Transformation Room

Ben Rabinovitz has spent his career inside the finance functions of some of retail's biggest names, from Deloitte to Ralph Lauren to Michael Kors and Capri Holdings, and now leads finance at a fast growing jewellery brand going through its own transformation. On this episode of Transformation Room he sits down with Satish Peddada to unpack what actually makes a shared services model succeed or fail, and it isn't the org chart.

The conversation moves from the mechanics of standing up shared services across siloed brands to the harder question underneath it all, how you bring people along when change threatens to make their role feel unstable. Ben and Satish also get into where AI genuinely changes finance work, and where it just speeds up the same old mistakes if nobody is checking the inputs.

Why cost savings are a byproduct of shared services, not the goal
Designing the organisation and its interim states before assigning people to roles
Treating an outsourced or offshore finance team exactly like your own team
Why daily communication is the single biggest lever against failed transformations
Where AI genuinely speeds up finance work, and where human review still has to sit
The three dashboards Ben would put in front of a CFO every morning

Guest: Ben Rabinovitz, [title to be confirmed], Ring Concierge
Guest LinkedIn: [to be added once verified]

If you're leading a finance transformation and want to talk through where your team stands, get in touch with Satish and the Transformation Room team.

I hope you enjoy this episode!
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-Satish and the Transformation Room podcast team

Satish Peddada’s LinkedIn: in.linkedin.com/in/satishpeddada
Strategy Stack Consulting website: http://www.strategystackconsulting.com

The Transformation Room is a business podcast hosted by Satish Peddada, founder and CEO of Strategy Stack Consulting. The show features conversations with senior finance and operations leaders about real business transformations, including shared services builds, M&A integrations, ERP implementations, and AI adoption in finance.
Satish Peddada previously led finance and shared services transformations at Ralph Lauren and Capri Holdings, including the integration work following the Versace acquisition. He now runs Strategy Stack Consulting, which advises companies on finance transformation and shared services strategy.
Each episode answers a specific question relevant to finance and operations leaders: what actually happens when a company tries to modernise its finance function, merge systems after an acquisition, or bring AI into processes that used to run on spreadsheets. Guests are current or former CFOs, finance executives, and operations leaders who have run these transformations directly, not consultants theorising from the outside.

Topics covered across the series include:

• 
  What makes shared services transformations succeed or fail
• How to integrate finance systems after a merger or acquisition
• Where AI genuinely improves finance work, and where human oversight still matters
• How to manage organisational change and communication during a transformation
• What CFOs should track daily, including sales, KPIs, and cash flow

This show is built for CFOs, finance leaders, and operations executives who are either in the middle of a transformation or preparing for one, and who want direct, experience-based answers rather than a generic framework or a sales pitch.

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