Cfo Thought Leader

Eagle-eyed vision may be Mphasis Executive Vice President and CFO V. Suryanarayanan’s most valuable leadership skill. His ability to zero in on crucial but obscured factors – market conditions affecting the timing of an IPO or the surprisingly high cost of indirect materials used in the motorcycle manufacturing process, for example – has helped him add substantial value to the companies he’s worked for while earning him impressive recognition. Honored as one of India’s 100 Best CFOs for 2017-18, Suryanarayanan also received CFO India’s First Annual CFONEXT100 honor in 2012 (and was a repeat winner the following year). That said he would rather talk about how he and his finance team’s analysis of market forecasts spurred them to accelerate the timetable for taking a company public – a move that “resulted in a fantastic valuation” and a successful listing completed weeks before a major market swoon. Suryanarayanan views those types of accomplishments as part of the strategic CFO’s core role. “Ideally, the CFO s

Wasabi CFO Michael Bayer’s career ah-ha moment struck early. He was a college math whiz in the early days of PCs when a professor enlisted Bayer to move all of his paper-based finance and accounting records to a computerized system. “He took me under his wing and taught me a lot,” recalls Bayer, whose 25-plus year professional career includes various finance, operations, technology and business development roles primarily for venture-backed technology companies. “Only recently have I realized the magnitude of the risk that he undertook … He allowed some college kid to build out his business systems [and] he trusted the trading of his fairly sizable investment portfolio to computer models that I built around my emerging understanding of options.” The experience has served as a leadership beacon for Bayer throughout his career as he managed IPOs, co-founded a mobile social network and served as a CFO in a number of companies: “I really think the most powerful thing you can do as a CFO and a business leader is t

When he started his career, Western Union CFO Raj Argawal never expected to wind up leading a global finance function. That seems appropriate today considering he defines his role – first and foremost – as “driving and executing the strategy of the company.” Trained as an electrical engineer at General Motors, Argawal also earned an MBA and then set out in pursuit of a variety of job roles (in the treasury function at General Mills, running one of Western Union’s business units) and diverse experiences (managing foreign exchange risks, taking overseas assignments). Those activities ultimately helped groom him as a finance chief with a broad perspective and a highly strategic lens. “I really look at myself as being a strategic CFO because I’ve had so many experiences in the field interacting with our customers, our agents, our business partners and our employees,” he says. “I’ve always brought the business perspective to my thinking and my decision-making.”

Tim Saunders seems like the kind of leader you’d absolutely follow into battle. He thrives in high-pressure situations, remains cool under pressure and truly values his troops’ expertise. Saunders also fully commits to taking on new -- and seemingly overwhelming – challenges, like the one that greeted him in his first finance executive role following his time in public accounting. During his first week on that job, Saunders discovered his telecommunications company had lost $25 million the previous year, received news that the New York Stock Exchange was threatening delisting, and received a letter that had been languishing on his CEO’s desk for days. The note, from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, contained more than three dozen comments requiring prompt remediation. “Dealing with 44 SEC comments is a good way to learn about the company during your first week on the job,” Saunders deadpans. But he’s not entirely kidding. That unflappable demeanor has served Saunders well while pursuing a varied p

Circle CFO Naeem Ishaq’s Forrest Gumpian career trajectory has given him extraordinary exposure to most of Silicon Valley’s touchstone technologies – the semiconductor, cloud computing, mobile payments and, most recently, cryptocurrency. After a stint as a dot.com-era entrepreneur he launched as an undergraduate, Ishaq has invested the past 18 years accumulating a trove of experience within some of the technology industry’s most iconic companies, including Intel, Salesforce, Square, Box and Circle. Along the way, he learned crucial leadership lessons from a remarkable collection of CEOs and CFOs, including former Intel finance chief and current Intel chairman Andy Bryant. Ishaq says Bryant demonstrated what it takes to cultivate a thriving “strategic finance culture.” Today, as head of Circle’s finance team, Ishaq views the ability to quickly “shift context” as key to nurturing his team. He honed that agility at Salesforce when its market capitalization (now $100 billion) was a plucky $3 billion. As head of f

A brief summary of this episode

A brief summary of this episode

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).  

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

While the viewing public watches TV – Roku CFO Steve Louden and his finance team are watching Roku’s data – a treasure trove of viewing tastes, habits and streaming developments that are being derived from the billions of hours of content that Roku today streams quarterly. Join us when Steve explains how a data science and analytics platform – originally incubated inside Roku’s finance organization – aspires to provide digestible insights across the company. Learn how the platform’s “super users” today reside in Roku’s finance and advertising groups and why communication between data science engineers, data analytics and functional executives has been key to the platform’s growing success.  NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).

NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).