Beyond The Ledger

Global mobility is reshaping the modern workforce, with millions of professionals relocating each year in pursuit of opportunity, stability, or growth. Yet behind the headlines of talent migration lies a quieter, more difficult truth: restarting a career from scratch—even after years of success—is far more common than people expect. In fact, many skilled immigrants face underemployment in their first years abroad, making reinvention not just a choice, but a necessity.

So what does it really take to rebuild your professional identity in a completely new environment—and turn that reset into long-term success?

Welcome to Beyond the Ledger. In the latest episode, host Troy Ashby sits down with Jaco van Rensburg, Chief Financial Officer at Aerwave, to unpack the realities of starting over after immigrating. From cultural adaptation to career humility and leadership growth, the conversation explores how Jaco rebuilt his trajectory from entry-level roles back to the C-suite—and what others can learn from that journey.

What You’ll Learn:

• Rebuilding From Career Reset
• Shifting From Status To Growth
• Adapting To New Cultures Quickly
• Thriving Without A Safety Net
• Turning Setbacks Into Stepping Stones
• Leveraging Experience At Any Level
• Knowing When To Pivot Or Persist
• Building Skills That Compound Over Time
• Navigating Corporate Vs. Private Environments
• Leading Through Influence And Adaptability
• Developing Teams Through Trust And Mentorship

Jaco van Rensburg is a seasoned financial executive with over 20 years of leadership experience. He specializes in financial transformation, operational efficiency, and scaling businesses through strong financial strategy, ERP implementation, and streamlined accounting processes.

Prior to Aerwave, Jaco was Global Vice President of Finance at Zadara, where he led financial planning and operations across multiple global regions. Throughout his career, he’s held executive roles at companies like Experian, ConvergeOne, and TruClear Global, contributing to M&A, financial strategy, and business optimization in both high-growth and complex environments.

Jaco holds an Honors Degree in Accounting from the University of Stellenbosch and is both a CPA and a Chartered Accountant. He is based in Lucas, Texas, where he enjoys spending time with his family and staying active on the tennis court.

Career advice in finance and accounting often centers around promotions, titles, and compensation. But in an era where professionals frequently change jobs every few years—the average American worker now stays in a role for less than four years—industries are facing growing talent shortages and reevaluating what long-term career success looks like. The question many professionals are asking today isn’t just how to move up, but how to build a career that is both meaningful and sustainable.

So what does it look like to build a long-term, fulfilling career in accounting without chasing every title or pay bump along the way?

On this episode of Beyond the Ledger, host Troy Ashby sits down with Sandra Fendley, Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer at Vaquero Midstream, to discuss career longevity, leadership, and the power of investing in people. Drawing from more than two decades in the energy industry, Fendley shares how focusing on quality work, strong relationships, and curiosity helped shape a career that includes building accounting organizations from the ground up.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Leadership Is About Investing in People

• Sandra’s Non-Traditional Start in Accounting

• Discovering Accounting Later in Life

• Building a Career Through Reputation and Relationships

• Lessons from 15 Years at TXU

• Moving Into Highly Technical Accounting Roles

• The Importance of Mentoring and Teaching Teams

• Why Leaders Must Have Hard Conversations

• Building an Accounting Function From Scratch

• Why Chasing Titles Isn’t the Answer

• The Power of Curiosity in Career Growth

Sandra Fendley is a seasoned finance leader with more than 30 years of experience in the energy industry. She currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer at Vaquero Midstream, where she’s known for building strong accounting teams and simplifying complex financial processes.

Sandra began her career at TXU, where she first worked with Troy, and has spent decades helping organizations navigate growth, change, and evolving business environments — including the transition from publicly traded companies to private equity–backed organizations. A CPA with an MBA, Sandra combines deep financial expertise with a genuine passion for people and mentorship.

Outside of work, Sandra is an avid reader who goes through nearly 100 books a year. She also loves traveling, hiking, and getting creative with crafts. She’s a proud wife, mom of two sons, and grandmother to one very special granddaughter, and she’s deeply committed to her faith and serving others.

The CFO seat is being rewritten in real time. Today’s finance leaders are expected to drive growth, lead enterprise-wide systems transformations, and shape AI strategy—while still keeping the close, controls, and capital story airtight. Gartner reports that 59% of finance leaders are already using AI in the finance function, underscoring how rapidly the role is expanding beyond traditional reporting. And the stakes are steep: McKinsey estimates that roughly 70% of large-scale transformations fail, meaning CFOs aren’t just participating in change—they’re accountable for whether it succeeds.

So what happens when a high-performing audit partner steps into industry and realizes the job isn’t just “finance leadership,” it’s people leadership, operating leadership, and change leadership—all at once?

That’s the core question behind this episode: How do you make the leap from public accounting success to CFO effectiveness—without getting blindsided by what you don’t know you don’t know?

In this episode of Beyond the Ledger, host Troy Ashby sits down with Melinda Lawrence, a former audit partner turned growth-focused CFO, to unpack the real transition: from managing project-based audit teams to running an enduring finance organization, leading across the business, and building the leadership habits that make (or break) a CFO’s first year.

What you’ll learn…

• The Comp Plan Moment That Changed Everything

How one early CFO meeting exposed the gap between public accounting success and operational leadership—and why saying “I don’t know” is a strength.

• From EY Partner to First-Time CFO

What really changes when you move from advising businesses to running one.

• You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Why the biggest leadership risks aren’t technical—they’re the blind spots you haven’t yet encountered.

• Leading Departments vs. Audit Teams

The critical shift from managing project-based sprints to building and sustaining high-performing teams.

• Hiring the Right Leaders (And Checking References)

How intentional reference checks and patience in hiring protect your culture and performance.

• Building a Strong Onboarding Plan

Why every leader should personally own onboarding—and what great first 90 days look like.

• Why Feedback Shouldn’t Be Formal

How real-time, everyday feedback drives growth better than annual reviews.

• Burnout, Self-Awareness & C-Suite Pressure

The hidden emotional demands of executive leadership—and why awareness is the first defense.

• Moving to Paris and Doing Hard Things

How an international leap during industry upheaval built resilience and perspective.

• The Importance of Community in Leadership

Why CFOs need trusted peer networks—and how community reduces isolation at the top.

Melinda Lawrence is a growth-focused CFO known for leading organizations through transformation while maintaining a steady, people-first leadership style. She began her career in public accounting, spending two decades at Andersen and EY — including time in both Chicago and Paris — before becoming an audit partner in EY’s Dallas office.

Over the past 13 years, Melinda has held senior leadership roles across private equity, venture-backed, and founder-led companies, guiding organizations through M&A, system transformations, capital raises, and international expansion. She’s especially proud of building high-performing teams, developing strong professional networks, and stepping into leadership roles where she was often the first — or only — woman in the room.

Outside of work, Melinda is deeply involved in community leadership, serves on multiple advisory boards, and is a proud Horned Frogs fan. She and her spouse, Stacey, live in Richardson with their three kids and two rescue dogs, and love traveling, staying active, and spending time outdoors together.

Leadership pipelines are under pressure. Companies are moving faster, roles are becoming more cross-functional, and high-potential talent is expected to deliver beyond narrow job descriptions earlier in their careers. At the same time, the World Economic Forum estimates that 39% of workers’ core skills will need to evolve by 2030 to keep pace with business change—raising the stakes for how organizations develop leaders from within. In that environment, career growth can’t just be vertical; it has to be adaptive.

So what does it actually look like to build leadership readiness before the promotion, not after it?

Welcome to Beyond the Ledger. In the latest episode, host Troy Ashby sits down with Brent Asavamonchai, Director of Analytics, Revenue Strategy and Pricing at Southwest Airlines, to unpack “spiral growth”—a development model where professionals keep excellence in their core role while intentionally expanding into adjacent responsibilities. The conversation spans Brent’s path across major travel and airline brands, lessons from M&A integrations, and how to coach emerging leaders through real-world stretch opportunities.

What you’ll learn…

• What Is Spiral Growth?

Spiral growth means staying excellent in your core role while deliberately taking on adjacent responsibilities that expand your skills and leadership range over time.

• Growing Without Changing Titles

Brent emphasizes that some of the most valuable career growth is often invisible on job titles because real development happens in stretch assignments, not just promotions.

• Building Relationships That Create Opportunity

He credits much of his impact to intentionally building cross-functional relationships early, so collaboration and influence are in place before major projects begin.

• Learning Leadership Through Rotation

Rotating across functions like supply chain, sales, marketing, and revenue management gave him a broader business lens that made him a stronger, more empathetic leader.

• Leading Through M&A and Change

Brent’s M&A experience taught him that successful transformation requires aligning technology, process, strategy, and people—not just integrating systems.

• Developing Leaders Early

His view is that leadership development starts long before a manager title by giving people ownership of cross-functional work and mentoring opportunities now.

• Why Feedback Fuels Growth

Brent sees direct, honest feedback as essential because even when it’s uncomfortable, it creates the self-awareness and course correction leaders need to improve.

• Building a Startup Inside a Big Company

While launching Getaways by Southwest, he found that startup-style agility inside an enterprise works best when teams stay anchored to a clear long-term vision and short-term milestones.

• Leadership, Family, and Long-Term Fulfillment

Looking back, he believes sustainable success comes from balancing work with a meaningful life outside it, because career achievement alone is not enough for long-term fulfillment.

Brent Asavamonchai has built his career by leaning into growth — even when it’s uncomfortable. His path hasn’t been linear. Sometimes that meant stepping into entirely new roles and learning fast. Other times, it meant expanding roles he was already strong in by layering on new responsibilities and stretch opportunities. Both approaches pushed his career forward in meaningful ways.

Brent has extensive experience leading through post-acquisition change, including integrating multiple vacation brands — CheapCaribbean, Southwest Airlines Vacations, and United Vacations — following the merger of Apple Leisure Group and Mark Travel. His work focused on evolving revenue strategy, aligning technology, and reshaping team skills to meet changing business needs. He also played a key role in rolling out the Getaways by Southwest product.

A core part of Brent’s leadership philosophy is developing people. He believes in starting small, giving team members ownership of projects, creating mentorship opportunities, and using stretch and rotational assignments to build broader skill sets. He’s also candid about early career mistakes, especially around communication, and how those lessons shaped him as a leader.

Brent has worked with three of the five largest U.S. airlines and brings a thoughtful, practical perspective on growth, leadership, and navigating change.

For years, management best practices emphasized uniformity: standard processes, standardized expectations, and treating everyone the same in the name of fairness. But today’s workforce looks very different than it did in the late 1990s and early 2000s. With multi-generational teams, shifting attitudes toward work-life balance, and an increased focus on emotional intelligence, leaders are being forced to rethink what “fair” actually means. Research consistently shows that employees who feel understood and supported as individuals are more engaged, more productive, and more likely to stay.

So here’s the real question leaders are grappling with now: how do you lead people equitably without managing everyone identically—and why does managing people the same way often backfire?

That’s the focus of this episode of Beyond the Ledger, hosted by Troy Ashby. In this conversation, Troy sits down with Krysta Gaither, Chief Financial Officer of Plyler Construction, to explore how modern leadership has evolved and why individualized management has become a competitive advantage. Drawing from decades of experience across manufacturing, real estate, and construction—from Fortune 500 companies to family-owned businesses—Krysta shares how trust-based, human-centered leadership delivers stronger teams without lowering standards.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Treating Everyone the Same Falls Short
• Krysta’s Path Into Accounting
• Learning Leadership from Good and Bad Managers
• Trust, Open Doors & Emotional Intelligence
• Managing Individuals, Not Systems
• From Fortune 500 to Family-Owned Business
• Storytelling Financials for Non-Accountants
• Work-Life Boundaries & Burnout
• Addressing Toxic or Disruptive Behavior
• Final Leadership Lessons

Krysta Gaither is a management accounting professional with experience across real estate, manufacturing, and commercial construction. She’s worked in national markets, led cross-functional initiatives, and been hands-on with accounting systems and ERP integrations. While she holds an MBA, she’ll tell you her most valuable lessons came from solving real problems alongside great teams.

Krysta thrives in collaborative, complex environments. From coordinating treasury, IT, and field teams at CBRE to managing multiple revenue streams at Plyler Construction, she’s built a career around problem-solving and bringing people together. She believes strong teams are formed by working toward a shared goal.

Outside of work, Krysta is a competitive cheer mom, loves gardening at her family farm, and has bungee jumped more than once — with skydiving still on the list.

Workplace flexibility has shifted from a culture debate to a retention lever—especially as more professionals are becoming parents later, right when they’re stepping into mid-management and executive-track roles. Childcare and caregiving logistics don’t just strain families; they strain talent pipelines, and the companies that treat parenting as a “personal issue” are often the same ones wondering why their best people keep leaving. In industries like construction, where long-term demand is tied to population growth and workforce continuity, the stakes are even higher. The question isn’t whether employees value support—it’s whether businesses can afford not to build it into how they operate.

So, what does it look like to treat support for parents as a business strategy—one rooted in trust, performance, and long-term workforce planning rather than one-size-fits-all perks?

That’s the focus of this episode of Beyond the Ledger, hosted by Troy Ashby, featuring Jessica Greiner, Chief Financial Officer at Talley Riggins Construction Group. Their conversation moves from Jessica’s unconventional path into finance leadership (and what she learned building investor relations from the ground up) to what talent attraction looks like now, why “flexibility” only works when it’s paired with accountability, and how parenting reshapes leadership perspective. Along the way, they dig into generational expectations at work, how employees can advocate for themselves without burning trust, and what future leaders should do early to stand out.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Supporting Parents Matters to Business
• Jessica’s Career Path into Finance Leadership
• Building Investor Relations from the Ground Up
• Transitioning into the CFO Role
• Attracting & Retaining Talent in Today’s Market
• Flexibility, Trust & Performance
• Parenting, Leadership & Perspective
• Generational Differences in the Workplace
• Advocating for Yourself at Work
• Advice for Future CFOs & Leaders

Jessica Greiner is a finance leader, executive voice, and working parent navigating the realities of today’s blended workforce. She believes we’re at a critical inflection point where career growth, middle management pressure, and family responsibilities collide — and that flexible work needs to be rethought as a real operating strategy, not a perk chosen once a month.

Jessica has built a high-profile corporate career while raising four children, including triplet sons and a daughter. She’s led organizations through major strategy and management changes, shepherding public credibility and investor confidence — including helping raise a company’s trading multiple following its first-ever Investor Day. In 2024, she was named CFO of DFW’s fastest-growing middle-market company, stepping into a role that demands both conviction and accountability.

One of her greatest professional challenges has been building consensus around bold strategies — and then standing behind those decisions publicly. Outside of work, Jessica is California-born, Alaska-raised, Hawaii-tested, Texas-rooted, and a lifelong sports fan.

In a moment when AI tools, creator platforms, and decentralized media are reshaping how companies grow, founders are being forced to rethink what actually drives long-term success. According to Forbes, citing CB Insights research, 42% of startups fail because there simply isn’t a market for their product or service. As markets move faster and business models evolve more frequently, the ability to adapt, listen, and stay grounded in genuine interest has become a critical advantage. The stakes are high: founders who chase ideas instead of passion often burn out before the market ever catches up.

So what really matters more in entrepreneurship today: finding the “perfect” business idea—or building something you genuinely care about enough to evolve it over time?

That question sits at the heart of the latest episode of Beyond the Ledger, hosted by Troy Ashby, in a conversation with Ben Maitland, Founder and CEO of MarketScale. Together, Ashby and Maitland explore the realities of founding and scaling a business—from wearing every hat in the early days to resisting commoditized growth in favor of long-term vision. The discussion spans entrepreneurship, user-generated content, authenticity in marketing, and why passion consistently outperforms spreadsheets when it comes to building something that lasts.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Passion Matters More Than Market Size
• Founder vs. CEO: Wearing Every Hat
• Becoming the Bottleneck (and Breaking It)
• Why MarketScale Found Its Thesis
• Authenticity vs. Corporate Theater
• User-Generated Content & Decentralized Growth
• Hiring, Culture & Vision Alignment
• Why B2B Is Catching Up to B2C
• Advice for Aspiring Founders
• Execution Over the Perfect Idea

More than a CEO, Ben is an entrepreneur and a founder at heart. He founded MarketScale in 2015, after spending nearly a decade at Multiview, where he helped grow the sales organization and launch new products. MarketScale represented a chance to go solo — to work on the other side of marketing, focusing on content rather than advertising.

Bootstrapped from the start with no outside investment, MarketScale grew through persistence — making sales, keeping customers, and continuously improving the product.

Ben played college baseball at Auburn University and had an unconventional upbringing, including years spent living on a boat, being homeschooled, and sailing throughout the Caribbean.

His approach to running the business is wide-ranging — spanning product, sales, and service — all with the goal of delivering authentic, crowd-driven media. Through UGC and a focus on empowering smart people, Ben works to help companies grow with the power of their communities.

Leadership today is being reshaped by a simple lesson many leaders learn the hard way: a team full of people who think the same way won’t get you very far. Research shows that teams with deeper diversity—meaning differences in perspectives, values, and cognitive frameworks—consistently outperform more uniform teams in creativity, innovation, and complex decision-making. Today, as organizations demand adaptability and deeper human-centered leadership, understanding why great leaders “hire their opposite” is proving to be a powerful differentiator.

What makes leaders more effective when they surround themselves with people who don’t think, act, or work like they do? And more importantly, how can emerging leaders adopt this mindset early enough to transform both their teams and their own growth trajectory?

These central questions anchor this episode of Beyond the Ledger. To answer them, host Troy Ashby sits down with James Lunday, CPA, CGMA, Vice President and Controller at Tenaska Power Services Co., to unpack this philosophy through the lens of lived experience. Their conversation spans early-career leadership challenges, the power of CliftonStrengths, what failure teaches us, and how serving in the nonprofit space has deepened James’ understanding of influence, humility, and purpose.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Leaders Shouldn’t Hire People Like Themselves
• From Small Town to Corporate Finance
• Early Career Failures & Communication Struggles
• Earning Trust When Your Team Didn’t Choose You
• Building a Team That Doesn’t Think Like You
• The 3-Year Leadership Maturation Process
• Using CliftonStrengths to Maximize Team Potential
• Habits, Weaknesses & Complementary Hiring
• The Farm Life Lessons That Built His Discipline
• Moving from Success to Significance
• Leading the ARC of DFW & Supporting Families with Disabilities
• Leadership Through Influence (Not Authority)
• Expectations & How They Shape Outcomes
• Final Leadership Lesson: Always Stay Coachable

James Lunday is the Vice President and Controller at Tenaska Power Services Co., known for his practical, humility-driven approach to leadership. His career has been shaped less by big accolades and more by learning through failure — including stepping into management early, realizing he wasn’t ready, and using that experience to evolve into the leader he is today.

One of James’ biggest growth moments has been learning to trust his team, along with navigating a mid-career shift into a new city and industry. Outside of work, he serves as President of The Arc of DFW Area, a volunteer-run nonprofit supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities — a mission deeply connected to his family.

On a lighter note, James is a self-described “Input and Context” enthusiast — the kind of person who absorbs information just for the joy of it. His current hyper-focus? Disneyland and Disney World updates. If there’s a new ride, park upgrade, or behind-the-scenes story on YouTube, James has likely watched it.

James brings humility, humanity, and a refreshingly honest perspective to every conversation — embracing the idea that you don’t need a flawless career to be an impactful leader.

Leadership conversations are shifting as companies navigate rapid change, tighter labor markets, and evolving employee expectations. Teams want leaders who show up with humility, clarity, and a genuine investment in people—traits that can’t be faked and can’t be automated. And with studies consistently linking team engagement to the quality of direct leadership, understanding how effective leaders are developed is becoming a top organizational priority.

Which leads to a natural question: How does someone move beyond simply managing work and instead learn to elevate people—and what role do grit, trust, and heart play in becoming a leader others want to follow?

Welcome to Beyond the Ledger. In the latest episode, host Troy Ashby sits down with Christie Linebarger, Director of Talent Acquisition at Sammons Industrial. Together, they explore Christie’s remarkable journey—from her Air Force upbringing across Hawaii and Tokyo, to her evolution from tech recruiter to trusted leadership voice, to the life transitions and resilience that inspired her new book, Stick Your Beak In The Ground: How Showing Up, Digging In, and Doing the Hard Stuff Builds A Life That Matters. Their conversation unpacks what leadership requires today, how teams flourish under trust and humility, and why “sticking your beak in the ground” may be the most important discipline in both career and life.

What You’ll Learn…

• Why Leadership Is Really About Elevating Others

• Growing Up as an Air Force Brat

• From Manager to Leader

• Humility, Trust & Servant Leadership

• How to Develop Future Leaders

• Creating a Team That Soars

• The Story Behind Her Book

• Sticking Your Beak in the Ground

• Christie’s Advice for Emerging Leaders

Christie Linebarger is a recruiting leader and new author, known for building strong teams and elevating talent. She writes about grit, faith, and real life. Interestingly, she never planned on becoming a recruiter — she stumbled onto the field and quickly realized it was exactly where she belonged.

Over the years, she has built a strong career in tech recruiting and talent leadership, becoming known for elevating the candidate experience, creating scalable processes, and leading teams through fast-paced, high-growth environments.

Her passion is for people. Christie thrives in developing talent, mentoring future leaders, and building motivated, resilient teams. Career highlights include her transition from individual contributor to people leader, guiding succession planning efforts, and empowering teams to perform at their best. She’s also navigated tough moments, from motivating teams during company declines to managing through an unexpected layoff.

She graduated from high school in Tokyo, has been married for nearly 30 years, and unapologetically treats her Doodles — George and Maggie — like family. At home, she’s wife to Chris and mom to two redheaded daughters.

Success today looks different—defined less by stability and more by the freedom to adapt and evolve. Professionals across industries are reimagining their careers, moving away from predictable ladders toward paths that reflect purpose and balance. What once meant climbing steadily toward partnership or promotion now often means taking bold pivots or pursuing second acts that better align with personal values. In this new landscape, risk isn’t something to fear—it’s often the only way forward. Against that backdrop, Johnnie Akin’s journey from the halls of Deloitte to startup executive and now entrepreneur offers a roadmap for professionals navigating change. According to recent Gallup data, 51% of U.S. employees are either actively seeking or watching for new job opportunities—the highest level in a decade.

So, what does it take to leave a stable Big Four career and build something of your own—without losing your footing along the way?

Welcome to Beyond the Ledger. In the latest episode, host Troy Ashby sits down with Johnnie Akin, CPA and Co-Owner of Floor Coverings International, to unpack a career that’s stretched from the corridors of Deloitte to the grit and growth of small-business ownership. Together, they explore the intersection of faith, failure, and leadership—how to let go of certainty, embrace reinvention, and build processes that withstand chaos.

Key topics of discussion:

• Leaving Deloitte & Rethinking Success – Why Akin stepped away from a Big Four career path to focus on family, faith, and fulfillment—choices that would ultimately pave the way for his entrepreneurial leap with Floor Coverings International.

• From Big Four to Startup CFO – How relationships opened the door to a startup opportunity and what it taught him about adaptability.

• Building Process in Chaos: Lessons from Growth Stage – Translating enterprise-level discipline into fast-moving startup environments.

• Transitioning from CFO to COO – Shifting from finance to operations and leading through organizational change.

• Leadership, Team Building & Hard Decisions – How instincts, accountability, and decisiveness define effective leadership.

• Restructuring, Layoffs & Resilience – Managing through downturns with transparency and empathy.

• Owning a Franchise & Family Priorities – The move to entrepreneurship, the launch of Floor Coverings International in Central Texas, and balancing business ownership with family life.

• Faith, Failure & Fast Growth – Seeing failure as learning—what Akin calls “tuition payments”—and how faith informs his resilience.

• Final Advice: Read More, Fail Forward – Why continual learning and embracing setbacks are essential to long-term success.

Johnnie Akin is a CPA, former Deloitte senior manager, and seasoned operator who has led businesses through every stage of growth—from startup to scale restructuring. After years as a CFO, COO, and startup president, Johnnie made the leap to entrepreneurship and now owns Floor Coverings International, serving most of Central Texas. A self-described jack-of-all-trades and master of none, Johnnie believes in surrounding himself with great people, playing the long game, and never stopping the pursuit of learning. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time outdoors, watching sports, and being with his family.