Sounds Accurate

75% of AI transformation initiatives fail to deliver full ROI. So what separates the ones that work from the ones that stall?

On this episode, Emily sat down with Philippe Omer-Decugis, SVP & GM Europe at BlackLine, who's spent two decades in enterprise finance leadership at Salesforce, SAP, and Contentsquare before joining BlackLine.

He's not selling hype, he's the one responsible for making transformation actually work in some of the most regulated markets in the world.

We talked about:

- Why trust, not technology, is the real blocker to AI adoption in finance

- The 3 things CFOs need before they'll bet on AI: the right use cases, a unified platform, and an upskilled team
- Why "platform before AI" might be the most overlooked piece of transformation advice
- What it actually takes to scale finance transformation across Europe's fragmented regulatory landscape, and now the Middle East and Africa
- His very unexpected ABBA reference on why timing is everything right now

If you're a finance leader trying to cut through the noise on agentic AI, this one's worth your commute.

#FinanceTransformation #AgenticAI #CFO #FutureOfFinance #BlackLine

Episode 10: Kay Firth-Butterfield - Governing the Age of Agentic AI

Kay Firth-Butterfield - CEO of Good Tech Advisory, former Head of AI at the World Economic Forum, and the world's first Chief AI Ethics Officer - joins BlackLine CMO Emily Campbell, to break down the real risks of probabilistic AI and how companies can govern autonomous agents before they become a liability.

In this episode we cover:

• Why "shadow AI" creates legal and financial exposure
• How AI agents degenerate over time and lose their constraints
• Why a "glass box" approach builds trust that a black box never can

What happens when a CFO decides to stop buying financial software and starts building it instead?

This week, we are joined by Monica Boydston, Chief Product Officer at Kyriba. Monica brings a rare and incredibly valuable perspective to the table: she began her executive career as a CFO before pivoting to product leadership in the tech sector.

In this episode, Monica unpacks her unique career journey, shares her insights on female leadership across the finance and technology landscapes, and dives deep into the future of treasury. Fresh off the stage from KyribaLive 2026, she explores how Agentic AI is moving from a buzzword to a practical, trusted orchestration layer for global liquidity.

In this episode, we cover:

• The mindset shift required when transitioning from finance leadership to product leadership.
• Actionable advice for women aspiring to reach the C-suite in finance and tech.
• How Agentic AI is actively transforming cash management and treasury operations today.
• The steps leaders can take to build trust in AI-powered financial tools.

Our guest this week is Devon Briggs, Director, Corporate Financial Reporting & Compliance at ATS Corporation; a global industrial automation company operating across more than 100 business units worldwide.

The core of the conversation is “Compliance as Catalyst”: how SOX requirements across 100+ global business units became the forcing function for real, lasting automation and standardization at ATS.

Devon’s story challenges the assumption that compliance and transformation are in tension. In our conversation, we explore:

• Why the leaders who get the most out of standardization are the ones who treat compliance as a foundation, not a finish line.
• How automating Journals, not just reconciliations, became the real unlock for shortening the financial close.
• What a grounded, governance-first approach to AI actually looks like in a complex, multi-entity finance function.

The future of finance is building amore powerful team. What if your best people had digital teammates to handle the repetitive, manual work, freeing them to focus on strategy and insight?

This week, we're joined by Amanda Roush, Director of Finance Transformation at RSM and a leader who has seen thisevolution from every angle. She started her career on the front lines of accounting, led major automation projects as a BlackLine customer, and now advises companies on their own transformation journeys as a key BlackLine partner.

Amanda brings the concept of the "AI-Powered A-Team" to life, sharing insights on:

• The real-world frustrations thatmake automation a strategic necessity.
• What a "day in the life" with a digital teammate actually looks like for a process like the financial close.
• Why the goal of AI is augmentation, not replacement, and how it elevates the role of the finance professional.
• The practical steps to move from a manual past to an automated future.

How do you turn a standard accounting team into a powerhouse of innovation for the entire business?

This week, we're getting the playbook from Quest Diagnostics.

Our guests are Michael Heeney, Controller, and Adam Dabbeekeh, Senior Manager of Centralized Accounting. They walk us through the incredible evolution of their team, from a cost-saving project to a strategic Center of Excellence. This is a masterclass in practical application, focusing on the why behind their choices, with lessons for any finance leader.

In our conversation, we explore:

-The business case for rethinking the purpose of a finance team.

-Their "modernization equation" for combining different technologies.

-The 'why' behind empowering people and moving them to higher-value work.

- How to build a value proposition that gets buy-in from other teams.

This week, host Emily Campbell, CMO at BlackLine, sits down with Craig Richey, the Americas Chief Financial Officer at Accenture. His career offers a powerful roadmap for any leader navigating the profound shifts in the finance profession.

The core of our conversation is the journey of reinvention—how finance leaders can transform their teams from a traditional back-office function into a strategic, front-office architect of enterprise value. Craig argues that this transformation is not about technology alone, but is fundamentally centered on people, talent, and culture.

In our conversation, we explore:

• The key moments that define a modern CFO's journey.

• What the "back-office to front-office" shift actually looks like in practice.

• How to balance the demand for innovation and speed with the need for absolute control.

• How AI is reshaping the future of finance and the talent required to lead it.

The better an automated system gets, the more it can degrade our skills and attention. Bestselling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford joins Emily Campbell to unpack this "Automation Paradox." We explore why a "good enough" AI with an engaged human might be safer than a state-of-the-art system with a complacent one, the danger of relying on "black box" algorithms, and how to build a finance culture that questions data instead of blindly trusting it.

Mo Gawdat explains “AI Twins” and why their rapid progress challenges expertise and control in finance. We explore how to partner with black-box models, protect trust and accountability, and prepare teams to collaborate with their digital colleagues. Hosted by Emily Campbell, with practical mental frameworks for leaders.

Forecasting rewards prediction; accounting demands precision. Emily Campbell and Cheri Hewlett break down AI built on controls, not just flexibility, and what to do when AI exposes gaps in your data and processes. Learn how to build trust on your team and measure strategic impact beyond hours saved.