Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Tucker Marshall of The J.M. Smucker Company stresses the role of company culture in career choices and corporate strategy. His long-standing admiration for Smucker’s community involvement influenced his decision to join and stay with the company.
The Mentoring Round | Jason Godley, CFO, Xactly
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Jason Godley emphasizes the importance of identifying and focusing on a few critical KPIs that can significantly influence the business’s trajectory. CFO Godley aims to transform CFO-speak into actionable insights that resonate with various stakeholders within the company, thereby making financial goals and achievements relevant and comprehensible across all levels […]
The Mentoring Round | Lawrence Herman, CFO, Dwolla
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Lawrence Herman reflects on his experience during the “Bitcoin winter” when he advised against the popular opinion to sell off assets. He advocated for buying more Bitcoin as a strategy to preserve and potentially increase the company’s financial health during a market downturn. At Dwolla, Herman’s priorities include optimizing cash […]
The Mentoring Round | Daniel Bisgeier, CFO, Constellation
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Daniel Bisgeier highlights that the process of defining and refining KPIs is iterative, reflecting changes in the business environment and internal company goals. This adaptive approach ensures that the company remains aligned with its most critical success factors over time. Bisgeier discusses the innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI) within […]
The Mentoring Round | Aaron Levine, CFO, Prophix
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Aaron Levine explains how he views AI as a supportive tool rather than a replacement for human jobs. He champions AI’s role in augmenting the capabilities of finance professionals, through tools like the AI-driven ‘report insights’ feature in Prophix’ platform. Levine emphasizes the critical importance of system and team integration […]
The Mentoring Round | Dan Murphy, CFO, Commercetools
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Dan Murphy emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying factors behind key metrics such as net dollar retention. This involves analyzing why certain customers are buying more and why others aren’t, which can reveal insights into product or service improvements.Looking ahead, his priorities include maintaining rigorous execution, structuring the organization […]
The Mentoring Round | Naresh Bansal, CFO, Menlo Security
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 […]