Episodes

Declan Tyrell, the CFO Whisperer, joins Kevin Appleby on the Grow CFO Show. Declan introduced himself as a former CFO and CFO Whisperer at both Google and Oracle. Someone who helps sales organizations understand finance leaders and position value propositions to inspire CFOs. He coaches sales professionals and runs deal clinics to help close deals. Declan is passionate about helping Salespeople understand the changing landscape of buying, in particular how to engage with their customers’ economi...

Wassia Kamon was the guest on episode 118. It’s a year since that recording was made. A lot can happen in 12 months. Wassia changed jobs, moved to a different sector, and was promoted in her first three months. She has also risen to fame as an influencer on LinkedIn and has been published in the Wall Street Journal. Somebody has to be the best, so why not you? It was clearly visible behind Wassia as we recorded. It makes a great title for this episode. This episode provides valuable insights in...

Dovid Gurevich, CFO at Tynrose joins Kevin Appleby on this week’s GrowCFO Show. Dovid shares his unique background, transitioning from engineering to finance roles. He explained how digital transformation requires clean, integrated data accessible in real-time. Dovid recommended HR platforms like Rippling and Paylocity as the core system to build around, as they integrate HR, payroll, benefits and other functions. This reduces manual work and improves the employee experience. Gurevich also disc...

Soufyan Hamid, founder and financial storytelling trainer at SouFBP joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show. They discuss storytelling in finance presentations. Soufyan started his career in auditing at PwC, then moved to consulting at Deloitte. He realized the importance of storytelling when he became a finance business partner for a telecommunications company in Belgium, as he needed to convince internal stakeholders who did not automatically trust him like external consultants. Soufyan now t...

Dan Perez, Head of Finance at EdgeDelta joins Kevin Appleby on The GrowCFO Show to discuss observability. EdgeDelta supply observability solutions. Dan explains that observability allows teams to monitor an application’s health based on the data it generates, helping them quickly identify issues and their root causes. This is important for meeting service level agreements and avoiding costly downtime. Observability and FP&A Dan highlights ways that his background in finance and FP&A is relevan...

Carrie Gallant is a dynamic speaker, author, coach and facilitator; she is a licensed associate of the Impostor Syndrome Institute. In this episode, Carrie discusses imposter syndrome and how it affects finance leaders with Kevin Appleby. Carrie shares how she got into studying imposter syndrome and how it can impact people differently based on gender and culture. Common feelings associated with imposter syndrome include feeling like a fraud or not being good enough. Often, the finance leader m...

Kevin Appleby is in conversation with Roi Ben Daniel. Roi is the founder and CEO of Received, a billing and accounts receivable solution focused on the specialised needs of B2B sales organisations. They discuss the challenges facing mid-market SaaS companies and the pressures CFOs face around software costs, pricing models, and customer unit economics. Roi also shares insights into opportunities like service monetisation and why building invoicing in-house often doesn’t make sense compared to a ...

Blake Wetzel, CEO of AuctionIQ, discusses how companies can save money on technology expenses through a reverse auction process. Blake has experience as both a CFO and CEO and explains how his financial background helps him as a CEO. He outlines how AIQ evaluates a company’s entire technology spend, identifies areas for savings, and runs a competitive bidding process to get the best price while still meeting quality requirements. Companies can typically save 40% on costs this way compared to 15%...

This episode features Tom Schultz, author of the book “So You Want to be a Fractional CFO?”. Tom shares his story of how he accidentally got into fractional CFO work in 2006 after helping sell the company he worked for. He discusses building his business through referrals from his network and eventually forming a firm called Next Gen CFO with 18 fractional CFOs. Tom provides advice on how to build a referral network and develop fractional CFO business. He also discusses how the book came to be w...

This week on The GrowCFO Show, Kevin Appleby sits down with Charles Fisher, CFO of Turo, the world’s largest peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace. Chuck shares the story of how Turo is disrupting the traditional car rental industry by allowing people to list, discover and book cars anywhere without owning a large fleet. He discusses his role overseeing finance and operations as Turo scales rapidly while maintaining profitability. Chuck also offers insights from his previous career in investment ...

Kevin Appleby introduces the 150th episode of The GrowCFO Show and looks back over the last three years of podcasting. The show has covered many topics and featured well over 100 guests. In this episode, Kevin reveals which ones have attracted the most interest from you—the listener. You might be a CFO with many years of experience or still be trying to land your first CFO role. Whichever it is, the podcast should bring something for you. We’ve covered many different personal development topics...

Andrew Waters is co-founder of recruitment consultants Zanda based in the UK and New York. He recruits finance leaders across Europe and the USA and understands the marketplace for finance staff. Andrew joins Kevin Appleby to discuss the state of the job market, what happened in the wake of COVID-19, the great resignation and the current economic slowdown. Summary Andrew’s key message is that while there have been job losses in the tech sector, the finance sector remains more buoyant. Andrew a...

Catherine Marks, Is a finance professional with 20 years of experience. Most recently she was VP of Finance at Depop and Head of Group FP&A with Virgin Media O2. Catherine has joined GrowCFO as Finance Team Training Lead and is about to launch the inaugural GrowCFO FP&A boot camp. The FP&A boot camp provides practical training that enables finance teams to take immediate action and immediately make a difference in their work. The boot camp isn’t about teaching theory. Instead, the training is d...

Alex Triplett, CFO/COO at Appfire, joins the GrowCFO Show to discuss hybrid working and how to make it successful. Alex shares the culture and ways of working at Appfire and how the organisation embraces hybrid working as a core value. Hybrid working for a finance function refers to a work arrangement that combines remote and in-office work for employees within the finance department of an organization. This approach allows employees to work from different locations, such as their homes or sate...

Oliver Deacon is a member of the GrowCFO Mentoring team. He runs the GrowCFO Business Partnering and Finance Transformation Boot Camps and is a former FD at Microsoft. Oil joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to talk about why these boot camps deliver results for the people attending them. Boot camps don’t focus on providing training on the theory, they provide pragmatic and useful training for finance teams concentrating on the practical application of tools and techniques that deliver resul...

At some point in the next year, the interest rate hikes will likely end. After months in near-constant rate-hike-anticipation mode, CFOs will need to shift their mindset to the new rate environment and the opportunities that will open up. Bill Fink is an expert on this. A commercial banking and credit-risk executive with 30 years of experience, Bill is a frequent commentator on the economy, looking at everything from the impact of inflation and supply chain disruptions to rising unemployment rat...

Ryan Englin is based in Nashville and is the CEO at Core Matters. He also hosts the Talent Tackle Box Podcast. Ryan joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to discuss how to recruit great people by using tools and techniques that normally sit with your marketing team. Kevin and Ryan discussed the importance of having an exemplary process for recruiting and retaining staff. They emphasized the need for companies to implement a system, such as Core Matters’ CoreFit Hiring System, to automate and ...

Francesco Zappala was Kevin Appleby’s guest on episode 136. Previously he spoke about his journey to CFO and how an Italian ended up setting up a company from scratch in Chile, South America. Francesco is the CFO of a major construction company. He returns to talk about dealing with a construction project that is in distress. Summary Kevin and Francesco discussed the challenges of managing projects in distress, particularly in the construction and infrastructure industry. They highlighted the ...

Catherine Clark is head of mentoring at GrowCFO. She frequently supports her mentees when they need to have a difficult conversation. Difficult conversations can take place for a variety of reasons, In this episode Kevin and Catherine discuss the challenges of a difficult conversation and why you shouldn’t avoid such conversations. They highlighted that a difficult conversation can cause anxiety and stress, but approaching it with curiosity and open questions can lead to better understanding and...

Edmund Zagorin joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show. Edmund is CSO of Arkestro. Arkestro helps your team make buying decisions, faster, and at scale using Predictive Procurement Orchestration Kevin and Edmund explore anchor bias and consider how CFOs can help their procurement teams avoid anchor bias and use predictive modelling to make better buying decisions. https://youtu.be/5kV-IWd3fAU Anchor Bias and Predictive Modelling Anchor bias, also known as anchoring bias, is a cognitive bias ...

Dr Shan Nair is an entrepreneur and consultant on international expansion. He was the first to spot and develop the niche market of International Expansion Services (IES) which was previously fragmented. In the process, he has worked with many early-stage companies that have since become household names such as Tesla Motors, FaceTime and Sonus Networks. His role is to promote the services offered by Nucleus, a one-stop organization for U.S- based companies who wish to expand globally. Shan has a...

Dan DeGolier joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to discuss the provision of fractional CFO Services. Dan is the founder at Ascent CFO Solutions. He discussed his background and career journey, including his experience in public accounting and working with venture-backed companies. He describes how his firm, Ascent CFO Solutions, has grown to include a team of 38 professionals who provide various financial services to clients, including capital raising and outsourced accounting. Dan and Kev...

GrowCFO mentor Susana Serrano-Davey joins Kevin Appleby to discuss fear. Fear often holds you back from achieving your potential and can limit your career development. Fear is almost entirely self-generated and is therefore completely within your control. But how do you face your fears and take that control? In this episode, Susana and Kevin discuss facing fears, including common workplace fears such as fear of being fired, fear of making mistakes, and fear of ridicule. Susana shared her person...