His path to finance leadership did not begin in accounting or FP&A. Instead, Chun spent nearly a decade eval
1186: Keeping the Applause in Check | Adam Goldbruch, CFO, DoorLoop
Adam Goldbruch still remembers the celebration. In 2017, he stood inside a Tel Aviv startup office while employees cheered a milestone: a Disney princess quiz had generated “2.8 million page views,” he tells us. Champagne circulated as the founder delivered a visionary speech about changing communication through content.At the time, Goldbruch was young enough to be swept up in the excitement, but
1185: Scaling Smarter in the AI Era | Sarah Riley, CFO, dbt Labs
When the pandemic began reshaping the world in early 2020, Sarah Riley was helping guide finance at Zoom through an unprecedented surge in demand. “You could see the volume of Zoom almost spiking up by the regions that were going into shutdown,” Riley tells us. What followed was unlike anything most software companies had experienced before. During her four years at Zoom, the company expanded from
1184: From Deal Sheets to Operating Seats | Rick Hasselman, CFO, Salesloft
Rick Hasselman recently boarded “a moving train,” describing his arrival at a newly merged SalesLoft and Clari business as both complex and energizing. Just a month and a half into the role, he is already immersed in integrating a $300 million-plus revenue company, he tells us.That early moment captures a defining pattern across Hasselman’s career: a willingness to enter dynamic environments and i
1183: Enter the Blockchain CFO: Reshaping Capital Markets | Macrina Kgil, CFO, Figure
Macrina Kgil recalls a moment when she first encountered blockchain technology and “could not grasp whatever it was trying to do,” she tells us. Even with an engineering background, the concept felt distant and unclear. Yet that early confusion would later become a defining thread in her career.Years later, when the opportunity arose to join Figure, Kgil recognized something different. The company
AI, Trust, and the Expanding Role of Finance: A Sage Future Special
At Sage Future in San Francisco, three conversations reveal how AI is reshaping the finance function—from vision to execution to industry impact. Sage CTO Aaron Harris outlines the shift from assistive tools to autonomous systems, where trust and transparency will determine adoption. Sage's Jon Fasoli brings that vision into today’s finance workflows, where teams are cautiously embracing AI to acc
1182: From Cockpit Decisions to Capital Decisions | Andre Mancl, CFO, Nium
Andre Mancl recalls sitting only a few months into his first CFO role when a senior technology executive arrived with an urgent warning: engineers were leaving for Google and Facebook, and the company needed an immediate across-the-board compensation increase of 30% to 40%. It would have been a major financial commitment. But Mancl hesitated. Drawing on years spent reading markets and assessing bu
1181: What AI Means for the Future of Finance Leadership | Yuval Atsmon, CFO & Sr Partner, McKinsey & Company
In the desert during military officer training, Yuval Atsmon entered one wrong number into a GPS device. Instead of reaching the intended destination, he and his team ended up in the wrong location, and the simulated mission failed. The mistake cost him the chance to finish at the top of his class, he tells us. Years later, he would recognize that moment as an early lesson in leadership: numbers a
1180: Where Finance Meets the Real World | Scott Thorell, CFO Benetrends
Before his career became closely tied to middle-market businesses, Scott Thorell built his foundation in larger arenas. He began at Ernst & Young in New York, auditing financial services firms, then moved to Campbell Soup Company, where financial and operational audit assignments took him to Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, and locations across the United States, Thorell tells us. Those chapters
Special Episode: Why Oracle Chose Hilary Maxson Now
In this special episode, we revisit a past conversation with Hilary Maxson and explore why her appointment as CFO of Oracle Corporation comes at such a consequential moment. As Oracle accelerates investments in AI infrastructure and cloud capacity, the finance role now extends well beyond stewardship into capital allocation, operational discipline, and long-term value creation. Maxson’s career—fro
1179: Why Trust Can Outperform Price | Thomas Baumgartner, CFO, voestalpine Metsec
As a child in Austria, Thomas Baumgartner bundled unwanted toys into mystery bags and sold them to classmates. Buyers could not see what was inside—they simply paid and took their chances. He cleared out old toys and earned spending money, he tells us. The story is lighthearted, but it reveals something enduring: an instinct to create value, move decisively, and keep looking for the next opportuni
1178: From Numbers to Narrative: Seeing the Business End-to-End | David Larson, CFO, Feedzai
David Larson still recalls the moment he challenged conventional thinking inside Thomson Reuters. A shared services team in Hyderabad, long viewed as transactional, held untapped potential. Rather than accept the status quo, Larson pushed to integrate the team into the broader finance function—despite resistance tied to time zones and skepticism. The effort required planning, persuasion, and patie
Special Episode: Why AI Speed Without Direction Is a Strategic Risk | Laura Belmont, General Counsel, The L Suite
In this special third installment of Suite Voices, featuring general counsels from The L Suite, Laura Belmont explores how organizations can adopt AI responsibly while balancing speed with strategic direction. Building on insights from earlier episodes, she emphasizes that AI success depends on aligning usage with business goals and governance frameworks—not just rapid deployment. Belmont highligh
1177: Navigating an Acquisition at the Edge of Change | Tom DiDesidero, CFO, SmartRecruiters
Tom DiDesidero describes a period when SmartRecruiters was actively taking customers from a much larger competitor. It wasn’t just momentum—it was proof. “We were stealing a lot of their customers,” DiDesidero tells us, describing how that traction became a defining signal of value.At the same time, SmartRecruiters was moving quickly on a new front. “We were really the first mover in the embedded
1176: From Signatures to Systems of Value | Blake Grayson, CFO, Docusign
Within his first 90 days at Docusign, Blake Grayson recognized the company needed to make difficult efficiency decisions following a post-COVID slowdown. Acting quickly, he partnered with leadership to address the issue, noting that “making the hard decision faster is way better than waiting,” Grayson tells us. That moment set the tone for how he approaches finance leadership—decisive, data-driven
1175: Inside the C-Suite: Where Judgment Outranks Data | Amy Wang, CFO, Procurify
Late one night in Calgary, Amy Wang was running final checks on a billion-dollar transaction when something didn’t sit right. “My immediate instinct…was to dismiss it,” she tells us. After all, multiple teams and advisors had already vetted the deal. But she couldn’t let it go. Instead, she challenged the work—carefully, respectfully—and was right. The correction prevented more than a million doll
1174: How a Hard Reset Reignited Momentum | Aidan Viggiano, CFO Twilio
In 2023, stepping into the CFO role at Twilio, Aidan Viggiano faced a defining reality: “the first hard call was a layoff,” she tells us. The company had surged during the pandemic as digital communications accelerated, but by mid-2022, growth slowed while profitability lagged. “We can’t be slowing in growth and not be profitable and not generating cash,” she explains, describing the moment that f
1173: The CFO at the Crossroads of Code, Capital, and Clarity | Rich Schmidt, CFO, Inmar Intelligence
Early in his career, Rich Schmidt recalls presenting an analysis of an operational challenge to leadership—only to be told, “we want you to go fix it.” The assignment marked a turning point. What began as financial analysis quickly became ownership, execution, and accountability across the business.That moment would come to define Schmidt’s future career path—one that would unfold almost entirely
1172: Finance Isn’t the Brake—It’s the Steering Wheel for Growth | Tony MacDonald, CFO, Sama
Tony MacDonald prefers a different image of the CFO role—one that replaces restraint with direction. “I would like to be considered as one of the people on the stagecoach that helps hold the reins,” he tells us, describing sales as “the horses that I want galloping always full speed ahead.”That mindset was shaped during his time at Oracle, where he operated inside a deeply sales-driven organizatio
Special Episode: AI Governance & the Board: What CFOs Need to Know
In this CFO Thought Leader episode, Jack Sweeney speaks with technology general counsel Akin Adekeye about when AI becomes a board-level concern. Adekeye explains AI crosses into governance when it impacts risk, capital allocation, and competitiveness. He highlights “shadow AI” risks, regulatory uncertainty, and the need for structured oversight. Effective governance includes board involvement, ex
1171: How CFOs Rise by Learning Sideways First | Marc Mehlman, CFO, Ascensus
Marc Mehlman still recalls the moment a senior leader pulled him aside and told him he was “in such a rush” and needed to “enjoy the journey,” he tells us. At the time, Mehlman was part of a leadership program filled with high achievers eager to move quickly into senior roles. Instead, he took a different path—spending nearly a decade moving laterally across FP&A, corporate development, strate
1170: Why the ‘SaaS-pocalypse’ Changed the CFO Conversation | Michael Perica, CFO, Rimini Street
Michael Perica had been discussing the market implications of AI with investors for a number of years, but the market didn’t fully react—until one particular moment. In late January and early February, a wave of announcements around enterprise-focused AI models and workflow plugins triggered what has become widely known as the “SaaS-pocalypse.” In a single day, roughly $258 billion in SaaS market
1169: Thinking Bigger on the Road to the CFO Role | Andrew Bender, CFO, BNI Global
Andrew Bender still remembers a moment from high school football practice when a coach challenged him with a simple question: “Do you want to be all conference or all state?” The comment surprised him. At the time, Bender tells us he wasn’t even sure he had the potential to reach the lower bar. Yet the moment stayed with him because it revealed something important—that sometimes others see possibi
1168: How Smart Finance Looks Before It Leaps | Alistair Gurney, CFO, Lucanet
Early in Lucanet’s expansion, two Chinese employees working in Germany had a moment of insight. Seeing how configurable the consolidation software was, they believed it could succeed in their home market. Acting on that conviction, they traveled from Berlin back to China and built what would become Lucanet’s Chinese business. The story illustrates how a tool designed for global complexity could tr
Special Episode: Rethinking the ERP Upgrade Path
Ashley Still, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intuit’s mid-market business, discusses how the expectations of finance leaders are shifting as AI reshapes the finance function. She explains how Intuit is expanding beyond its small-business roots with Intuit Enterprise Suite, designed to serve growing mid-market organizations seeking faster implementation and lower total cost than tr
1167: CFO Leadership at Venture Inflection Points | Intekhab Nazeer, CFO, Lineaje
Early in his career, Intekhab Nazeer found himself sitting in go-to-market meetings rather than finance reviews. A CFO mentor had pushed him beyond traditional accounting responsibilities, exposing him to pipeline discussions and sales forecasting. That experience changed how he viewed finance leadership. Instead of simply reporting financial results, he began understanding “how pipeline is genera
1166: Building Equity Value in a Capital-Intensive World | Derek Doyle, CFO, C Spire
Fiber is “a lot of investment up front for that stream of cash flow in the future,” Derek Doyle tells us. At C Spire, that reality defines nearly every strategic decision.The advanced technology and communications company has been reinventing itself for more than 70 years, Doyle tells us. Today, it is the largest privately held wireless carrier in the U.S. and operates 22,000 miles of fiber, placi
Foundations Before Acceleration - a Planning Aces Episode
In this episode of Planning Aces, hosts Jack Sweeney and Glenn Hopper lead a focused discussion spotlighting the thinking of CFO Kevin Rubin of Zscaler, CFO Bruce Schuman of Universal Technical Institute, and CFO Razzak Jallow of FloQast on how disciplined FP&A leadership is shaping AI adoption. Rubin frames AI as a capital allocation decision, supported by centralized governance to prevent to
1165: Building a Business That Can Stand on Its Own | Manu Diwakar, CFO, Virta Health
Nearly 90% of Americans suffer from metabolic disease, Manu Diwakar tells us, citing a recent McKinsey & Company study. For Diwakar, CFO of Virta Health, that statistic defines both the scale of the challenge and the clarity of the mission.Metabolic disease, he explains, includes type 2 diabetes, obesity, liver disease, kidney disease, heart disease, and high blood pressure—“branches of a tree
1164: From Boardroom Lens to Operator Reality | Alex Melamud, CFO, Engine
Before his first cup of coffee, Alex Melamud opens Slack—not to scan revenue charts first, but to read customer feedback. “The first one that may surprise you as a CFO that I look at is actually NPS,” he tells us. At Engine, every survey drops into a shared channel so “every executive can see” what customers said, he tells us.That habit fits a finance leader who didn’t grow up in the CFO seat. Mel
1163: The Discipline Behind Transformational AI | Sue Vestri, CFO, CRIO
On her first day as CFO at Greenphire, Sue Vestri sat in a conference room “learning all of the acronyms” of the clinical trial industry, she tells us. There were “many, many, many,” she recalls, and she listened to the sales team outside her door to understand how the product was positioned and why it mattered.That willingness to learn from the ground up defines her career. Earlier, a mentor warn
1162: Scaling Growth Across the World’s Most Complex Markets | Guillermo Lopez, CFO, dLocal
In his early 30s, Guillermo Lopez walked into finance as an outsider. “Nobody was giving me a chance in finance because I was an engineer,” he tells us. Then a boss took “a risk” and moved him into a finance role—partly because he was “good with numbers,” and partly because his consulting background meant he could be put “in front of…external parties,” Lopez tells us.That entry point set the tone
1161: From Carve-Out to Standalone Enterprise | Steve Shimizu, CFO, Omnissa
An employee is on vacation in the mountains when it happens: “I left my laptop at home.” Instead of scrambling, the employee logs into a virtual desktop from another device, pulling up what looks and feels like their own PC, delivered through the cloud. That simple moment captures how Steve Shimizu describes Omnissa’s mission—helping companies enable a digital employee experience that allows peopl
1160: Disciplined Bets in an Expensive-Capital World | Burt Chao, CFO, Nintex
As he nears the end of his first 100 days at Nintex, Burt Chao is doing something many new CFOs resist: listening more than talking. Understanding the business, its people, and its real growth potential comes before dashboards or directives, he tells us.Chao describes Nintex as a company with a “long and rich history” of helping organizations automate mission-critical work, but one now entering a
1159: Decision Velocity: The Hidden Advantage of Top-Performing Organizations | Dean Neese, CFO, Placer.ai
The lesson arrived abruptly in a boardroom in Battle Creek. After months of analysis, charts, and market data, the president of Kellogg’s cereal division looked up and said, “That’s all interesting. I just don’t know what to do with it,” Dean Neese tells us. The comment landed hard. It forced him to confront a blind spot early in his consulting career: insight without action is inert.Neese and his
CFO EQ: How Leadership Takes Shape
This special episode of CFO Thought Leader explores how finance leaders develop not through authority or technical brilliance, but through moments that reveal emotional intelligence. Drawing on recent conversations with Kevin Rubin, Toby Driver, and Bruce Schuman, the episode highlights a consistent pattern: leadership is forged through judgment, empathy, and self-awareness when stakes are high an
1158: What Changes After the Easy Wins Are Gone | Razzak Jallow, CFO, FloQast
The accounting team at Looker showed up every day knowing their jobs might disappear within a year. The company was in limbo—acquired by Google but still waiting on European approval—so the deal hadn’t closed, integration hadn’t begun, and uncertainty hung over the office. Yet the team continued to deliver “absolutely excellent work,” taking pride in their craft even when the upside had faded, Raz
1157: From Deal Advisory to Operator: Learning the Hard Parts | Toby Driver, CFO, Ideagen
At 18, while many of his peers were heading off to university, Toby Driver made a different choice. He joined an accounting practice through an apprenticeship, a decision driven by his desire for a “quick learning curve” and real exposure to business, he tells us. From the outset, he was less interested in credentials than in understanding how organizations actually work.That instinct carried him
1156: From Turnaround CFO to Enterprise-Scale Strategist | Kevin Rubin, CFO, Zscaler
When Kevin Rubin arrived at Zscaler in May 2025, he joined an established organization following the retirement of the company’s longtime CFO, taking responsibility for continuing the work of a finance leader who had already built a strong foundation. Rubin describes stepping into a business with scale, experienced leadership, and a customer base that included some of the world’s largest enterpris
1155: Scaling Growth Without Sacrificing Outcomes | Bruce Schuman, CFO, Universal TechnicalInstitute
At Intel, Bruce Schuman remembers walking into a meeting as a controller, proud of a product change his team had worked on “for months.” Then CFO Andy Bryant asked one question—one that reframed the proposal around customer impact. “Nobody had thought about (it),” Schuman tells us, and that question “completely changed the entire conversation,” leading to a “10 times better” outcome.That moment ca
1154: When Finance Becomes the Company’s Storyteller | Drew Laxton, CFO, Outreach
When Drew Laxton looks back on the past year at Outreach, one moment stands out—not a transaction, but a plan. The company set its annual targets, executed against them, and then exceeded expectations. “When you see green numbers at every quarterly all-hands,” Laxton tells us, “it’s amazing how that little bit of momentum just builds the company.” What surprised him most was the cultural impact: m
The New FP&A Feedback Loop - A Planning Aces Episode
In this Planning Aces special episode, CFO Thought Leader brings together three finance executives operating in very different industries—but facing remarkably similar planning challenges. David Lee of WEBTOON, Cristina Kim of Octaura, and Zane Rowe of Workday share how FP&A has evolved from a periodic planning function into a continuous decision system. Across global consumer platforms, finte
1153: From Big-Company Discipline to Private-Equity Speed | Jorge Pliego, CFO, Improving
In his late 20s, Jorge Pliego found himself financing a major expansion in Mexico—not by calling corporate for cash, but by rethinking the entire structure. At Procter & Gamble, he was given the chance to fund a new paper products facility locally, navigating tax and financing incentives until the deal carried “zero” interest cost, Pliego tells us. Convincing senior leaders in Mexico and at he
1152: Value Creation Starts with Portfolio and Capital Discipline | Manny Korakis, CFO, Presidio
In his first “60 to 90 days” as CFO of Presidio, Manny Korakis learned that preparation doesn’t cancel pressure, he tells us. “Now the buck stops here,” he tells us, and he “didn’t really appreciate the pace” required until he was living it daily, he tells us.Korakis traces his move into enterprise thinking back to the McGraw Hill companies. Early on, he was “very technical” and “pretty close” to
The Quiet Origins of Finance Leaders | A New Years Release
As one year closes and another begins, most of us are wired to look forward—to new goals, fresh plans, and the next chapter. But this special episode of CFO Thought Leader invites you to do something slightly different: look back. Not to financial milestones or career titles, but to the moments that quietly shape who we become long before anyone hands us a business card.In this episode, three CFOs
Atoms, Not Electrons: Why Warehouses Still Win | Tim Arndt, CFO, Prologis
When it came time to pick our holiday bonus episodes, Tim Arndt quickly came to mind. Few companies sit at the crossroads of as many 2025 storylines—tariffs, data centers, and AI—as Prologis. In our February conversation, Tim walked us through a “merger of equals” that reset leadership, the capital-markets discipline that followed, and why logistics is about “atoms, not electrons.” He tells us Pro
Before the Outcome Was Known | Jonathan Carr, CFO, Armis
As the year comes to a close, we’re revisiting a conversation that feels newly relevant. This week, we’re re-releasing our CFO Thought Leader episode with Jonathan Carr, recorded three years ago—long before any exit was in view, but rich with insight into how he thinks about leadership, growth, and decision-making under uncertainty.That mindset was shaped early. Just 18 months after finishing coll
Lessons That Linger: Leadership Reflections From the CFO Seat | Karen Williams, CFO, American Express Global Business Travel
As we re-release this conversation with CFO Karen Williams during the holiday week, we’re opening the episode with a short preface drawn from something she shared recently on LinkedIn. In a post about books that shaped her as a leader, Williams reflected on culture, bias, and the importance of staying open to different perspectives—ideas that echo throughout this episode and frame how she’s built
1151: Trust Is the Real Currency of Cross-Functional Finance | Roy Hefer, CFO, Perk
Roy Hefer expected a quick coffee. Instead, a “30 minutes” introduction with a newly appointed Lumenis CEO stretched “more than three hours,” he tells us, as they talked through her plan to transform a flat-growth, cash-bleeding medical device company and “ultimately take it public,” he tells us.That conversation marked a shift from theory to ownership. After five years at McKinsey—based out of Te
1150: Making AI Practical in Finance, Not Theoretical | Matt Novick, CFO, Triplelift
Matthew Novick traces one of his earliest business lessons not to a boardroom, but to a furniture store in Portland, Maine. Growing up in his family’s business, he learned how to read credit reports, price products, and assess who was “credit worthy,” skills that showed him how decisions affect a business long before he ever closed a set of books, Novick tells us.That operational grounding followe
1149: Predictable, Profitable Growth in an AI-Native Business | Ed Hagan, CFO, Satisfi Labs
At 19, working part-time in a bank branch while attending college, Ed Hagan made a simple recommendation: expand the branch. The idea was taken seriously enough that he was transferred to the bank holding company’s finance and accounting department, where he suddenly found himself helping with acquisitions, preparing board materials, and contributing to an IPO. The exposure was far greater than he
1148: How Early Data Lessons Shaped Workday’s CFO AI Playbook | Zane Rowe, CFO, Workday
At first, we wondered why Zane Rowe was once again leading us back to Continental Airlines. With notable CFO tenures at VMware and EMC—chapters rich with transformation—surely there were fresh stories to surface.But as Rowe began tracing the logic behind flight profitability, route modeling, and data-rich decision making, the relevance snapped into focus. His Continental experience isn’t just a re
1147: From Investor Lens to Operator Seat | Cristina Kim, CFO, Octaura
In her second week as CFO, Cristina Kim sat with Octaura’s leadership team reviewing a three-year strategy and ambitious 2026 targets, she tells us. As the numbers appeared on the screen, her instinct was to do what she had done for nearly two decades: probe what might go wrong, stress-test assumptions, and look for what could break, she tells us. Mid-meeting, she experienced what she calls an “ah
1146: Building a Finance Org That Thinks Before It Counts | Aneal Vallurupalli, CFO, Drata
The morning after Airbase’s sale closed, Aneal Vallurupalli woke up to a very different org chart. Before the deal, roughly a third to almost half of the company reported to him, including onboarding, professional services, account management, customer success, and financial services revenue, he tells us. The day after, those teams rolled into the acquirer and “I have my EA reporting to me. And th
Encore Episode: From Black Box to Control Tower | Stuart Leung, CFO, Flexport
Stuart Leung had occupied the CFO office at Flexport for only a few months when he realized the supply chain management company’s growing margin pressures stemmed not from a single root cause but from many. From pricing misalignment to invoice errors, Leung had compiled a lengthy list of snags. Along the way, he began empowering the people closest to each issue to drive the necessary improvements.
Inside the Driver’s Seat: Finance Leadership in the Auto Sector
In this special retrospective episode, we revisit three standout conversations from our archives to explore how automotive CFOs have long shaped strategy inside some of the industry’s most complex business models. From auctions to dealerships to early-stage EV manufacturing, these finance leaders reveal how they navigated scale, technology shifts, and operational risk. KAR Auction Services CFO Eri
1145: Creative Capital, Tough Cuts, and the Power of “Why” | Jayme Brooks, CFO, Limbach
The email with the term sheet arrived first, then the bottle of champagne from the CEO, Jayme Brooks tells us. The lender had agreed to a nontraditional structure that allowed Capstone to borrow against intangible assets, creating a lifeline at a moment when revenue had dropped about 40% and market cap had fallen from roughly 400 million to 25 million, she tells us. Cost reductions, including a 25
1144: Rewiring Finance for AI, Data, and Business Impact | Michael Bourque, CFO & EVP, , Convera
Jack Welch’s binder hit the floor before Michael Bourque had time to react. At just 23, he sat in a Honeywell acquisition review meeting as the “keeper of the numbers,” rifling through a binder he knew didn’t contain the EPS detail Welch demanded. When the answer didn’t come, Welch “swept his binder off the table, threw it across the room, and got up and left,” Bourque tells us. The moment stayed
Discipline at the Heart of Innovation - A Planning Aces Episode
In this episode of Planning Aces, we spotlight FP&A insights from three CFOs leading innovation with discipline: Chris Sands (InvoiceCloud), Steve Sutter (Celigo), and Niels Boon (Cint). Each shares how finance is shaping AI, go-to-market models, and data-driven transformation without losing rigor. From building an “AI Ops” function and embedding finance in sales strategy,
1143: Building a Transformation-Ready Finance Function | Troy Anderson, CFO, Kelly Services
When Troy Anderson accepted the CFO seat at Kelly Services in 2024, he stepped into an organization that, as he tells us, “had done a number of acquisitions … and really invested in the business.” The legacy staffing firm had spent nearly $1 billion to expand its reach but had yet to fully integrate those pieces. Anderson’s mission: align a global operation that had grown faster than its systems.I
1142: From Webcomics to Wall Street: Inside a Storytelling Powerhouse | David Lee, COO & CFO, WEBTOON
When David Lee joined PG&E in San Francisco, the company was collapsing under the weight of California’s first energy crisis. “These utility veterans kind of got us into this,” the new CFO told him, handing him an unusual assignment: act as an “anti-CFO.” Lee spent his days testing every forecast and financing plan, proposing contrarian options like a preferred-equity line from KKR. The exerci
1141: The Long Game of Resilient Finance Leadership | Erik Wissig, CFO, SureCo
When Erik Wissig recalls his early years as a founder, one moment still stands out. The team had met its growth goals and earned their bonuses—but the company’s cash flow hadn’t caught up. “You need the cash to make those payments,” he tells us. That hard-won lesson reshaped how Wissig approached finance from that day forward: plan ahead, balance ambition with liquidity, and bring the wider leader
1140: The EQ Playbook for Post-Merger Reality | Niels Boon, CFO, Cint
The moment that stayed with him began at a marketplace where sales dashboards showed 40% gross margin—yet finance closed the books at 20%, Boon tells us. The gap, he discovered, lived in the shadows: rebates, discounts, and “free” services that never touched operational metrics. He manually traced economics to the client level and found margins many considered healthy were thin—or n
Bridging Legal & Finance: Closing Contact Risk Gaps - A Suite Voices Miniseries Episode
In this special episode of CFO Thought Leader—the first of three produced in collaboration with The Suite, Shaun Sethna (General Counsel and GM for the L Suite) maps where CFOs and GCs misjudge contract risk and how to collaborate effectively. He spotlights “locked-in” deals that still enable termination via vague clauses or missing notice-and-cure. Start with strategy alignment, then cross-train
1139: The Global Lens of Finance Leadership | Atsushi Kitamura, CFO, Astellas Pharma
When Procter & Gamble asked Atsushi Kitamura to move from finance analysis into running a manufacturing plant, he didn’t hesitate. “They always give me next challenge to stretch me,” he tells us. Managing one of P&G’s large diaper plants in Japan forced him to apply finance in real-time operations—a proving ground that shaped his comfort with change and appetite for transformation.That rea
1138: Stablecoins, Real Utility, and the Next Curve | Michael Levine, CFO, Fireblocks
On a quiet afternoon in Punta Cana, Michael Levine sat alone on a stretch of white sand. The turquoise water and silence offered the perfect scene for rest—until he realized what was missing. “I didn’t have my phone and I didn’t have my laptop,” he tells us. “That’s what makes me happy… I love doing work from the beach.” It was there, after stepping down as Payoneer’s CFO, that Levine accepted a t
1137: Scaling Finance Across Borders | Amy Foo, CFO, Ignition
She starts with tape from the field, not the spreadsheet. Listening to enterprise sales calls, Amy Foo heard customers whose usage rose and fell with seasons. Fixed per-seat pricing “wasn’t quite hitting the mark,” she tells us, so she piloted a pooled-seat model that flexed monthly within an annual commitment—turning smaller clips into “one to five million” deals and lifting revenue “six to seven
1136: From Projects to Playbooks: Making Transformation Stick | Joe Custer, CFO, Intrado
When Joe Custer describes Intrado’s purpose, he begins with a story that traces back almost half a century. The company, he tells us, was born inside the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department when someone asked whether there might be a better way to connect a caller in distress with a first responder. “Turns out they were on to something,” he adds. Today that idea has scaled into a mission-critical
