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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

45:50

1148: How Early Data Lessons Shaped Workday’s CFO AI...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/12/08

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 recurring anecdote; it’s the lens through which he still interprets complex systems today. That early

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51:59

1147: From Investor Lens to Operator Seat | Cristina...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/12/03

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 “aha moment”—realizing she was no longer outside the story but inside it, responsible for helping the team

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46:02

1146: Building a Finance Org That Thinks Before It...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/30

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 that was it,” he tells us. It left him thinking, “wait a minute… I’m not making any decisions anymore,” he

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56:15

Encore Episode: From Black Box to Control Tower |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/26

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. By implementing more than 15 “big rock” initiatives—tracked through monthly reviews—Flexport rapidly

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22:30

Inside the Driver’s Seat: Finance Leadership in the...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/23

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 Eric Loughmiller discusses turning massive transaction data into intelligence. Warren Henry Automotive CFO

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37:58

1145: Creative Capital, Tough Cuts, and the Power of...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/19

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% reduction in force and ultimately a 50% cut in the cost structure, followed, she tells us. But the

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55:03

1144: Rewiring Finance for AI, Data, and Business...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/16

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 with him—not only the need to anticipate every question, but the feeling of “how I was treated,” a

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35:21

Discipline at the Heart of Innovation - A Planning...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/15

In this episode ofPlanning Aces, we spotlight FP&A insights from three CFOs leading innovation with discipline:Chris Sands (InvoiceCloud),Steve Sutter (Celigo), andNiels 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, to piloting AI tools in small, staged experiments, these leaders treat innovation as a managed process. Our resident thought

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49:00

1143: Building a Transformation-Ready Finance...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/12

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.It was a familiar challenge. Across three decades and multiple industries, Anderson has made a career of

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53:28

1142: From Webcomics to Wall Street: Inside a...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/09

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 exercise, he tells us, forced him to “think independently” and learn how to guide a public company in deep

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43:27

1141: The Long Game of Resilient Finance Leadership |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/05

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 leadership team into that awareness.Before that turning point, Wissig had spent a decade in investment

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59:10

1140: The EQ Playbook for Post-Merger Reality | Niels...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/11/02

The moment that stayed with him began at a marketplace where sales dashboards showed40%gross margin—yet finance closed the books at20%, 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 nonexistent. One customer representing roughly30%of revenue delivered0%gross margin, Boon tells us.That scene explains his

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26:48

Bridging Legal & Finance: Closing Contact Risk Gaps -...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/31

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—mini finance for lawyers, mini legal for CFOs—and empower teams to escalate wisely. He urges adopting

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21:47

1139: The Global Lens of Finance Leadership | Atsushi...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/29

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 readiness carried him from consumer goods to logistics, restaurants, and electronics before arriving at

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54:45

1138: Stablecoins, Real Utility, and the Next Curve |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/26

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 truth about himself: he wasn’t ready to retire.Levine had spent 11 and a half years helping Payoneer

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57:16

1137: Scaling Finance Across Borders | Amy Foo, CFO,...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/22

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 times per customer,” she tells us.That instinct—to meet the customer where they are—threads through her

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59:52

1136: From Projects to Playbooks: Making...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/19

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 network touching roughly 90 percent of all 911 requests for assistance.Custer explains that Intrado “has

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42:24

1135: Where Strategy Meets Finance in the Ad-Tech...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/15

On his first day in investment banking, Clayton Kossl was “thrown right into the cauldron.” With few senior professionals in the small aerospace and defense group, junior bankers like him were expected to face company owners directly. “You had to understand the businesses inside and out,” he tells us. The experience forced him to blend analytical depth with the interpersonal agility needed to earn trust in every room.That mix of skills—numbers and nuance—became a through line in Kossl’s career. At

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37:00

1134: When Finance Becomes a Force for Influence |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/12

“InvoiceCloud is not just payments,” Chris Sands tells us. Sitting inside the company’s finance organization, he sees a platform built to change habits—helping businesses shift customers from paper invoices and mailed checks to fully digital transactions. The success metric, he adds, is simple: “Do more of their customers stop receiving paper invoices, stop mailing in checks, and do both of those things digitally?”That clear yardstick reflects how Sands thinks about growth. He describes a foundation

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33:51

AI's Early Returns - A Planning Aces Episode

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2025/10/10

In this episode of Planning Aces, host Jack Sweeney and resident thought leader Brett Knowles explore how finance leaders are approaching AI’s early returns—balancing efficiency, experimentation, and human judgment. CFO Craig Foster of Pax8 discusses how AI enablement is driving measurable productivity gains. CFO David Obstler of Datadog reflects on finding ROI amid rapid innovation and market demand. And CFO Ben Gammell of Brex shares why forecasting still requires human intuition despite

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1,134 results

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