What does real FinOps transformation look like at the ground level? In this episode, host Thalia Elie sits down with Kellie Righini, Associate Director of Business Systems and Applications at Aras, to explore what it takes to shift a culture from chaos to collaboration. From siloed tagging to unified dashboards, Kellie shares how she used listening, leadership, and a lot of tagging to bring finance, IT, and engineering into sync.

Host: Thalia Elie
Guest: Kellie Righini, Director of Business Systems and Applications, Aras
Theme: Culture shifts, foundational tagging, and cross-functional empowerment

Episode Highlights:

• Kellie shares how inconsistent tagging and siloed teams made cloud cost tracking nearly impossible — until visibility changed everything.
• CloudZero’s dashboards and dimensions helped teams across finance and engineering take real ownership of spend.
• Tagging compliance jumped from 60% to 94% after Kellie established cross-functional cadences and coaching-style collaboration.
• With better data trust, Aras began rebuilding its budgeting process from the ground up. Using CloudZero metrics as the foundation.
• Kellie reminds us that transformation isn’t instant. It’s a marathon powered by curiosity, accountability, and listening.

Key Takeaways:

• FinOps begins with listening: Cultural change starts by bringing people into the same room and asking better questions.
• Dashboards drive momentum: When teams see clear data, they move from resistance to curiosity to action.
• Tagging matters: 60% to 94% tagging compliance is a quiet revolution with big results.
• Budgeting needs better inputs: Visibility unlocks not just savings—but smarter planning.
• Transformation is a team sport: Kellie’s soccer-inspired approach shows how alignment creates forward motion.

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