CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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, she describes the firm as a […] The post 1192: Building Through Disruption | Christina Spade, CFO, Catalant appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 center of the company’s platform, Forlizzi tells us. Whether […] The post 1191: From Complexity to Clarity: Building Operational Maturity | David Forlizzi, CFO, Salsify appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 traditional finance path, Kunze gravitated toward […] The post 1190: Fixing What Growth Tries to Hide | Jaylene Kunze, LegitScript appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 CFO of AOL’s platforms business? Annicq’s reaction […] The post 1189: Why Finance Should Lead with “Yes, And” | Bruno Annicq, CFO, Wellhub appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 with engineers, and analyzing manufacturing economics. Then he […] The post 1188: Testing Assumptions Before Burning Capital | Kevin Hettrich, CFO, QuantumScape appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 to finance leadership did not […] The post 1187: Pattern Recognition: How CFOs See Around Corners | Alex Chun, CFO, NEOGOV appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 communication through content. At the time, Goldbruch was young enough […] The post 1186: Keeping the Applause in Check | Adam Goldbruch, CFO, DoorLoop appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 most software companies had experienced […] The post 1185: Scaling Smarter in the AI Era | Sarah Riley, CFO, dbt Labs appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 captures a defining pattern across Hasselman’s […] The post 1184: From Deal Sheets to Operating Seats | Rick Hasselman, CFO, Salesloft appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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. Years later, when the opportunity arose to […] The post 1183: Enter the Blockchain CFO Reshaping Capital Markets | Macrina Kgil, CFO, Figure appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

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 major financial commitment. But Mancl hesitated. Drawing […] The post 1182: From Cockpit Decisions to Capital Decisions | Andre Mancl, CFO, Nium appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

In the desert during military officer training, Yuval Atsmon entered one wrong number into a GPS device. Instead of reaching the intended destination, he and his team ended up in the wrong location, and the simulated mission failed. The mistake cost him the chance to finish at the top of his class, he tells us. […] The post 1181: What AI Means for the Future of Finance Leadership | Yuval Atsmon, CFO & Sr Partner, McKinsey & Company appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

Before his career became closely tied to middle-market businesses, Scott Thorell built his foundation in larger arenas. He began at Ernst & Young in New York, auditing financial services firms, then moved to Campbell Soup Company, where financial and operational audit assignments took him to Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, and locations across the United States, […] The post 1180: Where Finance Meets the Real World | Scott Thorell, CFO, Benetrends appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

In this special episode, we revisit a past conversation with Hilary Maxson and explore why her appointment as CFO of Oracle Corporation comes at such a consequential moment. As Oracle accelerates investments in AI infrastructure and cloud capacity, the finance role now extends well beyond stewardship into capital allocation, operational discipline, and long-term value creation. […] The post Special Episode: Why Oracle Chose Hilary Maxson Now appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

As a child in Austria, Thomas Baumgartner bundled unwanted toys into mystery bags and sold them to classmates. Buyers could not see what was inside—they simply paid and took their chances. He cleared out old toys and earned spending money, he tells us. The story is lighthearted, but it reveals something enduring: an instinct to […] The post 1179: Why Trust Can Outperform Price | Thomas Baumgartner, CFO, voestalpine Metsec appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

David Larson still recalls the moment he challenged conventional thinking inside Thomson Reuters. A shared services team in Hyderabad, long viewed as transactional, held untapped potential. Rather than accept the status quo, Larson pushed to integrate the team into the broader finance function—despite resistance tied to time zones and skepticism. The effort required planning, persuasion, […] The post 1178: From Numbers to Narrative: Seeing the Business End-to-End | David Larson, CFO, Feedzai appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

In this special third installment of Suite Voices, featuring general counsels from The L Suite, Laura Belmont explores how organizations can adopt AI responsibly while balancing speed with strategic direction. Building on insights from earlier episodes, she emphasizes that AI success depends on aligning usage with business goals and governance frameworksnot just rapid deployment. Belmont highlights early risks such as “shadow AI” and underscores the importance of CFO/GC collaboration in evaluating financial and legal exposure. She also stresses continuous training and vendor scrutiny, while looking ahead to a future where GCs act as systems architects embedding accountability into AI-driven decision-making. Three Key Takeaways The post Why AI Speed Without Direction Is a Strategic Risk | Laura Belmont, General Counsel, The L Suite appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.

Tom DiDesidero describes a period when SmartRecruiters was actively taking customers from a much larger competitor. It wasn’t just momentum—it was proof. “We were stealing a lot of their customers,” DiDesidero tells us, describing how that traction became a defining signal of value. At the same time, SmartRecruiters was moving quickly on a new front. […] The post 1177: Navigating an Acquisition at the Edge of Change | Tom DiDesidero, CFO, SmartRecruiters appeared first on CFO THOUGHT LEADER.