In her first CFO role, Amanda Whalen revamped cost accounting, restructured sales incentives, and overhauled P&L reporting—driving a 10% profit increase in one year. The experience revealed finance’s power to align teams, influence decisions, and shape business outcomes—ultimately convincing her to pursue finance leadership as her long-term path. [ssp-player] Now Watch our Complete Episode Featuring […]
1110: When Leadership Mattered | Amanda Whalen, CFO, Klaviyo
Amanda Whalen’s first CFO role began with a question. “You’re not a finance technical person,” her company’s president told her, “but you’re the strongest leader on my team. Will you be willing to be the CFO and help me transform the finance function?” She accepted. Over the following year, Whalen tells us, her team tackled…
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1109: Building Finance Teams for Scale, Speed, and Smarts | Larry Roseman, CFO, Thumbtack
When the Silicon Valley Bank crisis erupted in early 2023, Larry Roseman was already well-acquainted with market upheaval. A member of the CFO class appointed around 2020—just as the pandemic began—Roseman had weathered previous storms. He began his career amid the dot-com collapse, then advanced through the 2008 financial crisis. “Scar tissue helps,” he tells…
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1108: Building Value in a Disrupted Industry | Kent Hoskins, CFO, Concord
Back in the early 2000s, when a recruiter lined up Kent Hoskins for a finance interview at Boosey & Hawkes, he came prepared to discuss guitar manufacturing. Instead, the executive immediately began quizzing him on music royalties—the recruiter had apparently misunderstood the brief. Hoskins didn’t get the job—at first. But two days later, he got…
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1106: Scaling Smarter: Inside the Finance Revenue Engine | Tim Ritters, CFO, Gong
During his decade at Google, Tim Ritters worked at the intersection of product and finance, helping to launch financial systems in collaboration with engineering, marketing, and product teams. The role gave him early exposure to cross-functional work and large-scale data environments. “Day one, you’re working cross-functionally,” Ritters tells us. He adds that this mindset became…
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From Anomalies To Financial Advantage | Matthias Steinberg, CFO, MindBridge
A Finance Strategic Moment Seeing poor collaboration with shared‑service finance teams, Steinberg realized relational capital drives strategic finance. He set up an office at the remote site, spent two days weekly with tax, accounting and compliance leads, listening and co‑solving issues. The strengthened partnerships lifted quality and helped to ready IONOS for a smooth IPO. Now […]
1103: Turning Anomalies into Advantage | Matthias Steinberg, CFO, MindBridge
When Matthias Steinberg entered the CFO office at MindBridge in 2022, the audit files displayed on his laptop were already being processed by the company’s own AI. KPMG, he adds, was using the same platform to automate journal‑entry testing—work “traditionally done manual.” That shift marked “a big step toward continuous audit,” Steinberg tells us. CFOTL: Tell us…
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1102: Navigating Growth and Risk in a Member-Driven Business | Andrea Hecht, CFO, CSAA Insurance Group
When Andrea Hecht walks into a finance meeting, she’s not preparing for earnings calls or shareholder Q&A. Instead, her focus is inward—on aligning every financial decision with a mission that begins and ends with AAA members. CSAA Insurance Group, where Hecht serves as CFO, operates in 23 states and the District of Columbia. It’s not…
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From Product To Ownership Ecosystem | Tom Egan, CFO, Hometap
A Finance Strategic Moment Amid 2020’s Covid uncertainty, Tom Egan drew on his Lehman‑era lesson that contracts follow relationships. He immediately called Hometap’s two banks, shared worst‑case projections and asked for covenant flexibility. The transparency earned rapid waivers, safeguarded liquidity and proved that trust, not paperwork, is the true collateral when markets fracture. Now Watch the […]
1101: Turning Home Equity into a Platform, Not a Product | Tom Egan, CFO, Hometap
When Tom Egan walks a homeowner through the math—“If your house is worth a million dollars and you owe five hundred thousand,” he says—the traditional options surface quickly: load the balance sheet with a costly home‑equity loan or sell and hope you can find somewhere new to live. That binary choice, he explains, is exactly what…
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Achieving Strategic Optionality Through Operational Rigor | Chad Gold, CFO, Fullstory
Sensing 2021’s frothy market, Gold ran a dual track—pursuing fresh capital while quietly courting strategic buyers. Years of relationship‑building and rigorous records paid off when Vista Equity acquired Salesloft, delivering liquidity without ceding control and validating his mantra that finance should anticipate peaks and “make the news.” Now Watch the Complete Episode with CFO Chad Gold […]
1100: Lines, Not Dots: Turning Optionality into Outcomes | Chad Gold, CFO, Fullstory
Imagine an accounts‑receivable clerk clicking through four different systems just to finish one routine task. Chad Gold sees that bottleneck instantly. Fullstory’s newly launched Workforce product maps every mouse‑stroke of such employee journeys, then surfaces friction points so companies can “make them more productive, so they can do even more value‑added things,” Gold tells us. CFOTL:…
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