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PODCAST

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

The Future of Finance is Listening

CFO THOUGHT LEADER is a podcast featuring firsthand accounts of finance leaders who are driving change within their organizations. We share the career journey of our spotlighted CFO guest: What do they struggle with? How do they persevere? What makes them successful CFOs? CFO THOUGHT LEADER is all about inspiring finance professionals to take a leadership leap. We know that by hearing about the successes — (and yes, also the failures) — of others, today’s CFOs can more confidently chart their own

business careers

All Episodes

39:37

1106: Scaling Smarter: Inside the Finance Revenue...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/15

During his decade at Google, Tim Ritters worked at the intersection of product and finance, helping to launch financial systems in collaboration with engineering, marketing, and product teams. The role gave him early exposure to cross-functional work and large-scale data environments. “Day one, you’re working cross-functionally,” Ritters tells us. He adds that this mindset became foundational to his approach going forward.When Ritters joined Gong in 2019, he says the company had already begun

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47:40

1105: The Steady Climb: Scaling with Purpose in...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/11

It’s no scret CFOs frequently exit soon after a major acquisition—especially when a larger enterprise takes the reins. But Rene Ho stayed.Ho had been CFO of Taulia, a working capital fintech, when it was still an independent company. After helping lead the firm through its acquisition by SAP, he chose to stay on, guiding the company through integration while preserving what made Taulia unique.It’s a reality Ho doesn’t resist—instead, he works to make those connections scalable. That mindset reflects

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38:23

1104: Navigating Cardinal Health’s Growth Journey |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/08

As Cardinal Health nears its second anniversary since the company’s first investor day under CFO Aaron Alt’s leadership, steady progress has been made in its ambitious transformation. Alt reflects on the company’s trajectory since his appointment, saying, “We’ve deployed several billion dollars in acquisitions to drive our strategy.” This shift highlights the company’s focus on specialty distribution and related services—areas Alt tells us offer higher margins and greater growth potential than the

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44:10

Redefining Efficiency: The Three Dimensions of AI ROI...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/06

In this episode of Planning Aces, co-hosts Jack Sweeney and Brett Knowles spotlight the FP&A strategies and AI adoption journeys of three CFOs—Gillian Munson (Vimeo), Dan Fletcher (Planful), and Chad Gold (FullStory). Each finance leader discusses how AI is reshaping their planning processes, from accelerating automation and revenue generation to transforming cross-functional collaboration. Brett introduces a framework for evaluating AI ROI across three dimensions: operating cost reduction, risk

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58:26

1103: Turning Anomalies into Advantage | Matthias...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/04

When Matthias Steinberg entered the CFO office at MindBridge in 2022, the audit files displayed on his laptop were already being processed by the company’s own AI. KPMG, he adds, was using the same platform to automate journal‑entry testing—work “traditionally done manual.” That shift marked “a big step toward continuous audit,” Steinberg tells us.The platform, he explains, monitors “all relevant financial flows” for two audiences. External audit firms—including “a number of the top 100 in North

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48:21

1102: Navigating Growth and Risk in a Member-Driven...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/06/01

When Andrea Hecht walks into a finance meeting, she’s not preparing for earnings calls or shareholder Q&A. Instead, her focus is inward—on aligning every financial decision with a mission that begins and ends with AAA members.CSAA Insurance, where Hecht serves as CFO, operates in 23 states and the District of Columbia. It’s not publicly traded. “We’re technically owned by our policyholders,” Hecht tells us, noting that CSAA distributes almost exclusively through AAA clubs to AAA members.That

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59:32

1101: Turning Home Equity into a Platform, Not a...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/28

When Tom Egan walks a homeowner through the math—“If your house is worth a million dollars and you owe five hundred thousand,” he says—the traditional options surface quickly: load the balance sheet with a costly home‑equity loan or sell and hope you can find somewhere new to live. That binary choice, he explains, is exactly what Hometap set out to upend. The company’s flagship home‑equity investment lets owners “access the liquidity in their home without having to sell or take on debt,” Egan tells

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50:22

1100: Lines, Not Dots: Turning Optionality into...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/25

Imagine an accounts‑receivable clerk clicking through four different systems just to finish one routine task. Chad Gold sees that bottleneck instantly. Fullstory’s newly launched Workforce product maps every mouse‑stroke of such employee journeys, then surfaces friction points so companies can “make them more productive, so they can do even more value‑added things,” Gold tells us.The scene encapsulates the finance leader’s thesis: data depth wins. “The companies that have the capabilities to capture

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54:43

ON LOCATION: AI on the Frontlines - Live Insights...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/23

Broadcasting from Planful’s Perform 25 conference in Miami, CFO Thought Leader presents frontline finance insights in an on‑location special. CEO Grant Halloran rejects the narrative that generative AI replaces people; instead he calls it the only viable antidote to a looming three‑million‑professional accounting shortage and collapsing CPA pipeline. Halloran outlines a 30‑second, company‑wide forecasting experience that lifts productivity without swelling headcount. CFO Dan Fletcher echoes the

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53:33

1099: Turning Back‑Office Data into Front‑Line...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/21

When a restaurant’s weekly salmon order suddenly spikes in price, Emma Whelan wants chefs adjusting menus the next morning—not tallying losses a month later. “The system will alert them if the price of salmon (has) gone up unexpectedly,” she tells us, describing MarginEdge’s real‑time cost engine. It is a small but telling vignette from Whelan’s first months as CFO, and it captures the company’s wider ambition: “MarginEdge wants to create a world where restaurant operators can focus on great food

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01:04:18

1098: Pandemic Rollercoaster Veteran Champions...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/18

When Peloton’s stock debuted in 2019, CFO Jill Woodworth believed the playbook was air‑tight. She had shifted fiscal calendars, re‑segmented reporting and shaped statements that “tell a story,” she tells us. Then COVID hit. Orders “flew nine‑fold overnight,” marketing was switched off, and customer focus narrowed to a single metric: getting bikes from order to doorstep. Wait times ballooned to “four or five months,” but earlier bets—a vertically integrated Taiwanese factory and Peloton‑owned

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41:52

1097: The Mutual Advantage in a Cyclical Market |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/14

For nearly ten years, Kevin Ingram knocked on S&P’s door, arguing that FM’s A‑plus rating undervalued its balance sheet. Other rating agencies, such as Fitch, had rated FM at AA. Each visit, Ingram presented fresh numbers; each time, the agency hesitated, wary of making a change. Last summer, six months after FM dropped “Global” from its name, S&P finally moved, lifting the insurer to AA‑minus—a vindication of sorts.Along the way, Ingram amplified his philosophy that “capital is our

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49:23

1096: Why Usage Beats Revenue in Video SaaS | Gillian...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/11

When Gillian Munson pictures a Vimeo customer, she doesn’t start with a filmmaker, she imagines an insurance company or a corner grocery store owner uploading a training clip into Vimeo’s ever thirsty player, and hitting publish without ever surrendering control—or ad space—to a third‑party network. That simple embed workflow, she tells us, explains why “eight of the ten largest healthcare companies” and a widening roster of retailers, insurers and media giants now trust Vimeo to keep their footage

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42:39

Built for Turbulence: Finance Planning in Motion - A...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/09

This Planning Aces episode explores how finance leaders navigate volatility without drifting into political cross‑currents like tariffs. Prologis CFO Tim Arndt explains why e‑commerce triples warehouse demand and how real‑estate strategies must adapt. Genworth CFO Jerome Upton shows how disciplined leverage and balanced product exposure turn rate uncertainty into opportunity while guarding against inflationary claim spikes. Flexport CFO Stuart Leung reveals the weekly two‑hour operating cadence and

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47:23

1095: Turning Volatility into Cross‑Border...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/07

Bea Ordonez still recalls the whirlwind of her first CFO post: a raw fintech start‑up where, in two short years, she recruited “over a hundred people,” built the processes they would follow and decided what kind of culture would bind them, she tells us. Immersing herself in every workflow taught her that finance leadership begins on the frontline—listening, questioning, then turning messy reality into structure.That builder’s reflex shapes her playbook at Payoneer today. After a decade as a global

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41:53

1094: Mapping Revenue Levers for Next‑Gen Data...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/05/04

Back in the 1990s, Dilip Upmanyu sat in a room filled with servers as he pieced together a homegrown database of costs and SKUs. His employer at the time couldn’t tell which products paid the bills; by dawn, the young financial analyst could. That improvised profitability model, he tells us, still informs his investment mindset today.Upmanyu never mistook rows of numbers for the whole story. Later joining IBM, he moved from product analytics to revenue accounting in a single year, then volunteered

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35:30

1093: Anime Economics: Serving Fans, Driving Returns...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/04/30

A decade ago, Travis Page was hauling gear off a tour bus, criss-crossing the country with indie bands. One late night, sweat-soaked and exhausted, he noticed fans waiting in the rain simply to glimpse their favourite artist.Passion like that ought to power a business, he thought. That backstage epiphany still guides him as CFO of Crunchyroll, the world’s largest anime platform.After the music industry’s 2007 crash, Page hit reset—trading road cases for a Wharton MBA and, soon after, a seat at

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47:20

1092: Balancing Mission, Margin, and Market Share |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/04/27

It was Friday the 13th in March of 2020, and Steven Miller was staring at a suddenly irrelevant budget. Hours earlier Warby Parker had shuttered every one of its 280 stores to protect employees and customers. “Remember that plan we just approved?” he asked the leadership team. “Forget it.” In its place he introduced PAR—Pause, Adjust, Redeploy—a framework that let finance review cash daily, pivot marketing dollars to booming e-commerce, and preserve innovation spend while the world locked down. The

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38:50

1091: Making Finance the Force Multiplier | Chris...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/04/23

It was a morning commute Chris Greiner had made hundreds of times before. Living in old Shanghai and working in the city’s sleek business district, Greiner’s daily drive to the Jin Mao Tower often stretched well beyond an hour. But on this particular day, his driver told him they’d arrive in just 30 minutes. Puzzled but intrigued, Greiner went along—only to discover the traffic patterns had shifted. “They repainted the lines,” the driver told him with a grin. The same bridge, same road—just used

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46:32

1090: Broadening the Field: Turning Risk into Reach |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/04/20

JeromeUpton still remembers the silence that descends just before a game begins. As captain of his college team, he’d scan the huddle, gauge nerves, and ask, “What does winning look like today?”“That’s where I learned the power of shared goals,”Upton tells us. Years later, the Genworth Financial CFO opens staff meetings similarly—then hands teammates room to execute.The first bold play of his career came soon after graduation. At a small insurer, Upton stunned mentors by jumping to KPMG.“I needed

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1,119 results

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