Business & Priorities

Sutter Health is a not-for-profit healthcare system serving Northern California through nearly 30 hospitals, several hundred clinics, physician services, ambulatory surgery centers, and home health. It serves about 3.5 million people annually and operates its own health plan. Its economics combine patient-service and premium revenue, while reimbursement changes, regulatory volatility, capacity demands, and the shift toward value-based care shape financial performance.

Jonathan Ma’s priorities pair Sutter Health’s strategic and financial targets with a sustained focus on organizational effectiveness. He is working to strengthen alignment, trust, and shared purpose across the finance team while establishing a consistent operating rhythm with colleagues. Clear priorities, regular engagement, leadership development, and succession planning are intended to build a team capable of supporting growth without losing financial discipline or the organization’s mission.

Rule #1 — Leave Room Not to Know

Curiosity becomes difficult when finance leaders believe that credibility depends on always having the answer. Intellectual humility allows a CFO to question assumptions, learn from others, and surface uncertainty before it becomes risk.

Ma credits his early mentors with teaching him to take the work seriously without taking himself too seriously. For him, that meant remaining willing to ask questions in the room and acknowledge the limits of his knowledge.

“Ask a question in a room or admit that you don’t know the answer.”

— Ma

Rule #2 — Make the Need Visible

Senior leaders can become so practiced at projecting control that colleagues never see where support is needed. Speaking up is therefore not simply personal vulnerability; it is a practical way to mobilize the organization.

When Ma entered the CFO role, he was surprised by how ready others were to help, advocate for him, and close gaps. The obstacle was not their willingness—it was whether he would make the need visible.

“Use your voice and speak up, and really rely on your colleagues and other leaders.”

— Ma

Rule #3 — Turn Discipline Into Shared Accountability

Financial discipline creates resistance when it is presented as finance imposing limits on everyone else. A CFO builds alignment by making resource choices part of a common responsibility for mission, growth, and resilience.

Ma applies the principle of balancing “the means with the will,” particularly when working with colleagues outside finance. He argues that budgets and difficult resource decisions should be understood as organizational choices rather than finance exercises.

“It’s also a shared accountability across the organization as we’re trying to make decisions together.”

— Ma

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFP Jonathan Ma --Mission, Means and the Will to Grow

CFO Shiv Verma --The Best Trade May Be the One You Don’t Make

CFO Ross Grainger --Finding a Larger Voice in the Room

CFO Shiv Verma helped lead Robinhood’s 2022 reset, shifting from centralized leadership to a GM model, reducing the workforce by 30% to 40%, and rebuilding strategy and KPIs from first principles. Finance’s plan restored focus on customer pain points, market share, net deposits, and disciplined execution

EQ Lens: Shiv Verma | Robinhood’s 2022 Reset

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Courageous Accountability ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

First-Principles Judgment ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Human-Cost Awareness ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Courageous accountability led this moment. Verma and finance did not treat the falling stock price or market as reasons to protect the existing model; they asked what the company needed to become and built the plan without “sacred cows.” First-principles judgment reset roles, strategy, and KPIs. Human-cost awareness kept the workforce reduction from becoming an abstract efficiency exercise: Verma calls it one of the hardest things he has done. The broader lesson is that EQ in transformation is not avoiding pain. It is facing the consequences, making the decision collectively, and executing without losing sight of employees or customers.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Shiv Verma --The Best Trade May Be the One You Don’t Make

CFO Ross Grainger --Finding a Larger Voice in the Room

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

Business & Priorities

Robinhood is a financial platform serving retail and institutional customers. It began by addressing high fees, minimums, and jargon through commission-free trading, but now spans equities, options, crypto infrastructure, banking, credit, retirement and custodial accounts, and institutional services. Its ambition is to operate as a financial super app across multiple markets. That breadth—13 businesses each generating more than $100 million in ARR—creates a diversified but increasingly complex operating model.

Verma’s priorities center on sustaining product velocity without losing customer focus. Robinhood intends to keep expanding and improving its products while avoiding complacency as the platform grows. AI is the second major focus: leadership wants the company to remain best in class in how it applies the technology internally and within customer-facing products. The balance is between shipping faster and ensuring that growth continues to address practical customer needs.

Shiv Verma’s Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Earn Scope by Owning What Is Broken

Verma was hired as treasurer before agreeing to run investor relations and build a finance team—responsibilities he had never held. He now tells younger colleagues to excel in their core roles and act when they encounter something broken.

“When opportunity happens, just go fix it. Just say yes.”

— Verma

Rule #2 — Regulate the Signal You Send

Verma says leaders cannot become too elevated during strong periods or too discouraged when conditions deteriorate. After earnings, he redirects employees away from the stock price and back toward customers, operating inputs, and the long term.

“You never get too high or you never get too low.”

— Verma

Rule #3 — Acknowledge the Human Cost of Necessary Decisions

During Robinhood’s 2022 reset, finance helped redesign the organization and reduce the workforce by 30% to 40%. Verma describes the restructuring as necessary, but he does not separate its strategic rationale from its effect on employees.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do from the human element.”

— Verma

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Shiv Verma --The Best Trade May Be the One You Don’t Make

CFO Ross Grainger --Finding a Larger Voice in the Room

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

CFO Ross Grainger helped rethink a pricing plan after the board challenged management’s proposed 7% increase. Finance helped lead a cross-functional redesign of both pricing levels and drivers, ultimately producing a 22%–23% increase in average ACV while establishing guardrails and escalation paths for customers facing significantly different impacts.

EQ Lens: Ross Grainger | Rethinking the Pricing Model

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Receptiveness to Challenge ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 10

Cross-Functional Influence ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 7

Customer Perspective ▮▮▮▮▮ 5

EQ REFLECTION

Receptiveness to challenge is the defining behavior. When the board rejected management’s initial proposal, Grainger and the team didn’t simply defend their assumptions—they reconsidered “the art of the possible.”

That openness was supported by cross-functional influence. Finance took a leading role, but implementation required participation across the company. Customer perspective added another discipline: impacts ranged from 5% to 70%, requiring guardrails, escalation paths, and an understanding of where customers experienced value.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Ross Grainger --Finding a Larger Voice in the Room

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

Business & Priorities

Nasuni provides an unstructured data platform for large enterprises whose file data is mission-critical to people and AI. Its subscription model is primarily tied to storage capacity, while additional products extend the platform beyond storing and protecting data toward activating it for AI use. That shift makes clean, organized, permission-aware data increasingly important to the value Nasuni provides.

Grainger’s priorities center on converting AI experimentation into measurable returns while supporting Nasuni’s move from a product to a platform company. Internally, that means determining which AI investments can move beyond individual productivity gains and improve broader organizational performance. Commercially, finance is focused on supporting sales growth and helping the business capture value from its expanding portfolio of products and services.

Ross Grainger’s Three EQ Rules for the Road

Rule #1 — Learn From the Seat You Didn’t Get

Grainger wanted the CFO position at a healthcare software company, but another executive was hired. Rather than treating the outcome simply as a setback, he came to value the different lens that CFO brought—particularly the ability to use finance to influence how other leaders thought about the business.

“I ended up being extremely happy that they hired somebody else and not me.”

— Grainger

Rule #2 — Let Trusted People Challenge Your Presence

Before a board meeting, a friend on Grainger’s executive team challenged him to bring the same confidence into the boardroom that he demonstrated with his management peers. The feedback stayed with him as he later navigated fundraising and a boardroom that included 14 investors.

“What you say matters and it needs to come across with confidence.”

— Grainger

Rule #3 — Respect the Weight of the CFO Seat

Looking back on becoming a CFO, Grainger identified something he wished he had understood earlier: the loneliness of the role. He observed that the CFO carries responsibilities to the board, investors, and CEO in a way that differs from other C-suite positions.

“You just have a different level of responsibility than the rest of the C-suite.”

— Grainger

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Ross Grainger --Finding a Larger Voice in the Room

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

🎥 Finance Strategic Moment — featuring CFO Cal Brouilette, Flatiron Health

Cal Brouilette led the finance work on a $700 million power-plant portfolio sale, moving from valuation and management presentations to agreement negotiations under a roughly 120-day deadline. Being asked to make the go-or-no-go call became the moment he recognized that he could operate as a strategic finance leader.

EQ Lens: Cal Brouilette | High-Stakes Deal Leadership

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Calibrated Confidence ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Composure Under Pressure ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Learning Orientation ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Calibrated confidence is the leading behavior in Brouilette’s account. He did not confuse confidence with certainty: After owning valuation, presentations, contract terms, and late-night negotiations, he accepted responsibility for the final call.

Composure helped him manage a compressed timetable alongside a demanding MBA schedule, while learning orientation kept the breakthrough from becoming self-congratulation—he could make the decision and “still keep learning.”

The moment mattered because it changed how he operated: from executing finance work to judging enterprise value under pressure. Strategic leadership often begins when experience, accountability, and continued learning converge.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

That matters because CFO credibility is rarely built through certainty alone. It is built by recognizing what others may reasonably question—and being candid about what the leader must question in himself.

Business & Priorities

Flatiron Health is an oncology-focused health technology company with two connected businesses. It provides electronic medical record software and services to community oncology clinics, where more than half of U.S. cancer care is delivered. It also converts clinical data into disease-specific longitudinal datasets and analytical services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, linking frontline care with real-world evidence used to address research questions.

Growth is the central priority, with investment decisions concentrated on AI, technology, and expansion of Flatiron’s data network. Brouilette is balancing the need to move quickly with requirements for data quality, customer trust, and continued profitability. He is also strengthening execution discipline: defining expected outcomes, tracking whether investments deliver as intended, and changing course before the organization travels too far down the wrong path.

Cal Brouilette’s Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Translate Before You Assume

When Brouilette moved from energy into Silicon Valley, he underestimated how differently each industry viewed the other. Rather than blaming interviewers, he recognized that it was his responsibility to explain how mature-industry training and structure could benefit a technology company.

“I just assumed everyone saw leaders as leaders.”

— Brouilette

Rule #2 — Acknowledge Suspicion Before Requesting Trust

Brouilette acknowledges the questions surrounding Flatiron’s integrity, data, and independence under Roche ownership. He does not dismiss those concerns; he describes the years required to establish trust with oncology clinics and pharmaceutical customers on both sides of the P&L.

“We’ve spent an awful lot of time building the trust.”

— Brouilette

Rule #3 — Own What Happens After the Decision

Brouilette says Flatiron is strengthening its ability to track investments after approval. His focus is not simply making a decision and allowing momentum to carry it forward, but determining whether the expected results are actually materializing.

“How do we make sure what we thought was going to happen is happening?”

— Brouilette

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Cal Brouilette --Quality, Trust, and Scale

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

CFO Jamie Schroeder supported aggressive pricing, promotions, and product placement when new retailer leadership created an opening for growth. Finance quantified the risks, established guardrails, and prepared response playbooks. The decision helped produce category growth that the business had not seen in ten years.

EQ Lens: Jamie Schroeder | Pursuing Growth Through Disruption

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Risk-Calibrated Courage ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Transparent Alignment ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Adaptive Judgment ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Risk-calibrated courage led this moment. Schroeder did not dismiss the finance team’s discomfort or allow it to dictate the decision. He converted uncertainty into scenarios, guardrails, and response plans.

Transparent alignment ensured that operating partners understood the exposure and the playbook. Adaptive judgment allowed finance to recognize that disruption could create opportunity—not merely downside.

The broader leadership lesson is that growth-oriented CFOs do not abandon financial discipline. They use it to make intelligent risk-taking possible.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

Phil Fracassa led the separation of Timken’s steel business, coordinating nearly every enterprise function while preparing two independent public companies for success. Although he knew he would become CFO of Timken after the spin, he remained impartial—making decisions in the interests of both organizations

EQ Lens: Phil Fracassa | Leading an Impartial Separation

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Impartial Stewardship ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Cross-Functional Orchestration ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Execution Discipline ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Impartial stewardship defined Fracassa’s leadership. Knowing his own destination after the spin, he still separated personal interest from his responsibility to position both companies for success. Cross-functional orchestration enabled legal, HR, IT, operations, finance, treasury, and tax to work through shared dependencies. Execution discipline kept a complex separation moving within a period of just under a year. The experience reinforced his belief that strategy creates value only when leaders align people around difficult decisions and carry them through—moving finance beyond analysis to become an architect of execution.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

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Business & Priorities

Premium Guard supplies automotive aftermarket retailers with filtration, engine, and performance products, including cabin and oil filters. Its business was built largely through turnkey private-label programs, while acquired brands such as FRAM, Autolite, and Trico broaden its branded portfolio. The company must support retailers with timely product availability as vehicle models change, while balancing global sourcing with emerging domestic manufacturing capabilities.

Schroeder is focused on turning Premium Guard’s recently acquired brands, intellectual property, talent, and manufacturing assets into measurable returns. His immediate agenda includes bringing the Albion, Illinois, facility online, maintaining performance across the existing business, and closely monitoring investment levels and operational progress. In parallel, he is advancing data and AI capabilities to strengthen demand forecasting, inventory efficiency, customer insight, and finance process automation.

Jamie Schroeder’s Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Steady the Team Without Inventing Certainty

Transformation generates anxiety because people cannot always see how their work connects to the destination. An emotionally intelligent CFO does not promise a straight path; the CFO reinforces the North Star, explains the larger purpose, and gives people confidence that they will not navigate uncertainty alone.

Schroeder describes bringing a calming presence to change while maintaining an open door for questions. His assurance is direct and personal: employees should understand the destination, help own the path, and know that their leader supports them.

“Let’s work together, own the path, and I have your back.”

— Schroeder

Rule #2 — Earn Influence by Getting Close to the Work

Schroeder traces this habit to his first Ford assignment, where rotations included a month working in an assembly plant’s paint shop. The experience taught him that financial influence begins with operational understanding—not distance from it.

“It was really all about learning the business and getting your hands on the business.”

— Schroeder

Rule #3 — Treat Relationships as Executive Infrastructure

Reflecting on what surprised him after becoming a CFO, Schroeder says financial acumen proved to be table stakes. The greater lesson was that execution at that level happens through people and partnership.

“Honestly, it’s all about people and relationships at that level.”

— Schroeder

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Jamie Schroeder -- Putting Guardrails Around Aggressive Growth

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

Business & Priorities

Magna is one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, serving global vehicle manufacturers across body structures, powertrain and vision systems, seating, and complete-vehicle engineering and assembly. Its breadth allows it to support internal-combustion, hybrid, and electric platforms. The operating challenge is to keep pace with different rates of electrification across China, Europe, and North America while maintaining quality, cost competitiveness, and reliable delivery.

Leadership is focused on advancing Magna’s strategy while navigating geopolitical, tariff, and trade pressures. Fracassa is emphasizing what the company can control: operational excellence, margin expansion, strong cash generation, and disciplined deployment of that cash. He is also balancing investment for profitable growth with shareholder returns, preparing Magna’s longer-term strategic framework for its investor day, and beginning the 2027 business-planning cycle.

Phil Fracassa’s Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Orchestrate Through Others

Fracassa says becoming CFO changed how he measured his own effectiveness. Instead of focusing on who was smartest or whose idea prevailed, he learned to ask the right questions, bring the right people together, and facilitate transparent dialogue.

“It’s really not about whose idea it was or who was right and who was wrong. It’s really all about the team getting aligned on the best answer for the company.”

— Fracassa

Rule #2 — Declare the Growth You Want

Fracassa valued his tax foundation but wanted a broader role, so he explicitly raised his hand for new responsibilities. That decision eventually exposed him to treasury, operations, strategy, and corporate development while preserving the technical strengths he had already built.

“I would always encourage tax folks that are interested in doing more to raise your hand and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to try something else.’”

— Fracassa

Rule #3 — Separate Stewardship From Self-Interest

While leading Timken’s separation PMO, Fracassa knew he would become CFO of one of the resulting companies. Still, the board charged him with positioning both businesses to succeed, requiring him to remain fair and impartial throughout the separation.

“I had to make decisions that were in the best interest of both companies, not just one.”

— Fracassa

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Phil Fracassa --The CFO as an Architect of Execution

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

CFO Andrew Korn --When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing

🎥 Finance Strategic Moment — featuring CFO Matt Ostrower, Link Logistics

Matt Ostrower resisted an expedient response when SITE Centers faced declining valuations and Hurricane Maria’s impact on its Puerto Rico portfolio. The leadership team separated the portfolio, creating a liquid asset pool and positioning the remaining company for growth. Public markets embraced the decision.

— E Q L E N S —

EQ Lens: Matt Ostrower | Reframing a Crisis

Which traits this story reveals most.

Strategic Composure ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 10

Decisive Courage ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 7

Stakeholder Awareness ▮▮▮▮▮ 5

EQ REFLECTION

not prevent action; they reflected an understanding of its weight. Leadership growth often appears in that tension: accepting uncertainty without allowing it to narrow the decision to what feels safest.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

CFO Andrew Korn --When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing

CFO Laura Miller --Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together

In a difficult early-2023 market, Korn and EliseAI chose to raise capital before circumstances required it. Accepting a valuation below what a stronger market might have offered, they secured funding that positioned the company for a Series D 16–18 months later and a Series E the following year

EQ Lens: Andrew Korn | Raising Capital Into a Rocky Market

Which traits this story reveals most.

— E Q L E N S —

Conviction Under Uncertainty ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 10

Long-Horizon Judgment ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ 7

Leadership Alignment ▮▮▮▮▮ 5

EQ REFLECTION

Conviction mattered most because Korn’s team acted without the reassurance of favorable market conditions or an optimal valuation. Long-horizon judgment kept the discussion focused on what capital could enable rather than what the company might concede in the moment. Leadership alignment allowed the team to move together while preserving control over when—and whether—it needed to raise. The broader lesson is that financial courage is not impulsiveness. It is the ability to accept an imperfect present when doing so strengthens the company’s future choices.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

CFO Andrew Korn --When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing

CFO Laura Miller --Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together

Business & Priorities

Link Logistics owns and operates warehouses across the United States and Canada, serving customers ranging from major corporations and government agencies to small contractors. Its economics depend on acquiring, financing, leasing, and operating properties in locations where demand and rents can grow. The platform’s scale provides extensive operating data that can inform investment, leasing, and property-management decisions.

Leadership is focused on making Link Logistics increasingly insights-driven and AI-native. The work involves redesigning end-to-end processes so AI can improve speed and efficiency while generating stronger insights for investment, leasing, and asset operations. Rather than treating AI as a technology deployment, Ostrower views it as an operational reinvention requiring employee training, bottom-up experimentation, disciplined data practices, and sustained change management.

Matt Ostrower’s ThreE CFO EQ Rules of the ROAD

Rule #1 — Recognize the Decision You’re Avoiding

While helping downsize a London research department, Ostrower had to make decisions involving people he personally liked and considered talented. The experience taught him to remain objective, accept responsibility for how people had been developed, and make difficult decisions with discipline.

“The quality of one’s management, I think, is directly correlated to one’s willingness to be self-conscious about, ‘Ooh, I’m avoiding a hard decision.’”

— Ostrower

Rule #2 — Stop Hoarding Responsibility

Ostrower says his early career was defined by how much he could personally accomplish. His leadership evolved when he began surrounding himself with people who were smarter and more talented, then serving them as a trusted adviser instead of a top-down boss.

“The less you actually do all day long and the more you manage, the better you are as an individual.”

— Ostrower

Rule #3 — Meet People Where Change Begins

Discussing Link Logistics’ move from spreadsheets toward dashboards and AI-driven tools, Ostrower emphasizes patient, sustained change management. Employees need context, training, resources, and a credible explanation of how the future state serves their interests.

“You have to take people along for the ride, reach them where they are.”

— Ostrower

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Matt Ostrower --Giving Every Decision-Maker 40 Analysts

CFO Andrew Korn --When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing

CFO Laura Miller --Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together

Business & Priorities

EliseAI develops vertical AI products for housing and healthcare—two labor-dependent, highly regulated industries constrained by legacy technology and administrative workloads. Its platform operates primarily at the communication layer, automating interactions and repetitive tasks across channels. The company helps housing operators manage leasing, rent collection, maintenance, and renewals, while supporting healthcare organizations with patient intake, calls, and appointment scheduling.

Andrew Korn’s priorities center on sustaining annual growth above 100% while keeping finance adaptable to changing business needs. EliseAI plans to extend AI across its products and internal operations, improving efficiency without allowing organizational complexity to grow at the same rate as the business. Korn is also focused on measuring AI’s operational impact and ensuring the company remains properly funded to continue investing.

CFO EQ: Andrew Korn’s Three Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Use Candor Before Misalignment Hardens

Korn says leaders must be honest about what people can and cannot do—as well as their own strengths and weaknesses. That clarity allows difficult outcomes to be addressed from a common understanding.

“The number one thing that I learned over time that I think differentiates successful from unsuccessful has really been candor.”

— Korn

Rule #2 — Know When Analysis Is Obscuring the Opportunity

Korn recalls passing on a healthcare technology investment because its unit economics and capital requirements appeared unfavorable. The company later completed a successful IPO, teaching him that his team had been “a degree too smart” for itself.

“Sometimes you need to sort of step up from the analysis.”

— Korn

Rule #3 — Evaluate Trust Before Business Mechanics

When evaluating EliseAI, Korn spent half his time assessing alignment with its founders and half conducting traditional investor-style diligence. In hindsight, he says the leadership relationship deserved his full attention.

“Being in the trenches with people that you trust and that trust you—and that mutual respect—is just so important to be successful.”

— Korn

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Andrew Korn --When Capital Conviction Matters More Than Market Timing

CFO Laura Miller --Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together

CFO Samantha Greenberg --Allocating Capital in an Age of AI

Business & Priorities

Strata Decision Technology provides a SaaS platform for finance offices, executive teams, and operational leaders in healthcare, higher education, and financial institutions. These highly regulated, operationally complex organizations use Strata to connect financial, operational, and strategic data across planning, forecasting, workforce management, and cost accounting. Its position is reinforced by decades of industry data and experience serving more than 2,300 organizations.

Laura Miller is focused on advancing AI while maintaining financial discipline around its adoption. That includes monitoring token usage, costs, and performance metrics to ensure new capabilities create measurable value. Her second priority is supporting Strata’s product development and go-to-market execution, particularly as the company brings strategically important AI-enabled offerings to customers.

Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Learn to Lead Through Other Leaders

Miller distinguishes between managing individuals and leading people who themselves lead others. At STATS, she learned to build a larger, global organization by helping leaders disseminate information and develop their own teams.

“You’re trying to teach others to lead others.”— Miller

Rule #2 — Adapt When Preparation Meets Reality

Miller entered her first CFO role as the pandemic disrupted operations, while she was also expecting her second child. Her team shifted from rolling forecasts to daily forecasts and modeled outcomes ranging from zero to quadrupled demand.

“None of the things that I prepped for were my biggest challenges once I stepped into the role.”— Miller

Rule #3 — Test for Mutual Trust Before Taking the Seat

Miller draws on mentors and longtime relationships to investigate prospective owners, sometimes spending a year or more finding the right opportunity. Her diligence reflects the self-awareness to recognize that organizational fit shapes leadership performance.

“I want to make sure I’m in a place that I’m respected, and that we’re a mutually trusted relationship.”— Miller

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Laura Miller --Making Strategy—and the Money—Move Together

CFO Samantha Greenberg --Allocating Capital in an Age of AI

The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli --From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy

🎥 Finance Strategic Moment — featuring Samantha Greenberg, AlphaSense

CFO SamanthaGreenberg connected finance, operations, and data science around real-time staffing forecasts. The resulting visibility enabled the company to adjust hiring and overtime before costs were committed, helping nearly double gross margins over two to three years. She attributes half of that improvement to insights produced by the forecasting transformation

Samantha Greenberg | Forecasting Transformation

— E Q L E N S — Which traits this story reveals most.

Cross-Functional Orchestration ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Operational Responsiveness ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Adaptive Resource Allocation ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Cross-functional orchestration mattered most because the forecasting model alone could not change the cost structure. Greenberg established a working rhythm among finance, operations, and data science, initially coordinating every day and later several times a week. That collaboration made operational responsiveness possible: leaders could flex overtime, reduce a planned hiring class, or cancel one before the opportunity disappeared. Adaptive resource allocation then converted visibility into measurable action. The broader lesson is that finance transformation creates value when leaders build the trust and routines required to act on the data.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Samantha Greenberg --Allocating Capital in an Age of AI

The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli --From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy

Business & Priorities

AlphaSense is an AI-powered market intelligence platform that automates research for corporate, financial, and other knowledge professionals. Serving more than 7,800 customers, the company combines business content, financial data, expert interviews, AI reasoning tools, and workflow agents within a vertically integrated platform. Its model is designed to replace fragmented research tools with a single system capable of producing cited outputs.

Finance leadership is focused on building the operational maturity required to support continued growth. That includes developing an integrated systems architecture, expanding real-time forecasting capabilities, and strengthening finance’s partnership with product, engineering, and go-to-market teams. Greenberg is also applying disciplined capital-allocation frameworks to balance growth with profitability and evaluate product priorities, spending, risk, and build-versus-buy decisions.

Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Choose the Role That Exposes the Gap

Self-awareness becomes strategically useful when a finance leader can identify not only existing strengths but also the experiences still missing. The harder move is selecting a role that makes those gaps visible and demands that they be addressed.

Greenberg knew that forecasting and investor relations were strengths, but she lacked extensive experience in operational finance, systems implementation, and accounting leadership. Instead of joining a mature organization that would reward what she already knew, she chose an earlier-stage company where she could become a hands-on builder.

“I wanted to develop that zero-to-one builder.”

— Greenberg

Rule #2 — Know When Conviction Becomes Hesitation

Strong finance leaders bring analytical discipline to decisions, but discipline can become a constraint when it delays necessary action. Emotional intelligence includes recognizing when a familiar strength is no longer serving the situation.

Greenberg learned as an investor to wait for the “fat pitches” offering exceptional asymmetry. Operating inside rapidly scaling companies changed that belief: Waiting for everything to become perfectly filtered can cause the organization to miss opportunities.

“Velocity matters too. You can’t just wait for the fat pitches.”

— Greenberg

Rule #3 — Accept Accountability for Other People’s Growth

Developing talent requires more than offering occasional advice or assigning increasingly difficult work. It means accepting personal responsibility for whether colleagues are gaining the experience, mentoring, and opportunities needed to advance.

Greenberg says Citadel recognized her ability to attract, mentor, grow, and retain talent as something rarer than investment performance alone. She now considers herself as accountable for the careers of the people who work with her as they are themselves.

“If I don’t deliver them that growth and mentoring opportunity, I’ve failed myself as well as them.”

— Greenberg

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

CFO Samantha Greenberg --Allocating Capital in an Age of AI

The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli --From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy

Not every problem deserves a process, and not every bottleneck deserves more headcount. For a CFO, scalability begins when execution becomes observation—and today’s solution anticipates tomorrow’s volume.

Three CFO EQ Rules of the Road

Rule #1 — Make Scalability Everyone’s Second Job

Egan asks employees to perform their assigned role while simultaneously studying how that role must evolve as the company grows. He wants them identifying repeatable work early and designing processes before volume turns an occasional problem into a daily constraint.

“The second job is watch yourself doing that job and figure out how to make it so that when the business doubles, we don’t need to add another person and another person and another person.” — Egan

Rule #2 — Admit the Risk You Cannot Quantify

Egan understood the financial tradeoffs when he left banking for Divvy Homes, but he had not anticipated the daily pressure of knowing that failure to raise capital could end the company. His candor about being unprepared reveals self-awareness without retroactively turning a difficult transition into a polished tale of fearlessness.

“You are going to be terrified on a daily basis that the company may fail and it’s your fault.” — Egan

Rule #3 — Communicate Before Certainty Arrives

During COVID-19, Egan proactively shared data and possible outcomes with Divvy’s banks, even though management could not predict delinquencies or rent collections. That transparency produced covenant relief and reinforced a lesson he had carried forward from Lehman Brothers: contractual protections matter, but trust determines how people behave when the script disappears.

“At the end of the day, the relationships are what matter.” — Egan

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli --From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy

The Credibility Playbook: How CFOs Restore Belief

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli approved issuing CleanSpark shares at $2.50 during a Bitcoin bear market to capture an accretive opportunity. The capital funded land and power assets that he says can now create billions of dollars in shareholder value—and reinforced his commitment to maintaining multiple financing options

EQ Lens: Gary Vecchiarelli | Choosing Long-Term Value Over Short-Term Comfort

— E Q L E N S —

Conviction Under Pressure ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Anticipatory Judgment ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

Cross-Functional Influence ▮▮▮▮▮

EQ REFLECTION

Conviction under pressure guided Vecchiarelli through a decision he described as “really painful.” Rather than allowing the discomfort of issuing deeply discounted equity to override the opportunity, he kept attention on potential shareholder returns. Anticipatory judgment turned that experience into a broader discipline: never leave the company without financing options. Cross-functional influence now connects that optionality to operational execution, revenue, EBITDA, and valuation. The larger leadership lesson is that emotional discipline is not detachment—it is the ability to acknowledge short-term pain without letting it obscure long-term value.

### 🎧 Recent CFO Thought Leader Episodes

The Weekend CFOs Couldn’t Reach Their Cash

CFO Gary Vecchiarelli --From Bitcoin Infrastructure to the AI Power Economy

The Credibility Playbook: How CFOs Restore Belief