CFO Pulse Videos
CFO Pulse Videos
The Ask a CFO episode features Emilia Bunea, former CFO of ING Insurance Europe and author of *Leadership for the CFO*. Bunea recounts her journey from a math‑focused upbringing in communist Romania to investment banking, an early CFO appointment at age thirty, and her eventual move into academia and research on finance leadership. Key insights include the role of resilience forged by hardship, the reliance on expert power and technical expertise in early CFO roles, and the abrupt transition to a relationship‑focused position where politics, stakeholder management, and culture become central. Bunea shares concrete missteps—such as promoting a young accountant too quickly, leading to burnout—and emphasizes the need to separate personal ego from professional errors. Memorable moments include the “Congratulations, you are a relationship manager now” revelation described by a fellow CFO, the light‑bulb performance‑review moment that prompted her to question the CEO path, and her decision to pursue a PhD after two decades in senior finance. These anecdotes illustrate how personal reflection and mentorship can redirect a finance career. The discussion underscores that modern CFOs must cultivate political acumen, foster psychological safety, and view mistakes as learning opportunities. Bunea’s book distills interviews with 200 finance leaders into actionable guidance, suggesting that the next generation of CFOs will need to balance technical mastery with relational leadership, and that academia offers a viable avenue for seasoned executives to influence the field.
The video demonstrates how Claude, integrated via Excel’s agent, can build and fully document a deferred‑revenue schedule, a common financial‑modeling task. The presenter walks through prompting Claude to generate formulas, link sheets, and produce a separate documentation tab that explains...
The Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2026 video examines how corporate functions—finance, HR, IT—must reinvent themselves in the era of generative and agentic AI. While more than half of surveyed executives report tighter cross‑functional collaboration, they also flag a pressing need...
The Motley Fool Scoreboard episode focused on Garrett Motion (GTX), the turbocharger specialist that emerged from a 2018 Honeywell spin‑out and subsequent bankruptcy. Analysts Lou Whiteman and Jim Gillies each gave the business a seven‑point strength rating, noting that turbochargers...
Former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein, now retired, sat down with Bloomberg’s David Gura to flag what he sees as a looming market correction. He argues that after years of buoyant equity and credit markets, the system is entering...
The FEI Icons podcast features Catherine Hoover, former senior vice president and chief accounting officer at McDonald’s, discussing how she shifted from climbing the corporate ladder to deliberately shaping her long‑term purpose. After nearly three decades at the fast‑food giant,...
During a recent FP&A webinar, Paul Barnhurst and ApprovalMax’s corporate controller Rafaella Torres explained that spend problems originate from poor underlying data rather than the expenditures themselves. They highlighted how delayed visibility and incomplete inputs lead to forecast errors and...
The video spotlights three headline movers – Nvidia, GoodRx and Papa John’s – and their outsized impact on today’s market narrative. Nvidia’s shares fell more than 4%, briefly hitting a 5.6% plunge, marking its worst session since November after an...
Future Finance hosts Paul Barnhurst and Glenn Hopper discuss with Riya Grover, CEO of Sequence, how unifying Configure‑Price‑Quote (CPQ) and billing eliminates revenue leakage between CRM and ERP systems. The episode highlights that contract details often get lost when sales...
The video explains how football clubs account for player acquisitions and the regulatory framework that governs profit and spending limits. It highlights amortization, where a transfer fee—say £80 million—is spread over the contract term, reducing annual expense but creating potential disposal losses...
McPherson’s (ASX:MCP) is accelerating a portfolio transformation, concentrating on health, wellness and beauty products sold through pharmacy and grocery channels. The company has exited legacy segments by selling the Multix brand and consolidating around names such as Manicare, Lady Jayne,...
Future Finance hosts Paul Barnhurst and Glenn Hopper interview Riya Grover, CEO of Sequence, about AI‑driven order‑to‑cash automation. Sequence, backed by a16z with $40 million Series A, offers an agentic platform that combines deterministic billing engines with AI workflow agents to handle...
Diageo cut its fiscal‑year guidance for the second time this year as demand stalls in the United States and China, putting new chief executive Dave Lewis under immediate pressure. Santander announced a pledge to lift net income above €20 billion by...
The video examines Nvidia's business model and recent financial turnaround, highlighting how its design‑only approach yields a 70% gross margin and positions the company as a “cash machine” after a heavy R&D‑driven dip. By outsourcing fab work to TSMC, Nvidia can...
IBM has repositioned itself as a software‑led, platform business centered on hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Over the past three years the pivot delivered roughly 1,000 basis points of operating‑margin expansion and about $5 billion of incremental free cash...
The video highlights how a SaaS company leverages “less sexy” AI—automation of routine tasks—to improve operations. Rather than focusing on headline‑grabbing generative models, the firm uses AI to handle a sizable share of customer‑support tickets. By deploying AI agents, the company...
The podcast episode “The Dangers of Group Think on Decision Making” features Jules Van Binsburgen, Jonathan Burke, and Harvard professor Adi Sunderam discussing how people update beliefs and the pitfalls when they restrict the set of models they consider. They explain...
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily highlighted two contrasting stories on Thursday, February 19: Figma’s AI‑driven growth trajectory and Blue Owl Capital’s liquidity curtailment in a private‑credit fund. The market backdrop featured modest equity declines, a VIX edging toward 21, and oil prices...
The video highlights that Amazon finally eclipsed Walmart in total sales for 2025, reporting $717 billion versus Walmart’s $713.2 billion, cementing a shift from the traditional Walmart‑Target rivalry to a direct Amazon‑Walmart showdown. Analysts note Walmart’s strategic pivot toward technology: a $40 billion free‑cash‑flow...
ECRI co-founder Lakshman Achuthan says the U.S. labor market is moving from a muted, "low hire, low fire" state into a firmer cyclical upturn: employers are hiring, short-term unemployment is low, but long-term unemployment is rising. ECRI attributes the longer-term...
Rey Del Valle, a strategic CFO with 25+ years across media, e-commerce and creative industries, argues FP&A is the blueprint for modern financial leadership. He emphasizes deep business mechanics understanding, rigorous forecasting and KPI-driven modeling to turn accounting and operational...
McKinsey partners Jill Zucker and Greg Kelly say most executives aspire to growth but fail to convert intent into sustained, profitable results. Their research finds 63% of companies collect customer data but only 15% use it to guide growth, and...
The FEI Icons podcast episode spotlights Judy Wright’s unconventional journey—from selling goods on a Chinese market bus to becoming CFO of BTM Global and future president of the FBI Twin Cities chapter. Her story frames a “resilience playbook” for...
Beyond the buzzwords, the speaker argues that SaaS firms must move past generic AI claims and craft a distinct brand narrative. By pairing clear messaging with a tightly aligned marketing‑sales engine, companies can stand out in a crowded fintech space. The...
The podcast announces that the SaaS company has secured a total of $40 million in funding, highlighted by a $29.5 million Series A round led by Active and Coastal Ventures. The capital will be deployed primarily into product development and initiatives that help existing...
The discussion centers on the urgent need to rewrite the SaaS growth playbook for an AI‑first world. Five to ten years ago, founders followed a well‑trodden path of product‑led growth, outbound sales and conventional branding; today those scripts are evaporating...
Robert Larios, president and CEO of the Employees Club of California, explains how a Michigan Ross Executive MBA became the catalyst for his ascent to the C‑suite. After consulting senior leaders who advised a high‑powered MBA, he enrolled in Ross’s...
Stuut, an AI-focused order-to-cash startup, has raised $40 million to expand its suite of AI agents that automate invoice follow-up, dispute resolution, cash application and payments. The platform begins at invoice creation and works through collections, handling customer outreach, inquiry...
In this episode of Financial Modelers Corner, host Paul Barnhurst sits down with Chris Riley, founder of Financial Modeling Education, to stress that mastering accounting and finance fundamentals is a prerequisite before trusting AI-generated outputs. Riley, who has trained over...
Panelists—senior finance and transformation leaders—say accountants remain a common route into the C-suite but technical skills alone no longer suffice. Success now depends on broader leadership competencies: emotional self-awareness, personal development, networked mentorship, and experience that builds judgment. Rapid technological...
Bread Financial CEO Ralph Andreda highlighted a strong finish to 2025, reporting fourth-quarter results that included 23% tangible book value growth and adjusted EPS up 57% to $12.16, alongside a 12% reduction in share count and a 10% dividend increase....
