“It wouldn’t surprise me. No, it would be exciting.”

That was Adam Ante’s initial response when asked if five years from now, he could imagine himself still in the C-suite—but not as a CFO. The comment seemed to linger in the air, hinting at a deeper current in his career journey. Ante, who had led Paycor through an IPO, a pandemic, and most recently, a $4.1 billion sale to Paychex, wasn’t just closing out a CFO chapter—he may have been opening something entirely new.

While he later softened the sentiment, suggesting he might be surprised if he moved beyond finance, his earlier candor revealed a finance leader attuned to operations—and perhaps transformation.

Years earlier, Ante had flown weekly to Colorado, struggling to integrate a newly acquired company. “I felt like I was failing,” he tells us. The lesson was hard-won: strategy and spreadsheets are meaningless unless you can move people with them. That shift—from financial executor to business operator—has defined his trajectory ever since.

His strategic mindset matured further with Extreme Ownership, a book he credits with changing how he approached leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and results.

Now, as the dust settles on Paycor’s acquisition, Ante’s priorities have shifted once again—to preserving what works, aligning teams, and honoring the customer experience.