CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Jessica Sommers, CFO of Aledade, discusses her career path from M&A and private equity through healthcare and value-based care, emphasizing how interconnected investments compound rather than ranking in isolation. She explains Aledade's revenue model based on Medicare savings, their AI integration strategy, and the strategic decision to make larger bets on AI despite near-term profitability pressures.

Jack Gordon, CFO of Harri, discusses his deliberate career path from IBM to his first CFO role, the company's AI-powered workforce operating system for hospitality, and how he's navigating AI integration in both product and finance operations while managing a failed Series B fundraise and building data foundations for decision-making.

Martin Urik, CFO of Third Bridge, discusses his 25-year career trajectory across technology-driven services organizations, emphasizing the importance of constructive tension in decision-making. He shares how transparency about project profitability at Technicolor Creative Studios initially met resistance but ultimately improved margins and employee engagement, illustrating that pushback and conviction drive better outcomes.

Dan Barzily, CFO of Tipalti, discusses his unconventional path to the CFO role through engineering, consulting, and strategy roles rather than traditional accounting. He explains how a go-to-market transformation revealed the strategic importance of working capital management, and shares how Tipalti is leveraging AI to automate finance workflows while maintaining human control over critical decisions.

Jonathan Ma, CFO of Sutter Health, discusses his 15-year career trajectory from Morgan Stanley investment banking to leading finance at a major Northern California nonprofit health system. He emphasizes the importance of balancing organizational ambition with financial preparedness, particularly in navigating complex healthcare reimbursement models, capital investments, and emerging AI applications.

Shiv Verma, CFO of Robinhood, discusses his career progression from the Oakland Athletics and investment banking through the 2008 financial crisis to building Robinhood into a $5 billion ARR financial super app. He emphasizes disciplined capital allocation, the importance of saying no to opportunities, and how AI is accelerating product velocity while maintaining lean operations.

Ross Granger, CFO of Nasuni, discusses his unconventional path to the C-suite—including owning a Mako franchise and working in healthcare software—and how his experiences shaped his leadership approach. He explains Nasuni's unstructured data platform, the challenges of AI investment ROI measurement, and why AI tools in finance may initially slow down processes before enabling deeper analysis.

Cal Brouillette, CFO of Flatiron Health, discusses his 20-year career spanning energy, technology, and healthcare, and how Flatiron balances the tension between scaling AI-powered data extraction, maintaining quality and trust in oncology research, and driving sustainable business growth.

Jamie Schroeder, newly appointed CFO of Premium Guard Inc., discusses his career trajectory from Ford to Scott's Miracle-Gro to private equity, emphasizing how transformational roles shaped his approach to balancing growth with risk management. He shares a pivotal moment at Scott's where aggressive market expansion required finance to shift from risk mitigation to enabling strategic growth through data-driven guardrails.

Phil Fracassa, CFO of Magna International, reflects on his 30-year career spanning PwC, GM, Vistian, and 20 years at Timken, emphasizing that leadership, influence, and execution matter more than technical expertise alone. He discusses Magna's scale, portfolio breadth, capital allocation discipline, and early AI applications while navigating industry transformation driven by electrification and geopolitical uncertainty.

Matt Ostrower, CFO of Link Logistics, discusses the transformative impact of technology and data-driven insights on decision-making within the commercial real estate sector. He emphasizes the necessity of balancing human judgment with AI and the importance of strategic leadership during crises.

Andrew Korn, CFO of Elise AI, discusses his journey from investment to operations, emphasizing the importance of conviction in investment decisions over precise ROI calculations. He highlights the role of AI in transforming customer experience and operational efficiency, while also addressing the need for financial discipline in a rapidly growing company.

Laura Miller, CFO of Strata Decision Technology, shares her 20+ year career journey from PwC auditor to healthcare software executive, emphasizing how unexpected disruptions—particularly the COVID-19 pandemic during her first month as CFO—taught her more than years of strategic planning. She discusses how finance leaders must balance preparation with adaptability, and how Strata is leveraging AI to enhance its software platform serving complex industries like healthcare, higher education, and financial services.

Samantha Greenberg, CFO of AlphaSense, discusses her career trajectory from investment banking and hedge fund management to operating roles, emphasizing how investor skills in capital allocation directly transfer to CFO responsibilities. She explains AlphaSense's vertically integrated AI platform, its 40%+ growth, and the critical importance of operational maturity, forecasting transformation, and balancing velocity with rigor in rapidly scaling companies.

Three CFOs—Jonathan Carr (Armus), James Redfern (Relteo), and Toby Driver (IdeaJet)—share lessons on M&A strategy, emphasizing that successful acquisitions depend not on the deal itself but on integration execution, people management, and operational discipline. Each speaker draws from experiences at companies like SurveyMonkey, Workday, and PayScale to illustrate how thoughtful planning, unit economics focus, and human-centric integration drive post-acquisition value creation.

Sinohe Terrero, CFO and COO of Envoy, discusses how owning the sales team early in his career fundamentally changed his understanding of finance leadership, moving him from spreadsheet modeling to understanding the human elements of business execution. He shares how Envoy evolved from a visitor management product during COVID into a comprehensive security platform, and describes his approach to leveraging AI for both internal efficiencies and product innovation.

Three CFOs share their experiences guiding companies through IPOs—John Kinzer (HubSpot), Kelly Steckelberg (Zoom), and Steve Cakebread (Salesforce, Pandora, Yext)—discussing how preparation, team building, processes, and relationships with CEOs and investors are critical to successful public company transitions.

David Forlizzi, CFO of Salsify, discusses his career journey from PricewaterhouseCoopers to leading finance at InfoVista, Veracode, and Salsify. He shares how operational maturity and data clarity were central to Veracode's $2.5 billion exit, and outlines current priorities around AI adoption and data governance at Salsify.

Jaylene Kunze, CFO and COO of LegitScript, discusses her career journey from audit and consulting to leading finance through complex M&A roll-ups, the lessons she learned about sustainable growth, and how AI is reshaping both LegitScript's products and internal operations. She emphasizes that rapid growth often conceals operational problems that must eventually be addressed through proper infrastructure, cultural alignment, and thoughtful resource allocation.

Bruno Annicq, CFO of WellHub, discusses his non-traditional path from engineering to McKinsey to becoming an 'accidental CFO,' his philosophy of finance as a business enabler with a 'yes, and' approach, and how AI-powered multi-model forecasting reduced their prediction error rate from 10% to under 2%, enabling faster reinvestment and growth.