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783: Making Your Career Investment | Sarah Spoja, CFO, Tipalti

It was 2018, and shortly after payables start-up Tipalti had raised its Series C funding round, Sara Spoja recalls, she sat down with Tipalti CEO and cofounder Chen Amit. Having spent the previous 8 years as a senior operating executive for private equity firm KKR Capstone, Spoja was known for asking C-suite management tough questions,…
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782: When Operations Came First | Lou Arcudi, CFO, Amolyt Pharma

To those well familiar with the career milestones that typically mark the path to the CFO office, Lou Arcudi’s resume at first may appear to be upside down. Or at least it could be said that the same operational projects and roles that frequently populate the tops of the resumes of aspiring CFOs are instead…
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781: The Frequent Flyer | Josh Siegel, CFO, CyberArk

If you were to casually meet CyberArk CFO Josh Siegel for the first time at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), you might quickly assume that he has spent the balance of his career-building years in nearby Silicon Valley. Certainly, on paper his resume lists the requisite number of finance job titles and entrepreneurial milestones that you…
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779: The Graduate | Casey Woo, CFO, Landing

Back in 2017, Casey Woo took a vow to move beyond early-stage companies. “What I like to tell people is that as an operator you will be characterized and judged by the stage of your businesses,” remarks Woo, who from 2011 to 2017 had served in a succession of finance leadership roles at a number…
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777: A CFO’s Unfinished Business | Isaac Ro, CFO, Sema4

After spending 16 years as an equity analyst (the last nine of which at Goldman Sachs), Isaac Ro could not escape the fact that he was busy and bored. The same work that had once challenged his every faculty had become more or less an exercise in pattern recognition. “Good management teams are good, and…
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771: Embracing Change | Brian Kinion, CFO, MX

Twenty-four hours after Brian Kinion’s first earnings call as the CFO of a publicly traded firm, his aspirations as a finance chief quickly became deflated as Vista Equity Partners made clear its intent to buy the company, a developer of marketing automation software known as Marketo. “Mine became a very different role than what I…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:41:56)
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770: When Founders Make a Difference | Nitesh Sharan, CFO, SoundHound, Inc.

Ride the tailwinds, and go straight at the headwinds with earnestness. - Nitesh Sharan, CFO, SoundHound, Inc. When Nitesh Sharan exited Hewlett-Packard after 15 years of diligent career-building, he assumed—like many seasoned finance executives have done—that his finance skill set would be applicable to just about any industry or company. However, Sharan recalls that when…
Listen to the Episode Below (00:55:06)
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769: Beyond the Boardroom | Herald Chen, CFO, AppLovin

When Herald Chen was growing up in a small town not far from Pittsburgh, he dreamed of someday running the town’s steel mill. Years later, when he was graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, the steel mill no longer occupied Chen’s maturing career aspirations. “My two job offers were to either go make soap for…
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767: On the Path to Being a $1 Billion Company | Bill Zerella, CFO, ACV Auctions

Bill Zerella’s path to the CFO office began at a company whose customers largely belonged to a bygone era. At the time, Simplicity Patterns was the largest pattern company in the world, and its most devout customers were sewing machine owners across the United States and Canada who enjoyed making clothes for themselves and their…
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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…
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765: Never Waste a Crisis | Jean Lavigueur, CFO, Coveo

"Network with peer CFOs from the same industry, who have been through similar experiences. Also, surround yourself with consultants, accountants, lawyers, and compensation consultants who have relevant experience in your industry and companies of similar size." - Jean Laviqueur, CFO, Coveo Unlike many of his finance leader peers, Jean Lavigueur has little difficulty in identifying…
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