PODCAST · business
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
by 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 leadership paths across the enterprise and take inspired action.
Episodes
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1221: Rebuilding Bread Financial’s Capital Foundation—And What It Made Possible | Perry Beberman, CFO, Bread Financial
When Perry Beberman arrived at what is now Bread Financial, the company had a balance sheet problem. It was carrying too much leverage, had insufficient capital, and needed a more disciplined approach to funding its lending business. For a finance executive who had spent decades navigating…
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1220: At Hippo, Growth and Risk Work Together | Guy Zeltser, CFO, Hippo Insurance
In 2023, Hippo faced what CFO Guy Zeltser describes as perhaps the worst quarter in the insurance company’s history. The response was not to chase growth harder. Instead, leadership made a decision that would have seemed counterintuitive during the company’s earlier expansion: shrink part of the...
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The New Economics of Revenue | Sam Chung, Chief Customer Officer, Salesforce
How consumption models, AI, and rising complexity are reshaping the CFO mandate Revenue models are becoming more complex—and for finance leaders, the consequences extend well beyond how a company bills its customers. As businesses combine subscriptions, consumption-based pricing, and other…
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2019: Building a Health Plan Around What People Actually Do | Tami Wilson-Ciranna. CFO, Curative
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...
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1218: Why Pegasystems Is Betting on Work, Not Tokens | Ken Stillwell, CFO, Pegasystems
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...
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2017: A Sharper Portfolio, A Clearer Capital Story | Brittany Cerwin, CFO, Middleby Corporation
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...
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People and Places: The Geography of a CFO Career
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...
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2016: Building the Operating System for Agentic Automation | Ryan Roccon, CFO, Zapier
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...
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When AI Changes the EPM Decision | David Den Boer, CEO, Column5 Consulting
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…
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1215: Building Finance for the Long Game | Jessica Somers, CFO, Aledade
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...
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1214: The CFO Checklist Keeps Growing | Jack Gordon, CFO, Harri
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...
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1213: When Constructive Tension Yields Sharper Decisions | Martin Uhrik, CFO, Third Bridge
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...
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1212: When Working Capital Rewrites the CFO Agenda | Dan Barzily, CFO, Tipalti
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…
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1211: Mission, Means, and the Will to Grow | Jonathan Ma, CFO, Sutter Health
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...
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1210: The Best Trade May Be the One You Don’t Make | Shiv Verma, CFO, Robinhood
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...
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1209: Finding a Larger Voice in the Room | Ross Grainger, CFO, Nasuni
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...
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1208: Quality, Trust, and Scale | Cal Brouilette, CFO, Flatiron Health
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…
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1207: Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth | Jamie Schroeder, CFO, Premium Guard Inc.
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...
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1206: The CFO as an Architect of Execution | Phil Fracassa, CFO, Magna International
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...
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1205: Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts | Matt Ostrower, CFO, Link Logistics
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…
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1204: When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing | Andrew Korn, CFO, EliseAI
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...
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1203: Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together | Laura Miller, CFO, Strata Decision Technology
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…
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1202: Allocating Capital in an Age of AI | Samantha Greenberg, CFO, AlphaSense
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…
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The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash
What happens when a company has money—but its CFO cannot reach it? Over one extraordinary weekend, finance leaders found themselves confronting a threat few had anticipated: cash locked inside a failing bank, payroll approaching, and no certainty about what Monday would bring. This episode brings...
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1201: From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy | Gary Vecchiarelli, CFO, CleanSpark
In high school, Gary Vecchiarelli received day-old copies of Investor’s Business Daily from a business teacher. Stock prices still appeared in fractions, and the teacher told him that he would know he had made it when he rang the bell on Wall Street. Vecchiarelli tells us that the remark stayed...
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The Credibility Playbook: How CFOs Restore Belief
What does it take for a CFO to restore credibility? Every finance leader eventually encounters a defining moment when confidence has been shaken—whether by slowing growth, a financial crisis, or years of eroding investor trust. In those moments, success depends on more than financial expertise.…
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1200: When Finance Owns the Future | Mark Khavkin, CFO, Rula
Mark Khavkin often finds his best ideas somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge. The Rula CFO tells us that he bikes from San Francisco across the bridge and into Marin County—not to compete, but to clear his mind, enjoy the view, and stop for a latte in Sausalito. “A lot of times great ideas come...
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1199: The CFO’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t AI—It’s Leading Through It | John Kinzer (Interim CFO), OneStream
John Kinzer still remembers sitting in a closed meeting at MCI, presenting revenue results, when something unexpected caught his attention. It wasn’t the numbers he was reporting—it was the questions coming from the FP&A team. Listening to their discussion, he realized, “I also want to see that...
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1198: Building Long-Term Value Starts With Better Capital Allocation | Shane Hostetter, CFO, Chemours
When Shane Hostetter arrived at Chemours in 2024, he stepped into a company facing liquidity challenges while also pursuing important long-term growth opportunities. His goal was not to replace decades of institutional knowledge but to complement it. Chemours CEO Denise Dignam brought nearly…
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Inside the CFO Mindset Before the Deal
Three accomplished CFOs. Three candid conversations. One revealing look at how finance leaders think about acquisitions before the headlines ever appear. In this special CFO Thought Leader edition, we revisit conversations with Jonathan Carr, former CFO of Armis, James Redfern, CFO of Reltio, and...
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1197: The CFO Who Learned Finance by Owning Sales | Sinohe Terrero, CFO, Envoy
Sinohe Terrero still remembers the timing. He joined Envoy in January, only to see the workplace transformed just two months later as offices around the world shut down because of COVID. The company had been building products for offices, but suddenly, almost no one was going to the office…
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Inside the IPO: Three CFOs, Three Perspectives
Taking a Company Public: What CFOs Know What 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...
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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,...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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 leadership paths across the enterprise and take inspired action.
HOSTED BY
The Future of Finance is Listening
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does CFO THOUGHT LEADER have?
CFO THOUGHT LEADER currently has 1000 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is CFO THOUGHT LEADER about?
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...
How often does CFO THOUGHT LEADER release new episodes?
CFO THOUGHT LEADER releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 1000 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
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You can listen to CFO THOUGHT LEADER on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts CFO THOUGHT LEADER?
CFO THOUGHT LEADER is created and hosted by The Future of Finance is Listening.
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