He started at Ernst & Young, moved to Home Depot where he had a front row seat to one of the most operational CFOs in the country, then jumped into high-growth startups and never looked back.
In this episode, I sit down in person with Chad Gold, 2022 CFO of the Year by the Atlanta Business Chronicle and current CFO of Fullstory. Chad drove 10x growth in enterprise value at SalesLoft to over $2.3 billion and was the first CFO at G2.
We talk about why he left the stability of Home Depot for startups and what his wife thinks about that risk. His "lines not dots" principle for building relationships that actually shape your career. His playbook for the first 90 days in a new CFO role and why most leaders make the mistake of trying to tackle everything at once. How to get the business to bring finance in early instead of after the fact. Why the CFO, not the CTO, should be leading AI adoption inside the company. How his team cut the close process by 50% using AI and is going for another 50%. The SEC agent they built that reviews contracts in minutes. How they automated daily cash reporting with Claude in five minutes. Why he thinks the finance org chart is shifting from a triangle to a diamond. And the whiteboard lesson from his Home Depot boss that changed how he thinks about success forever.
Whether you are a CFO trying to figure out where AI actually fits, a finance leader navigating high-growth, or someone thinking about making the leap from big company to startup, this conversation covers it.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 We are live in Atlanta and this is a diary of
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 a CFO podcast. I'm your host Wassia Kamon and
00:00:05 --> 00:00:07 I've called thIS city home for over two decades.
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 More than two trillion in payments flow through
00:00:10 --> 00:00:13 Atlanta every year. Yet, most of the business
00:00:13 --> 00:00:15 conversation is still centered on places like
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 New York and San Francisco. This is a limited
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 series where I'm sitting down in person with
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 CFOs and senior finance leaders right here in
00:00:23 --> 00:00:25 Atlanta. How they build their careers, what's
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 working, what's different about doing it here
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 so we can get a better understanding of the humans
00:00:30 --> 00:00:36 behind the big titles. I'm so happy today I have
00:00:36 --> 00:00:39 with me Chad Gold. Chad is a CFO of Full Story
00:00:39 --> 00:00:42 and was named the 2022 CFO of the Year by the
00:00:42 --> 00:00:44 Atlanta Business Chronicle. A veteran finance
00:00:44 --> 00:00:48 leader with over 20 years of experience, he previously
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 served as CFO at Sales Loft, where he drove 10x
00:00:51 --> 00:00:54 growth in enterprise value to over $2 .3 billion.
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 And he was the first CFO at G2. With a background
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 on SAP Ariba, the Home Depot, and Ernst & Young,
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 Chad combines big systems expertise with high
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 growth startup agility. It currently leads Full
00:01:06 --> 00:01:10 Story's global strategy, focusing on AI and behavioral
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 data, and how we can turn operational efficiency
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 into measurable business outcome. So glad to
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 have you here, Chad. Thank you for having me.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 Oh, yeah. I'm so glad we finally getting to do
00:01:21 --> 00:01:23 this in person. That's right. I told you, right?
00:01:23 --> 00:01:25 My very first podcast in person, which I think
00:01:25 --> 00:01:29 I like this better. Oh, sweet. I won't turn red.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 So first, wanted to hear what brought you to
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 Atlanta. So I actually grew up in Florida, in
00:01:34 --> 00:01:36 Gainesville, Florida, and graduated from the
00:01:36 --> 00:01:39 University of Florida, go Gators, which is not
00:01:39 --> 00:01:41 a welcome thing in Atlanta, but hey. And then,
00:01:41 --> 00:01:43 you know, when you graduate from Florida, I majored
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 in finance, and the reality was there's only
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 a few cities you're gonna go to. You're gonna
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 either stay in Florida and go to Tampa, Orlando,
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 Miami, but honestly, the best place to go is
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 Atlanta. And for me, it was getting a job at
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 Ernst & Young that brought me up here over 20
00:01:57 --> 00:02:01 years ago. And what excited me about the opportunity
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 was with Ernst & Young, it was about working
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 in a job in corporate finance. So it wasn't on
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 the accounting side. And I knew that it was going
00:02:09 --> 00:02:11 to help me build a great foundation for my career.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 And then I met my wife up here. I've had both
00:02:15 --> 00:02:18 of my children here. And this is the longest
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 I've lived any place. So it definitely is my
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 home now. Oh, wow. I mean. I'm planning a trip
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 to Florida. So I'm always curious to hear when
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 you have to leave like the ocean and coming back
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 to the humidity of Georgia. What was that transition
00:02:31 --> 00:02:33 like? Well, I grew up in Gainesville, Florida,
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 which if you look on the map is north central
00:02:35 --> 00:02:37 Florida. Yeah. So the humidity is worse there
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 than it is here. Yeah. I mean, I was an hour
00:02:40 --> 00:02:41 and a half from the ocean. I do miss it, but
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 we go to the beach. I think Atlanta, the benefits
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 of Atlanta far outweigh the fact that the beach
00:02:46 --> 00:02:48 isn't close by. Tell me more. Like, what's your
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 favorite thing to do here? You know, the fall
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 and the spring in Atlanta are my favorite, you
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 know, hiking, being outside, just absolutely
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 incredible. I mean, there's so many great places
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 to go. The other thing I've seen over the last
00:03:01 --> 00:03:04 20 plus years, the food scene, right, has gotten
00:03:04 --> 00:03:07 so good. And I think, you know, you were mentioning
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 you live in Johns Creek, right? I live in Sandy
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 Springs. Even in the local cities, I think the
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 food scene has really picked up. And so it's
00:03:13 --> 00:03:15 a fun place. I know we're both talking about
00:03:15 --> 00:03:16 raising families. It's a great place to raise
00:03:16 --> 00:03:20 a family, too. Oh, yeah. What about um career
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 wise like what do you think has helped you because
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 it looked like you build most of your career
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 Here like right after college. Yeah, I think
00:03:26 --> 00:03:30 it's a combination of You know, I I started at
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 u ursonian like you said now call it ey Love
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 the job. It was awesome because I built You know
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 really that foundational how to build financial
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 models You know how to dig into the numbers in
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 the business, but I quickly found that after
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 a couple years Wasn't actually learning about
00:03:46 --> 00:03:49 the operations of the business and it was luck
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 that I got recruited to go to Home Depot And
00:03:51 --> 00:03:54 when I got recruited originally it was recruited
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 for what they called their audit leadership program
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 which was it was built just like GE's corporate
00:03:59 --> 00:04:03 audit staff, okay and even more lucky for me
00:04:03 --> 00:04:06 was that Carol Tomei was the CFO at Home Depot
00:04:06 --> 00:04:10 and She's now the CEO at UPS. And so I had a
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 front -row seat to see what an operational CFO
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 really looked like. And Home Depot gave me exposure
00:04:16 --> 00:04:22 to M &A, international business, financial planning
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 and analysis. So I got to really round out my
00:04:24 --> 00:04:26 career over eight years. And then it's been a
00:04:26 --> 00:04:29 combination of, I think, you know, where I've
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 worked, but also I have this belief in this this
00:04:31 --> 00:04:35 term I use called lines, not dots. You know,
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 you meet people across your career and if you
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 only talk to them when you need something. That's
00:04:40 --> 00:04:42 what the dot means. It's like, oh, it's very
00:04:42 --> 00:04:45 transactional in nature. And I have this belief
00:04:45 --> 00:04:47 that relationships that you build over time is
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 what actually shapes your career. For me, there
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 was a guy that I worked with at Ernst & Young
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 out of college that eventually recruited me to
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 Ariba 10 years later. Wow. And we had maintained
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 a relationship that whole time. He had moved
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 to California. He'd moved back to Atlanta. There
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 are people now that I work with at Full Story
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 that I worked with at Ariba and then also that
00:05:08 --> 00:05:10 I've recruited that I work with at sales loft
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 and so those relationships that lines not dots
00:05:13 --> 00:05:15 principle has helped to shape I think the progression
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 through Atlanta I love that I'm definitely gonna
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 use that because So much of how you move at some
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 point of your career is based on relationships
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 and not just your skills That's right I totally
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 agree and and if I if I look it really wasn't
00:05:29 --> 00:05:32 until I went to sales loft Where I started to
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 recruit people that had worked with me at other
00:05:34 --> 00:05:37 places and now I've done it I did it at G2. I've
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 now done it at Full Story. And it's just awesome
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 because, you know, look, there's a reality which
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 is you spend 80 % of your time at work if you
00:05:45 --> 00:05:47 don't work with people that you enjoy and that
00:05:47 --> 00:05:50 you love and care about. It's not as fun as it
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 can be. No, it's actually draining. That's right.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:54 It makes such a difference, because the work
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 will be the work, but the people you work with,
00:05:57 --> 00:06:00 it can drain you. 100%. I'm curious to hear,
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 because you worked at the Home Depot, EY, what
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 people will see as very stable large companies,
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 and then you shifted to startups. What was that
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 transition like? Were you scared in the process?
00:06:13 --> 00:06:14 No, you know, it was interesting. I think first
00:06:14 --> 00:06:16 of all, I was lucky that I did that early in
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 my career. And so that built that foundation
00:06:18 --> 00:06:23 of strong process, solid foundation and understanding
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 data and how numbers work and how to work with
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 a business. And I think for me, what drove me
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 down to startup, it was two things. One is my
00:06:32 --> 00:06:34 wife will say that. You know, being a CFO in
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 a high growth startup company is probably the
00:06:36 --> 00:06:39 riskiest thing a finance person would do. And
00:06:39 --> 00:06:42 so it does give me a chance to dabble in that
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 that kind of risk reward. But I think more importantly,
00:06:46 --> 00:06:47 the thing that I didn't love about the bigger
00:06:47 --> 00:06:51 companies was decision velocity. I found when
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 I wanted to change something that it could be
00:06:53 --> 00:06:55 stifling. It could take me quarters or even years
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 sometimes to change what I would argue were very
00:06:58 --> 00:07:02 simple things. And so when I moved into the sales
00:07:02 --> 00:07:05 lofts of the world, the G2s, the full stories,
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 part of it was betting on myself. I said, I would
00:07:08 --> 00:07:11 rather see the impact of my work and take that
00:07:11 --> 00:07:12 risk that I'm going to do the right things. And
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 when I don't, it's OK to acknowledge you make
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 a mistake and change it. And I think in companies
00:07:17 --> 00:07:19 like that, you can see the impact. You can look
00:07:19 --> 00:07:22 back on a week and see what you've done. You
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 can change more in a month than you did in a
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 quarter or a year at a big company. And for me,
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 I find that very energizing. I would rather be
00:07:30 --> 00:07:32 in a position to the phrase I use is make the
00:07:32 --> 00:07:35 news not report it. And I think that high growth
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 companies really put you in a position to do
00:07:37 --> 00:07:40 that. Yes, that's true. I really I will say I
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 to move between company sizes and definitely
00:07:43 --> 00:07:46 being in a small organization, you do feel the
00:07:46 --> 00:07:49 impact of your decision. But that also comes
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 with a lot of pressure because you probably were
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 walking to companies and you were there was no
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 finance and accounting function and you had to
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 build it from the ground up. So Tell us about
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 what could be the right playbook when you're
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 in those situations and what helps you stay grounded.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:08 Luckily for me, at SalesLoft G2 and Full Story,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 there at least had been a finance function. So
00:08:11 --> 00:08:13 there was something there. You know, what I always
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 say to any CFO that's starting a new job, you
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 come in and the first thing, there are literally
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 50 different things coming at you or people say,
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 this is broken. You need to fix this. Finance
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 doesn't do this right. This system doesn't work.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 My first thing that I've done every single place
00:08:29 --> 00:08:32 I've worked is you have to spend the first month,
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 the first 30 days just listening, really gathering
00:08:35 --> 00:08:37 facts, both from your own team, like learning,
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 why did we do things the way we did? And then
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 also from the business, like where are the gaps?
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 What's going on? And the reason I say that is
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 because if you don't gather that in the first
00:08:47 --> 00:08:49 30 days, you will make recommendations that are
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 misinformed. And I think that you have an opportunity
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 to lose the room really fast. So that's the first
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 one. Then what I always say is after you spend
00:08:58 --> 00:09:01 those 30 days come out with something that you
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 want to accomplish in your first 60 to 90 days
00:09:03 --> 00:09:06 and generally pick three or four really big topics
00:09:06 --> 00:09:09 and Share them with your CEO share them with
00:09:09 --> 00:09:11 your leadership team. And what I say is tell
00:09:11 --> 00:09:14 them look I'm gonna do these things first It's
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 not that the other 45 things you've sent me aren't
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 important. But if I don't get these things, right
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 I won't get things moving forward and It becomes
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 this idea for your own team where they start
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 to see progress And there's this concept called
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 the progress principle. You start racking up
00:09:30 --> 00:09:35 small wins and the momentum, the energy, the
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 morale in your team starts to elevate really
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 fast. And that puts you in a position to tackle
00:09:40 --> 00:09:42 bigger things later. And so I say, look, pick
00:09:42 --> 00:09:45 those three or four big things, commit to them,
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 make sure you get them done, and then get into
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 everything else. Where leaders make a mistake,
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 I think, is they try to tackle everything at
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 once. and it's like quicksand. You move things
00:09:55 --> 00:09:57 a little bit each way, but no one's feeling the
00:09:57 --> 00:10:01 progress. But then how do you manage change fatigue,
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 right? Because like you said, you walk in, because
00:10:04 --> 00:10:07 I rarely walk into any job, not just as a CFO,
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 and there was nothing to change, right? And you
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 have those 45 things. So you pick three, there's
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 like 42 left and probably 10 more that got added.
00:10:15 --> 00:10:20 So how do you lead change in those circumstances
00:10:20 --> 00:10:24 when people kind of get tired? Yeah, I think
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 it comes down to I mean communication becomes
00:10:27 --> 00:10:31 huge I Have a coffee cup somebody gave me because
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 I guess I quoted this all the time or someone
00:10:33 --> 00:10:34 would bring me something and I would always say
00:10:34 --> 00:10:37 What's the context? Why is this on my plate?
00:10:37 --> 00:10:39 What what's important? Why is why are we bringing
00:10:39 --> 00:10:42 this up? And I think that also is important when
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 you're making changes Bringing people along the
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 journey. Here's why we're doing it. Here's the
00:10:47 --> 00:10:51 context here's why it's important to the business.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:54 And I find that if you're willing to invest in
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 communication, people will come along for the
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 journey. And actually acknowledging and having
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 empathy that, hey, I know this is difficult for
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 you to change this thing. One of the big ones
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 when you come in as a finance leader is you're
00:11:08 --> 00:11:09 probably putting in more control than there was
00:11:09 --> 00:11:13 before. And a lot of business folks are like,
00:11:13 --> 00:11:15 well, wait a minute, I used to be able to approve
00:11:15 --> 00:11:18 anything I wanted to or spend this or. And if
00:11:18 --> 00:11:20 you give them the context on why it's important
00:11:20 --> 00:11:24 and give them some autonomy and agency to do
00:11:24 --> 00:11:27 certain things, they'll tend to partner with
00:11:27 --> 00:11:31 you and come along for the ride. OK, OK. So you've
00:11:31 --> 00:11:35 led organizations that grew very fast, like very,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 very fast on a short period of time, because
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 that's really how success is in those kind of
00:11:40 --> 00:11:42 startups. What do you think typically breaks
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 first for finance? Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 I think people's perception is it's the billing
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 system or your data quality or your models that
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 break first. And I think that's all true. But
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 at its core, I mentioned before decision velocity.
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 You know, one of the things as you're moving
00:11:59 --> 00:12:02 really fast and growing a business is the ability
00:12:02 --> 00:12:05 to give feedback to the business fast, to put
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 data in front of them, to make decisions, to
00:12:07 --> 00:12:10 give them advice and kind of steward the business
00:12:10 --> 00:12:11 along. And I think where finance leaders can
00:12:11 --> 00:12:14 make a mistake is you have to invest in some
00:12:14 --> 00:12:19 level of data quality and infrastructure so that
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 you can stay ahead of the business and be able
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 to make decisions with them. What happens is
00:12:23 --> 00:12:25 if you don't do that, you start to drown in what
00:12:25 --> 00:12:28 I would argue is maybe lower value reporting,
00:12:28 --> 00:12:30 lower value analysis, and the business stops
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 asking for help eventually. They're like, I got
00:12:32 --> 00:12:34 to figure this thing out on my own. And so you
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 want to stay ahead of them so that they're always
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 coming to you and saying, before I do this, I
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 want to make sure Chad and his team are on board
00:12:40 --> 00:12:44 and that they're calling out any gaps, anything
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 that maybe I hadn't thought of. And I think the
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 other thing that becomes important in a high
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 -growth company is, in addition to decision velocity,
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 I have this thing I look for in people, which
00:12:54 --> 00:12:57 is, it's okay to tell the business no, but it
00:12:57 --> 00:13:00 should always be a no -but. And what I mean by
00:13:00 --> 00:13:03 that is, it's okay to say no, but you need to
00:13:03 --> 00:13:04 give them another route to achieve what they
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 want to achieve, unless, I mean, some things
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 are just dumb and they shouldn't do it. But most
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 of the time, there's a good idea behind it. And
00:13:11 --> 00:13:12 you want to be their partner to helping them
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 figure it out. And so saying, no, but you can't
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 do that. But here's what you can do. The business
00:13:18 --> 00:13:20 feels more empowered. Or sometimes you say, yes,
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 yes, I'm OK if you do that. And I need you to
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 do these other things. So no, but or yes, and
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 I think helps as you are scaling a high growth
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 business as well. And I like the idea you said
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 about business partnering, right? Because they
00:13:34 --> 00:13:38 thinking about how can I bring finance in ahead
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 of time and not after? an afterthought because
00:13:41 --> 00:13:45 I did a survey not too long ago and about 200
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 finance leaders, most of them were CFOs talking
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 about how finance is brought in after the fact.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 and not like once we already made a decision,
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 we all going it out, you know, you guys make
00:13:56 --> 00:13:58 it happen. What are some of the things that have
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 helped you partner better with the business to
00:14:01 --> 00:14:03 the point where they say what you just said?
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 What is your team on board with what we're about
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 to do? I mean, I think it comes down to three
00:14:09 --> 00:14:13 things. And it's, you know, the first one is
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 you got to build the processes so you could stay
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 ahead of the business. Those are things like,
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 I always say that in finance, you have to answer
00:14:20 --> 00:14:24 three questions in order. What happened? Why
00:14:24 --> 00:14:27 did it happen? So now what? And if you can't
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 answer them, you go all the way back to the beginning
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 and start with what happened and move through
00:14:31 --> 00:14:33 that. And that's a very foundational thing. You
00:14:33 --> 00:14:36 have that process so you can get to the, so now
00:14:36 --> 00:14:39 what? How do I guide the business? Finance, I
00:14:39 --> 00:14:41 have this... Saying which is you know finance
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 is just the expression of everything that happens
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 in the business and numbers And so if you build
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 those processes you have visibility into the
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 operations of the business You heard me talk
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 about systems and data data quality becomes really
00:14:52 --> 00:14:55 important Often you hear the stories all the
00:14:55 --> 00:14:58 time about high -growth companies and a very
00:14:58 --> 00:15:00 simple metric might have ten different definitions
00:15:00 --> 00:15:03 Your chief revenue officer says my bookings this
00:15:03 --> 00:15:05 quarter was one number and then the CFO comes
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 in and says no It's not it's this my team gave
00:15:07 --> 00:15:11 me this number. Well Now you're in this reconciliation
00:15:11 --> 00:15:14 back and forth, which isn't valuable at all.
00:15:14 --> 00:15:16 So agreeing on aligned definitions for metrics
00:15:16 --> 00:15:18 and getting a central way to report them becomes
00:15:18 --> 00:15:20 important. And then I think the last one is it's
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 a talent management thing. You have to hire people
00:15:23 --> 00:15:26 that don't just want to be behind the scenes.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:29 I think you talked about the finance functions
00:15:29 --> 00:15:33 that I saw both at SalesLoft and really G2 and
00:15:33 --> 00:15:35 even Full Story to a degree. There were elements
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 of those teams that had this hunger to be involved
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 in the business, but in some ways had just been
00:15:41 --> 00:15:45 seen as a reporting arm. And, you know, what
00:15:45 --> 00:15:47 we really wanted to do over time was to transform
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 that into again, making the news and really driving
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 the business forward. And how do you bring your
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 team along? Because that's a good point that
00:15:54 --> 00:15:57 you you sometimes inherit a team and that reputation
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 is already there in people's mind that you I
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 can't go to them for anything or They're only
00:16:03 --> 00:16:05 doing reporting. I don't see them already as
00:16:05 --> 00:16:07 a business partner. I should bring in early in
00:16:07 --> 00:16:10 my conversation. So when you inherit a team,
00:16:11 --> 00:16:14 how do you go about getting them to the level
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 of efficiency you want them to be when it comes
00:16:17 --> 00:16:20 to business partnering? I think one of the first
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 things you have to do is empower them. One of
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 the biggest challenges is I think finance teams
00:16:25 --> 00:16:27 often don't feel like they can push back. They
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 don't feel like they can ask for help. And so
00:16:29 --> 00:16:31 I think that's the first one as a leader coming
00:16:31 --> 00:16:32 in saying, hey, I'm here to help you. My job
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 is to make you successful. It's amazing just
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 even saying those words and really then, of course,
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 proving that you're going to do that. It really
00:16:39 --> 00:16:43 changes the calculus of a lot of people. And
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 I think a lot of folks say it's like, hey, let's
00:16:45 --> 00:16:46 let's go to some of these conversations together.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 Why don't you see how how I engage with the business?
00:16:51 --> 00:16:55 And, you know, more times than not, they're able
00:16:55 --> 00:16:56 to come along, and sometimes they're not, and
00:16:56 --> 00:16:58 they ultimately decide that maybe that phase
00:16:58 --> 00:17:00 of the company, because there's people that are
00:17:00 --> 00:17:02 good for certain phases, they may decide that's
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 not the right phase for them. And then also,
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 at least at SalesLoft, G2, and now Full Story,
00:17:09 --> 00:17:10 I've been lucky enough to bring in leaders who
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 I've worked with before, who have the same mindset
00:17:13 --> 00:17:16 that I do, and so they help me to drive that
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 across the team. And back to the relationships
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 again and how you are able to bring people along.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 So I'm curious though, on the personal side,
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 what's difficult about leading in those periods
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 of change, right? Because you come in, there's
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 not necessarily everything you wanted. Things
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 are not how you would want them to be. And you
00:17:34 --> 00:17:37 have to be patient with yourself and you have
00:17:37 --> 00:17:40 to work and wear all these hats that now CFOs
00:17:40 --> 00:17:45 have to wear. So how do you... Keep up with that.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:47 I mean, I think it's a couple things. One is
00:17:47 --> 00:17:49 I tell people all the time when I'm mentoring
00:17:49 --> 00:17:54 other CFOs, you have to stay calm. There's this
00:17:54 --> 00:17:57 view that if the CFO is nervous or frazzled,
00:17:57 --> 00:17:59 that everybody's frazzled, right? It's just a
00:17:59 --> 00:18:01 part of the job. And so I think that's the first
00:18:01 --> 00:18:04 one is like being calm, being patient, as you
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 say, but more importantly, that incremental progress
00:18:06 --> 00:18:10 that I told you about. I do think it's important
00:18:10 --> 00:18:13 for you to be patient, but to get to start. Stacking
00:18:13 --> 00:18:16 up small wins and you know This is more of I
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 say this all the time that I've made enough mistakes
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 across my career that I know how to do Maybe
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 do things the right way now the first time and
00:18:22 --> 00:18:24 so they're just areas that you generally see
00:18:24 --> 00:18:27 that are easier to tackle when you come in and
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 When your team your team sees that you can make
00:18:29 --> 00:18:34 a small change that might be a change like a
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 definition of metrics where you just grab the
00:18:36 --> 00:18:38 business and align on something and you all get
00:18:38 --> 00:18:40 to the same place. And now you've eliminated
00:18:40 --> 00:18:44 all of the back and forth. Or it's an analysis
00:18:44 --> 00:18:47 where there's a big decision like what segment
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 should we be in? Who is our ideal customer profile?
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 And you raise your hand and say, my team's gonna
00:18:51 --> 00:18:52 lead this analysis and you have your team do
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 it. And they start to see it and they start to
00:18:54 --> 00:18:57 get excited. And so part of your job is being
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 a bit of a cheerleader and building up the morale
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 of your team. And then I do think you made a
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 comment, which is wearing all these hats. Look,
00:19:04 --> 00:19:07 the CFO role generally now isn't just owning
00:19:07 --> 00:19:13 finance. So at at Full Story, I own finance.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 I have our legal and corporate development team.
00:19:16 --> 00:19:20 I have our enterprise systems and data team.
00:19:20 --> 00:19:23 And I love that because I've got awesome leaders
00:19:23 --> 00:19:25 underneath me. And I actually see a lot of power
00:19:25 --> 00:19:28 in having all those functions work together because
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 they're all working. on very similar things and
00:19:30 --> 00:19:34 they can multiply each other's work. But as a
00:19:34 --> 00:19:36 CFO, you have to be okay that, you know what,
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 I'm not the domain expert in legal. I'm not the
00:19:39 --> 00:19:40 domain expert. I'm definitely not the domain
00:19:40 --> 00:19:44 expert in IT and systems. But if I get the right
00:19:44 --> 00:19:46 leaders and we partner together and I share a
00:19:46 --> 00:19:50 vision and then I support them along the way,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:54 it's pretty powerful. It is. And because at ACE,
00:19:54 --> 00:19:58 I have HR like... They want to give me other
00:19:58 --> 00:20:03 stuff, and I'm like, no English. Don't even try.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:07 So what's your go -to approach to hire those
00:20:07 --> 00:20:09 leaders that are not in your primary function?
00:20:10 --> 00:20:13 Because you have to... coach, for example, the
00:20:13 --> 00:20:16 person in IT, or go and hire somebody to help
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 you with legal. And that was not, for example,
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 your expertise. I realize a lot of people don't
00:20:21 --> 00:20:23 feel comfortable necessarily with that or don't
00:20:23 --> 00:20:25 know how to go about it. Just like you have CFOs
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 that come from an FPNA background and now they
00:20:27 --> 00:20:30 have to lead a controller who comes from a very
00:20:30 --> 00:20:32 technical accounting background. Like what are
00:20:32 --> 00:20:33 your go -to moves when you come to that? What
00:20:33 --> 00:20:35 are you looking for in that candidate? How do
00:20:35 --> 00:20:38 you coach and manage them once they're on board?
00:20:38 --> 00:20:40 You have to be intellectually honest that you
00:20:40 --> 00:20:42 don't know all that. Like I'm not an accountant
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 by nature. So I have to have, I've got an awesome
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 controller at Full Story. I've been lucky to
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 have really strong controllers at all of my companies.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:50 Either I've hired them or they've been there.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:52 And I think that applies to all the functions.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:55 Even just acknowledging first, hey, I'm not the
00:20:55 --> 00:20:57 expert here, but here's what I want to, here's
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 my vision and bringing them along the journey
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 back to the context. It's pretty powerful. And
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 I think that, you know, if you Hiring in those
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 functions. It's not about getting into the really
00:21:09 --> 00:21:12 super technical details You and I know enough
00:21:12 --> 00:21:14 to be dangerous in all of the different areas
00:21:14 --> 00:21:17 just to know what's important But it's about
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 finding people. I think all of those functions
00:21:19 --> 00:21:22 can have an element of this make the news not
00:21:22 --> 00:21:24 report it Yeah, so you want to find leaders that
00:21:24 --> 00:21:28 feel empowered that That don't just let things
00:21:28 --> 00:21:30 happen to them. They want to come in and they
00:21:30 --> 00:21:32 want to drive the business and they want a partner
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 And they also view the business as their customer
00:21:35 --> 00:21:38 And I think if you get like -minded people, not
00:21:38 --> 00:21:39 necessarily that all have the same personality,
00:21:39 --> 00:21:40 you don't have to have that, but I think people
00:21:40 --> 00:21:43 that at least view their functions as ways to
00:21:43 --> 00:21:46 supercharge the business, you can move things
00:21:46 --> 00:21:49 forward. Yeah. And I like what you said here
00:21:49 --> 00:21:51 is that mindset, right? Because you can only
00:21:51 --> 00:21:55 train people on technical skills so much. Right.
00:21:55 --> 00:21:58 And now you are working at Full Story. You guys
00:21:58 --> 00:22:02 are at the forefront of AI. Curious to hear what
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 do you think are some trends that finance and
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 accounting professionals should think about,
00:22:06 --> 00:22:08 you know, as we approach our career? Because,
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 you know, like you said, you're hiring your leaders
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 not based on do you know how to code, right?
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 Because that's low level. At your level, you're
00:22:16 --> 00:22:17 looking for do you have the vision? Do you have
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 the drive? Yeah. What about finance and accounting
00:22:20 --> 00:22:23 professionals in general? And what AI is bringing
00:22:23 --> 00:22:26 to the scene? So I think the CFO role is evolving
00:22:26 --> 00:22:28 because of that. And if you really think about
00:22:28 --> 00:22:32 it, as the CFO, you're one of the primary drivers
00:22:32 --> 00:22:35 of AI in the company. And I think there's two
00:22:35 --> 00:22:38 ways you're doing that, right? One is you are
00:22:38 --> 00:22:41 responsible for creating the environment, the
00:22:41 --> 00:22:44 data infrastructure, the governance, making sure
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 that you're putting the right tools in place
00:22:46 --> 00:22:48 so that people can start using AI. I think that's
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 one of the things. And I think that's where a
00:22:50 --> 00:22:53 lot of things fail. The second one which becomes
00:22:53 --> 00:22:57 important is and where a lot of AI fails is talent
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 You want to bring in people either that have
00:22:59 --> 00:23:01 a vision or have worked with some of these tools
00:23:01 --> 00:23:05 before and I think there's an element of In all
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 of our functions whether that's finance or legal
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 or HR or wherever where if you want to bring
00:23:10 --> 00:23:14 in people that Can really supercharge your your
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 function your company you might have to find
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 people that are really good with data and systems
00:23:19 --> 00:23:22 more of an engineering mindset. And maybe they
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 don't know the function as well, and you have
00:23:24 --> 00:23:27 to teach it. And that's where I think a lot of
00:23:27 --> 00:23:28 people are making a mistake now. They're looking
00:23:28 --> 00:23:32 for the finance AI transformation person. I mean,
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 that would be great. There just aren't that many
00:23:34 --> 00:23:38 of them yet. This is so new. And so I think the
00:23:38 --> 00:23:42 CFO's job is to... Try to bring in the talent
00:23:42 --> 00:23:43 both of who has you have to have some functional
00:23:43 --> 00:23:46 expertise, of course But marrying that up with
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 the people that understand the tools and systems
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 and together they can teach each other And that
00:23:51 --> 00:23:55 becomes I think part of the flywheel But I think
00:23:55 --> 00:23:57 you know a lot of people make the mistake now
00:23:57 --> 00:23:59 of just assuming well if I just buy an AI system
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 it's gonna work and You know if you don't have
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 the data if you don't have the the environment.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 It's really hard to get it off the ground Yeah,
00:24:06 --> 00:24:09 but I what you said about how the the CFO should
00:24:09 --> 00:24:13 be leading AI. For most people, they think the
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 CTO, somebody in technology, somebody else is
00:24:16 --> 00:24:19 responsible for AI. What would you say needs
00:24:19 --> 00:24:23 to shift in that approach? How should CFOs, how
00:24:23 --> 00:24:27 should leadership team view how to bring AI as
00:24:27 --> 00:24:30 a group project into an organization? Well, I
00:24:30 --> 00:24:33 think your CTO comment, if you really think about
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 it, that's for what you're bringing to market
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 for your customers. Look, at the end of the day,
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 that's the most important thing. Are you positioning
00:24:42 --> 00:24:44 your company to be critical infrastructure for
00:24:44 --> 00:24:46 AI in the future? And that's really what we're
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 focused on at Full Story. And so our chief product
00:24:48 --> 00:24:52 and technology officer is laser focused on how
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 we continue to unlock behavioral data for AI
00:24:54 --> 00:24:58 for our customers, full stop. Internal operations,
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 when it comes to how you apply AI to drive efficiency,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 decision velocity in a company. That's squarely
00:25:04 --> 00:25:08 in the CFO office. Generally, more times than
00:25:08 --> 00:25:10 not, the CFO is owning IT, at least in smaller
00:25:10 --> 00:25:13 companies. So you already have the functions.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 But even in bigger companies, you're in this
00:25:15 --> 00:25:17 unique seat where you're seeing every function
00:25:17 --> 00:25:21 of the business. And so it's your job to say,
00:25:21 --> 00:25:23 well, team, how are we applying AI here? What
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 are we doing? And don't just do what you're doing
00:25:26 --> 00:25:30 today with an AI tool next to you. How are you
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 rethinking how you work? What do you need to
00:25:33 --> 00:25:35 rethink how you work? And I think the CFO is
00:25:35 --> 00:25:39 in a unique position to ask those questions And
00:25:39 --> 00:25:40 so I view that as part of the responsibility
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 for sure and I think that's part of our mandate
00:25:42 --> 00:25:45 pretty much forever going forward Yeah, it's
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 just that thing that you know, whatever doesn't
00:25:48 --> 00:25:50 really belong anywhere ends up on the CFO lap
00:25:50 --> 00:25:53 What is it the phrase is like if if no one owns
00:25:53 --> 00:25:55 it finance owns it, right? It's just that's the
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 reality But I think with AI I think there are
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 a lot of people that want to raise their hand,
00:25:59 --> 00:26:02 but they don't know where to start The CFO can
00:26:02 --> 00:26:04 and you can invite yourself to any party in the
00:26:04 --> 00:26:08 company Yes, and if you've now earned the right
00:26:08 --> 00:26:10 if you've done the work to say hey I want to
00:26:10 --> 00:26:12 be involved in the operations of the business
00:26:12 --> 00:26:15 And you've really shown that you can people will
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 bring you in and I'll say hey, you know and and
00:26:18 --> 00:26:20 I think the other thing I would say One of the
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 things I love and appreciate about the CFO network
00:26:23 --> 00:26:25 is we're really good at talking to each other.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 Mm -hmm. And so I talked to I've got a network
00:26:28 --> 00:26:31 of a bunch of CFOs that I can bounce ideas off
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 of. And so when I'm having those business conversations
00:26:34 --> 00:26:37 in engineering, yeah, I don't know engineering,
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 of course I don't code, but I have talked to
00:26:39 --> 00:26:43 10 CFOs who are all thinking about how do I help
00:26:43 --> 00:26:47 enable engineering to leverage AI? And I think
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 that's part of your role is to help find that
00:26:49 --> 00:26:51 network effect of, look, we all are learning
00:26:51 --> 00:26:54 at the same time, the more we can knowledge share,
00:26:54 --> 00:26:58 the faster we can move. Yes, and I like your
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 idea of having that network of CFOs. That really
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 helped me. I remember when I was VP of Finance
00:27:04 --> 00:27:06 and Accounting, I started working with an executive
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 coach and she was asking me about my goal. I
00:27:08 --> 00:27:11 said, oh, I want to become a CFO one day. And
00:27:11 --> 00:27:13 she said, how many CFO friends do you have? And
00:27:13 --> 00:27:18 I was like, none. But it does make a difference
00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 in how we stretch your thinking and when you
00:27:21 --> 00:27:25 in those moments, how you able to bounce off
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 ideas and get that feedback. So what prompted
00:27:28 --> 00:27:30 you to actually be more intentional about having
00:27:30 --> 00:27:33 CFO friends? I think some of it some of its luck,
00:27:33 --> 00:27:36 honestly. So if I go back to Ariba and I look
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 at the team I worked on there, there's like eight
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 of us who are all CFOs of software companies
00:27:41 --> 00:27:43 now. And so just the fact that we and we were
00:27:43 --> 00:27:46 all on the same finance team at one point. And
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 so we've all stayed in touch over the years.
00:27:49 --> 00:27:51 I've also been lucky enough to, if I look at
00:27:51 --> 00:27:53 my team at SalesLoft, three of my four direct
00:27:53 --> 00:27:56 reports are now CFOs of other companies. And
00:27:56 --> 00:27:58 I don't think it has anything to do with me,
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 but it just has to do with the environment that
00:28:01 --> 00:28:03 we created there that they then could grow into
00:28:03 --> 00:28:07 that next role. And so I think it's luck, but
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 then it's also being intentional about staying
00:28:09 --> 00:28:12 in touch. We all get busy. I have, I try to do
00:28:12 --> 00:28:14 at least two or three of those a week where I
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16 have a conversation. It doesn't have to be a
00:28:16 --> 00:28:18 scheduled meeting, but it's a phone call when
00:28:18 --> 00:28:22 I'm in the car. It's a meetup for dinner or drinks
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 or something where we can just talk about business
00:28:25 --> 00:28:26 problems. We could talk about life and that's
00:28:26 --> 00:28:29 important too. These are friends. But also you
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 get a chance to really talk about what are you
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 seeing about a certain like one of the big topics
00:28:34 --> 00:28:36 right now? I think that's everybody is trying
00:28:36 --> 00:28:39 to figure out is There is this ongoing move from
00:28:39 --> 00:28:42 subscription pricing to consumption. Yes. I mean,
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45 it's every other LinkedIn post is about this
00:28:45 --> 00:28:48 There are very few finance leaders that truly
00:28:48 --> 00:28:51 understand how to do it And so the more you can
00:28:51 --> 00:28:53 talk to CFOs who are dealing with that right
00:28:53 --> 00:28:56 now the more you can get ideas And the best ones,
00:28:57 --> 00:28:58 at least the ones I'm lucky, the ones that I
00:28:58 --> 00:29:01 get to talk to often are willing to say, hey,
00:29:01 --> 00:29:03 here's something I messed up. Here's something
00:29:03 --> 00:29:06 I would recommend not doing. That's just as powerful
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08 as here's what you should do. Yes. Oh, gosh.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 Yes. And then I would say, you have to be willing
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 to also commit your own time. So you're going
00:29:14 --> 00:29:15 to get a lot of people that reach out to you
00:29:15 --> 00:29:18 and want to pick your brain. You have to be open
00:29:18 --> 00:29:19 to that as well. And it can't just be a one way
00:29:19 --> 00:29:23 street. Yeah, I like I like what you just said
00:29:23 --> 00:29:25 about you see it in your feeding on LinkedIn
00:29:25 --> 00:29:28 But it doesn't mean that it comes from people
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 who are actually doing it, right? Because that's
00:29:30 --> 00:29:33 the thing with AI too I mean anybody can be an
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 expert in something and that's why I value like
00:29:35 --> 00:29:38 this the kind of conversation we having so curious
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 to hear from what you learned already about moving
00:29:41 --> 00:29:44 from that Subscription business with consumption
00:29:44 --> 00:29:47 because to me is like scary. Yeah, because it's
00:29:47 --> 00:29:51 like I with a subscription I can control My cost
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 because I know that every month if I do xyz or
00:29:54 --> 00:29:58 or have this of this option My cost will be x
00:29:58 --> 00:30:01 when you move to consumption is different. So
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 curious to hear what you you heard on that topic
00:30:04 --> 00:30:06 You know, it's interesting. First of all, no
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 one's quite figured it out yet the companies
00:30:08 --> 00:30:12 that are on the cutting edge the Anthropics the
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 open ai's and all these companies that are working
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 around them that are true consumption businesses
00:30:16 --> 00:30:19 They're moving so fast that they too are trying
00:30:19 --> 00:30:21 to figure it out But there's an underlying motion
00:30:21 --> 00:30:24 that has to be created with that. And it's this
00:30:24 --> 00:30:27 idea that most of these companies start as PLG,
00:30:27 --> 00:30:30 so product -led growth. You can't send salespeople,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:32 it's very hard to send salespeople to go sell
00:30:32 --> 00:30:35 a consumption product off the bat. But having
00:30:35 --> 00:30:38 a setup where customers can start using it and
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 it's very low friction, it may be for free or
00:30:41 --> 00:30:43 maybe for a very low cost, you have to have that
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 motion where you can get the customers hooked.
00:30:45 --> 00:30:48 And you start to see the usage go up and up and
00:30:48 --> 00:30:51 up. and there needs to be a play that you run
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 and there's no tried and true method but I think
00:30:54 --> 00:30:56 companies have proven this works where at some
00:30:56 --> 00:30:58 point as their consumption is going up you can
00:30:58 --> 00:31:01 introduce a salesperson that can say hey why
00:31:01 --> 00:31:03 don't you commit to a certain level and I can
00:31:03 --> 00:31:06 save you money on the cost and so you start to
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 see that there is a reality which is even though
00:31:08 --> 00:31:11 they're consumption businesses underlying the
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 business is still a substantial portion of committed
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 revenue and committed revenue and subscription
00:31:15 --> 00:31:19 revenue are the same thing true and so But it's
00:31:19 --> 00:31:20 that fear that people say, well, it's all going
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 to be variable and it's going to be all over
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24 the place. And like, there is some of that for
00:31:24 --> 00:31:26 sure. But it's understanding that life cycle
00:31:26 --> 00:31:31 from initial sale, low friction, maybe probably
00:31:31 --> 00:31:34 low value upfront, but then having the monitoring
00:31:34 --> 00:31:36 and the mechanisms on the back end to say, hey,
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 these are good customers who are really using
00:31:38 --> 00:31:41 our product and are growing with us fast. These
00:31:41 --> 00:31:44 would be people who would be primed for a commitment.
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 You know if you look at some of the biggest companies
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 like that that was the model that snowflake Employed
00:31:50 --> 00:31:54 and it works. Yeah, I mean we all I'm hooked
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 on like three or four tools Yeah, waiting to
00:31:57 --> 00:32:00 see what changes as it moves to a consumption
00:32:00 --> 00:32:02 model But then internally like when you think
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 about the resources your team may be using when
00:32:05 --> 00:32:09 you bring on a AI empowered tool like how do
00:32:09 --> 00:32:13 you measure success? It's a great question and
00:32:13 --> 00:32:16 I don't I can't say I have the best answer for
00:32:16 --> 00:32:17 you right now. I think it depends on what it
00:32:17 --> 00:32:22 is. If you look at AI today, there's really a
00:32:22 --> 00:32:24 continuum. On one end, there are purpose -built
00:32:24 --> 00:32:27 solutions that are already built in the market.
00:32:27 --> 00:32:31 Like we just bought an AI clothes tool so we
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 can agenify clothes. I have this mandate from
00:32:33 --> 00:32:35 my team. They've been amazing. They've moved
00:32:35 --> 00:32:39 our clothes process down by 50 % in a year. And
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 I asked them to do another stock after the show
00:32:41 --> 00:32:45 And I've asked them to do another 50 % this year
00:32:45 --> 00:32:47 Wow, you know and you're starting to get down
00:32:47 --> 00:32:51 to just a handful of days And they're embracing
00:32:51 --> 00:32:53 it And so they went and found an AI closed tool
00:32:53 --> 00:32:54 that could help them to do that That's purpose
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 -built and and you're not gonna get a competitive
00:32:57 --> 00:32:59 advantage by building that on your own Yes There
00:32:59 --> 00:33:00 are a lot of tools like that where you should
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02 be looking at what are what are good AI tools
00:33:02 --> 00:33:05 that make sense? To plug into the business And
00:33:05 --> 00:33:08 then there are the things that are more internal
00:33:08 --> 00:33:12 to your company, how you democratize data, how
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14 you implement your customers, how you research
00:33:14 --> 00:33:17 and go to market. A lot of those tools you have
00:33:17 --> 00:33:22 to build. And the beauty is with tools like Anthropic
00:33:22 --> 00:33:26 and OpenAI, everybody can be builders now. Back
00:33:26 --> 00:33:28 to you have to create the environment for that
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 to be safe, I think is important. And so I think
00:33:30 --> 00:33:33 your job as a CFO is to challenge the team on
00:33:33 --> 00:33:35 when does it make sense to buy something? When
00:33:35 --> 00:33:39 is it good to build it? And there's not a great
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 answer right now in each, but you can start to
00:33:41 --> 00:33:44 say, OK, well, for each thing that I'm investing
00:33:44 --> 00:33:48 in, what outcome do I want? If it's processing
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 of transactions, zero touch, right? How many
00:33:51 --> 00:33:53 of my transactions are not being touched? You
00:33:53 --> 00:33:56 can measure that. If it's reporting, you almost
00:33:56 --> 00:33:58 have to set a baseline. Hey, team, let's try
00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 to figure out how much time we're spending on
00:34:00 --> 00:34:03 X task. And then once we can try to measure it
00:34:03 --> 00:34:05 as best we can, it's not a science project, but
00:34:05 --> 00:34:07 just trying to come up with something. You then
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 can say, OK, well, now that we have a baseline
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 of measurement, what do we think can happen when
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 we put an AI? And you start to measure against
00:34:13 --> 00:34:14 that baseline. I think the real problem is a
00:34:14 --> 00:34:16 lot of times people don't set the baseline first,
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 so they don't know. And I do think it's your
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 job as a CFO to challenge. your team, the business,
00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 to say, hey, I'm okay. I want to invest in AI
00:34:24 --> 00:34:26 tools and I want to free up money to do that.
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28 But if you're not careful, you now have just
00:34:28 --> 00:34:31 another cost without people signing up for incremental
00:34:31 --> 00:34:34 benefits. Yes. And so your job is to constantly
00:34:34 --> 00:34:37 push on, okay, well, what's the return on that?
00:34:37 --> 00:34:39 And it's probably also, they're probably not
00:34:39 --> 00:34:42 going to use it, right? Because if they're detached
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 from it, it's like, eh. True, for sure. And then
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46 the other challenge is that, you know, some people
00:34:46 --> 00:34:47 today are saying, well, I'm going to measure
00:34:47 --> 00:34:51 what's called token usage. So with the big LLMs
00:34:51 --> 00:34:55 like Anthropic, you can see how much people are
00:34:55 --> 00:34:58 spending using the tool. Well, just because somebody
00:34:58 --> 00:35:01 spent $1 in tokens this much this month,
00:35:01 --> 00:35:03 is that a good thing? I mean, they're using it.
00:35:03 --> 00:35:06 That's great. So it's greater than zero, thumbs
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 up. But what do they use that $1 for? And
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 so I think, again, you've just got to be having
00:35:11 --> 00:35:13 ongoing conversations and measurements say, OK,
00:35:14 --> 00:35:15 well, we know who's using the tools. What are
00:35:15 --> 00:35:18 they using it for? And then what are we getting
00:35:18 --> 00:35:20 as a business? And it doesn't have to be perfect
00:35:20 --> 00:35:22 because right now the world is changing so fast.
00:35:22 --> 00:35:25 If you try to measure too much, you slow down
00:35:25 --> 00:35:26 the business too. And so there's a tension that
00:35:26 --> 00:35:28 you've got to manage. Yeah. And I'm curious to
00:35:28 --> 00:35:32 hear before you give me more tips on that about
00:35:32 --> 00:35:35 your team and how they were able to use AI to
00:35:35 --> 00:35:38 cut down clothes by 50%. Like what are some of
00:35:38 --> 00:35:41 the things they did or systems or tools they
00:35:41 --> 00:35:44 used? And so I would even argue the first 50%.
00:35:44 --> 00:35:47 was them just rethinking processes. And using
00:35:47 --> 00:35:49 AI, and I'll give you some examples of what I
00:35:49 --> 00:35:51 would call like early wins on AI, that was number
00:35:51 --> 00:35:54 one. The tool that I mentioned to you, we just
00:35:54 --> 00:35:58 bought. And so that's the next 50%. But things
00:35:58 --> 00:36:00 that they've done that I just find very powerful,
00:36:00 --> 00:36:03 and it's more about freeing up time to move faster.
00:36:04 --> 00:36:07 So one example is we built this tool called,
00:36:07 --> 00:36:11 we call it the SEC agent. And so you think about
00:36:11 --> 00:36:13 when you own revenue accounting in a software
00:36:13 --> 00:36:15 company, Everybody's bringing deals to you and
00:36:15 --> 00:36:19 saying, you know, is there a revenue impact of
00:36:19 --> 00:36:22 this? Is this okay? Is it not? Well, the accounting
00:36:22 --> 00:36:25 pronouncements are hundreds of pages long, right?
00:36:25 --> 00:36:27 And it's painful. It is painful. So what our
00:36:27 --> 00:36:30 team did, and again, this is back to getting
00:36:30 --> 00:36:32 the opportunity to own functions that can work
00:36:32 --> 00:36:34 together, our enterprise system and data team
00:36:34 --> 00:36:37 built them an agent called SEC agent, where we
00:36:37 --> 00:36:40 uploaded all of the accounting guidance, all
00:36:40 --> 00:36:42 of this detail and train this agent. So now we
00:36:42 --> 00:36:45 can just upload a contract and say, hey, what
00:36:45 --> 00:36:48 are the implications of this? And you're talking
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 about hours of work from each contract now just
00:36:51 --> 00:36:53 being removed immediately. That's one example.
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 The other one, which is one that's brand new
00:36:56 --> 00:36:58 is as a CFO, one of the things I've always asked
00:36:58 --> 00:37:01 for in the 10 plus years I've been standalone
00:37:01 --> 00:37:06 CFO is I want daily cash reporting. And people
00:37:06 --> 00:37:07 would say, gosh, that feels like overkill, but
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 I always say, if you can't get anything right,
00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 get cash right. Yes, please pay me, pay people,
00:37:12 --> 00:37:15 pay vendors. You see inflows, outflows. And when
00:37:15 --> 00:37:18 I first came on board at Full Story, the team
00:37:18 --> 00:37:19 was like, oh, that's going to take us some time.
00:37:19 --> 00:37:21 And they built it. And it was great. And it took
00:37:21 --> 00:37:23 somebody maybe an hour a day to build or something.
00:37:24 --> 00:37:28 My controller, who is very AI forward, went and
00:37:28 --> 00:37:30 built an agent on his own. Back to everybody
00:37:30 --> 00:37:33 can be builders. that we can just download the
00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 data from the bank, send it through Claude, and
00:37:35 --> 00:37:37 we have enterprise Claude, so safe data, again,
00:37:37 --> 00:37:38 back to creating an environment where you're
00:37:38 --> 00:37:41 okay to share it. Claude automatically updates
00:37:41 --> 00:37:44 a report and sends a Slack message to a group
00:37:44 --> 00:37:47 of us with the daily cash update. You've now
00:37:47 --> 00:37:51 taken an hour to two hours of work a day and
00:37:51 --> 00:37:54 turned it into like five minutes. And that's
00:37:54 --> 00:37:58 just an example of ways you can leverage AI in
00:37:58 --> 00:37:59 your day to day to free up your time to do other
00:37:59 --> 00:38:01 things. And part of it is you must have to free
00:38:01 --> 00:38:03 up your time to then think about what you're
00:38:03 --> 00:38:05 going to do next because the technology is moving
00:38:05 --> 00:38:08 so fast. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing this
00:38:08 --> 00:38:12 great example and how you said is rethinking
00:38:12 --> 00:38:15 work, right? Because I feel like sometimes Our
00:38:15 --> 00:38:17 teams, ourselves, could be so much in the weed,
00:38:17 --> 00:38:20 we don't have time to rethink. So we go, go,
00:38:20 --> 00:38:23 go, go, go. But there is never that time to truly
00:38:23 --> 00:38:26 pause and even say, yes, that's the way it's
00:38:26 --> 00:38:31 always been done. Now what? Like, how do you
00:38:31 --> 00:38:36 get people to pause? Because I know we do, like,
00:38:36 --> 00:38:39 leadership retreat, all that stuff. But how do
00:38:39 --> 00:38:41 we make sure that we are able to have teams that
00:38:41 --> 00:38:46 take time to just think? There's no perfect answer.
00:38:46 --> 00:38:49 I think some of it is is you have to invest in
00:38:49 --> 00:38:51 a base level of training And so the beauty is
00:38:51 --> 00:38:53 with a lot of these tools. There's online training
00:38:53 --> 00:38:57 they can take You also have to create an environment
00:38:57 --> 00:39:00 where knowledge sharing is embraced So, you know,
00:39:00 --> 00:39:02 we've got a slack channel across all my teams
00:39:02 --> 00:39:05 where I said to them Hey every time you have
00:39:05 --> 00:39:07 an AI win, you need to put it in the slack channel
00:39:07 --> 00:39:10 Because that just unlocks people's thinking and
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 I think it's not that people don't Want to do
00:39:12 --> 00:39:14 it. I believe everybody has well intentions,
00:39:14 --> 00:39:16 but it's more about like they just don't know
00:39:16 --> 00:39:19 where to start and a lot of times They'll hear
00:39:19 --> 00:39:21 an example of something that somebody did like
00:39:21 --> 00:39:23 wait a minute I have this other thing that looks
00:39:23 --> 00:39:26 just like that. I can use AI for that And then
00:39:26 --> 00:39:28 I think the the the main thing you start with
00:39:28 --> 00:39:30 is it's like what are the things that you do?
00:39:30 --> 00:39:34 The the more rote manual tasks that you just
00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 know are ripe for automation And automation used
00:39:37 --> 00:39:39 to sound like stitching systems together and
00:39:39 --> 00:39:42 things like that, but that was before AI. Now
00:39:42 --> 00:39:44 it's like, hey, how do I build an agent to take
00:39:44 --> 00:39:46 a process that I do all the time and just have
00:39:46 --> 00:39:48 it do it over and over again? And do it in a
00:39:48 --> 00:39:50 way where I can audit the results because you
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52 can't just, we're in finance, right? Accuracy
00:39:52 --> 00:39:55 is paramount. How do you create an environment
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57 with AI where it can do the automation, but you
00:39:57 --> 00:40:00 have the audit trail on the back end to be able
00:40:00 --> 00:40:02 to make sure it's doing things right? That audit
00:40:02 --> 00:40:05 trail, because I feel like if you're trying to
00:40:05 --> 00:40:08 go too fast in AI and don't have that governance
00:40:08 --> 00:40:11 in place, AI can make something very bad look
00:40:11 --> 00:40:14 very good. Yeah, I think what people don't realize,
00:40:14 --> 00:40:17 and if you use a lot of these tools, AI can give
00:40:17 --> 00:40:20 you a very wrong answer with 100 % confidence.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:24 Here is the answer to your question. And I think
00:40:24 --> 00:40:27 the trust but verify still is very important.
00:40:27 --> 00:40:29 If it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.
00:40:29 --> 00:40:34 And so you have to, you know, we always say it's
00:40:34 --> 00:40:36 like human in the loop. Even if you're having
00:40:36 --> 00:40:38 AI do something, there are ways to create audit
00:40:38 --> 00:40:41 trails, whether it's you're having AI analyze
00:40:41 --> 00:40:43 something and you say, okay, walk me step by
00:40:43 --> 00:40:47 step through your process. Create me. Now with
00:40:47 --> 00:40:50 it integrating into spreadsheets, you can say
00:40:50 --> 00:40:53 to AI, create multiple spreadsheets that walk
00:40:53 --> 00:40:55 me through the formulas of what you've calculated.
00:40:57 --> 00:41:00 Or if AI is coding things for you. which it can
00:41:00 --> 00:41:03 do. You can say to it, hey, I need you to walk
00:41:03 --> 00:41:04 me through step by step what this code is telling
00:41:04 --> 00:41:07 me and recognize I don't understand Python or
00:41:07 --> 00:41:10 SQL or whatever it is. It will do that for you.
00:41:10 --> 00:41:13 You have to ask. And I think that's where you
00:41:13 --> 00:41:15 have to be willing to take that next step to
00:41:15 --> 00:41:17 say, OK, I'm not sure I understand where you
00:41:17 --> 00:41:19 got that answer from. walk me through your thought
00:41:19 --> 00:41:22 process. It'll converse with you that way. And
00:41:22 --> 00:41:25 I think that's where a lot of the work is going
00:41:25 --> 00:41:27 in right now, is that there are a lot of leaders
00:41:27 --> 00:41:30 that are sharing tips and tricks on how to create
00:41:30 --> 00:41:34 that audit trail. But you can't just ask it a
00:41:34 --> 00:41:37 question and just assume it's right. The other
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39 thing I find really important, and I think this
00:41:39 --> 00:41:42 is again back to the CFO mandate, is data quality.
00:41:42 --> 00:41:46 If you just unleash AI on source systems, like
00:41:46 --> 00:41:49 you connect AI to your CRM Salesforce instance
00:41:49 --> 00:41:52 or to slack or to something. AI won't necessarily
00:41:52 --> 00:41:54 give you back a great answer. It can be garbled.
00:41:55 --> 00:41:57 You have to create a data layer. A lot of people
00:41:57 --> 00:41:59 will refer to this as a semantic layer, but a
00:41:59 --> 00:42:01 layer that sits in between your source systems
00:42:01 --> 00:42:04 and AI, where you define business definitions.
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07 You and your chief revenue officer hopefully
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 likely have the same definition for bookings
00:42:10 --> 00:42:14 or ARR, annual recurring revenue. Well, let's
00:42:14 --> 00:42:16 embed that definition in a layer that sits between
00:42:16 --> 00:42:19 AI and your source system. And you do that so
00:42:19 --> 00:42:22 that when everybody is using AI to ask a question,
00:42:22 --> 00:42:24 they're getting back the same answer. I think
00:42:24 --> 00:42:26 that's the thing people don't realize is that
00:42:26 --> 00:42:30 AI, the term is probabilistic, but it's not great
00:42:30 --> 00:42:33 at math. And so you have to create that safety
00:42:33 --> 00:42:35 mechanism where you can ask it questions all
00:42:35 --> 00:42:37 day long and you know it's going to go to the
00:42:37 --> 00:42:40 right source to get the right data. And I think
00:42:40 --> 00:42:41 that's where a lot of companies are learning
00:42:41 --> 00:42:43 the hard way now. It's like I have to invest
00:42:43 --> 00:42:46 in those layers of data first in order to then
00:42:46 --> 00:42:50 unlock AI for my company. Yes. And where do you
00:42:50 --> 00:42:51 think, because you mentioned that a lot, people
00:42:51 --> 00:42:54 don't know where to start. So if I was a CFO
00:42:54 --> 00:42:57 today and I want to start bringing AI in my function
00:42:57 --> 00:43:00 to make it more efficient, to reduce my month
00:43:00 --> 00:43:03 -end closed process, to improve my board reporting,
00:43:03 --> 00:43:06 where should I start? I think you start with,
00:43:06 --> 00:43:09 you have to start with the easiest tasks, honestly.
00:43:09 --> 00:43:11 What are the things that your team is spending
00:43:11 --> 00:43:14 a lot of time on today that are manual in nature,
00:43:14 --> 00:43:17 that are repetitive? Start with those things.
00:43:17 --> 00:43:20 And you're not doing it, I think there's this
00:43:20 --> 00:43:23 view that you're doing it to eliminate headcount
00:43:23 --> 00:43:25 or cut down finance jobs. One day that might
00:43:25 --> 00:43:27 be the result, that's not the goal. The goal
00:43:27 --> 00:43:30 is to free up people's time to then work on more
00:43:30 --> 00:43:32 value added things. So you have to start there.
00:43:32 --> 00:43:34 You have to ask people like, let's all go assess
00:43:34 --> 00:43:36 what we're working on today and raise our hands
00:43:36 --> 00:43:38 and say, here's where I think AI could help me.
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40 And you start. That's one place. And then I think
00:43:40 --> 00:43:43 the other place is partner, whether you own IT
00:43:43 --> 00:43:46 or you partner with your IT and data team, how
00:43:46 --> 00:43:48 are we creating that data infrastructure so that
00:43:48 --> 00:43:52 we can put information closer to the business?
00:43:52 --> 00:43:55 And, you know, back to my comment about benchmarking
00:43:55 --> 00:43:58 with other CFOs. I had a call with another CFO
00:43:58 --> 00:44:00 where I shared with him one tool we were using,
00:44:00 --> 00:44:02 which he got excited about, and he shared with
00:44:02 --> 00:44:05 me that they had created chatbots for every function
00:44:05 --> 00:44:07 of their business. You know, there was a legal
00:44:07 --> 00:44:10 chatbot, an HR chatbot, a go -to -market chatbot.
00:44:11 --> 00:44:13 And you and I immediately would say, oh my gosh,
00:44:13 --> 00:44:15 how do we know those are right? Yeah, HR, chat
00:44:15 --> 00:44:18 bots, giving people salary. Right. And of course,
00:44:19 --> 00:44:21 you have to have governance and controls around
00:44:21 --> 00:44:23 that. But that's back to working with the business
00:44:23 --> 00:44:25 and creating a day later that sits in between
00:44:25 --> 00:44:29 so that it's secure. It's got the right control
00:44:29 --> 00:44:31 over who can see what. But it's also got the
00:44:31 --> 00:44:34 same definitions across all. And you know your
00:44:34 --> 00:44:37 job most companies tend to at least be thoughtful
00:44:37 --> 00:44:39 about who can access what you can embed that
00:44:39 --> 00:44:42 into your layers of data But you have to take
00:44:42 --> 00:44:45 a step back and invest in that first before you
00:44:45 --> 00:44:47 just go create the chatbot Because then what
00:44:47 --> 00:44:50 happens is you create the chatbot Either it gives
00:44:50 --> 00:44:53 back bad information, scary, or even worse, maybe
00:44:53 --> 00:44:54 it gives back good information, but it gives
00:44:54 --> 00:44:56 it to the wrong person. Yes. And I think the
00:44:56 --> 00:44:59 mistake that a lot of CFOs make today is they
00:44:59 --> 00:45:01 start with probably the more complicated tasks.
00:45:01 --> 00:45:03 Like you see on LinkedIn, we talked about LinkedIn
00:45:03 --> 00:45:06 before. Every other post is, oh, let me tell
00:45:06 --> 00:45:08 you how I used AI to automate all my board reporting.
00:45:08 --> 00:45:11 That's great. And that should be a great goal
00:45:11 --> 00:45:12 to have. First of all, you're probably not doing
00:45:12 --> 00:45:15 that much board reporting. And second of all,
00:45:15 --> 00:45:17 that could be more complicated. And if you haven't
00:45:17 --> 00:45:19 nailed the data piece on the front end, trying
00:45:19 --> 00:45:20 to do all your board reporting is going to be
00:45:20 --> 00:45:23 pretty tough. And so I think investing in the,
00:45:23 --> 00:45:26 you know, back to what are the easiest tasks
00:45:26 --> 00:45:29 I can tackle first, and then how am I investing
00:45:29 --> 00:45:31 in that data infrastructure to make AI successful?
00:45:32 --> 00:45:34 I think if you do those two things, you can build
00:45:34 --> 00:45:37 upon that from there. Okay. I love what you're
00:45:37 --> 00:45:39 sharing now, and I'm curious to hear since you're
00:45:39 --> 00:45:43 a CFO at an AI company, like how has it changed
00:45:43 --> 00:45:46 your view of the world? Right? Because you see
00:45:46 --> 00:45:50 it so much, like AI became popular for, you know,
00:45:50 --> 00:45:53 most people when Chad GPT, you know, came out.
00:45:53 --> 00:45:56 You've seen AI prior to that. So how did it change
00:45:56 --> 00:45:58 your view of the world or how you operate now
00:45:58 --> 00:46:01 as a leader? Well, I'll tell you first how it's
00:46:01 --> 00:46:03 changed and it's exciting for Full Story. So
00:46:03 --> 00:46:06 if you look at us as a company, one of the pieces
00:46:06 --> 00:46:08 of our proprietary technology is what we call
00:46:08 --> 00:46:10 Full Capture. If you think about any web -based
00:46:10 --> 00:46:13 interaction, whether that's on your phone and
00:46:13 --> 00:46:16 a website, like an e -commerce site and a software
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19 application, we always prided ourselves on capturing
00:46:19 --> 00:46:21 the deepest digital record of that interaction.
00:46:22 --> 00:46:24 And it's done in a way which is easier than if
00:46:24 --> 00:46:26 you had to instrument and measure certain things.
00:46:27 --> 00:46:29 Well, in the human world, where human beings
00:46:29 --> 00:46:31 have to interpret all that data, they see a lot
00:46:31 --> 00:46:33 of value in it. But maybe they can't unlock all
00:46:33 --> 00:46:36 the things that we can already capture. But what
00:46:36 --> 00:46:38 we're already seeing at Full Story is because
00:46:38 --> 00:46:42 we capture so much data, AI can do so much more
00:46:42 --> 00:46:44 with that. And still, it's going to give a human
00:46:44 --> 00:46:47 being a recommendation to make things better.
00:46:47 --> 00:46:50 And we want that. AI can actually unlock a lot
00:46:50 --> 00:46:52 of the data that we've already been capturing.
00:46:52 --> 00:46:54 So we're well positioned, I think, on the outside,
00:46:54 --> 00:46:56 which I get excited about. You know, internally,
00:46:56 --> 00:46:59 how it's changed my view is, I would even say
00:46:59 --> 00:47:02 for me, a year ago, I was probably using AI as
00:47:02 --> 00:47:05 like a chatbot, just to ask questions. And I
00:47:05 --> 00:47:07 still do, right? It's a great thought partner.
00:47:08 --> 00:47:11 But what it's changed for me is now I'm like,
00:47:11 --> 00:47:14 I realized, and it really was when the anthropic
00:47:14 --> 00:47:16 announcements happened early this year, and you
00:47:16 --> 00:47:19 saw things like co -work, the ability to automate
00:47:19 --> 00:47:21 tasks. It's really unlocked my view of to say,
00:47:22 --> 00:47:24 well, why can't AI do that? And not just for
00:47:24 --> 00:47:26 my own team, for the company, back to like, we
00:47:26 --> 00:47:29 are the ones who are driving that. We should
00:47:29 --> 00:47:31 be asking every team in the company, not how
00:47:31 --> 00:47:34 are you using AI to make your thought process
00:47:34 --> 00:47:37 better or you're writing better. You hope at
00:47:37 --> 00:47:39 this point they're already doing that, but it's
00:47:39 --> 00:47:41 what are you doing to transform your business
00:47:41 --> 00:47:43 processes with AI? And I was not having that
00:47:43 --> 00:47:45 conversation a year ago and I have it every day
00:47:45 --> 00:47:48 now. Wow. And that makes such a difference, right?
00:47:48 --> 00:47:52 Because I see a lot of words saying AI CFO, AI
00:47:52 --> 00:47:55 native CFOs. But I think it's just a shift in
00:47:55 --> 00:47:58 how we think about business processes or how
00:47:58 --> 00:48:01 we do our everyday life. Do you feel like at
00:48:01 --> 00:48:03 some point it will dramatically change what we
00:48:03 --> 00:48:06 define as entry -level jobs in finance? I do.
00:48:06 --> 00:48:09 I think what I don't believe, one of the misnumbers
00:48:09 --> 00:48:12 is there's this view that all entry -level jobs
00:48:12 --> 00:48:13 are going to go away. And that's just simply
00:48:13 --> 00:48:17 not possible. I agree. Every CFO needs to be
00:48:17 --> 00:48:19 thinking about how are we creating a training
00:48:19 --> 00:48:21 ground to make sure that we're growing talent
00:48:21 --> 00:48:24 in our works. But I do think the shape changes.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:27 If you think about the typical finance org structure,
00:48:27 --> 00:48:30 it was a triangle, right? A CFO sitting at the
00:48:30 --> 00:48:33 top with middle managers and then a lot of analysts
00:48:33 --> 00:48:35 and accountants. I think the new world, it's
00:48:35 --> 00:48:37 going to be more of a diamond where you're going
00:48:37 --> 00:48:39 to have the CFO at the top and you're going to
00:48:39 --> 00:48:42 have a layer of middle managers. who are not
00:48:42 --> 00:48:44 just managing individual contributors, but they're
00:48:44 --> 00:48:48 also managing agents. And you'll still have some
00:48:48 --> 00:48:50 of the entry -level folks on the flip side. So
00:48:50 --> 00:48:52 I think what's gonna change is the people that
00:48:52 --> 00:48:55 you're looking for now that come in as entry
00:48:55 --> 00:48:58 -level need to have used AI in some way. If you
00:48:58 --> 00:49:00 hire an accountant, I still think that's important
00:49:00 --> 00:49:02 to have functional expertise, but hey, tell me
00:49:02 --> 00:49:05 how you're using AI in your job today. Because
00:49:05 --> 00:49:06 you wanna bring those people in who are gonna
00:49:06 --> 00:49:08 be willing to look at all your processes and
00:49:08 --> 00:49:11 say, hey, there's a better way to do this. And
00:49:11 --> 00:49:15 I like the idea of a diamond shape, right? Because
00:49:15 --> 00:49:19 I can definitely see how, to me with AI, I don't
00:49:19 --> 00:49:21 think entry level, like you said, are gonna go
00:49:21 --> 00:49:24 away. I think they're gonna be redefined. Right,
00:49:24 --> 00:49:26 because it's not going to be make copies because
00:49:26 --> 00:49:29 entry level when I came through after college
00:49:29 --> 00:49:33 was ordering lunches and making copies and stapling.
00:49:34 --> 00:49:37 But I think it's just going to change. But I'm
00:49:37 --> 00:49:39 also curious to hear, like, what do you think
00:49:39 --> 00:49:42 our universities probably need to start doing
00:49:42 --> 00:49:45 different now to prepare those new entry level
00:49:45 --> 00:49:47 folks? Well, I don't believe they're doing enough
00:49:47 --> 00:49:50 right now. I think about my own. oldest daughter
00:49:50 --> 00:49:52 who's in high school right now. And I still worry
00:49:52 --> 00:49:56 that the schools are treating AI like the boogeyman
00:49:56 --> 00:49:59 a little bit, like it's a way to get around doing
00:49:59 --> 00:50:01 the work. I think the universities, the high
00:50:01 --> 00:50:04 schools need to be training students on how to
00:50:04 --> 00:50:07 responsibly use AI, how to engage with it, how
00:50:07 --> 00:50:10 to exponentially improve how they think. How
00:50:10 --> 00:50:12 to get more things done. What are the practical
00:50:12 --> 00:50:14 applications in your daily life that you can
00:50:14 --> 00:50:17 use AI for? Because there's a lot of it if you
00:50:17 --> 00:50:19 really think about it. We are doing our students,
00:50:20 --> 00:50:22 high school, college, a disservice if we're not
00:50:22 --> 00:50:25 teaching them that. And my hope is it's not just
00:50:25 --> 00:50:28 taking an AI class. That's great. And you need
00:50:28 --> 00:50:31 that. But I think it's about every single discipline
00:50:31 --> 00:50:33 needs to be thinking about. Here are the applications
00:50:33 --> 00:50:37 of AI in medicine. Here are the applications
00:50:37 --> 00:50:40 of AI in finance. Here are the applications of
00:50:40 --> 00:50:44 AI in engineering. All of those things need to
00:50:44 --> 00:50:46 be taught so that when students graduate, they
00:50:46 --> 00:50:48 come out with a set of skills where it's not
00:50:48 --> 00:50:50 so scary to them anymore. I haven't done a lot
00:50:50 --> 00:50:52 of research on this, but at least from what I
00:50:52 --> 00:50:54 can see what's in front of me, I don't think
00:50:54 --> 00:50:56 we're doing enough of that yet. Yeah, I agree.
00:50:56 --> 00:50:59 I know 20 something years ago when I graduated
00:50:59 --> 00:51:02 from college, I didn't feel ready for the workforce,
00:51:02 --> 00:51:05 but then I don't feel like the university system
00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 has improved much. especially when we look at
00:51:08 --> 00:51:11 AI today. So it's always fascinating to me to
00:51:11 --> 00:51:14 understand more about what are we doing for that
00:51:14 --> 00:51:17 next generation of finance and accounting professionals.
00:51:17 --> 00:51:19 That's right. Yeah. I mean, everybody said on
00:51:19 --> 00:51:21 the job learning. And look, there's always going
00:51:21 --> 00:51:24 to be some of that. Yeah. And I think that now
00:51:24 --> 00:51:26 you go back to when you and I were in university,
00:51:26 --> 00:51:30 there was a class on Microsoft Office. Yes. And
00:51:30 --> 00:51:32 that was important. You couldn't even start your
00:51:32 --> 00:51:33 job if you didn't know how to use Microsoft Office.
00:51:34 --> 00:51:36 AI needs to be viewed the same way. You can't
00:51:36 --> 00:51:39 start your job until you know how to use AI responsibly
00:51:39 --> 00:51:42 to engage in your base level of work. It should
00:51:42 --> 00:51:44 be one of the first systems you're setting up
00:51:44 --> 00:51:46 when you start your new job. So cool. So I'm
00:51:46 --> 00:51:48 curious to hear my last question for you. When
00:51:48 --> 00:51:51 you look down on your career, what advice would
00:51:51 --> 00:51:55 you give your 20 year old self? So I think I
00:51:55 --> 00:51:57 learned a lesson the hard way. It was during
00:51:57 --> 00:51:59 my time at Home Depot that I've carried with
00:51:59 --> 00:52:03 me to this day. So I was really fortunate. Right
00:52:03 --> 00:52:06 out of school, EY got some promotions, went to
00:52:06 --> 00:52:09 Home Depot. I was in the right position and saw
00:52:09 --> 00:52:11 some promotions pretty early in my career. And
00:52:11 --> 00:52:13 then I hit a level and I stayed at that level
00:52:13 --> 00:52:14 for a while. I don't remember, four or five years,
00:52:14 --> 00:52:18 whatever it was. And I started to define my success
00:52:18 --> 00:52:23 by my titles almost. And I remember it started
00:52:23 --> 00:52:25 to then get into how I was operating as a finance
00:52:25 --> 00:52:27 leader. And I remember I was working on this
00:52:27 --> 00:52:30 really important project and I had made a mistake.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:33 This was still at Home Depot. And I remember
00:52:33 --> 00:52:36 that late that night, my boss sat me down and
00:52:36 --> 00:52:38 he drew something on the board that I still use
00:52:38 --> 00:52:43 today. He drew a set of stairs. And then he drew
00:52:43 --> 00:52:45 a line from the bottom step to the top step.
00:52:46 --> 00:52:48 And he said, you know, you are so focused on
00:52:48 --> 00:52:51 defining your success and your growth by the
00:52:51 --> 00:52:54 bottom step to the top, titles and growth. You're
00:52:54 --> 00:52:56 missing all of these incremental things you're
00:52:56 --> 00:52:58 learning at each step along the way. He's like,
00:52:58 --> 00:53:01 if you would reframe your success around all
00:53:01 --> 00:53:04 the incremental knowledge and experiences you're
00:53:04 --> 00:53:08 getting, the big steps will happen. And yeah,
00:53:08 --> 00:53:11 I mean that was, I think I was almost 10 years
00:53:11 --> 00:53:14 into my career when I learned that lesson. I
00:53:14 --> 00:53:16 wish I knew that coming out. So that is advice
00:53:16 --> 00:53:19 I give people now all day long. Focus on the
00:53:19 --> 00:53:21 incremental learning and growth that you can
00:53:21 --> 00:53:24 get. Raise your hand for those challenging opportunities.
00:53:24 --> 00:53:27 The bigger growth, the titles and all those things,
00:53:27 --> 00:53:31 like they'll happen. It can't happen at the expense
00:53:31 --> 00:53:34 of investing in those steps along the way. Wow.
00:53:35 --> 00:53:37 Very true. Well, thank you so, so much, Chad,
00:53:37 --> 00:53:40 for being on the show. I learned so much. Definitely
00:53:40 --> 00:53:43 want to chat more about your closed process because
00:53:43 --> 00:53:47 mine needs AI agents and more in prayer. Well,
00:53:47 --> 00:53:50 look, I love what you're doing for the CFO community
00:53:50 --> 00:53:53 in Atlanta and just honored to be here. Thank
00:53:53 --> 00:53:55 you. Thank you.