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947: Finding Pathways to Innovation | Teresa Chia, CFO, Vertafore
Among the different career phases that Teresa Chia credits with having helped to advance her down the CFO path, there is little question that Phase 2 was the most formative. Still, how she came to enter this phase had little to do with career ambitions—or at least her own career ambitions. The second phase of…
Ep 28: How Planning Aces Are Made
This episode features insights and commentary from three finance leaders: CFO Michael Linford of Affirm, CFO Ana Chadwick of Pitney Bowse, and CFO Jason Leet of Zylo. Planning Ace's Cohost Jack Sweeney points out that all three of this episode's finance leaders have noteworthy M&A backgrounds, including Michael Linford's role as the first CFO after…
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945: Achieving a Management Rapport | Doug Lindroth, CFO, Tealium
Doug Lindroth tells us that he is not likely to forget the day that Google filed its S-1 registration statement simply because it was on the same one that semiconductor distributor Memec filed its own S-1. Back in June 2004, Lindroth was CFO of Memec when the firm’s management opted to file a registration statement…
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Finance Transformation, Metrics, Networking | Ana Chadwick, CFO, Pitney Bowes
944: Building Your Network | Ana M. Chadwick, CFO, Pitney Bowes
Back in 2020, the call that longtime General Electric veteran Ana Chadwick accepted from a recruiter would prove to be the one solicitation in a career’s worth of such outreaches that would ultimately result in an executive search fee. Still, while Chadwick would be a prize placement for any headhunter, it is clear that this…
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940: All the Moving Parts | Michael Linford, CFO, Affirm
For those executives residing inside the private equity and investment banking realms who aspire to someday occupy the CFO office, it’s not uncommon to seek out an “operator’s role”—one that allows recruiters “to check the box” and confidently present a leadership candidate (operations credentials intact) to a company’s management team or board members. “Inspect your…
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The Virtues of “Payback” | Ralph Leung, CFO, Achieve
939: Creating a Narrative for Growth | Ralph Leung, CFO, Achieve
When Ralph Leung relocated to Hong Kong from Morgan Stanley’s New York offices, he was a newlywed eager to energize the financial world as one of the bank’s senior deal makers for the Asia Pacific region. Four years later, when he accepted a call from a U. S. recruiter, he had been credited with having…
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936: Where the Puck Is Headed | Michelle Hook, CFO, Portillo’s
It was late 2020 when Michelle Hook ended 17 years of fruitful career-building at Domino's to accept a CFO appointment at fast casual restaurant chain Portillo’s. “The two things that I was looking for were to be passionate about a new brand and to feel a culture fit,” recalls Hook, who adds that she…
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935: Why People Are Finance’s X Factor | Derrek Gafford, CFO, TrueBlue
Not unlike that of many of his CFO peers, Derrek Gafford’s career path has been shaped in part by geography—specifically, by having its origins in a city that was at once home to a state college, the corporate headquarters of a marquee company, and a Big Four accounting office populated with new college grads. In…
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933: When Transparency Drives Profits | Charly Kevers, CFO, Carta
When Charly Kevers took his mentor’s advice and swapped a corporate development role at Hewlett-Packard for a tour of duty as a director of HP’s investor relations arm, he looked forward to tackling a variety of IR requisites, including crafting the messaging that follows a change at the top. Two years and four HP CEOs…
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