CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Andrew Korn tracks growth first. EliseAI had surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue when he spoke with us, and Korn tells us the company had maintained year-over-year growth above 100% throughout his four and a half years there—“correlation, not causation,” he adds.

That growth gives finance a clear assignment. According to Korn, EliseAI monitors gross margins and burn while ensuring its spending remain...

In April 2020, Laura Miller stepped into her first CFO role at Pampered Chef. According to Miller, she was pregnant with her second child, working with a new CEO and joining an executive team that had never worked together in the building before the pandemic sent everyone home.

Demand was anything but predictable. Miller tells us that Pampered Chef’s independent consultants could hold parties online while consumers, confined t...

In the early months of Francisco Partners, Samantha Greenberg sat in a room on folding chairs with the firm’s cofounders and one other colleague, planning the business.

According to Greenberg, the private equity firm was pursuing an idea that many considered impossible in the late 1990s: executing leveraged buyouts of technology companies. Greenberg tells us she was drawn to the vision because it challenged the belief that tec...

What happens when a company has money—but its CFO cannot reach it?

Over one extraordinary weekend, finance leaders found themselves confronting a threat few had anticipated: cash locked inside a failing bank, payroll approaching, and no certainty about what Monday would bring.

This episode brings together the experiences of Ben Gammell, Larry Roseman, Dan Murphy, Stacy Tumarkin, and Sarah Spoja. Their stories capture the crisis...

In high school, Gary Vecchiarelli received day-old copies of Investor’s Business Daily from a business teacher. Stock prices still appeared in fractions, and the teacher told him that he would know he had made it when he rang the bell on Wall Street.

Vecchiarelli tells us that the remark stayed with him for decades. He later rang the Nasdaq bell—an experience made more meaningful because his family knew the story. Long b...

What does it take for a CFO to restore credibility?

Every finance leader eventually encounters a defining moment when confidence has been shaken—whether by slowing growth, a financial crisis, or years of eroding investor trust. In those moments, success depends on more than financial expertise. It requires disciplined execution, transparent leadership, and the ability to deliver on commitments when every decision is under scru...

Mark Khavkin often finds his best ideas somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Rula CFO tells us that he bikes from San Francisco across the bridge and into Marin County—not to compete, but to clear his mind, enjoy the view, and stop for a latte in Sausalito. “A lot of times great ideas come somewhere just before or after the bridge,” Khavkin says.

That preference for space and perspective also appears in how he...

John Kinzer still remembers sitting in a closed meeting at MCI, presenting revenue results, when something unexpected caught his attention. It wasn’t the numbers he was reporting—it was the questions coming from the FP&A team. Listening to their discussion, he realized, “I also want to see that side of it,” Kinzer tells us. That moment led him from revenue reporting into business planning, where a manage...

When Shane Hostetter arrived at Chemours in 2024, he stepped into a company facing liquidity challenges while also pursuing important long-term growth opportunities. His goal was not to replace decades of institutional knowledge but to complement it. Chemours CEO Denise Dignam brought nearly forty years of experience with DuPont and Chemours, while Hostetter brought an external perspective. Combining those viewpoints, he tells us, ...

Three accomplished CFOs. Three candid conversations. One revealing look at how finance leaders think about acquisitions before the headlines ever appear.

In this special CFO Thought Leader edition, we revisit conversations with Jonathan Carr, former CFO of Armis, James Redfern, CFO of Reltio, and Toby Driver, CFO of IdeaGen. Each discusses acquisitions from a different vantage point—planning, integration, organizational readin...

Sinohe Terrero still remembers the timing. He joined Envoy in January, only to see the workplace transformed just two months later as offices around the world shut down because of COVID. The company had been building products for offices, but suddenly, almost no one was going to the office, Terrero tells us.

That abrupt shift forced Envoy to rethink its future. The company quickly introduced a product called Protect to help organiza...

Taking a Company Public: What CFOs Know

What does it really take to prepare a company for life as a public company?

In this special CFO Thought Leader compilation, we revisit three conversations with finance leaders who helped guide some of the technology industry's most recognizable companies through the IPO journey. Rather than focusing on the transaction itself, these CFOs share what happened behind the scenes—the operationa...

When Martino Cadoni joined DeepL, he arrived with an unusual perspective—he already knew the company’s product firsthand. Earlier in his career at Klarna, he had helped introduce DeepL as a translation solution, making the transition from customer to CFO especially meaningful. Today, DeepL is backed by investors including HV Capital, Benchmark, Index Ventures, ICONIQ, and Atomico, Cadoni tells us. Working alongside thos...

When Jean Compeau joined Sonar as CFO in March 2025, AI coding was not yet dominating industry conversations. By the summer and fall that followed, however, the landscape had shifted dramatically. Today, AI agents are producing software code at a pace that humans cannot easily verify, creating both opportunity and risk.

That shift sits at the center of Sonar’s mission. The company is the global leader in AI code verification a...

Each day, Stacey Jenkins watches a different set of indicators than the quarterly financial results that eventually appear on a report. Candidate applications, recruiter activity, and other throughput measures help tell the story of where Aerotek’s business may be headed. Financial results are “the lagging indicator,” Jenkins tells us.

That perspective reflects how she views both finance and leadership. While Aerot...

When Jesse Waldron describes Thyme Care’s work, he begins with the patient experience. Cancer patients, he explains, are often thrust into a healthcare system that can feel overwhelming both financially and emotionally.

That reality sits at the center of Thyme Care’s mission. As an oncology care navigation company, Thyme Care helps patients move through their cancer journey while also partnering with health plans and onc...

Five weeks into her role as CFO of Catalant, Christina Spade is helping guide a company that she believes is positioned for a different era of consulting.

Catalant was founded out of Harvard Business School in 2013 and began as an independent consultant matchmaking company, Spade tells us. Today, she describes the firm as a “Consulting 2.0” business built around agile, fit-for-purpose consulting designed to help organiza...

When David Forlizzi describes Salsify, he begins with a simple observation: “We all use it every day.” Unlike some of the highly technical software businesses where he previously spent his career, Salsify’s value proposition is visible to anyone who shops online.

Product content sits at the center of the company’s platform, Forlizzi tells us. Whether consumers are browsing a brand website, Amazon, or another ...

When Jaylene Kunze was asked to help rebuild a struggling subsidiary in the United Kingdom, she packed up her family and moved overseas with her nine-month-old daughter. The assignment was one more example of the type of challenge that would come to define her career. Rather than following a traditional finance path, Kunze gravitated toward what she calls “the fixer” role, stepping into situations where businesses neede...