Inside The Mentoring Round, Deanna Strable revisits some pivotal moments that reshaped Principal Financial Group’s strategic direction. A key decision was exiting certain underperforming businesses, a result of a comprehensive strategic review conducted in collaboration with the board. Strable emphasizes the importance of focusing on a combination of metrics rather than a singular financial figure, noting […]
The Mentoring Round | Salman Khan, CFO, Marathon Digital Holdings
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Salman Khan highlights the transformative strategy at Marathon Digital, shifting from renting data centers to acquiring operational capacity, driven by his experience in the heavy industry and M&A. He emphasizes the importance of articulating decisions methodically, especially when data is incomplete. Khan also discusses the similarities and differences between Bitcoin […]
1,027: Strategic Finance in the Digital Asset Industry: Lessons From a Bitcoin-Mining Leader | Salman Khan, CFO, Marathon Digital Holdings
When Salman Khan arrived in Dubai from the U.S. in the early 2000s, he was already a seasoned auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers, ready to narrow his focus to the oil and gas industry. If someone had told him then that he would one day be the CFO of the world’s largest bitcoin-mining company, he may have…
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The Mentoring Round | Tony Querciagrossa, CFO, Pinstripes
Inside The Mentoring Round, CFO Tony Querciagrossa discusses a strategic moment of insight he experienced earlier in his career at Medline Industries, where he collaborated with a commercial leader to address recruitment and organizational challenges, leading to the creation of the commercial finance function. Looking forward, CFO Querciagrossa identifies several key priorities for the upcoming […]
1,009: From GE Conference Rooms to Pinstripes Boardroom | Tony Querciagrossa, CFO, Pinstripes
Two-and-a-half years ago, CFO Tony Querciagrossa began a discussion with Dale Schwartz, founder of Pinstripes, that would eventually lead to Querciagrossa joining the experiential dining up-and-comer as CFO. Turn back the clock a little, and you would see that Pinstripes, aiming for a traditional IPO, had engaged Goldman Sachs to solidify its path toward benefiting…
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1,004: Beyond the Casino Floor: A CFO’s Ascent | Efraín Pérez Agosto, CFO, MGM National Harbor
Efraín Pérez Agosto began his career on the lively casino floors of Puerto Rico, where his fascination with the gaming industry was first sparked. Starting with a succession of jobs, he quickly showcased his analytical prowess and passion for numbers. In search of broader horizons, Agosto relocated to the U.S. when his casino owner set…
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SPECIAL EPISODE: Strategic Leadership in Data: Perspectives with Fatema El-Wakeel, PHD
Blending academic rigor with industry acumen- Fatema El-Wakeel, PHD has multiple professional lives inside the data strategy realm. Her multifaceted career encompasses roles at the University of Cambridge, where she imparts knowledge as a seasoned educator, and at Unilever, where she shapes strategic data initiatives. Fatema also lends her expertise as a non-executive director of the…
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998: Margins, Metrics, and Payments | Lawrence Herman, CFO, Dwolla
Lawrence Herman's path to becoming a CFO unfolded through a series of experiences that changed his understanding of the finance world, beginning with his initial role at Goldman Sachs. Here, in the crucible of intense market dynamics, Herman cut his teeth on complex financial models, where the rigor of long hours refined his capacity to…
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982: Blending Alcohol and E-commerce | Matt Wolf, CFO, DRINKS
Twelve years ago, when Matt Wolf was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, he likely would have been alarmed to learn that his future finance career would be largely impacted by drinking and driving. Such was his destiny, though, as after a 5-year stint with the investment bank in London and New York he began…
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947: Finding Pathways to Innovation | Teresa Chia, CFO, Vertafore
Among the different career phases that Teresa Chia credits with having helped to advance her down the CFO path, there is little question that Phase 2 was the most formative. Still, how she came to enter this phase had little to do with career ambitions—or at least her own career ambitions. The second phase of…
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