607: Exercising Discipline to Expose Trend Lines | Angiras Koorapaty, CFO, Reversing Labs
Release Date: 06/14/2020
996: Cultivating a CFO’s Toolkit | Aaron Levine, CFO, Prophix
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
From his early days in auditing at PwC to his current role as CFO at Prophix, Aaron Levine has had a career that has closely tracked the evolving nature of the financial leadership role. His journey has been marked by a series of strategic transitions and expansions of his skill set that illustrate the broadening demands of being a modern CFO. An important early chapter of Levine’s professional development was his tenure under Steve Vintz, who at the time was CFO of Vocus, where Levine served as a VP managing both accounting and finance. It was under Vintz’s mentorship that Levine came to...
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995: Embracing Change to Energize Your Career | Dan Murphy, CFO, Commercetools
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
The way Dan Murphy sees it the CFO position demands that leaders always be kept on high alert. It’s a mindset that had led him to habitually monitor updates and alerts related to key vendors, including banking institutions. And so it was, in first quarter 2023 when Murphy recalls spotting a vague tweet hinting at possible financial instability at Silicon Valley Bank. Despite the tweet’s uncertain implications, Murphy recognized the risks inherent in relying solely on one bank. He proposed a strategic move to company management: diversify the company’s financial reserves by transferring a...
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Controllers Classified | Accounting in the Sports World with Patrick Lynch of the Boston Celtics
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
On this episode of Controllers Classified, host Erik Zhou welcomes Patrick Lynch, Senior Vice President and Controller of the Boston Celtics, who shares his journey from ball boy to financial leader for the team. Patrick highlights the milestones of his career, including his transition from an internship to working closely with the CFO, and the significant growth of the Celtics organization. He also imparts wisdom on how to seize career advancement opportunities and offers advice for those aiming to enter the sports industry. The discussion then does a deep dive into the world of accounting...
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994: Balancing Top-Line Growth and Bottom-Line Results | Naresh Bansal, CFO, Menlo Security
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Ask any CFO about their career-building years, and they will likely attribute their success to their adaptability and ability to render strategic insight. This tendency was recently amplified for us when we heard about the experience of Naresh Bansal, a seasoned finance executive who during a pivotal chapter early in his early career discovered that his company was about to be acquired by a larger one, Sage. His company at the time—initially an independent entity focused on aggressive growth and innovation—offered a vibrant but challenging environment that tested the mettle of its...
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993: Building Resilient Careers: Lessons from a CFO Expat | Hilary Norris, CFO, GTreasury
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
A little more than 15 years ago, Hilary Norris had the ultimate dream job at a tech company in sunny California, a perfect alignment of professional goals and personal life. However, the idyllic scenario was disrupted when the company was acquired, a common turning point that often spells uncertainty for many executives. Facing a potential career setback, Norris was initially marked for replacement but was later asked to stay on and lead the finance operations of the combined entity. This twist in her career path wasn’t just a test of her professional capabilities but also a...
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992: Unlocking Holistic Company Performance | Udit Tibrewal, CFO, Anomali
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Kicking off his career fresh out of school, Udit Tibrewal joined the audit practice ofPricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New Delhi, where he set about learning the intricate workings of financial compliance. The ambition to broaden his horizon and a hunger for new challenges led him to make a bold move to the United States, landing him first New York City. The shift from New Delhi’s familiar chaos to New York’s dynamic hustle coincided with a widening of Tibrewal’s finance lens. It was here, amidst the skyscrapers of Manhattan, that he began to embrace the complexity of technology companies...
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991: Transforming Investment Wisdom into Management Strategy | Jeff Bray, CFO, Semperis
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Long ago, the power of focus was a lesson that Jeff Bray learned early in his career while transitioning from the role of analyst to that of portfolio manager. He recalls a strategic moment when he realized that narrowing his investments from many down to just three to five key stocks would greatly amplify his success. This principle of concentrated effort not only transformed his approach to investment management but also became a guiding principle throughout his career, which includes his latest stint as CFO of Semperis, a leading cybersecurity firm. At Semperis, Bray is applying this bit of...
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Controllers Classified: Building high-performing global finance teams
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
In this episode of Controllers Classified, host Erik Zhou is joined by Katie Slattery, VP of Accounting and Corporate Controller at Fivetran. The conversation begins with Katie’s start in Ireland at KPMG Dublin as an auditor, and traces her path from auditor to accountant. Fun fact: Katie has been the first controller/accounting hire at several high growth companies! The conversation then pivots to Katie’s current priorities at Fivetran and how she translates company-wide KPIs into team specific goals around reliable data and control efficiencies. Katie also spends some time talking about...
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990: From Print to Platform: Strategic Shifts in a Digital Age | CFO Mitch Peipert
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Back in 2016, Mitch Peipert stood at a crossroads. With a career foundation deeply rooted in the precision and rigor of public accounting, Peipert had navigated his way through the financial landscapes of various companies, honing his CFO leadership and operational prowess. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for the arrival of a new, enigmatic force at Thomas Publishing—a dynamic CEO with eyes set firmly on the horizon of digital transformation. The news allowed a small degree of uncertainty to occupy Peipert’s mindset. A seasoned finance professional, he was adept at managing numbers...
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989: The Homecoming: A Tale of Growth, Leadership, and Return | Jeremy Johnson, CFO, Dayforce
CFO THOUGHT LEADER
Back in September of 2021, Jeremy Johnson, Senior Vice President of Finance at Ceridian (now Dayforce), decided it was time to test his mettle—a decision that led him far from where he began, only to return with a leadership perspective somewhat different from what he expected. Determined to challenge himself and expand his horizons, Johnson left the familiarity of Ceridian, where he had steadily advanced his career for the past nine and a half years, to accept a CFO position with SmartRecruiters. Johnson’s test, however, was about to grow exponentially. At SmartRecruiters,...
info_outlineWhen a new CEO is recruited to lead a company, it’s not uncommon for the incumbent CFO to be replaced.
However, there are certain network-savvy CFOs who are able to muster enough influence with their boards to easily discourage incoming CEOs from implementing their displacement as part of sweeping the C-suite clean.
Angiras Koorapaty was not one of these well-connected CFOs. Or at least he wasn’t about 20 years ago, when he found himself forfeiting a finance leadership position to a newly arrived CEO’s CFO pick.
“This was a pivotal moment for me at the time, and it led me to do some reflection and to think about my career,” explains Koorapaty, who says that he later realized that as a CFO he had been too focused on the company’s internal operations and had failed to build important relationships with board members, investors, and other stakeholders.
Says Koorapaty: “As a result, there was a change in finance leadership.”
The eviction prompted Koorapaty to take action. Eager to put the experience behind him and open the door to new opportunities, he began working with a business coach, an advisor who specialized in coaching CEOs but understood the CFO role well.
Koorapaty says that he personally “set the agenda” and identified the areas that he wanted to address—but that the coach held him accountable.
“Oftentimes, I found him to be a pain in the neck. I did not always look forward to our calls, but I stuck with them. This made me a better CFO and a better partner for CEOs, and—most important—it made me a better communicator with my boards and a better relationship builder,” he explains.
Several CFO tours of duty later, Koorapaty is now CFO of ReversingLabs, a cloud-based security and networking company based in Cambridge, MA. “When I joined the company, a number of board members approached me with their views,” recalls Koorapaty, who says that he listened carefully before adding a number of items to his list of CFO priorities. For Koorapaty, better communication begins with listening. –Jack Sweeney