What's Rarely Measured Matters Most

finance transformation

1287: Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth | Jamie Schroeder, CFO, Premium Guard Inc.

Jamie Schroeder’s finance career began on the shop floor at Ford Motor Company. As part of Ford’s rotational development program, Schroeder tells us, he spent a month working in the paint shop at an assembly plant outside Cleveland. The experience was designed around “learning the business and getting your hands on the business” so that…
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1206: The CFO as an Architect of Execution | Phil Fracassa, CFO, Magna International

At Timken, it was generally known that Phil Fracassa knew he would become CFO after the company separated its steel business. But first, he tells us, the board gave him a different assignment: lead the project management office and set both resulting companies up for success. The separation followed pressure from an activist investor and…
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1205: Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts | Matt Ostrower, CFO, Link Logistics

Earlier in his career, Matt Ostrower remembers losing sleep over a decision that carried consequences for employees, lenders, and shareholders. At Site Centers, Ostrower tells us, the management team was confronting two challenges. Investor fears about the internet’s impact on retail real estate were depressing stock and bond valuations. Then Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico,…
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1204: When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing | Andrew Korn, CFO, EliseAI

Andrew Korn tracks growth first. EliseAI had surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue when he spoke with us, and Korn tells us the company had maintained year-over-year growth above 100% throughout his four and a half years there—“correlation, not causation,” he adds. That growth gives finance a clear assignment. According to Korn, EliseAI monitors…
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1203: Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together | Laura Miller, CFO, Strata Decision Technology

In April 2020, Laura Miller stepped into her first CFO role at Pampered Chef. According to Miller, she was pregnant with her second child, working with a new CEO and joining an executive team that had never worked together in the building before the pandemic sent everyone home. Demand was anything but predictable. Miller tells…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:42:51)
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1202: Allocating Capital in an Age of AI | Samantha Greenberg, CFO, AlphaSense

In the early months of Francisco Partners, Samantha Greenberg sat in a room on folding chairs with the firm’s cofounders and one other colleague, planning the business. According to Greenberg, the private equity firm was pursuing an idea that many considered impossible in the late 1990s: executing leveraged buyouts of technology companies. Greenberg tells us…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:50:23)
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1201: From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy | Gary Vecchiarelli, CFO, CleanSpark

In high school, Gary Vecchiarelli received day-old copies of Investor’s Business Daily from a business teacher. Stock prices still appeared in fractions, and the teacher told him that he would know he had made it when he rang the bell on Wall Street. Vecchiarelli tells us that the remark stayed with him for decades. He…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:58:09)
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1200: When Finance Owns the Future | Mark Khavkin, CFO, Rula

Mark Khavkin often finds his best ideas somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge. The Rula CFO tells us that he bikes from San Francisco across the bridge and into Marin County—not to compete, but to clear his mind, enjoy the view, and stop for a latte in Sausalito. “A lot of times great ideas come…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:39:39)
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1199: The CFO’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t AI—It’s Leading Through It | John Kinzer (Interim CFO), OneStream

John Kinzer still remembers sitting in a closed meeting at MCI, presenting revenue results, when something unexpected caught his attention. It wasn't the numbers he was reporting—it was the questions coming from the FP&A team. Listening to their discussion, he realized, "I also want to see that side of it," Kinzer tells us. That moment…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:41:07)
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1198: Building Long-Term Value Starts With Better Capital Allocation | Shane Hostetter, CFO, Chemours

When Shane Hostetter arrived at Chemours in 2024, he stepped into a company facing liquidity challenges while also pursuing important long-term growth opportunities. His goal was not to replace decades of institutional knowledge but to complement it. Chemours CEO Denise Dignam brought nearly forty years of experience with DuPont and Chemours, while Hostetter brought an…
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1197: The CFO Who Learned Finance by Owning Sales | Sinohe Terrero, CFO, Envoy

Sinohe Terrero still remembers the timing. He joined Envoy in January, only to see the workplace transformed just two months later as offices around the world shut down because of COVID. The company had been building products for offices, but suddenly, almost no one was going to the office, Terrero tells us. That abrupt shift…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:45:27)
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1196: Your Next Finance Hire Should Think Like a Founder | Martino Cadoni, CFO, DeepL

When Martino Cadoni joined DeepL, he arrived with an unusual perspective—he already knew the company's product firsthand. Earlier in his career at Klarna, he had helped introduce DeepL as a translation solution, making the transition from customer to CFO especially meaningful. Today, DeepL is backed by investors including HV Capital, Benchmark, Index Ventures, ICONIQ, and…
Listen to the Episode Below (0:52:34)
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