In this episode of Controllers Classified Erik Zhou explores the role of accounting in scaling businesses as well as public company accounting processes with Eric Van Cleve, Controller at 8x8. The episode begins with a recap of Eric’s career in accounting, detailing his discovery of accounting in college and how he worked his way up the ladder once he landed client side out of college. He notes that he found the most success when he focused on being interested, proactive, curious and capable. Th...
Nov 08, 2024•42 min
When it came to the public markets, no one can accuse David Morris and his seasoned C-suite colleagues, Fred Burke and Kendall Forbes, of being impatient. Guardian Pharmacy Services, a company they built from the ground up, recently raised $112 million in an IPO, listing on the NYSE under the symbol “GRDN.” The milestone reflects a culmination of over three decades of ever thoughtful, strategic decision making in a highly specialized market. For CFO David Morris, the path to the public markets w...
Nov 06, 2024•42 min
Sitting quietly at the back of a crowded GE conference room, a young Sandra Wallach diligently took notes during an executive briefing. As one of the newest inductees into GE's esteemed Financial Management Program (FMP), she was eager to absorb every detail. Unbeknownst to her at the time, this moment marked the beginning of a transformative 17-year journey with General Electric. "FMP allowed me to figure out what I really like to do, what I gravitate towards, and what I'm not as interested in,...
Nov 03, 2024•52 min
In the latest Planning Aces episode, hosts Jack Sweeney and Brett Knowles discuss how finance leaders are elevating FP&A as strategic partners within organizations. Featuring insights from CFOs Regi Vengalil, Matt Steinfort, and Isabelle Winkles, the episode highlights themes like the importance of reliable data, setting constraints to enhance strategic planning, leveraging AI in finance, real-time collaboration, and educating business units. The CFOs emphasize Finance's role in guiding bett...
Nov 01, 2024•44 min
It was not the first time John Gronen addressed the staffing company’s board — but it was very likely the most consequential. At the time, Gronen was vice president of finance, responsible for assessing acquisitions and analyzing their outcomes. The company operated two businesses: one generating about $30 million in EBITDA, while the other incurred annual losses of roughly $10 million. Gronen proposed a strategy to merge the two operations, consolidating efforts to increase profitability. Once ...
Oct 30, 2024•38 min
When David Eckstein inherited a struggling business unit earlier in his career, he faced an uphill battle. The unit wasn’t one he had built, nor had he developed the frameworks or discounting policies in place. Yet, it was hemorrhaging money, and Eckstein quickly realized he had to act. “Just because you inherited the business doesn’t mean it’s not yours,” he says. “And you shouldn’t be thinking in terms of, you know, this isn’t mine.” The first challenge was identifying the root of the problem....
Oct 27, 2024•44 min
In his three years as CFO of Packer Fastener, Brian Hogeland has led a milestone transformation of the company’s financial operations. Joining in 2021 during a period of rapid growth, Hogeland quickly identified opportunities to streamline processes, align business goals, and introduce technology-driven solutions. With Packer Fastener’s quirky culture—known for slogans like “We’ve got the biggest nuts in town”—Hogeland’s mission was to bring structure without losing the fun spirit at the company...
Oct 23, 2024•45 min
In January 2020, most finance leaders saw ASC 606 as a closed chapter. However, for Braze’s newly appointed CFO, Isabelle Winkles, the revenue recognition standard became front and center. While ASC 606 was merely a speedbump for seasoned professionals—especially for a 25-year finance veteran like Winkles—it posed a notable challenge within Braze. Many employees had never worked at a public company that had adopted the standard, making it a crucial area where alignment and understanding were ess...
Oct 20, 2024•54 min
As Aira Pineda stared out from her new office at a seemingly endless rice field, a voice inside her asked, 'What are you doing here?" Only a year or two earlier, Pineda had been among the young urban professionals populating the bustling Philippine offices of KPMG. She had excelled quickly, so much so that she was assigned to a leadership role in a major audit project just 2 years into her career. Groomed for partnership, she was part of KPMG’s "up-and-coming" class, with her sights set firmly o...
Oct 16, 2024•47 min
Max Krakowiak stood on the pitcher’s mound, ignoring the first drops of a Seattle rain. A shout from a less-than-faithful fan filled his ears as he prepared to throw his next pitch. In this moment, he had no idea that his baseball career was about to take an unexpected turn, as a random off-the-field injury would soon end his time in the minor leagues and force him to hang up his cleats. However, what Krakowiak didn’t realize then was that his days on the mound would end up providing him with le...
Oct 13, 2024•48 min
In the season two premiere of Controllers Classified, host Erik Zhou welcomes Matt Didden, Controller at NexHealth. The conversation begins with a recount of how Matt landed in accounting after graduating in the 2007-2008 financial crisis and realizing that the world would always need accountants. It then highlights his transition from consulting/audit to client side, and the broadening of his scope from pure financial reporting to handling a myriad of complex business challenges. The episode th...
Oct 11, 2024•47 min
When Josh Schwartz arrived at Medidata, the life sciences innovation company was entering unfamiliar waters. Having just gone public, Medidata was shifting from a fast-growing startup to a more structured, scalable organization. For Schwartz, who initially led revenue recognition, this was the beginning of both a personal and professional evolution that would mirror the company’s own transformation. “It was a point in time where we were starting to bring in specialization, starting to think abou...
Oct 09, 2024•51 min
Twenty-seven years ago, while in his late twenties, Mark Partin arrived inside the C-suite largely unprepared for the flood of challenges that would quickly breach his desk. Or so Partin tells us as he recounts the circumstances surrounding the first of five CFO appointments that have thus far punctuated his finance leadership career. “I can and do love to suffer,” Partin comments, describing the experience as being “over my head” and demanding him to “level up,” or constantly “reach to the next...
Oct 06, 2024•1 hr 3 min
It wasn’t long after Laura LaPeer left public accounting to climb the corporate career ladder that she encountered her first delicate challenge as a corporate controller. Just a year into her new role, her employer was acquired, and LaPeer was unexpectedly asked to explain complex working capital issues to the new owners. The head of finance for the acquired firm struggled to present the information clearly, and the new owners were becoming frustrated. LaPeer instinctively stepped in, simplifyin...
Oct 02, 2024•50 min
In the mid-2000s, the world’s attention increasingly turned toward Asia, driven by the region’s rapid economic growth – not to mention the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was within this atmosphere of excitement and potential that Joey Wong made a pivotal career decision. Having grown up in Los Angeles after her family immigrated from Hong Kong, Wong had always been drawn to math and science, a passion that led her to MIT, where she studied economics and business. Initially, Wong’s goal was to pursue ...
Sep 29, 2024•56 min
In this episode of Planning Episodes hosted by Jack Sweeney and Brett Knowles, three CFOs—Don McGuire of ADP, Scott Blackley of Oscar Health, and Patrick Fleury of TeraWulf—share their insights on financial planning and analysis (FP&A), with a focus on navigating complex business environments. Through their stories, listeners will gain a deeper understanding of how these finance leaders simplify intricate financial models, communicate effectively with stakeholders, and align strategic decisi...
Sep 27, 2024•45 min
When the opportunity to help lead the corporate travel business at Expedia arose, Regi Vengalil knew it was exactly the role he had been seeking to put his CFO role in gear. Stepping into the CFO position meant overseeing a business unit with $600 million in revenue and $120 million in EBITDA, and Vengalil was eager to take on the challenge. Prior to this, he had been leading a team of strategy and M&A professionals, but the new role offered a much broader scope of responsibility. “It was a ...
Sep 25, 2024•36 min
In 2012, after nearly two decades in the airline industry, Zane Rowe made a bold career pivot. Leaving behind his role as CFO at United Airlines, Rowe stepped into the tech world, joining Apple in a sales role—a move many saw as risky but one that would ultimately shape his perspective on finance leadership in the digital age. This decision marked the beginning of a transformative journey that prepared Rowe to navigate the complexities of technology, innovation, and data-driven strategies. Rowe’...
Sep 22, 2024•37 min
In 2018, Daniel Welch made a life-altering decision. After a decade in investment banking, working on high-profile IPOs and M&A deals at Morgan Stanley, Welch found himself at a crossroads. The birth of his daughter and a health scare involving his father led him to question the career path he was on. “I was mentally stimulated by the work, but it didn’t align with my personal values,” Welch reflects. Burnt out and seeking more purpose, he left the corporate finance world to pursue mission-d...
Sep 18, 2024•59 min
When Deanna Strable was approached to take on the role of CFO at Principal Financial Group, she was taken by surprise. Having spent most of her 30-year career in leading business units rather than focusing on finance, Strable initially questioned whether she was the right fit for a position traditionally held by financial experts. “Ultimately,” she recalls, “what I learned from our board and CEO was that they really wanted someone who could partner with them in driving the company forward—someon...
Sep 15, 2024•49 min
Ben Averis’s journey to CFO of Yoto was shaped by diverse experiences in finance, ranging from his early days at PwC in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to leading roles in private equity-backed businesses. His exposure to the "buy and build" strategy during M&A transactions taught him the challenges of scaling businesses while maintaining their core values. Ben worked on transactions that involved integrating smaller, family-run businesses into larger corporate structures. This experience...
Sep 13, 2024•34 min
It was during the first half of 2024 that press reports first surfaced to suggest that Bitcoin pioneer TeraWulf was seeking to make a bold strategic pivot into AI and high-power compute. Along the front lines of this move stood Patrick Fleury, TeraWulf’s action-oriented CFO, whose short tenure at the firm thus far has been notable for its aggressive cost-cutting measures and bold efforts to address the company’s debt. Moreover, Fleury’s focus on the optimization of the cash flow from TeraWulf’s ...
Sep 11, 2024•56 min
When Scott Blackley was asked in kindergarten what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer was surprisingly clear: “I want to be an auditor.” This early ambition was no coincidence; his father was a partner at KPMG, and young Blackley grew up around the firm’s offices, imagining himself one day sitting at a big desk, overseeing important work. True to his dream, he eventually ended up following in his father’s footsteps to become a partner at KPMG and invest a dozen career years there. Despi...
Sep 08, 2024•48 min
In 2021, Don McGuire received an unexpected call from ADP's HR leader, offering him the In 2021, ADP’s HR leader reached out to Don McGuire, then the company’s globe-trotting EMEA In 2021, ADP’s HR leader reached out to Don McGuire, then the company’s globe-trotting EMEA president, to gauge his interest in stepping into the firm’s CFO role. McGuire was surprised, inasmuch as it had been nearly two decades since he had veered off the traditional finance career track. During this interim, McGuire ...
Sep 04, 2024•58 min
In this bonus episode of CFO Thought Leader, host Jack Sweeney shares insightful stories from three finance leaders, focusing on their early beginnings and how those experiences shaped their careers. Scott Healy reflects on the influence of his father, an Air Force colonel, and his deaf brother, both of whom instilled a strong work ethic and a spirit of perseverance. Tracy Curley discusses her non-traditional path, balancing business experience with academic pursuits while navigating the challen...
Sep 01, 2024•24 min
In this episode of Planning Aces, Jack Sweeney and Brett Knowles discuss the evolving role of FP&A professionals, emphasizing the importance of relationship-building and strategic collaboration within organizations. As summer ends and fall approaches, Brett predicts a surge in business activity, particularly as companies rush to meet year-end objectives. The conversation highlights the decline in travel post-COVID, with more business being conducted via web meetings, though these are often l...
Aug 30, 2024•43 min
While most CFOs climb the ranks through finance-related roles, Steinfort’s path took a significant detour—one that saw him leading a company as CEO before unexpectedly stepping into the CFO role. Steinfort’s transition from CEO to CFO occurred when he was approached by Dan Caruso, a long-time mentor and successful entrepreneur. The two had a history of working together, starting at Level 3 Communications and continuing through various ventures. When Steinfort was leading Envision, a software com...
Aug 28, 2024•52 min
Clemente Cohen’s finance career began in the early 1990s inside the Munich offices of Silicon Graphics, approximately 6,500 miles from the Silicon Valley company’s headquarters and 7,500 miles from his birthplace in Argentina. This transcontinental start marked the beginning of a career defined by global problem solving , adaptability and generous helpings of M&A experience. Cohen, who grew up in Germany after moving from Argentina, problem solving perspective to his role. Joining Silicon Gr...
Aug 25, 2024•57 min
When Salman Khan arrived in Dubai from the U.S. in the early 2000s, he was a seasoned auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers, ready to narrow his focus on the oil and gas industry. If someone had told him then that he would one day be the CFO of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining company, Khan would have undoubtedly replied, “What mining company?” At the time, digital assets were a distant concept, and his world revolved around the complexities of oil reserves, regulations, and international financ...
Aug 21, 2024•52 min
According to CFO Kabir Shakir, when AI giant Nvidia sought to expand its alliances in India, it knew exactly with whom to partner: “They did their homework, and they tapped on Tata’s door.” This partnership, Shakir tells us, has proven to be but one of a number of alliances in Tata’s journey toward becoming “the national AI champion for all of India.” Along the way, Tata Communications received its first order of Nvidia’s technology, whose integration has since been fast-tracked into Tata’s prod...
Aug 18, 2024•55 min
