Why It Matters
The discussion highlights how disciplined financial leadership can accelerate growth while mitigating risk, a crucial lesson for leaders in fast‑moving tech and biotech sectors. As AI becomes ubiquitous, Vestri’s filter for genuine value versus hype offers timely guidance for organizations seeking to invest wisely in transformative technologies.
Key Takeaways
- •AI automates clinical trial data extraction, cutting manual hours.
- •CFO now drives AI strategy, not just financial reporting.
- •Creo launched AI champion program to coordinate cross‑department adoption.
- •AI tools improve code quality, translation, and policy drafting efficiency.
- •Private equity focus demands rigorous financial partners and growth analytics.
Pulse Analysis
In today’s episode, Sue Vestri explains how the modern CFO has shifted from traditional reporting to becoming the chief AI strategist. At Creo, the finance leader is embedded in product, engineering, and operations, using artificial intelligence to tackle the massive, paper‑heavy data streams that clinical trial sites generate. By deploying AI‑powered extraction tools, the company reduces days of manual entry to minutes, dramatically improving data integrity and compliance—a critical advantage in a highly regulated industry.
Creo’s AI champion program illustrates a disciplined, company‑wide rollout. A senior innovation officer leads a cross‑functional squad that tracks every AI initiative, from code‑quality assistants for developers to multilingual chat interfaces for users. The AI tracker helps prioritize projects that deliver measurable ROI, such as automated policy drafting and real‑time translation, while a quick employee pulse survey gauges adoption readiness. These coordinated efforts not only accelerate product enhancements but also free finance teams to focus on growth analytics and strategic forecasting.
For finance leaders across sectors, Vestri’s experience underscores the need to balance enthusiasm for AI with rigorous investment discipline. Private‑equity‑backed firms demand clear metrics, so CFOs must align AI projects with revenue acceleration, cost reduction, and regulatory compliance. The episode highlights that successful AI adoption requires top‑down advocacy, transparent governance, and a clear view of which tools are transformational versus nice‑to‑have. Companies that embed AI into their financial and operational DNA will outpace competitors still experimenting on the sidelines.
Episode Description
On her first day as CFO at Greenphire, Sue Vestri sat in a conference room “learning all of the acronyms” of the clinical trial industry, she tells us. There were “many, many, many,” she recalls, and she listened to the sales team outside her door to understand how the product was positioned and why it mattered.
That willingness to learn from the ground up defines her career. Earlier, a mentor warned her she would stagnate if she stayed in the safety of a large company. “You’ve got to go to grow,” he told her. She left for a 100-employee cloud software firm, a decision that launched a string of growth-company chapters, transactions, and ultimately multiple CFO seats.
At Greenphire, she joined when the company had roughly 72 employees and “very low double digit revenue,” she tells us. Under private equity ownership, it expanded globally, shifted from clinical sites to big pharma customers, and supported the Pfizer clinical trial during COVID. Sue and her CEO conducted “20 or 30 presentations” during a remote exit process, she tells us.
Today, as CFO of CRIO, she describes finance as embedded in the business—not “sitting behind a desk… producing financial statements.” Her filter for AI is deliberate: avoid the “shiny object” and invest in what is “truly transformational,” she explains. Whether evaluating predictive revenue indicators or AI tools, Sue’s throughline remains the same—grow, but with discipline.
Show Notes
Article
On her first day as CFO at Greenphire, Sue Vestri sat in a conference room “learning all of the acronyms” of the clinical trial industry, she tells us. There were “many, many, many,” she recalls, and she listened to the sales team outside her door to understand how the product was positioned and why it mattered.
That willingness to learn from the ground up defines her career. Earlier, a mentor warned her she would stagnate if she stayed in the safety of a large company. “You’ve got to go to grow,” he told her. She left for a 100‑employee cloud software firm, a decision that launched a string of growth‑company chapters, transactions, and ultimately multiple CFO seats.
At Greenphire, she joined when the company had roughly 72 employees and “very low double digit revenue,” she tells us. Under private equity ownership, it expanded globally, shifted from clinical sites to big pharma customers, and supported the Pfizer clinical trial during COVID. Sue and her CEO conducted “20 or 30 presentations” during a remote exit process, she tells us.
Today, as CFO of CRIO, she describes finance as embedded in the business—not “sitting behind a desk… producing financial statements.” Her filter for AI is deliberate: avoid the “shiny object” and invest in what is “truly transformational,” she explains. Whether evaluating predictive revenue indicators or AI tools, Sue’s throughline remains the same—grow, but with discipline.
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