The CFO-COO Is Coming: Meredith Finn of Front on the Future of Finance

Front CFO & COO Meredith Finn joins CJ to explain why finance leaders are taking on more of the operator’s job. They break down the CFO-COO dual mandate, how Front funds new bets inside a mature SaaS business, why AI requires more coordination than simply handing everyone new tools, and how finance teams should think about the growing cost of AI.—SPONSORS:Brex is an intelligent finance platform with AI-powered workflows that enforce expense policies at the point of sale, match receipts automatically, and reduce month-end close from weeks to hours. Thousands of companies, including Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash, already run on Brex. Stop asking A-level finance talent to do B-level admin work. Learn more at https://www.brex.com/metricsAnrok is the sales tax platform that watches your exposure everywhere, automates compliance, and flags risk before it turns into a surprise back-tax letter from a state you've never set foot in. Companies like Anthropic, Notion, and Vanta already trust Anrok to stay ahead of rules that move faster than any spreadsheet can. Talk to a sales tax expert for a personalized exposure estimate at https://www.anrok.com/rtnRightRev is a revenue recognition platform built for the AI economy, helping finance support usage-based pricing, credits, hybrid contracts, seats plus consumption, and whatever commercial model comes next. It gives product teams the freedom to keep innovating without outdated revenue systems slowing them down. Learn how RightRev can help at https://rightrev.com/cjPulley is an equity management platform that lets you issue options, model dilution, and complete 409As without your cap table turning into a spreadsheet disaster. Founders raising, hiring, and scaling use Pulley to keep equity clean and stay focused on building. Learn more or request a demo at https://pulley.com/mostlymetricsRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjMaximor is an autonomous finance platform that runs order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, the close, cash management, and reporting on self-learning agents instead of a dozen disconnected tools. One PE-backed customer posts 98% of transactions directly to its ERP, with the remaining 2% routed to a human for review. You pay for outcomes, not seats. See it at https://www.maximor.ai/—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNGuest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithfinn1/Company: https://front.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Adam Swiecicki - CFO of Ripplinghttps://youtu.be/JyGJVpmZNacAurélien Nolf - CFO of Navanhttps://youtu.be/siwzJSRXAvY—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 The CFO/COO Dual Mandate1:45 Welcome to Run the Numbers2:52 Front's In-House Podcast Studio3:41 Meredith's Investment Thesis on Front7:21 The "Portfolio Career" Analogy8:35 What She Had to Unlearn as an Operator13:13 Books on Strategy vs. Execution16:17 When a CFO Should Also Be COO18:27 What the COO Hat Actually Covers20:20 Where the Two Roles Conflict25:42 Budgeting for AI Token Costs29:16 Using Internal Usage as a Benchmark35:40 Funding a Series A Bet Inside a Series D Company38:04 Sizing Bets: Core, Adjacent, Moonshot40:04 The Secret to Re-Accelerating Growth41:46 Going Deeper, Not Wider43:18 What the Pricing Overhaul Taught Her47:30 Why Customer P&L Matters50:11 Lightning Round Begins51:32 Advice to Her Younger Self52:33 Front's Finance Tool Stack53:21 Craziest Expense Ever#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFOLife #FinanceLeadership #AIinFinance #SaaSGrowth