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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

48:20

2019: Building a Health Plan Around What People...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/10/04

When Tami Wilson-Ciranna joined Curative in April 2020, the assignment came with what now looks like a spectacularly optimistic assumption: three months.“I met with Fred on a Tuesday and I started on Thursday,” she recalls. Curative was helping respond to COVID-19, and Wilson-Ciranna—who had retired and become bored—figured she would help with the pandemic. Three months became three years. Curative ultimately administered 36 million COVID tests.Then came the harder question: What was phase

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48:45

1218: Why Pegasystems Is Betting on Work, Not Tokens...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/30

When Pegasystems began building its cloud business, the economics were hardly what investors would expect from a mature software company. Cloud gross margin was below 30%, recalls CFO and COO Ken Stillwell. The destination was roughly 80%. Getting there, however, required accepting that the path would not be straight.At one point, Pega deliberately stepped backward on margin to make investments needed to scale the operation. “It put us probably off our margin targets by a year or two,” Stillwell

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41:25

2017: A Sharper Portfolio, A Clearer Capital Story |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/27

For years, Middleby executives arriving at investor conferences faced a storytelling problem: 30 minutes wasn’t much time to explain three different businesses, each with its own brands, markets, investments, and stage of development.Today, CFO Brittany Cerwin has a different story to tell.Over the past 18 months, Middleby separated its food-processing business into a standalone public company and sold 51% of its residential kitchen business to private equity firm 26North. What remains is a more

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37:29

People and Places: The Geography of a CFO Career

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/23

CFO careers are often described through titles, companies, and accomplishments. But another force can quietly shape the journey: place.In this themed episode of CFO Thought Leader, five finance leaders reveal how geography influenced the opportunities they encountered, the relationships they built, and the choices they made.Mike Brower explains how Wyoming’s close-knit business community allowed relationships to carry him across industries and into new finance roles. Boston Red Sox CFO Tim Zue

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49:03

2016: Building the Operating System for Agentic...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/20

At Zapier, the rise of AI is changing more than the automation products customers build. It is reshaping how the company organizes, invests, prices its offerings, and thinks about its next stage of growth.COO and CFO Ryan Roccon describes Zapier’s emerging role as the place where AI-built work actually runs. As tools such as Claude, Cursor, and ChatGPT make it increasingly easy to build applications and agents, he sees a different challenge emerging: keeping those automations reliable, observable,

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28:10

When AI Changes the EPM Decision | David Den Boer,...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/18

AI is rapidly changing not only what finance technology can do, but how CFOs should think about the technology stack itself.In this bonus episode of CFO Thought Leader, David Den Boer, CEO of Column Five and Darwin Analytics, joins Jack Sweeney to explore how AI is reshaping enterprise performance management—and why finance leaders may need to rethink long-held assumptions about EPM platforms, data systems and analytics.Den Boer describes a market in which capabilities once associated with EPM are

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49:42

1215: Building Finance for the Long Game | Jessica...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/16

At Aledade, CFO Jessica Somers is helping finance navigate a business where investment decisions can take years to fully reveal their value.The technology-driven, physician-led company works with more than 3,000 primary care practices and touches more than 3.6 million patients, using data and technology to support proactive, preventive care. Its value-based model also creates an unusual finance challenge: connecting better patient outcomes with healthcare savings and, ultimately, financial

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56:46

1214: The CFO Checklist Keeps Growing | Jack Gordon,...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/13

For Jack Gordon, the CFO role at Harri increasingly extends beyond finance—and into the mechanics of how an AI-powered business scales.Harri, a workforce operating system focused on hospitality, has evolved from a point solution into a broader platform spanning talent acquisition, workforce management, and employee engagement. Gordon says the company’s opportunity rests partly on years of data accumulated across mission-critical workflows, an advantage that becomes increasingly important as AI

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54:11

1213: When Constructive Tension Yields Sharper...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/09

When Martin Uhrik compared the margins of two visual-effects brands at Technicolor, one appeared far more profitable than the other. Uhrik tells us the reported difference prompted him to investigate. One brand showed project results only to the direct-margin level, rather than revealing fully absorbed profitability.Uhrik says he asked the business-unit CEO why the company was not showing creatives “the true state of the business.” The response was resistance: management feared that exposing weaker

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36:57

1212: When Working Capital Rewrites the CFO Agenda |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/06

Shortly after Dan Barzily became CFO of Tipalti, a go-to-market transformation altered the company’s working-capital profile. One quarter later, Barzily tells us, the company missed its forecast across multiple parts of the P&L.The surprise reached back to a subject he had barely considered since his university accounting class. “It really hit me,” Barzily recalls. “I’m now the CFO, and I’m in charge of those things.”Until his appointment, Barzily says, he had never expected to become a CFO. He

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39:28

1211: Mission, Means, and the Will to Grow | Jonathan...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/09/02

Jonathan Ma recalls being at his parents’ home in Nebraska one Saturday when his Morgan Stanley boss called with advice: pursue an opportunity at Sutter Health. After nearly 15 years, the mentor believed the retiring treasurer’s position could be Ma’s next step.Ma tells us he had not considered the opportunity. Although he knew Sutter Health’s mission and some of its people, he says the call “planted” the seed. His mentor had seen something in him that he had not yet recognized.That moment echoed

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53:27

1210: The Best Trade May Be the One You Don’t Make |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/30

Six weeks before Lehman Brothers went under, Shiv Verma tells us, he joined a hedge fund as the world felt like it was falling apart. After building structured-credit and CLO models at J.P. Morgan from 2006 to 2008, Verma says he helped buy back assets originated at par for five cents on the dollar.A mentor there supplied a rule Verma still carries: “The best trade you ever make is often the trade you don’t make.”For Robinhood’s CFO, the line offers a double meaning—and a little fun. In the

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33:12

1209: Finding a Larger Voice in the Room | Ross...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/26

Ross Grainger remembers an early chapter of his career when finance was only one part of the job.After stepping outside a traditional finance path to own and operate a Mako auto-body franchise, Grainger tells us he learned what it meant to “act like an owner.” That sometimes meant cleaning toilets, learning to paint cars, welding, doing body work, handling customer service, and making outside sales calls. But the experience also taught him another lesson: even if a leader can do everything, “you

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46:12

1208: Quality, Trust, and Scale | Cal Brouilette,...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/23

Cal Brouilette recalls a sleepless night in Houston, speaking at 3 a.m. with someone from Blackstone about a purchase-and-sale agreement and transition-service agreements. It concerned a power-plant portfolio sale at Direct Energy, a Centrica subsidiary, that Brouilette places in 2013.According to Brouilette, the assignment arrived in late September, when the CEO wanted the portfolio sold and announced before year-end. That left at most 120 days. Brouilette says he was managing finance and

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47:33

1287: Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/19

Jamie Schroeder’s finance career began on the shop floor at Ford Motor Company. As part of Ford’s rotational development program, Schroeder tells us, he spent a month working in the paint shop at an assembly plant outside Cleveland. The experience was designed around “learning the business and getting your hands on the business” so that finance could become an informed partner to operations.That operating mindset followed Schroeder to Scotts Miracle-Gro, where unfamiliar assignments became a

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48:23

1206: The CFO as an Architect of Execution | Phil...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/16

At Timken, it was generally known that Phil Fracassa knew he would become CFO after the company separated its steel business. But first, he tells us, the board gave him a different assignment: lead the project management office and set both resulting companies up for success.The separation followed pressure from an activist investor and extensive board consideration of strategy, stakeholder impact, operating performance, capital allocation, risk, and long-term shareholder value, according to

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48:54

1205: Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts | Matt...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/12

Matt Ostrower remembers losing sleep over a decision that carried consequences for employees, lenders, and shareholders.At Site Centers, Ostrower tells us, the management team was confronting two challenges. Investor fears about the internet’s impact on retail real estate were depressing stock and bond valuations. Then Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, leaving a portfolio of company assets out of commission for months.The immediate pressure was to reopen properties and navigate the crisis. But

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41:20

1204: When Capital Conviction Matters More Than...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/09

Andrew Korn tracks growth first. EliseAI had surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue when he spoke with us, and Korn tells us the company had maintained year-over-year growth above 100% throughout his four and a half years there—“correlation, not causation,” he adds.That growth gives finance a clear assignment. According to Korn, EliseAI monitors gross margins and burn while ensuring its spending remains prudent and directed toward investments capable of moving the business forward.The

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42:51

1203: Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together |...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/05

In April 2020, Laura Miller stepped into her first CFO role at Pampered Chef. According to Miller, she was pregnant with her second child, working with a new CEO and joining an executive team that had never worked together in the building before the pandemic sent everyone home.Demand was anything but predictable. Miller tells us that Pampered Chef’s independent consultants could hold parties online while consumers, confined to their homes, purchased kitchen equipment and looked for ways to earn

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50:00

1202: Allocating Capital in an Age of AI | Samantha...

CFO THOUGHT LEADER ·

2026/08/02

In the early months of Francisco Partners, Samantha Greenberg sat in a room on folding chairs with the firm’s cofounders and one other colleague, planning the business.According to Greenberg, the private equity firm was pursuing an idea that many considered impossible in the late 1990s: executing leveraged buyouts of technology companies. Greenberg tells us she was drawn to the vision because it challenged the belief that technology businesses could not be predictable or capitalized with debt.During

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1,226 results

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