CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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460: Advancing Down Your Growth Path | Chris Menard, CFO, BlueSnap Jan 13, 2019

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Of the three traditional paths to the finance chief’s seat, Bluesnap CFO Chris Menard took the approach less traveled, and it’s made quite a difference. Most fledgling finance executives begin their journey in public accounting or investment banking, Menard parlayed an undergraduate experience rich with entrepreneurial grooming (along with an MBA) into financial planning and analysis positions at several high-growth software and fintech companies. One early career assignment – where he assisted the finance team in completing an IPO, six acquisitions and a stock buyback before the company’s lucrative sale to Oracle – proved especially valuable. Menard talks about applying his operational finance expertise and commitment to “leading with analytics” to the online payments technology company that he joined in May 2018. He also explains the two-step approach – assess and strengthen the accounting team first and then build up the finance function’s analytical chops – he favors when taking the CFO reins at a new company.

459: Savoring Your Risk Mitigation Opportunities | Rejji Hayes, CFO, CMS Energy Jan 09, 2019

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In a sector known for advancing leading-edge risk mitigation strategies, CFO Rejji Hayes offers a risk-minded response to those who ask why he steered his career into the power and energy sector.

“I had this epiphany where I said ‘It would be nice to find (a sector) that’s was a little less cyclical and a little less transactional.’ … And people generally need heat and electricity irrespective of economic cycles,” explains Hayes, who exited an investment banking career in 2009 to join the treasury function of energy giant Exelon before blazing a path to the CFO office at CMS Energy of Jackson, Michigan.

Today, Hayes illuminates the CMS risk mindset by emphasizing the value of risk mitigation opportunities: “During the course of the year - whether its weather developments, adverse regulatory outcomes or other downside cases - we try to identify enough risk mitigating opportunities to offset those risks,” explains Hayes. Join us when Hayes retraces his steps to the CFO office and lists his priorities for the year ahead.

458: Championing a Vision of What Change Looks Like | Tony Tripeny, CFO, Corning Inc. Jan 06, 2019

Show notes

Tony Tripeny’s remarkable career at Corning can be defined by some impressive numbers: 33 years of service in every aspect of corporate finance at the 167-year-old company whose cutting-edge materials reside in nearly every cell phone and flat screen among so many other products. Yet, the veteran EVP and CFO prefers to describe the keys to successful corporate finance leadership with qualitative measures such as time, location and communications. Tripeny continually exhorts his group to deploy automation and related tools to free up more time to devote to analysis and other strategic contributions –especially those that they provide from a seat at the decision-making table. He also emphasizes that it is vital for incoming finance chiefs to be as prepared as possible to manage the “public aspect of the CFO” role. “It’s just different,” he asserts, “when you’re the person being asked the questions, going to the conferences, or speaking for half the time on the conference calls.”

457: Advancing Your Long-Term View | Sean Quinn, CFO, Cimpress Jan 02, 2019

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Cimpress CFO Sean Quinn likes to set increasingly difficult professional goals for himself. His commitment to continual personal growth hasn’t hurt his mass customization company: Cimpress’ annual revenue has soared from $500 million when Quinn joined in the company nine years ago to roughly $2.6 billion today. We catch up once more with Quinn, who assumed Cimpress’ CFO position in 2015 and who was recently named to The Boston Business Journal’s annual ‘40 Under 40’ list honoring Beantown’s best and brightest young professionals. The former KPMG CPA talks about scaling the company’s financial infrastructure to support its rapid growth. He also details the levers he’s put in place to help the publicly listed company replaces its focus on a quarterly horizon with a long-term mindset.

456: Season Highlights | Part 2, Bruce Hartman, Ethan Carlson Dec 31, 2018

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455: CFOs on the Spot |2018 Highlights from Our Roaming Reporter Dec 27, 2018

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454: Making Your Employees Feel Valued | Ron Shah, CFO, Hodges Mace Dec 24, 2018

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A brief summary of this episode

453: Getting a Read on Customer Patterns| Anitha Gopalan, CFO, Catalant Technologies Dec 19, 2018

Show notes

Serving as a corporate finance executive for an organization on the perilous journey from “small and private” to “large, publicly listed, and thriving” taught Catalant CFO Anitha Gopalan what to hone in on as a finance chief. That experience and others like it also sharpened her gambling chops. She says that her Silicon Valley start-up experience showed her “how important and relevant it is to completely understand the company story and strategy” along with “the drivers that create value for shareholders.” Aligning corporate finance’s activities with that plan and its related plot points enables CFOs, she adds, to “optimize everything you do depending on what you are betting on and where you are doubling down.” The 20-year corporate finance veteran is now betting on her dynamic leadership skills to help Catalant to accelerate and scale its mission of enabling client companies to revolutionize their human capital strategy.

452: When Being Mission-Driven Means Data-Driven| Pavan Makhija, CFO, Possible Dec 16, 2018

Show notes

The executives and staffers profiled on Possible’s web site are described by the non-profit integrated healthcare provider as “possibilists” – “people with the perspective to embrace extraordinary challenge and the grit to get remarkable results anyway.” The term suits Possible CFO Pavan Makhija, a former investment banker who possesses dual undergraduate degrees in math and religion, a master’s in financial engineering from Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, and a passion for social issues. The former Lehman Brothers and Barclays controller is also an avid story-teller. Here, he narrates his anything-is-possible career trajectory while sharing how the Lehman bankruptcy – and his use the firm’s balance sheet as a powerful narrative device at an arduous time – educated him on his CFO path. Makhija also describes the challenge of applying all of his financial engineering and management skills to guiding a mission-driven organization that provides affordable (and often free) high-quality healthcare in the U.S. and Nepal.

451: Advancing When the Time is Right - But Not Before | Guy Melamed, CFO, Varonis Systems Dec 12, 2018

Show notes

Whenever he’s faced a difficult crossroads in life or business, Varnonis CFO Guy Melamed focused squarely on goals – sticking to them and scoring them. Despite playing for Israel’s under-21 national soccer team and fielding alluring offers to continue his playing career there, Melamed chose to leave his home country. He attended Boston College where he simultaneously played soccer, studied accounting and business, and learned English. His stick-to-itiveness helped him earn a B.A and an M.S.A. while becoming the first Israeli to get drafted by a Major League Soccer (MLS) team. After a year with the Colorado Rapids in the U.S. and a stint in the U.K.’s Championship League, Melamed decided to focus exclusively on his business career, joining KPMG as a CPA. Despite lucrative offers from private industry, Melamed opted to remain at KPMG and, later, EY, because, at those points in his career, he says “knowledge and experience were more important to me than making more money.” The pursuit of those goals also paid off by delivering him to Varonis, where he gained valuable experience helping to guide a booming cybersecurity company through an IPO.

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