583: An Appetite for Change | Tod Nestor, CFO, Energy Focus
Release Date: 03/25/2020
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Reflecting on her career choices, Erin Sawyer tells us that one pivotal point stands out—a decision that involved moving her family across the country. This step triggered not only a geographical shift but also a change in Sawyer’s professional life, when her work alongside a CEO ultimately fueled her aspirations to become a chief financial officer. She had always been so captivated by numbers that by the tender age of 5 she had determined that her destiny lay in accounting. Her initial steps into the corporate world at Honeywell Aerospace as a cost accountant laid the groundwork for years...
info_outline 985: A World Where Everything is Negotiable | Sarah Alper, CFO, Pactum AICFO THOUGHT LEADER
As Pactum AI embarks on a pivotal phase of commercialization, the arrival of Sarah Alper in the AI-driven company’s CFO office is by no means a coincidence. Having transitioned from structured finance roles at General Electric to the dynamic environment of UiPath, Alper now brings to the table a blend of experience in operational finance, strategic planning, and transformational technologies that arguably made her an optimal CFO candidate. Read More Looking back, Alper tells us, her leap from GE to the high-velocity world of tech start-ups afforded her the opportunity to help to execute a...
info_outline Controllers Classified: Managing financial processes across regions and systemsCFO THOUGHT LEADER
In this episode of Controllers Classified, Brex CAO Eric Zhou is joined by Daniel Hilli, Head of Business Control at Alstom. Alstom is a multinational company that builds and services trains and signaling systems. In fact, millions of people everyday are transported by Alstom trains and systems. Given the size of the company, this episode focuses on how to implement and manage financial processes across different regions and systems at scale. This includes dialogue around when to centralize vs. decentralize reporting and budgeting processes, how to find efficiencies through digitalization and...
info_outline 984: Efficiency and Acquisition Readiness | Bob Purcell, CFO, BilltrustCFO THOUGHT LEADER
Bob Purcell’s leap into the unknown wasn’t just a step; it was a giant stride toward his future as a CFO. Early in his career, Bob faced a daunting choice: join a distressed company teetering on the brink of failure or play it safe. Driven by an unshakeable belief in his abilities and a desire to test himself, he chose the former. This high-risk, high-return career step wasn’t just about salvaging a company; it was about proving to himself that he could navigate the stormiest of waters. From his initial misgivings about audit work at Deloitte to his transformative years at Amgen, where...
info_outline 983: The CFO as Architect of Value | Aaron Alt, CFO, Cardinal HealthCFO THOUGHT LEADER
In the world of finance, where leadership roles await those who distinguish themselves along a select number of familiar paths, Aaron Alt’s journey to becoming a CFO stands out for its breadth and depth, transcending conventional boundaries. Starting in law, Alt quickly found his groove inside the legal world’s cornucopia of M&A advisory services. It was here where he would realize the potency of focusing beyond legal parameters—a habit that would spur a pivotal shift in his career from emphasizing legal details to prioritizing relationships and financial strategy. From the trenches...
info_outline 982: Blending Alcohol and E-commerce | Matt Wolf, CFO, DRINKSCFO THOUGHT LEADER
Twelve years ago, when Matt Wolf was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, he likely would have been alarmed to learn that his future finance career would be largely impacted by drinking and driving. Such was his destiny, though, as after a 5-year stint with the investment bank in London and New York he began to fill in his itinerary with positions in both the automotive and alcohol industries—most recently, as the CFO at DRINKS, a company at the forefront of e-commerce solutions in the beverage alcohol space. According to Wolf, his career began on a foundation of data analytics at...
info_outline 981: Bridging Continents: A Finance Leader’s Journey | Jakson Peters, CFO, TourRadarCFO THOUGHT LEADER
Jakson Peters's journey from humble beginnings to becoming a global CFO is a tale adaptability, and continuous learning. Born in Brazil, he had initial career expectations far removed from the finance world that had their roots in the start of his working life as part of the family's milk delivery business. This early experience, so remote from his eventual home in the c-suite, laid the foundation for his future success, he explains.. From 1998 to 2002, Peters worked for DaimlerChrysler in São Paulo, a stint that marked the beginning of a corporate finance trajectory that would eventually...
info_outline Controllers Classified: An expert’s POV on the future of blockchain in accountingCFO THOUGHT LEADER
On this episode of Controllers Classified, host Eric Zhou welcomes Sean Soper, the Head of Financial Operations and Accounting at Alchemy, to shed light on the disruptive technologies shaping the trajectory of accounting and finance. Alchemy provides the leading blockchain development platform and as such, much of the conversation narrows in on the possible applications of blockchain in accounting. Sean begins the discussion highlighting his experience working across companies that have revolutionized whole industries with new technology. He notes that a large part of his success at these...
info_outline 980: The New Era for Legal Services | Eric Bouchard, CFO, AxiomCFO THOUGHT LEADER
Perhaps no single experience better reveals the breadth of challenges that regularly test even the most stoic of finance career-builders than that which confronted Eric Bouchard a little more than a decade ago at Bombardier, Inc. Tasked by management with negotiating the establishment of a new aerospace facility, Bouchard navigated through complex discussions with the Moroccan government, balancing the interests of Bombardier and the aspirations of a nation. His role extended beyond mere finance: He became a diplomat, a strategist, and, most important, a bridge between diverse cultures and...
info_outline 979: The Changing Stripes of Finance Leadership | Chermaine Hu, CFO, Episode SixCFO THOUGHT LEADER
At the very beginning of our talk with CFO Chermaine Hu, she revealed an irony about the CFO title that we rarely get to expose. To wit: The very title toward which any executive has invested so many illustrious career years conveys ownership of what might seem to be a less than illustrious role—or at least one requiring little future endeavor. “I have always struggled with the CFO title,” explains Hu, who notes that the moniker captures only a fraction of what most CFOs actually do. Hu’s unexpected comments seemed to be appropriate openers for an executive who doesn’t mind—and in...
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Nestor: Energy Focus is an LED lighting and controls company. LED lighting is like comparing a smartphone to a rotary phone. LED lights are actually extremely high-tech—it's almost like having a laptop inside the light. If you were to take one apart, you would be amazed at how many computer components and wafers and chips are in there. These lights are not a commodity. They are very differentiated. Unfortunately, the industry historically has sold them very much like a commodity, through the same channels as fluorescent and incandescent lights. Energy Focus does not. One thing that sets us apart is that we use a direct sales model, which does give us, we think, a competitive advantage.
We will soon be launching a new product that has dimmable and tunable LED lighting. It allows you to leverage your existing wiring without having to use Bluetooth or wifi or do a big rewiring in a facility. This is coming out in the market soon, and we think that it will be revolutionary. The people who have seen the demos have been very excited about it. This type of approach is what sets us apart.
I think that we're a very unique company that is positioned very well in an industry that's going to be growing extraordinarily rapidly over the next 10 years. The key to success is growth, profitable growth, and we will do that. I really want to return Energy Focus to cash flow break-even—this is a very important goal for the next 12 months. We will be getting this new product launched successfully, and of course I'm always focused on generating shareholder returns. One of my key objectives that is the underpinning of everything that I do is generating shareholder returns.