On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd is joined by Jeff Cross, CFO and Managing Director - US, at BrandMaker.

While Jeff has an extensive financial background, he claims his career didn’t really begin until almost two decades into it, when he discovered his passion for the private equity world. The idea of moving from business to business while provoking extraordinary growth called to him like nothing had before, but it was not without its fair share of challenges.

Jeff’s current role has him juggling the finances for three different organizations as he seeks to earn back his initial investment. Having to split focus across multiple businesses is not a challenge most CFOs encounter, but the fast pace and problem-solving nature of the job make Jeff feel right at home.

To effectively keep all his plates spinning, Jeff has learned to put a lot of trust in his various leadership teams. As he puts it, the best thing he can do for his various organizations is to hire the right leaders and then get out of their way. Relying on a talented team is fundamental to Jeff’s, or any financial leader’s, success.

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On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ben Murray, Founder of The SaaS CFO, is joined by Rachita Sundar, Senior Vice President of Finance at HubSpot.

Rachita is somewhat of a growth specialist. For much of her career, she’s been a part of either building new teams from the ground up or scaling businesses to help them expand into new markets. For Rachita, financial leaders are uniquely positioned to help propel this sort of expansion, because they sit at the crossroads of so many business functions. Being able to see the whole of an organization’s operations through the lens of finance grants Rachita an important perspective on future growth opportunities.

Rachita has gone beyond this, however, and has actively sought opportunities to expand her knowledge in areas of operations, engineering, and marketing. In this way, her personal growth and professional expansion mirror the kind of scaling she hopes to bring about for her organization. It’s the consistency between her personal and organizational approach that makes her such an effective strategic partner for companies seeking to scale up. Rachita’s adaptability and desire to learn have continually been an asset not only to her career but to the businesses she’s been a part of.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

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On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd is joined by Ryan Myers, CFO of America’s Thrift Stores, to talk about his unique background and the relationships he’s cultivated between people and between systems.

Ryan initially wanted to pursue a career in music, having obtained a degree in music from the University of Alabama. While he still enjoys music as a hobby, the intricacies and complexities of managing a constantly rotating inventory of retail merchandise captivated Ryan while he was still just an operator at America’s Thrift Stores. His passion for making these complex systems run smoothly allowed him to work his way right up to the role of CFO.

Much of the time Ryan spent on his journey to his current position was dedicated to making better use of data and analytics. While the budgets and forecasts he was given seemed good on paper, in reality they were often disconnected from the daily operations of the business. Using data to make plans consistent with the reality of organizational operations has been a great achievement for Ryan.

Joining these analytics to meaningful partnerships with nonprofit collaborators makes Ryan not only a good steward of systems relationships but human relationships as well.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

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On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd welcomes Barbie Jefferson, CFO at the YMCA of Greenville.

Barbie has been a successful financial leader for many years but her passions go far beyond her professional aspirations. To Barbie, her role as CFO has never been an end in itself but a job that makes space for her to do the things she truly cares about: serving her community and spending time with her family.

Barbie willingly left a publicly-traded company to work for a nonprofit, first a South Carolina state college and then eventually the YMCA of Greenville. This decision was motivated by a desire for a healthier work-life balance, but it also placed Barbie in a position where she could embody her own personal values in a way that advanced the mission of her organization.

Barbie’s vision and that of the YMCA in Greenville were in lockstep, making Barbie an effective agent for fulfilling the goals set forth at the YMCA. The consistency between personal and organizational values not only made Barbie an ideal worker in her role but made the YMCA better equipped to serve its community.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd welcomes Adanma Osuagwu, Director of Finance/Project Control at By Light.

Adanma has a background in more than just finance. Her professional career has given her experience in project management, IT systems, and HR research. Such a diverse skill set serves her well not only in her financial management position, but also in the way she connects her role to the business at large.

Adanma understands the people that make up her organization, just as well as she understands the numbers. This knowledge allows her to build bridges between the various departments of By Light. She creates relationships between her team, the technological tools they use, and the organization at large. These relationships help to create healthy team dynamics and a work environment that caters to her staff’s needs. This, in turn, promotes staff longevity, and a more efficient business.

To Adanma, financial management is not just about understanding money. Rather, it’s about understanding the relationships between a business and all its assets, people included. Managing these assets means understanding the connection points between them, and providing the proper tools to create healthy interdepartmental relationships.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

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On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ben Murray, Founder of The SaaS CFO, interviews Sarah Wilson, VP of Global Finance and Strategy at Tradeshift.

Sarah is not only skilled in numbers and data analytics but has also developed a keen emotional intelligence. She knows how to relate those numbers and data points into a meaningful story that unites her team around a shared company vision. It’s this understanding and care for the people in her organization that have made her a talented team builder.

Sarah has a background not only in finance but also HR, and her experiences have given her a broader understanding of the interconnected pieces of her organization. She’s merged these two elements of business together in her compensation philosophy, which reflects a concern for how Tradeshift’s finances affect employee well-being.

Sarah doesn’t see herself as someone who manages both finances and people. Rather, she sees both elements as a singular asset that advances the company’s mission. No asset is an island and to see the way the pieces of an organizational puzzle work together and compliment each other is a foundational trait of the successful financial leader.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ben Murray, Founder of The SaaS CFO, welcomes Karen Friar, CFO at Benco Dental.

Karen started at Benco as an intern in the finance department. Over the better part of two decades, she worked her way up from being a staff accountant all the way to her current role as CFO. Through that journey, Karen has been able to see the transformation that Benco has gone through as it has evolved to keep up with changing times, and Karen has been able to be a part of that evolution as well.

While many might view modernization as a simple update to an organization’s tech stack or the adoption of new financial standards, Karen sees it as a more all-encompassing philosophy. To her, modernization means flexibility in company culture, hiring practices, work environment, and even the implementation of new KPIs. Society changes almost as rapidly as technology and keeping financial systems current means paying attention to the needs of the people running those systems.

Financial success requires a holistic understanding of not only the systems and technologies in place but also the human capital needed to make those assets work most effectively.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ben Murray, Founder of The SaaS CFO, welcomes Will Johnson, Chief Financial Officer at Iterable, to discuss the ever-evolving role of the modern CFO.

Will’s background is as both a venture investor and the CFO of private, venture-backed organizations. It gives Will a uniquely holistic understanding of the finances involved in managing a SaaS organization. He has applied this understanding to his current role at Iterable, seeking to approach the CFO role in a way that engages the entire organization and involves him in operations, sales, and other non-traditional CFO capacities.

This has allowed Will to stay on the leading edge of a role that is constantly evolving and to meet his organization’s needs in a way that a more traditional CFO might not be able to. One such need is in strategic future planning. Will is able to competently work with management teams to create financial forecasts, rather than simply analyzing past financial models, due to his willingness to engage in tasks that go beyond those that were historically expected of a CFO.

Will’s immense success with Iterable is a testament to the need for the modern CFO to be adaptable and versatile in their work.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd is joined by Shahrooz Roohparvar, CFO at Cal Poly Humboldt, to discuss the complexities of navigating higher education’s unique financial needs.

Shahrooz thinks of himself more as a project manager than only as a CFO. He’s often directly involved in overseeing the operational side of Cal Poly Humboldt, which has offered its fair share of challenges in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When students transitioned to primarily online instruction, and when they began making greater use of Cal Poly Humboldt’s mental health services, Shahrooz was doing more than financial projections. He was on the front lines of building out the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the school’s needs, often measuring success with intangible metrics, like student well-being.

By bringing his resource management experience into his project oversight, Shahrooz has helped build Cal Poly Humboldt into a competitive, accessible higher education institution. His understanding of both concrete and abstract metrics of success allowed him to gain a holistic understanding of his organization’s needs and ensure they were met, even in a time of crisis.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd is joined by Fran Swain, Chief Financial Officer at Central Valley Ag Cooperative, to discuss the financial structure unique to a farm co-op.

At Central Valley Ag, individual farm owners and producers pool their resources to maximize their collective assets. From a financial standpoint, this means Fran is managing the resources of multiple organizations, combined into one financial system. It offers unique challenges to financial management, but also unique advantages.

Every member of the co-op’s board is themselves a farmer or producer. Every executive member, then, is by definition keenly aware of the needs of the organization. Under this structure, leadership is interwoven with operations and an increasing scale doesn’t necessarily lead to detachment from everyday functions.

This is an essential component of Central Valley Ag. As a leader in the agriculture industry, the everyday functions of the organization are often on the frontlines of conversations surrounding businesses’ impact in the social and ecological sphere. Fran is tasked with managing his company’s resources in a way that not only strengthens the organization but also accounts for social and environmental responsibility.

This episode is brought to you by Stampli. The Most Powerful Way to Process & Pay Invoices.

Stampli is the only Accounts Payable Automation software that centers communications on top of the invoice so that accounts payable collaborates better with approvers, vendors, and anyone involved with purchases to quickly resolve issues and questions, resulting in 5x faster approvals.

Contact us to see why users love using Stampli and schedule a demo at Stampli.com.