The relationship between a CFO and technical executives is vital for the health of a successful company, but sometimes CFOs get the reputation for saying No and shutting down tech projects. In this episode, we are speaking with Mahesh Patel, CFO of Druva. Mahesh gives us great insight into how CFOs view innovation and taking risks as well as giving helpful advice for how CFOs can best work with CTOs and CIOs and how to avoid being a CF-No. 

Episode Highlights: 

• Innovation is about the business model
• Allocating funds to invest in customer-facing products and internal products
• Setting your organization up to value innovation
• Focusing on the business as a whole, not just the technology sector
• Amazon's model of heavily Investing in R&D and innovation
• Investing in internal teams vs outsourcing
• The working relationship between CFO, CTO/CIO
  • Truly considering value, not just products shipped
• How CTOs/CIOs can approach CFOs to request more money or a bigger budget
• How the CFO role is evolving
• Embracing changes from the COVID era

Resources Mentioned: 

• Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

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