Facing tighter capital and slower growth, Burt Chao led “shrink-to-grow” decisions—redirecting investment away from still-profitable product lines toward higher-ROI priorities. The shift required redefining asset allocation discipline while aligning stakeholders around long-term value creation in a constrained environment. Now Watch the Complete Episode Featuring CFO Burt Chao of Nintex In his first months at Nintex, […]
1160: Disciplined Bets in an Expensive-Capital World | Burt Chao, CFO, Nintex
As he nears the end of his first 100 days at Nintex, Burt Chao is doing something many new CFOs resist: listening more than talking. Understanding the business, its people, and its real growth potential comes before dashboards or directives, he tells us. Chao describes Nintex as a company with a “long and rich history”…
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The Power Behind Story-Driven Growth | David lee, CFO & COO, WEBTOON
During Best Buy’s Renew Blue turnaround, David Lee helped redirect over $1 billion in savings to reinvent stores as “omnichannel showrooms,” blending digital and in-store experiences. By aligning consumer insight with disciplined finance, the team defied predictions of retail decline—driving one of the fastest stock recoveries in the S&P 500. Now Watch the Complete Episode […]
Sequencing Growth For Scalable Outcomes | Erik Wissig, CFO, SureCo
Realizing his high-growth startup lacked the cash to fund earned bonuses, Erik Wissig shifted the leadership team toward long-horizon cash-flow planning. By aligning growth expectations with cash realities, he prevented future liquidity gaps and created a finance discipline that shaped SureCo’s scaling years. Now Watch our Complete Episode Featuring CFO Erik Wissig of SureCo Erik […]
1141: The Long Game of Resilient Finance Leadership | Erik Wissig, CFO, SureCo
When Erik Wissig recalls his early years as a founder, one moment still stands out. The team had met its growth goals and earned their bonuses—but the company’s cash flow hadn’t caught up. “You need the cash to make those payments,” he tells us. That hard-won lesson reshaped how Wissig approached finance from that day…
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1137: When Finance Leads With Curiosity | Amy Foo, CFO, Ignition
She starts with tape from the field, not the spreadsheet. Listening to enterprise sales calls, Amy Foo heard customers whose usage rose and fell with seasons. Fixed per-seat pricing “wasn’t quite hitting the mark,” she tells us, so she piloted a pooled-seat model that flexed monthly within an annual commitment—turning smaller clips into “one to…
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1136: From Projects to Playbooks: Making Transformation Stick | Joe Custer, CFO, Intrado
When Joe Custer describes Intrado’s purpose, he begins with a story that traces back almost half a century. The company, he tells us, was born inside the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department when someone asked whether there might be a better way to connect a caller in distress with a first responder. “Turns out they were…
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Scaling Finance for the Cloud-Native Era | David Obstler, CFO, Datadog
During post-COVID uncertainty, David Obstler spotted early signs of customer optimization and reprioritized Datadog’s investments. By pulling back selectively while sustaining rapid investment in key areas, he preserved profitability, avoided layoffs, and strengthened the company’s ability to reaccelerate growth—building long-term resilience without compromising culture. Now Watch the Complete Episode Featuring CFO David Obstler David Obstler […]
1130: Building Resilient Finance in Uncertain Times | David Obstler, CFO, Datadog
When David Obstler joined Datadog in 2018, the company’s co-founders had already built momentum with a product that observed modern cloud workloads. What struck Obstler was the alignment with a powerful long-term trend—the shift from legacy, on-premise systems to modern cloud applications. “It was a product that had a lot of product market fit in…
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Scaling Toward One Billion Goal | Laura LaPeer, CFO, UHY
Earlier in her career, Laura LaPeer reframed treasury and procurement from transactional functions into strategic levers—investing idle cash and aligning vendor decisions with business goals. The shift delivered tangible financial impact and taught her to zoom out, reassess timing, and connect everyday tasks to long-term strategic objectives. Now Watch our Complete Episode Featuring CFO Laura […]
1129: Turning Transactions into Strategy | Laura LaPeer, CFO, UHY
On her first day as CFO of UHY, Laura LaPeer asked a simple question: “Do you guys do Copilot?” She had grown accustomed to using Microsoft’s AI assistant for tasks ranging from summarizing documents to creating slides, and she wanted it in place immediately. The request, she tells us, reflected both her pragmatism and her…
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Building a Business with AI at the Core | Dan Zhang, CFO, ClickUp
At AppDynamics, Dan Zhang tackled a critical gap in sales predictability during a SaaS transformation by building an analytics stack and leading early-morning trainings. Her hands-on approach earned her Sales MVP—despite not being in sales—proving that finance can drive frontline impact and unlock strategic value across the business. Now Watch the Complete Episode Featuring CFO […]