Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Naresh Bansal emphasizes the importance of flexibility and readiness to adapt to unforeseen changes in the business environment, illustrating this with his own experiences of sudden shifts in company strategy and market conditions. He discusses how his role shifted towards more strategic capital allocation, particularly in response to changing economic […]
The Mentoring Round | Anisha Sood, CFO, First Choice Health
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Anisha Sood emphasizes the importance of not looking for a single solution or metric to gauge success. Her approach involves building a comprehensive portfolio of indicators, inputs, and investments to support the overall strategy, suggesting a holistic view rather than a narrow focus. Mental Breaks and Physical Activity: Anisha finds […]
The Mentoring Round | Udit Tibrewal, CFO, Anomali
Inside The Mentoring Round, Anomali CFO Udit Tibrewal highlights the importance of using data to uncover underlying issues rather than relying on opinions, which can be subjective and potentially misleading. CFO Tibrewal uses an earlier career chapter to explain how flashy marketing campaigns were not translating into customer engagement or lead generation because they lacked […]
The Mentoring Round | Jeff Bray, CFO, Semperis
Inside The Mentoring Round, Semperis CFO Jeff Bray emphasizes the importance of concentrating investments on the best ideas rather than spreading resources too thinly. In his transition from an analyst to a portfolio manager, he shifted the strategy to focus on the top three to five investment ideas from each analyst, significantly enhancing portfolio performance. […]
The Mentoring Round | John McCauley, CFO, Calendly
Inside The Mentoring Round, Calendly CFO John McCauley advises startups to prioritize building their product and achieving market fit before heavily investing in a finance organization. He believes that early-stage startups should focus on creating and selling their product, as this is more crucial to their immediate success. He expresses a preference for entering companies […]
The Mentoring Round | Jeremy Johnson, CFO, Dayforce
Inside The Mentoring Round, Dayforce CFO Jeremy Johnson reflects back on his arrival inside the CFO office at SmartRecruiters, where Johnson was surprised to find that his role as CFO extended beyond traditional finance duties to include oversight of HR, privacy, and legal matters. Despite the initial surprise, he views his experience in managing diverse […]
The Mentoring Round | Bob Houghton, CFO, Pivot Bio
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Bob Houghton’s first investor relations role at General Mills highlights the importance of external representation and engagement with investors in shaping a finance leader’s career. Houghton’s observation that well-rounded experiences attract proactive recruitment efforts for CFO and other finance leadership roles illustrates the market value of a broad and diverse […]
The Mentoring Round | Jennifer Loo, CFO, Tala
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Jennifer Loo explains why the metric of customer lifetime value (CLV) is her core indicator of business performance, emphasizing the importance of delivering value to customers and understanding their engagement and commitment. Loo emphasizes the importance of finance professionals keeping their “heads up” — engaging beyond spreadsheets to understand broader […]
The Mentoring Round | Erin Sawyer, CFO, Certinia
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Erin Sawyer tell us when she recognized the necessity of adopting a holistic approach to operational processes. Rather than viewing each department’s systems and procedures in isolation, she saw the value in examining how each part of the process impacted others, highlighting the need for an integrated approach to drive […]
The Mentoring Round | Sarah Alper, CFO, Pactum AI
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Sarah Alper emphasizes the necessity of a collaborative approach to growth, underscoring that “Finance can’t just tell you what you need to do. It’s a conversation with the business on how to do that, on how to get there.” She explains how experiences at GE and UiPath have endowed her […]
The Mentoring Round | Bill Purcell, CFO, Billtrust
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Bob Purcell emphasizes the importance of having a comprehensive set of metrics and KPIs to effectively monitor and guide the company’s operations, akin to a pilot’s dashboard. CFO Purcell stresses the necessity of providing customers with exceptional experiences, enabling them to concentrate on their core business without concerns about back-office […]
The Mentoring Round | Aaron Alt, CFO, Cardinal Health
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Aaron Alt highlights Cardinal Health’s ongoing comprehensive review of its business portfolio, involving an assessment of healthcare trends, competitive strengths, and economic forecasts to determine the best ownership of assets. This process has led to strategic decisions about retaining, investing in, and potentially divesting certain business units to maximize shareholder […]