Cfo Thought Leader

The year was 2015, but for Jeff Laborde, a seasoned finance leader kicking off his second C-suite tour of duty, it seemed as though the conference room that he had just entered had transported him back to 2005—or was it 1995?Across the way, an executive who had noticed Laborde’s presence stopped the meeting and queried: “Jeff, what are you doing here? Why are you in my meeting?”Caught by surprise and somewhat tongue-tied, Laborde recalls, he registered a less than articulate response to the question that had quickly swallowed up the room’s attention.  Having only recently joined the company as CFO, Laborde was seeking to sit in on a number of meetings in order to better understand how the company operated. Given that this particular gathering had been expected to discuss go-to-market priorities for the upcoming quarter, Laborde had made it his business to attend.“I was only following my instincts, and it came as a shock to me to find their swim lanes so impervious to being swapped or crossed,” continues