CFO Eric Bouchard spent four years preparing Atrium Innovations for an exit, inside The Mentoring Round, Bouchard reflects on the transformation from a smaller organization to a more mature company capable of rewarding the company’s investors. Reflecting on his early days in the CFO role, CFO Bouchard emphasizes the importance of staying true to one’s […]
Ep 32: Operating IN and ON the Business
Planning Aces co-hosts Brett Knowles and Jack Sweeney discuss the strategic efforts of two CFOs leading organizational turnarounds, and a third CFO, who offers key organizational insights from an earlier career chapter. Emphasizing simplification, strategic focus, and leveraging both human insight and technology, Marc Suidan of The Beachbody Company, Emma Brown of Medius and David…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:46:55)
974: Crafting Strategy in a Data-Driven World | Eric Jenny, CFO, SOCi
It's the type of story that we can't resist repeating, and one that without question underscores Eric Jenny's entrepreneurial spirit. Still, the entertainment value of his tale of zapping wasp nests with a homemade rubber band gun for a dollar a pop was at risk of eclipsing the more traditional milestones that populate a career…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:44:16)
972: Recalibrating Your Strategic Lens | Rachel Stack, CFO, Cologix, Inc.
Not unlike that of many of her CFO peers, Rachel Stack's journey toward becoming a CFO has been punctuated by pivotal transactions. No single example of this turns out to have been more complicated or rich with lessons than what Stack refers to simply as "the take-private of Zayo." However, before the path forward for…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:42:47)
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…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:46:10)
950: Championing the Customer Transformation | Mark McCaffrey, CFO, GoDaddy
When 21-year PwC veteran Mark McCaffrey decided that it was time to open his post-PwC career, he briefed the firm’s U.S leadership about his plans, diligently outlined 24 months of departure prep, and set aside an extra helping of patience. Two weeks later, he had a CFO job offer from publicly traded Internet domain…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:51:16)
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…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:56:46)
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…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:59:42)
How a Price Volume Analysis Reversed a Margin Decline at Coleman | Dayton Kellenberger, CFO, Vendavo
CFO GUEST: Dayton Kellenberger of Vendavo
903: Making the Data Matter | Ryan Lockwood, CFO, CarParts.com
While April 2020 may forever bring to mind corporate corridors newly silenced by COVID 19’s arrival in the United States, CarParts.com CFO Ryan Lockwood will likely always remember it as the month when opportunity knocked. Having spent the previous 10 years in investment management, Lockwood, a portfolio manager for a Southern California investment house, was…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:47:56)
The Path to Unlocking Gross Margin Points | Dayton Kellenberger, CFO, Vendavo
CFO GUEST: Dayton Kellenberger, CFO, Vendavo Kellenberger: I think there’s a couple that that come to mind. I mean, I think the first piece is overarchingly. We want to make sure that we’re focusing the business on the key metrics that matter. And so we shifted how we do our monthly business unit reviews. So […]