This article originally appeared on Forbes.com CFOs often build their careers within a specific industry, leveraging their accumulated expertise to navigate complexities and add value over time. This steady climb enables finance leaders to deepen their understanding of industry-specific regulations, operations, and customer behavior. However, a daring segment of CFOs seeks opportunities beyond familiar territory, […]
Understanding Your Customer From the Inside Out | Jason Quinn, CFO, Vendr
CFO GUEST: Jason Quinn of Vendr
857: The Other Tech Stack | Razzak Jallow, CFO, FloQast
Back in 2009, as businesses navigated the repercussions of Wall Street’s collapse, Razzak Jallow found himself standing at a departure gate with a boarding pass that read simply "SaaS." To be clear, Jallow had just nabbed a spot on Adobe Inc.’s Creative Suite finance team, and the journey on which he and his colleagues were…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:45:33)
Taking a Hard Look at Customer Acquisition Costs | Ryan Van Hatten, CFO, Prophix
772: Inside the M&A Quarry | Andy Watts, CFO, Brown & Brown
Asked to highlight his experience in mergers and acquisitions, Andy Watts doesn’t need to weigh and measure the many deals that he has helped to execute over his three-decade-long finance career. Instead, Watts quickly points to the 2000s, when, as CFO of a division of Thomson Reuters, he sold off businesses responsible for nearly half…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:46:19)
766: Making Decisions with the Customer in Mind | Cassandra Hudson, CFO, EngageSmart
Back in 2008, Cassandra Hudson was interviewing for a senior accounting role at a small tech firm in Boston when the CFO casually shared some “insight” into the company’s future. “The CEO really wants to take this company public, this is probably never going to happen—we’ll likely sell in the next couple of years,” Hudson…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:35:07)
755: Serving the Creators | Craig Foster, CFO, Picsart
During 2018, the very year Craig Foster joined Bright Machines, the San Francisco–based company had already been spun out from contract manufacturing firm Flex, raised a headline-grabbing $179 million in Series A funding, and shed its original moniker, AutoLab AI. By all accounts, the manufacturing start-up, which promised to use a combination of robots and…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:45:16)
752: Making Your Company More Valuable | Howard Wilson, CFO, PagerDuty
Among today’s career building finance pros who view the CFO office as their ultimate destination, Howard Wilson might be labeled an off-road commuter. Whereas most finance leaders have shared a common view as accounting and finance milestones fell away in their rearview mirror, Wilson entered the finance realm from the merge lane – where his…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:42:42)
743: Winning with Employee Success | Michael Rosen, CFO, Power Digital Marketing
"Be patient. It was in my nature to come into a company and try to make an impact as quickly as possible. Having worked with many companies, I have realized that it takes time to learn a company and its culture and that this is a component critical to making the right decisions." –Michael Rosen,…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:45:30)
739: The Rules of Play | Craig Abrahams, CFO & President, Playtika
"Being self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses and building a team to support you is what will determine your success in the role. Think like an investor thinks, it will help you spot trends before they become issues." - Playtika CFO & President Craig Abrahams It was after he had worked 3 years as an…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:40:55)
737: The Future Before Us | Chris Kuehn, CFO, Trane Technologies
"Keep up the work ethic and humor, and you've got more control over where you spend your time—with family, friends, work, volunteering—than you think." –CFO Chris Kuehn It was a complicated transaction that Ingersoll Rand’s then-CEO Mike Lamach challenged his finance and operations people to address by “turning over every rock in the company” to…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:41:29)
683: When It’s Time to Sit in the Driver’s Seat | Stéphane Berthier, CFO, Uniphore
When Stéphane Berthier joined Uniphore of Palo Alto, CA, as CFO this past January, the move no doubt raised more than a few Silicon Valley eyebrows. For more than two decades, Berthier had served a list of prestigious Bay Area tech companies as a top audit partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers, where his impressive tenure had originally…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:40:16)