Cfo Thought Leader

Our discussion with Christine Chambers has been going on for only a little more than 5 minutes when she tells us that she remembers sitting on the steps of a London flat years ago while contemplating life’s many twists and turns.  It seems that the accommodation—which she had only recently acquired and unquestionably counted as a milestone in life—had with little warning come to present a dilemma.At that time back in 2007, when Chambers was working as a financial analyst inside the UK operations of Seattle, Washington–based RealNetworks, the company suddenly offered her a promotion to work within its US operations.The treasured flat became toast.“Six weeks later, I was on a plane headed to the U.S.—and I think that this speaks at least a little to my nature of being adaptable and open in terms of welcoming opportunities that have arisen,” comments Chambers, who would first join RealNetworks stateside in its Washington, D.C.–area outpost before receiving an invitation from the company’s CFO in 2010 to rel

If Mark Seidel had told us that he had spent many of his high school evenings peering through a telescope at the stars, we would have likely believed him. However, Seidel—CFO of space security start-up True Anomaly—swiftly short circuits the familiar narrative of a space-loving youth.Instead, he draws our attention to his early entrepreneurial endeavors on eBay (he achieved power selling status while in high school), and, as for his finance career, he tells us that he has long preferred not to narrow his lens but to widen it.Indeed, such was the case at Goldman Sachs, where he spent 7 career years as an investment banker.“At Goldman, I was a generalist, so I got to cover all different types of industries and transactions—which means that the breadth and scope of the types of topics were incredibly wide,” recalls Seidel, who notes that it was this same preference for a wide lens that drew him to the CFO role.Observes Seidel: “The CFO role is a cross-functional one. While strategy can mean different things to d

Among the industries on which the pandemic was most known to have afflicted an extra helping of earnings chaos, most business analysts agree that the home fitness market is perhaps most deserving of special mention.Indeed, few sectors logged steeper gains and more precipitous losses during COVID’s comings and goings than home fitness—and perhaps few demanded more reflexive, in-the-moment, decision-making inside the management cockpit.At BowFlex (formerly Nautilus), that cockpit has been “manned” by CEO Jim Barr and CFO Aina Konold, both of whom entered the C-suite during the latter half of 2019—only to have COVID immediately upend their ensuing 2020 flight plan.Over the past 4 years, Barr and Konold have remained buckled in together as they have educated investors in anticipation of completing a long-awaited turnaround that they predict will arrive in the near future.Along the way, CEO Barr has demonstrated a willingness to address tough questions—just as has Konold, whose facility for disarming unwelcome new

When Michael Kennedy first stepped into the CFO office at the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) in 2018, he was surprised to learn that the association was spending $8 million annually on office space across the country.“Why were we in these offices?,” asks Kennedy, voicing the question that helped to kick off the first of what he now characterizes as a multichapter digital transformation.As it turned out, the 93 offices occupied by the MDA were a legacy of the organization’s historic Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, a once-massive annual fundraising event for that had lost its mojo in the Age of the Internet.“MDA wanted to have an office near every local television station that was participating in the Telethon broadcast,” explains Kennedy, who notes that the MDA offices needed to compete with local Girl Scout troops and firefighters to secure fundraising airtime on the local affiliates.   “But the fact is that we had stopped doing the Telethon 8 years before I arrived,” reports Kennedy, who adds

CFO Zhi Li's Career Background: Zhi Li's professional life begin at Bell Canada, where he was involved in operational finance within the Wireless Division. The division, Zhi tells us served as the growth engine for the company at the time. During his time at Bell Canada he worked on a subscription business model, dealing with wireless units and the basics of a subscription business, which later proved helpful in his work within the SaaS space.Li entered the investment banking realm during the economic downturn, then pivoted to tech; highlights operational finance experience at Bell Canada and investment banking tenure at Credit Suisse's tech group in New York. Transition to CFO Role: Discusses the pivotal moments in transitioning from banking to tech in Seattle, eventually landing the CFO role at Customer.io. Customer.io Overview: A startup providing customer communication platform services to various businesses, emphasizing personalized engagement and scalability. Role and Responsibilities as CFO: Focuses on

Insights from Planning Aces: CFO Lauren StClair talks about leveraging AI for faster analysis, transparency in reporting, and the challenge of maintaining clean, adaptable data. CFO Doug Lindroth emphasizes the shift from closed data structures to open-book management, enabling deeper discussions on profitability and investments. CFO Charly Kevers underscores AI's impact on manual tasks, reshaping organizational charts to prioritize higher-level thinking. AI's Role in FP&A and Security Concerns: Discussion on AI's learning mechanisms, potential security risks, and the importance of Microsoft's approach with co-pilot in maintaining security. Insights on how AI-driven tools adapt and evolve based on user interactions, driving advancements in decision-making processes.

It was back in 2016 when Lauren St. Clair realized that it was time to raise her hand.Online marketplace giant eBay had just completed a deal to acquire the Spanish online ticket platform Ticketbis, and St. Clair, a 9-year eBay veteran, was itching to get overseas.eBay had entered the online ticket business in 2007 with its acquisition of StubHub, and the addition of Ticketbis now promised to fatten StubHub’s international revenues, a development that St. Clair realized would likely require eBay’s finance function to beef up its leadership overseas.“People knew that I wanted to live overseas, and it was just good timing with regard to me leaving the group to which I had been assigned,” explains St. Clair, who arrived in Bilbao, Spain, in early 2017 eager to open a career chapter as CFO of StubHub International.  Of course, St. Clair had already spent some time overseas as a student and a finance adjunct on various international FP&A assignments. However, an overseas appointment was different, and in

When Peter Benevides joined Olo back in 2015, the provider of restaurant technology's CFO office was vacant—as it would remain for the next 4 years, until he ultimately got the position thanks to a nod from the firm's CEO and perhaps a sprinkling of magic dust from Olo board members and investors.Of course, things may have gone very differently for Benevides, as they so frequently do for many senior finance hires who, like Benevides, join fast-growing firms while knowing full well that there are no guarantees when it comes to C-suite appointments.Thus, when given the opportunity to have Benevides reflect on his career, we thought it perhaps appropriate on our part to query Olo’s finance leader regarding what he feels that he got right along the way—especially with regard to any attributes or actions that may have made a difference in the career trajectory that for him has led to Olo.According to Benevides, his success comes down to not having been afraid to ask others for help—a trait that he was to find incr

The Goldman Sachs “anti-raid” team was between conference calls with an embattled client company when word came that a senior member of the target company’s management team had unexpectedly died. Looking back, Tom Fennimore says that the next few months of his early career years at Goldman then became a transition point—or period of accelerated learning. “It was a very sad situation—they were in the process of being raided,” explains Fennimore, who lists the anti-raid transaction as one of two times when Goldman ultimately offered Fennimore an opportunity to “step up.” The second example came after the resignation of a managing director responsible for the bank’s automotive sector. “I got a battlefield promotion when they said, ‘Hey, we want you to do this, and—depending how you do—we may not replace you,” recalls Fennimore, who notes that while he savored the opportunity and enjoyed success in the role, certain parts of it had little to do with his skillset. “I have a little bit of a baby face,” points out

CFO Rodrigo Brumana’s career journey began with a position as a computer programmer in Brazil. He would move in his early career years to the United States, where he got his start in investment banking. Soon thereafter, he moved to Fairchild Semiconductor, where he advanced into an investor relations role. Next, Brumana delved into the realm of predictive analytics at eBay, a stint that opened the door to a succession of opportunities inside the world of e-commerce marketplaces.

The episode features Mark Lampe, CFO of Monte Vista Farming Co., discussing the significance of understanding labor and its impact on business success.CFO Lampe discusses the significance of labor and the challenges faced in managing a workforce of over 140 individuals engaged in almond production, emphasizing the importance of a cohesive and hardworking team in a challenging industry.

For a dozen years or more, Frank Teruel has been leading a double life professionally.When he stepped into the CFO slot at Arkose Labs last February, the position was just the latest in a succession of CFO stints that had required him to align C-suite duties with additional responsibilities in a Santa Clara University classroom.In his teaching mode, Professor Teruel is known to speak quickly, while keeping discussions lively and interesting by injecting real-world knowledge and business insight into his lessons.Meanwhile, inside the C-suite, Teruel is helping to champion a new chapter of growth designed to turn Arkose into a “Rule of 40” company sometime in 2024.As far as the perks of leading a split-screen professional life go, Teruel tells us that along the way he has been able to hire many of his students, who have since developed into executives and leaders in their own right. 

When 21-year PwC veteran Mark McCaffrey decided that it was time to open his post-PwC career, he briefed the firm’s U.S leadership about his plans, diligently outlined 24 months of departure prep, and set aside an extra helping of patience.  Two weeks later, he had a CFO job offer from publicly traded Internet domain company GoDaddy. “At the time, I thought that I’d have a couple of years to figure out what my next step was going to be,” recalls McCaffrey, whose 2021 CFO appointment was notable not just for the speed with which McCaffrey landed the role but also for the substance behind the match that was made.

Phenom CFO Davinder Athwal tells us that he has a personal connection to his company’s mission. Near the beginning of our talk, he shares a touching story about his father, a highly skilled individual who struggled to find a job in the UK. This personal experience fuels his passion for Phenom’s mission: to help a billion people to discover the right work. It’s not just about finding a job; it’s about finding the right job that matches skills with aspirations, as Athwal is eager to explain.The Phenom platform is not just another job-matching site, he points out. Using pattern recognition technology to match candidates with jobs, Phenom’s approach goes beyond what’s written on a resume to recognize all of the essential skills needed for a particular job—even those not listed on an application.Athwal joined Phenom during a challenging time in the industry, one that led to a strategic moment when he had to make the decision to prepare the company for cash flow break-even—a move that would turn out to be not only

This podcast episode features CFO Christopher Crawley of Hoffman Hospitality Group, discussing challenges related to managing labor in the restaurant industryHoffman Hospitality Group, a family-owned restaurant company, adapted to the pandemic by introducing food trucks and online kitchens, enhancing their financial processes.Crawley shares his career journey, including experiences in audit, finance, and operations, emphasizing the importance of adapting to change and understanding business metrics.He highlights the complexity of managing operations in the restaurant industry, involving regulatory compliance, financial intricacies, and shifting consumer preferences.Crawley discusses the challenges of fluctuating profit margins, labor management, and adapting to market changes, emphasizing the role of technology in addressing these issues.

The Three Phases of Teresa Chia’s Career: Teresa Chia’s journey to becoming a CFO is divided into three distinct phases. The first saw her honing her skills in investment banking and private equity at Credit Suisse in NYC. The second found her in the insurance industry, where she discovered her passion for the field and learned about its complexity and regulatory aspects. The most recent phase has seen her also serving on the boards of various companies, a testament to her industry connections and expertise.The Shift in Focus: After two decades of focusing on strategy and capital deployment, Chia felt a shift in her interests. She wanted to be more involved in the execution of growth plans and building the infrastructure for such growth. This led her to the role of a CFO, where she could leverage her finance knowledge while also contributing to strategic execution.

For corporate finance executives, few professional experiences are as adeptly converted into social currency as those manifested inside the realm of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).It seems that regardless of whether a finance executive has been involved in one deal or 40, they are usually able to quickly share a takeaway or two. For finance leader Natalie Laackman, the latter would be the case—or, rather, the latter times two, as she estimates that she has been involved in 75 to 100 such transactions.Regarding the M&A snapshot, Laackman relates that among her most memorable is one taken around 2001, when her expansion-minded employer asked her to “move a deal along” with a family-owned company in Sao Paulo, Brazil.“There were two brothers who had built this very interesting business—I was asked to start the negotiations, so I flew down to Sao Paulo by myself,” recalls Laackman, who tells us that as a security precaution, she was assigned two armed guards upon her arrival.On the occasion of her visit,

This episode features insights and commentary from three finance leaders: CFO Michael Linford of Affirm, CFO Ana Chadwick of Pitney Bowse, and CFO Jason Leet of ZyloImagine if the three finance leaders were to meet and have a discussion about their current roles. Each of them has a unique story to tell. Michael Linford, for example, was previously part of HP's M&A integration group and later became the first CFO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise after the split-off. Anna Chadwick played a key role in GE Capital's divestiture chapter, overseeing more than 50 divestitures globally. Jason Leet, on the other hand, has extensive experience in M&A, having been involved in over 40 different acquisitions during his time at Salesforce and Exact Target.

Doug Lindroth discusses the changing landscape of software company valuation, emphasizing the need for balanced growth, operational efficiency, free cash flow, and positive earnings to attract investors.He shares his experiences, including the challenges faced during the dot-com crash, navigating the complexities of public accounting rules, and his transition to the role of CFO.The discussion highlights the importance of clear role definitions, specialized finance teams, and leveraging data to drive strategic decisions within the organization.

Ana Chadwick discusses her career journey and how her network of people from her early days on forward played a crucial role in her success.She highlights her experiences at General Electric (GE), including training programs, travels, and insights gained during her tenure there. CFO Chadwick mentions the importance of data and transparency in finance, specifically in pricing and forecasting. She emphasizes the significance of having sponsors who are willing to support your career advancement rather than just mentors.