A Finance Strategic Moment Seeing 65 finance staff siloed on three continents, Emma Whelan realized succession and scale were impossible. She collapsed the structure into one truly global team, cross‑training and centralizing every process. The painful year paid off: faster closes, zero attrition, soaring engagement, and worldwide talent sharing propelled sustainable growth. Now Watch the Complete […]
The Mentoring Round | Kabir Ahmed Shakir, CFO, Tata Communications
Inside The Mentoring Round CFO CFO Kabir Ahmed Shakir highlights the importance of business intimacy, functional skills, and diversity within his finance team.Additionally, he emphasizes the company’s focus on driving profitable, sustainable growth through margin expansion, operational efficiency, and strategic reinvestment. This approach has enabled Tata to fund acquisitions, such as Switch and Kalera, using […]
1,026: Partnering for Growth in the Age of AI | Kabir Ahmed Shakir, CFO, Tata Communications
According to CFO Kabir Ahmed Shakir, when AI giant Nvidia sought to expand its alliances in India, it knew exactly with whom to partner: "They did their homework, and they tapped on Tata Communications’ door.” This partnership, Shakir tells us, has proven to be but one of a number of alliances in Tata's journey toward…
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The Mentoring Round | Todd Patriacca, CFO, BVI Medical
Inside The Mentoring Round CFO Todd Patriacca emphasizes the strategic implementation of technology automation, focusing on areas that enhance efficiency and reduce internal costs. He advocates for leveraging automation to handle routine tasks, allowing teams to concentrate on strategic exceptions. Todd also champions Lean methodology, applying its principles of continuous improvement and waste elimination to […]
969: The Human Equation in Finance | Elizabeth Mann, CFO, Verisk
Elizabeth Mann began her career as a mathematician in academia, spending a decade in the field. Her initial plan had been to become a professor, on a path that would start with a Ph.D. and a postdoc. However, something was missing. Eager to engage more directly with the world at large, she pivoted her career…
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930: Where Leaders Are Made | Tony Boor, CFO, Blackbaud
While the leadership journeys of many of our CFO guests began on an upper floor of a glass-and-steel skyscraper affording a wide-angle view of a cosmopolitan metropolis, that of Blackbaud CFO Tony Boor started at street level in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. Less than an hour's drive north…
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926: Distinguishing the “What” from the “How” | Dallas Clement, President and CFO, Cox Enterprises
As listeners to our podcast well know, one of our favorite queries for finance executives who have had a lengthy tenure in one place is, "What kept you there?" It may go without saying that something with the word “opportunity” in it is perhaps the most popular response. Still, for certain finance leaders—and especially those…
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910: Getting in Close | Alex Triplett, CFO, Appfire
When Alex Triplett is asked to explain where and how he began acquiring his operations knowledge, he tells us that his ops focus began to sharpen as more and more roles demanded greater "specificity" of him. Back in 2006, Triplett had just completed a stint as an investment banker with Citigroup when he was hired…
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892: Understanding Your Customer From the Inside Out | Jason Quinn, CFO, Vendr
When Jason Quinn landed in Europe back in 2008, he was the youngest of five American finance executives being deployed by digital disrupter SMB printer Vistaprint of Boston, Mass. For the next 5 years, Quinn would be involved in a string of business acquisitions that would grow the digital printer’s European revenues from nothing to…
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889: Whetting Wall Street’s Tech Appetite | Ben Chrnelich, CFO, Symphony
When Ben Chrnelich tells us that the banking sector’s recent unrest is the third period of disruption that he’s “cycled through” during his finance career, we can’t help but wonder about the other two. Of course, they are hardly a secret. As did that of many of his CFO peers, Chrnelich’s early career appears to…
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855: Your Company’s Value Proposition | James Moylan, CFO, Ciena
Jim Moylan is perhaps our first CFO guest to list the leasing of oil rigs as one of the experiences that best prepared him for a CFO role. Of course, he makes it clear that the experience is worthy of mention not so much because of what he was selling but because he was selling…
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Manager Effectiveness is Now Post-Pandemic Priority | Bryan Morris, CFO, Demandbase
CFO Guest: Bryan Morris of Demandbase Episode: #840 Putting a Spin on Your Talent Pinwheel