Breakthrough Work Podcast

Join us as Ravi Narula, CFO of SymphonyAI, walks through 25-plus years leading finance at tech and SaaS companies, including the IPOs of BigBand Networks, Gigamon, and Ooma. Topics covered:

• Whether we should feel reassured or alarmed when frontier AI leaders say the industry needs to slow down (1:18)
• Whether AI can police itself, and what stock option backdating and Sarbanes-Oxley teach about earning trust (4:07)
• What vertical AI looks like in practice, and why SymphonyAI treats the frontier model as the engine and its own product as the vehicle (9:24)
• The 3 layers under the product: decades of industry data, domain knowledge graphs, and customer workflows (11:29)
• How a 2-degree temperature swing at a yogurt plant can shut down a line for 12 hours, and where a 10x ROI on AI comes from (13:59)
• Hard-dollar vs. soft-dollar savings, and cutting false positives in financial crime detection by up to 95% (15:46)
• The one place he won't let AI act alone: irreversible wire payments with no human accountable (17:44)
• Saving an unhappy customer who later helped make IBM Certinia's largest customer, and the 16 CFOs and CAOs who came out of his mentorship (23:03)
• The 1 a.m. discovery a month before Gigamon went effective, and the call that delayed the IPO 6 months (33:21)
• How to raise a hard issue with the board so they actually hear you out (38:42)
• Why an IPO diagnostic covers only a small part of being ready to go public (43:04)
• The 3 p.m. Friday call to Connor Group in 2006 and the 5 p.m. meeting that followed (44:37)
• The time machine question: the lesson on delegating he learned as a new manager at Deloitte (48:43)

For CFOs, Controllers, finance and accounting leaders, and anyone preparing a company for an IPO, this conversation covers the judgment calls no IPO checklist catches, where AI belongs in finance (and where it doesn't), and how good CFOs develop the next generation of finance leaders.

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Join us as Erik Zhou, SVP of Finance and Accounting at Brex, walks through 7-plus years building the finance function behind one of the most consequential deals in financial services: Capital Ones $5.15 billion acquisition of Brex. 

Topics covered:

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Join us as Will Billings, CAO and Treasurer at Chewy, walks through a finance career built across six industries, two public company boards, and one of the most-cited pandemic RIFs in tech history.

Topics covered:

• The three foundational lessons from Big Four audit that still govern how he leads (2:22)
• Why he left audit for industry, and the shift from validating to building (8:47)
• Joining GE and the move from leading teams to influencing leaders without formal authority (11:18)
• The 90-day listening rule he runs every time he enters a new finance seat (15:46)
• Elevation, not elimination: his blueprint for AI in finance, clean data architecture, and the future of the record-to-report function (18:17)
• What the Big Four's campus hiring cuts mean for your 2030 Senior Accountant bench, and the internal rotation program he's building at Chewy in response (19:33)
• Pursuing public company board service during an active operator career, and how to get recruited onto your first board (28:32)
• The operator-to-director mindset shift, and what board service taught him about running his finance team (35:56)
• Going back for his MBA mid-career, and the family essay that got him in (39:11)
• Leading Airbnb's 25% RIF in April 2020, the public pitch book that helped impacted employees land, and why clarity and empathy coexist (47:04)
• The back injury that rewrote his view of resilience, and the workout routine that kept him steady (50:46)
• The one equation Will wishes he'd learned a decade earlier (57:29)

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Join host Ravi Kumar as he sits down with Greg Henry, CFO of 1Password and former CFO of Couchbase, for a masterclass in turning crisis into career-defining moments. Greg shares his journey from the Big Four to leading finance teams through IPOs, FDA shutdowns, and global pandemics, as well as fully embracing AI as a CFO.

In this episode, Greg takes listeners inside:

  • CFO factories (2:52)
  • The FDA crisis that became a "million-dollar experience" (10:09)
  • Becoming CFO is moving from the “control tower to the cockpit” (17:30)
  • “I literally thought we had wrecked the company” (22:02)
  • 1Password's AI hackathon: creating 21 automated agents in one day (39:35)
  • Career wisdom from someone on the "16th hole" of their journey (49:31)

Through 30+ years of hard-won lessons, Greg proves that the experiences you least expect often become the ones that define your entire career trajectory. 

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Larry Fitzgerald Jr., recent Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductee, and Kelvin Beachum, 14-year NFL veteran, investor, and philanthropist, join Ravi Kumar for an in-depth conversation on elite performance, leadership, investing, and service beyond the game. What does it take to perform at an elite level for decades and successfully transition from the field to finance? Together, Larry and Kelvin reflect on the habits, mindset, and humility required to sustain excellence in both sports and business.

Key topics include:

• The unseen discipline behind peak performance and career longevity (2:22)
• Preparing for life after football before the game ends (8:05)
• Becoming a rookie again: humility, reinvention, and intellectual growth (13:29)
• Breaking myths about athletes in business (19:46)
• What great investors really look for in founders (31:06)
• Lessons from venture capital, early-stage investing, and battle scars (36:05)
• Advice for athletes and young professionals entering investing, tech and entrepreneurship (39:05)
• Service, philanthropy, and using influence responsibly (42:27)
• Kelvin Beachum’s children’s book and redefining athlete stereotypes (46:00)
• Golf as a mirror for leadership, character, and decision-making (51:26)

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From scaling Silicon Valley icons like Yahoo and SurveyMonkey to helping bring more than 1,000 missing people home, Dharti Patel, Chief Accounting Officer at Flock Safety, reveals what it truly means to lead when the stakes are real.

In this episode, Dharti takes listeners inside:

• Building career foundations at high-growth tech companies (2:55)
• Finding courage in discomfort (4:29)
• The emotional weight of Flock Safety’s mission (10:21)
• Leading when lives are on the line (12:45)
• Scaling chaos without slowing the business (23:09)
• Knowing when to build internally vs. bring in outside experts (26:29)
• The breakthrough that changed her leadership forever (30:00)
• Advice for the next generation of CFOs and CAOs (38:23)

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Join breakout leader, entrepreneur and investor Lauren Maillian as she takes listeners through a remarkable journey defined by curiosity, reinvention and the courage to push past expectations.

In this episode, Lauren opens up about her early ambitions, personal challenges and the pivotal moments that shaped her 20-year career across wine, venture capital, tech, media and board leadership.

Lauren shares:

• Becoming a winery owner as a teenager and developing a high tolerance for risk (2:28)
• The influence of her self-made parents and learning resourcefulness at all costs (7:51)
• Her passion for helping Black and Latina women and their businesses become for-profit enterprises (20:49)
• Writing a love letter to every ambitious woman who wants to get to the top on her own terms through her book, The Path Redefined (27:17)
• Why staying in "permanent beta" is essential for sustained success (30:07)
• What she learned leading an all-women SPAC through a volatile market (33:44)
• "Bud Break:" Solving an existential problem in out-of-the-box ways (53:04)

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Join us as Shannon Nash, Silicon Valley CFO and public company board member, shares her remarkable journey through:

- The courage to leave comfort for California's unknown opportunities (4:35)
- A life-changing pivot when her son was diagnosed with autism (11:33)
- How working with Debbie Allen revolutionized her leadership approach (15:18)
- The power of improv classes in transforming finance teams (21:01)
- Navigating the shift from hands-on CFO to strategic board member (41:41)
- Managing household finances as a CFO power couple (30:58)
- The evolving landscape of the CPA profession and AI's impact (46:20)


Drawing from her rich experiences across biotech, tech, and entertainment, Shannon offers profound insights on embracing non-linear career paths, the importance of soft
skills in finance leadership, and why giving yourself grace is essential for long-term success.

This isn't just a career conversation – it's a masterclass in resilience, authenticity, and the power of saying "yes, and" to life's unexpected turns.

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Join us as Josh Waldron, Chief Accounting Officer at Scale AI, takes listeners on an enlightening journey through:

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Join us as Mike Bufano, CFO and Youth Club President of League One Volleyball, takes listeners on an exhilarating journey through:

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