Within 72 hours of becoming CFO at Elance, Steve Sutter uncovered that thousands of customer account balances were commingled with corporate cash—an oversight with serious compliance risk. He immediately convened the board, secured nearly $20 million to correct the issue, and implemented proper segregation—restoring financial integrity and safeguarding the company’s future transactions. Now Watch the […]
1132: Infrastructure First: Where AI Actually Adds Up | Steve Sutter, CFO, Celigo
When Steve Sutter joined Celigo five years ago, he stepped into a company positioned not as another SaaS app but as what he calls “the infrastructure, the piping, the plumbing” of business automation. Celigo, he tells us, moves data between systems like Salesforce, NetSuite, and Snowflake so companies can “create very sophisticated business processes” without…
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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 […]
When the Role is Earned by Leading | Amanda Whalen, CFO, Klaviyo
In her first CFO role, Amanda Whalen revamped cost accounting, restructured sales incentives, and overhauled P&L reporting—driving a 10% profit increase in one year. The experience revealed finance’s power to align teams, influence decisions, and shape business outcomes—ultimately convincing her to pursue finance leadership as her long-term path. [ssp-player] Now Watch our Complete Episode Featuring […]
1110: When Leadership Mattered | Amanda Whalen, CFO, Klaviyo
Amanda Whalen’s first CFO role began with a question. “You’re not a finance technical person,” her company’s president told her, “but you’re the strongest leader on my team. Will you be willing to be the CFO and help me transform the finance function?” She accepted. Over the following year, Whalen tells us, her team tackled…
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Ep 42: From Misaligned Commissions to Unified Goals
In our latest Planning Aces episode, Jack Sweeney teams with performance management guru Brett Knowles to spotlight three finance leaders tackling one of business’s most critical challenges: aligning sales, operations, and finance around a common goal. First, Orion Innovation CFO Cyrus Lam recalls how transparent metrics and well-crafted incentives helped double profit margins by bridging…
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Pursuing Data-Driven Visibility| Manish Sarin, CFO, Sprinklr
698: Revealing the Macro-to-Micro Continuum | Ross Tennenbaum, CFO, Avalara
It’s no secret that the herculean effort required to keep corporate board meetings on time frequently involves tracking the arrivals of certain board member attendees. Of course, the most anticipated arrival inside the boardroom is often not a board member at all but a new business measure or yardstick commonly referred to as a metric. And…
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