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570: Discovering What Makes Customers Happy | Sue Vestri, CFO, Greenphire, Inc.

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Release Date: 02/09/2020

1,028: Shaping Finance Operations to Support Global Growth | Clemente Cohen, CFO, PG Forsta show art 1,028: Shaping Finance Operations to Support Global Growth | Clemente Cohen, CFO, PG Forsta

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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 Graphics as an accountant, Cohen tells us he was able to quickly demonstrate to others a...

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1,027: Strategic Finance in the Digital Asset Industry: Lessons from a Bitcoin Mining Leader | Salman Khan, CFO, Marathon Digital Holdings show art 1,027: Strategic Finance in the Digital Asset Industry: Lessons from a Bitcoin Mining Leader | Salman Khan, CFO, Marathon Digital Holdings

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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 finance. In Dubai, Khan honed his skills by navigating the intricacies of the oil and gas sector,...

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1,026:  Partnering for Growth in the Age of AI | Kabir Ahmed Shakir, CFO, Tata Communications show art 1,026: Partnering for Growth in the Age of AI | Kabir Ahmed Shakir, CFO, Tata Communications

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

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 production processes. With Tata’s dominance in the Indian market, Shakir continues to...

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1,025: Cost Management to Strategic Investment | Chikako Tyler, CFO, California Bank & Trust show art 1,025: Cost Management to Strategic Investment | Chikako Tyler, CFO, California Bank & Trust

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

In her role as CFO of California Bank & Trust, Chikako Tyler faced the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—the second financial crisis of her career. Unlike the first crisis, the Great Recession, which forced her to leave a rewarding career in commercial real estate, this time, Tyler was prepared to take charge. In 2009, as the economic downturn decimated the real estate market, Tyler recognized the need for a change. She pivoted to banking, taking on a temporary role at California Bank & Trust, where she quickly discovered her passion for the intricacies of finance. Her journey through...

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1,024: From Overdrive to Insight: Lessons Learned in the Pursuit of Success |  Tom Bock, CFO, SmartFinancial show art 1,024: From Overdrive to Insight: Lessons Learned in the Pursuit of Success | Tom Bock, CFO, SmartFinancial

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

In 2005, fresh into his first banking job at Citigroup, Tom Bock found himself working 63 hours straight to prepare for a critical pitch. Fueled by a desire to prove his worth, he pushed his limits, refusing to rest until the task was completed. However, this grueling experience came at a cost—his nose began bleeding, a stark sign of physical exhaustion. Despite his best efforts, the pitch fell short, leading Bock to a moment of deep reflection. At the time, Bock was someone who believed in sheer perseverance, equating success with pushing through challenges alone. But the Citigroup...

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1,023: How Finance Propelled a Tech Enthusiast into the C-suite | Doug Potvin, CFO, Trinity Logistics show art 1,023: How Finance Propelled a Tech Enthusiast into the C-suite | Doug Potvin, CFO, Trinity Logistics

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Doug Potvin’s journey to becoming the CFO of Trinity Logistics reveals the power of adaptability and continuous learning. Initially captivated by technology in high school, Doug pursued a degree in computer science, only to discover a passion for finance during a college course. This pivot led him to the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS), where he gained invaluable experience in loan origination and financial analysis. Despite the security and stability of his government job, Doug felt increasingly constrained by bureaucratic micromanagement. Seeking greater autonomy and a desire to...

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1,022: The Power of Lean Thinking | Todd Patriacca, CFO, BVI Medical show art 1,022: The Power of Lean Thinking | Todd Patriacca, CFO, BVI Medical

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Todd Patriacca was more than a dozen years into his finance career when two things happened that accelerated its trajectory. The first was that he found a mentor—or, rather, that his future mentor found him. The second was that he became immersed in Lean culture. Starting his career at Arthur Andersen, Patriacca spent nearly 10 years in public accounting, a span that allowed him to gain a broad perspective on various industries. However, it was in a subsequent role as corporate controller at a private company that he found a mentor to guide him through essential areas like tax, treasury, and...

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1,021: A Taste for Professional Growth: How the U.S. Coast Guard Granted Larry White an Expansive Finance Career show art 1,021: A Taste for Professional Growth: How the U.S. Coast Guard Granted Larry White an Expansive Finance Career

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

The year 1986 was a pivotal one for Larry White’s career in the U.S. Coast Guard. After entering the Coast Guard Academy in 1976 and graduating in 1980, White subsequently advanced through a series of intriguing roles including commanding an 82-foot patrol boat before deciding to pursue an MBA. The Coast Guard agreed to underwrite this move, enhancing his resume and eventually making him an attractive candidate for high-profile roles in Fortune 100 companies. Still, White had no intention of leaving the Coast Guard. Going forward, a decision by White to specialize in finance, rather than...

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1,020: A Savvy Investor Cracks the Operator’s Code | Seth Wunder, CFO, Acorns show art 1,020: A Savvy Investor Cracks the Operator’s Code | Seth Wunder, CFO, Acorns

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

t a recent executive team dinner, several Acorns executives were reminiscing about their childhood professional aspirations. While many had had career dreams that had long ago lost their luster—Seth Wunder told his colleagues that he never gave much thought to being anything other than an investor. “I grew up in a household and family that was focused on investing and on the growth of the markets,” Wunder recalls. As a teenager, he was already engrossed in financial markets, which would set the stage for a career path that would eventually lead him to the CFO office at Acorns, a...

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CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Brett & Jack discuss the commentary and insights of three accomplished CFOs (Sandeep Aujla from Intuit, Shelagh Glaser from Synopsys, and Seth Wunder from Acorns), while highlighting their distinct approaches to strategic finance, organizational structure, communication, and business growth.  While all three Planning Aces highlight the importance of strategic finance and organizational efficiency, their reflections differ in focus. Aujla emphasizes the integration of finance with business strategy, Glaser focuses on aligning investments with strategic goals and improving communication...

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In the past, Sue Vestri has told friends that she has achieved CFO success by routinely working herself out of jobs.

Vestri is not alone. Certainly, many of her finance leader peers have helped to create some exciting M&A deal-making chapters only to be “written out” of the newly merged business’s future script.

“Being put out of a job isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as one opportunity can open the door to the next—or at least it has for me,” says Vestri, whose latest career post as CFO of Greenphire opened up just as her previous role as CFO of Artisan Mobile of Philadelphia was closing down with the sale of the company in 2015.

“I was thinking that I’d actually take the summer off, but that didn’t happen,” says Vestri, who remembers being contacted by a recruiter about Greenphire, which was yet another Philadelphia-area company that had recently been acquired and was looking for some local C-suite talent to beef up its management ranks.

Along the way, some of the local deal-making impacting her career has involved out-of-town acquirers.

Such was the case back in 2010, when Dell acquired Boomi, a Philadelphia-area technology developer specializing in integration technologies. At Boomi, Vestri had advanced into a finance leadership role just as the giant technology provider from Round Rock, Texas, came knocking.

Says Vestri: “With Dell being public at the time, the whole process and early discussions had to be kept very confidential.” In light of Dell’s concerns, Vestri says, Boomi looked for space off-site and ended up renting a hotel meeting room for a period of months. “The process involved maybe a half dozen people from our side, but there was literally an army of executives from Dell,” she recalls. –Jack Sweeney

 

CFOTL When it comes to customer measurement whatare you focused on?
Vestri: I think that everyone tries to measure customer service and customer support in some way. In the past, we historically have done customer surveys and implementation after implementation periodically throughout the year. It's always challenging as to who actually responds and how you disseminate the information and make any use of it. We still do these types of things, but recently we've actually gone out and done some user forums where we've sat in the room with some of our users. To be honest, not all of the feedback was good. There were some pretty harsh critics in the room at some of these forums that we did. It was really actually good for us to hear this, and it's driving a different strategy for us going into 2020.

We're going to literally have a team dedicated to site satisfaction and getting training to our sites. In the clinical trial world, there are certainly a lot of sites in the U.S. and they're easier to touch, but ours are worldwide. They're all over the world. You have language barriers that you're dealing with. We rely on our partners to do a lot of the training on how to utilize our software, and we're finding that this may not be the most successful way to get people up and using it. For us, a big driver of revenue is getting clients worldwide to use the software in the way that it was intended. We are spending a tremendous amount of energy on understanding our clients and what it's going to take to make them happy and be advocates of using our products in our industry.

We're very focused on and paying attention to a number of key strategic initiatives. There's an innovation one and a process optimization one. Things around site adoption and client experience. Everything that we're going to do in 2020 is going to focus on these key initiatives.