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1128: Capital Discipline in a Usage-Based World | Ben Gammell, President & CFO, Brex

In 2018, Brex made a defining decision: rather than rely on middleware providers like Stripe or Marqeta, it built its own payments infrastructure from the ground up. That move, Ben Gammell tells us, gave the company a direct integration with MasterCard and the ability to issue corporate cards in “over 50 plus local currencies.” The…
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1127: Lean Finance in a Volatile World | Damon Lee, CFO, C.H. Robinson

When Damon Lee reflects on his first conversations with C.H. Robinson’s CEO, he recalls how natural the alignment felt. “We spoke the same language. We were finishing each other’s sentences,” Lee tells us. For a finance leader whose ambition had long been to step into the CFO chair, the clarity of vision he encountered at…
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1126: Turning Signals into Strategy in Hypergrowth | Holly Grey, CFO Horizon3.ai

When Holly Grey first examined Horizon3.ai, she saw more than a cybersecurity startup. She saw a technology that could change the way companies safeguard themselves. Traditional pen tests, she tells us, are human-driven, vary widely by auditor, and usually happen just once a year. Horizon3.ai, by contrast, “started out as a technology alternative to pen…
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1125: Finance Lessons in the AI Era | Jay Peir, CFO, Pigment

At 30, Jay Peir stepped into the CFO role at SunPower, a high-efficiency solar cell manufacturer. The appointment came after leading M&A and venture investments at Cypress Semiconductor, where SunPower was the largest portfolio company. “I had my first CFO experience at the age of 30,” Peir tells us, recalling how corporate development responsibilities opened…
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1124: Rewiring the Marketplace for the AI Era | Craig Foster, CFO, Pax8

When Craig Foster talks about artificial intelligence, he begins with scale. Pax8, the enterprise marketplace where he serves as CFO, connects vendors like Microsoft and CrowdStrike with 43,000 managed service providers. Those MSPs, he tells us, serve between 700,000 and 800,000 small and midsize businesses worldwide. Against that backdrop, Foster describes how AI is reshaping…
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1123: From Accounting Rigor to Strategic Leadership | Jim Rogers, CFO Tempus AI

The pivot began when Jim Rogers raised his hand. Groupon was shifting from mobile daily deals to a goods business in Europe, and—still early in his career—he volunteered to help lead the finance work. That step, he tells us, bridged his path from technical accounting into FP&A and set a pattern: seek out the build…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:38:16)
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Ep 48: Finance Leaders Decode AI’s Promise

In Episode 48 of Planning Aces, three seasoned CFOs share how AI is transforming FP&A into a strategic lever for value creation. Andrew Casey of Amplitude highlights how AI agents are democratizing analytics, enabling faster workflows and autonomous decision-making. Eric Brown of Cohesity compares today’s AI wave to past tech revolutions, underscoring the immense capital […]

1122: Capital Allocation as a CFO’s North Star | Chris Miorin, CFO, apexanalytix

Chris Miorin’s path to the CFO office began in a crucible of leadership. At West Point, and later at Ranger School, he was forged in environments designed to test resolve. Commissioned shortly after 9/11, he knew combat was certain. Leading an infantry platoon in Iraq, he found himself working side-by-side with a colonel “30 years…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:44:47)
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1121: Agility Through Scenario-Driven Finance | Ademir Sarcevic, CFO, Standex International

During what he calls a “terrible soccer game” his son was playing, Ademir Sarcevic picked up a recruiter’s call that would change his career. The game was lopsided, but the timing was fortunate. Within months, Sarcevic was interviewing with Standex International’s leadership team. By 2019, he was CFO of the diversified manufacturer, helping guide a…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:46:32)
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1120: Navigating Growth, Crisis, and the AI Revolution | Eric Brown, CFO, Cohesity

Eric Brown vividly recalls his trial by fire at MicroStrategy. Joining a subsidiary, he expected to help deploy hundreds of millions from a planned secondary raise. Instead, “the parent company had a restatement…raised zero,” he tells us. Elevated to CFO, he faced layoffs of two-thirds of staff and operating margins at -40%. Over three years,…
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1119: Driving Mission-Driven Growth in the SaaS World | Matthew Hardy, CFO, Bonterra

When people Google Bonterra, they often see 2021 as its starting point. That year, lead investor Apax joined with Vista, holder of Social Solutions, and Insight Partners, holder of EveryAction, to unite those businesses under one brand. But, as Matthew Hardy tells us, the company’s history stretches much further back—“We have customers that are 20–25-year-old…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:48:40)
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1118: Partnering for Growth: Finance Meets Customer-Centricity | Andrew Casey, CFO, Amplitude

Andrew Casey remembers a moment when colleagues truly looked to finance for leadership. At ServiceNow, a then‑$400 million company with little go‑to‑market infrastructure, the team faced a long list of missing elements: no functioning comp plan, no partner ecosystem, and no clear strategy for scaling sales. “Whenever people said they didn’t know how,” Casey recalls, “I…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:51:52)
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