Podcasts about cfos

Today, Shannon dives into the crucial differences between a bookkeeper and a fractional CFO, revealing why scaling businesses should consider the latter. Shannon explains how fractional CFO services provide deeper insights, strategic decision-making, and future-focused projections that surpass what a bookkeeper or an in-house accountant can offer. With compelling arguments and real-world examples, Shannon highlights the value and cost-effectiveness of hiring a fractional CFO to drive business growth.   What you'll hear in this episode: [0:45] The Value of a Fractional CFO [01:20] Comparing Bookkeepers and CFOs [05:15] The Role of a Controller [07:00] Why Fractional CFOs Are Cost-Effective   If you like this episode, check out: Ways to Maximize Customer Value I Hired My Husband - Here's Why Your Finance Hire - Dos and Don'ts   Learn more about our CFO firm and services: https://www.keepwhatyouearn.com/   Connect with Shannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonweinstein Watch full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlIuZsrllp1Uc_MlhriLvQ Follow along on IG: https://www.instagram.com/shannonkweinstein/   The information contained in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and is not individual tax advice. We love enthusiastic action, but please consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you learn.Fractional CFO vs. Bookkeeper - What Do I Need?

Welcome back to the EUCVC Summit Talks, where we bring you candid conversations with Europe's leading founders, corporate leaders, and investors shaping the future of venture collaboration.In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Hampus Jakobsson, General Partner at Pale Blue Dot, one of Europe's leading climate-focused funds. With shifting U.S. politics, renewed uncertainty around climate policy, and growing skepticism of “green hype,” Hampus shares why he defines climate investing as simply “not dumb investing.”From Donald Trump's return to the White House to Europe's resilience, China's role, and the gritty reality of scaling “boring but effective” solutions, this conversation is a masterclass in how investors, corporates, and founders can navigate climate risks — and seize opportunities.

Finance leaders know the struggle of managing endless spreadsheets, juggling data from every corner of the business, and trying to plan for a world that changes by the hour. In this episode, I talk with Julio Martínez, Co-Founder and CEO of Abacum, about how his team is helping finance professionals move from reactive reporting to confident, real-time decision making. Abacum was recently named the fastest growing tech company in Spain by Deloitte after increasing revenue by 6,733 percent in just four years. Julio shares the story behind that growth and explains how finance teams are transforming from back-office operators into true strategic partners. He describes how Abacum's platform helps CFOs and FP&A teams create accurate forecasts, automate manual work, and build scenario models that answer “what if” questions in minutes instead of days. We also talk about the role of AI in finance and why current large language models are not yet reliable enough for quantitative use cases. Julio discusses the need for precision, the importance of a human in the loop, and how new hybrid approaches are shaping the future of financial planning. From Barcelona to New York, his journey reflects the global rise of data-driven finance and the growing strength of Spain's startup ecosystem. Julio also leaves listeners with a thoughtful recommendation, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a book that continues to inspire him to stay grounded amid rapid change. If you want to understand how technology is redefining financial planning and how strong foundations can fuel extraordinary growth, this conversation with Julio offers a rare look inside the engine of one of Europe's fastest-rising tech companies.

Today on Money Talk With Tiff, Tiffany sits down with Melissa Broughton to tackle one of the most dreaded topics for entrepreneurs: bookkeeping! Melissa breaks down exactly what a bookkeeper does, why every business owner needs one (no matter what stage you're at), and how skipping this crucial step could be leaving thousands of your hard-earned dollars on the table. From decoding the roles of bookkeepers, CPAs, and fractional CFOs to real-life cautionary tales, this episode is packed with actionable insights for business owners and freelancers alike! Plus, Melissa's offering a fantastic freebie exclusively for Money Talk With Tiff listeners.Check out the full episode show notes: https://moneytalkwitht.com/podcast-show-notes/business-needs-a-bookkeeper/What You'll LearnWhat a Bookkeeper Really Does: Melissa clarifies the mystery around bookkeeping, explaining it's all about organizing your financial transactions and keeping your business tax-ready.Why Bookkeeping Is Crucial: Beyond tax time, regular bookkeeping helps you spot trends, manage budgets, and make smarter business decisions in real time.Bookkeeper vs. CPA vs. Fractional CFO: Discover the differences between each financial role (Melissa's medical analogies make it easy!), and why a bookkeeper should be your foundational hire.The Real Cost of Neglecting Your Books: Hear how business owners are missing out on an average of $7,500 in deductions by NOT having up-to-date books (and how it could be way more).Getting Started (Even if You're Small): Do you really need a bookkeeper if you're just starting out? Melissa shares who can DIY and when it's time to bring in a pro.Episode GemsTiffany's Take: “You won't get that data just going to a tax professional once a year! You need real-time insights to truly run your business.”Melissa's Pro Tip: “The expense of hiring a bookkeeper is 100% tax deductible—and makes sure taxes don't haunt you later!”Melissa's Free Gift: Download a complimentary electronic copy of The Four Hour Bookkeeper—perfect for DIYers who want to get their books in order.Links & ResourcesGrab Your FREE Copy: The Four-Hour Bookkeeper – Claim your copy here! (Go to the contact form to request your free book)Connect with Melissa: busybeeadvisors.com – Schedule your free consultation for bookkeeping or taxes.Connect with TiffWebsite & All Episodes: moneytalkwitht.comSocial: @MoneyTalkWithT on all platformsDon't let bookkeeping be the monster in your business closet! Tune in, grab your free book, and step into your CEO power with clear financials.

In this episode of One Vision, Theo hosts Priya Gore, General Manager and Head of Cloud and AI Platform Solutions for US Financial Services at Microsoft, where they explore the expanded role of CFOs and impact of AI. Gore dispels common myths about AI, emphasizing its democratization and responsible usage. She highlights the importance of organizational readiness and the future of AI-driven work environments. The conversation underscores how AI can transform businesses, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation, urging leaders to embrace AI thoughtfully and strategically.00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome02:07 Impact of AI on CFOs and Finance Teams04:27 Addressing Myths and Pitfalls of AI05:54 AI in Regulated Industries08:19 AI-First Leadership and Organizational Change10:14 Future of Work and AI Agents14:06 Democratizing AI and Final Thoughts#AI #FinancialServices #CFO #FutureOfWork #Innovation #MSFTAmbassador

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Are you still thinking of AI as just “ChatGPT with a better prompt”? Or maybe you've played around with Zapier automations and thought, yeah, that's good enough. Today's featured guest knows that the agencies pulling ahead right now are building full-on AI agent networks that replace routine tasks, streamline data pipelines, and give their teams superpowers. She's re-engineering her agency around AI and will talk about where she finds top-tier talent and why you don't need to code to lead your agency into the future. Jennifer Bagley is the CEO and founder of CI Web Group, a fully virtual digital marketing agency registered in 22 U.S. states with clients across the United States and Canada. A former corporate operator turned entrepreneur, Jennifer started in real estate and mortgage brokerage before leaning into the marketing work she built to support those businesses. Today she runs a modern, tech-forward agency that's rebuilt its stack around AI, centralized data, and agentic networks, all while carrying the scars and lessons of scaling, pivoting, and re-founding a business from the ground up. In this episode, we'll discuss: Feeling trapped by the business. Hiring, firing, and the people reset AI, reskilling, and the end of “middle” roles What does this talent cost? Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. From Corporate Ladder to Accidental Agency Founder Jennifer came from an operations background, a self-proclaimed black belt in Six Sigma and certified project manager. Having built that corporate background, she had made a promise to herself (“by 30 I'll be an entrepreneur”), and started to build the side hustle that became the main event. She started in real estate and mortgage brokering where she had to learn marketing the hard way; not because she wanted to be a marketer, but because the survival of her businesses depended on it. Initially, Jennifer didn't set out to build a scalable agency; she built a team to support her broker network. When the market collapsed in 2008, the same team that did marketing for agents suddenly had a market outside real estate. That “we'll just help this painter or HVAC company” phase is where the web group was born: small, service-focused, and useful to people in her network. That accidental turn became a business by solving real, pressing problems for paying clients, then leaned into that. Trading Time for Freedom: The Hard Pivot For the first five years, Jennifer describes the business as a “lifestyle” operation, profitable maybe, but trapping her time. She was trading billable hours for income and was reaching her limit when she hired a coach that forced a reckoning: if entrepreneurship isn't buying you time, money, and freedom, what's the point? So she made the brutal choice of cutting consulting contracts and burning the bridge to the “safety” of hourly work, and effectively gave herself a mulligan. This is the classic founder pivot: you have to choose between growth that keeps you doing the work and growth that scales the business without you. Jennifer's reset wasn't pretty, for a while she lost everything and she and her son lived in an office for a while, but it bought her the permission to build something salable, not just sustainable. Agency owners who feel trapped in delivery need to remember that sometimes you have to give up short-term revenue to create long-term value. Feeling Trapped by the Agency and Becoming a CEO Those first five years, Jennifer continued to run a business that started as a supply chain consulting and eventually turned into a sales supply chain consulting. This change meant the business was now a good lead generator for the agency but it also meant Jennifer was essentially selling her image and her time. Until she ran out of time. Once she felt trapped by the business, Jennifer actually hired a business coach that helped her change the model from “selling Jennifer with marketing on the side” to an actual sustainable business. She had to go back to the basics and remember she, like every entrepreneur, started the business with the idea of having more time, money, and freedom. It took losing everything, but Jennifer knew she didn't want a lifestyle business, she wanted a sellable business. The antidote was delegation plus systems. If you want growth and a future exit, you need to own those CEO responsibilities and be comfortable with letting go of the day-to-day. Hiring, Firing, and Resetting the Team Jennifer's talent strategy has evolved with each stage of growth. Her early hires were the classic “friends, family, fools” bootstrap crew; later she invested in developers, content teams, project managers, and over time, more strategic hires like CFOs, chief of staff, BI teams, and AI engineers. Each five-year arc brought a new set of needs and a new level of sophistication in hiring. Now, she divides her time between promoting her agency's work in podcasts and content and thinking of ways to navigate her business in these volatile and exciting times. Her most recent addition to the team was a technology and transformation team that is revisiting all of the agency's processes, investments, and infrastructure. As a result, she has downsized her team from over 300 W2 employees and refocus the team. The takeaway for agency owners: be honest about whether your people are builders or maintainers, and hire accordingly. The workforce you need for growth is not the same as the workforce you need for stable operations. Building AI Agent Networks with Centralized Data Jennifer's agency shifted from WordPress to Webflow and built agentic networks: hundreds of AI agents that crawl competitors, do strategy homework, and automate tasks that humans used to do. More importantly, they rebuilt infrastructure into a hub-and-spoke model with a centralized min.io data layer and ETL pipelines feeding analytics and BI. Two big lessons here. One: invest in your tech stack deliberately so you're not a Frankenstein of five different platforms that don't talk to each other. Two: design your data architecture so your people (and your AI agents) have a single source of truth. That's how you get from fire-fighting in six dashboards to proactive, predictive signals that tell you when a client engagement needs attention. AI, Reskilling, and Shrinking Middle Roles Jennifer draws a hard line: the agency now tends to hire either very seasoned client-facing leaders or AI engineers; the middle is shrinking. With agentic networks giving junior staff “superpowers,” the agency can afford fewer mid-level “lever pullers.” At this level there's no room for slow execution or elementary work. That's a cultural and ethical challenge, both for hiring and for workforce development. For agency owners, this raises practical HR questions: do you reskill your people, or replace them? Jennifer suggests building agent-driven systems that augment humans, and being brutally honest about who can grow into that future. It's also a call to action for how we prepare the next generation: schools won't teach this; companies will need to. Playing with AI Platforms: Why Leaders Need to Just Know Enough to Be Dangerous Jennifer started like a lot of agency owners dipping into AI, playing around on tools like n8n, Make.com, Relevance, and Longchain. Her dev team laughed, calling her an “elementary school kid on a tricycle,” but here's the point: she didn't need to master the tech. She needed to know enough to point her team in the right direction. Instead of obsessing over code, she framed the problem differently: “Here's what I don't want a human doing anymore. Can you make that happen?” That mindset shift is key for agency owners. You don't need to be a full-stack AI engineer to lead an agency into the future; you just need to clearly define outcomes and invest in people who can deliver them. Find Real AI Talent in Unlikely Places This is where most agencies get stuck. You're not going to find your next AI architect on Upwork. Jennifer leaned on her network, starting with her cousin Chris, a hardcore developer who initially thought AI platforms were “rookie business.” Once Chris realized the power of agentic networks to scale his expertise, he became the backbone of CI Web Group's transformation. Now, she hunts talent in unconventional places: hackathons, LinkedIn, and especially YouTube. Forget the flashy “10x growth hack” videos — she looks for nerds with four views, geeking out about orchestrators and ETL pipelines. Those are the builders who care about solving real problems, not just building hype. Her tip: if you find one, reach out immediately. They don't want sales, they just want to build. Designing AI Agents Like an Agency Org Chart Jennifer compares AI agents to a company org chart. You don't hire one person to do everything, that's a recipe for burnout. Same thing with AI. Each agent should tightly focus on a single task, with checks, auditors, and orchestrators overseeing the system. The payoff was massive efficiency gains. Instead of six different platforms that don't talk, her agency built a centralized hub with min.io, ClickHouse, and AI layers on top. That's how you go from patchwork automation to true predictive intelligence. The Real Cost of AI Talent If you're wondering how much this all costs, the answer is… a lot. On the high end, seasoned AI engineers can run you a quarter million in salary. On the low end, Jennifer tests new hires on project-based sprints, maybe $6K for a 10-hour challenge. The point isn't to cut costs; it's to prove quickly who can deliver and who can't. Her recruiting process is brutal but effective: give candidates a project, a tight deadline, and see how they perform. If they stall, they're out. If they screen-share fast and solve problems live, they're in. No fluff, no endless interviews. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

When you've spent years crafting your vision for the successful nonprofit you've founded, how do you prevent future boards and leaders from screwing it all up? Predictably, Stacy and Andy have a few thoughts. Also this week, we talk about whether or not fractional CFOs are a smart idea, and how they might be best used. Thanks for joining us this week, and don't forget to (please) send your questions (thank you) to questions@NonprofitEverything.com. A Q&A podcast without any Qs wouldn't make much sense, would it?

When to Move Beyond QuickBooks -CFO Insights for Growing Businesses EP321 of Profit With A Plan Podcast Released September 30, 2025   Guest: Laresa McIntyre - Founder and Fractional CFO | Rockbridge CFO Host: Marcia Riner- Business Growth Strategist | Infinite Profit®  

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.   In this episode, Justin interviews James Swanke, Lecturer in Risk and Insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Wisconsin School of Business. He currently serves as Director of the Risk Management and Insurance MBA program. Justin and Jim talk about his 42 years of experience in Risk Consulting with Willis Towers Watson, and his specialties there, particularly with captives. They discuss the University of Wisconsin-Madison Risk Management and Insurance MBA program, what the students learn, and the competitions they have won in the last year, and they look forward to winning this year. Also, Jim tells of disc jockeying in college, from Classic Rock to Polka.   Listen to learn about captive design, how to prepare for emerging trends, and who wrote the best music of the '70s.   Key Takeaways: [:01] About RIMS and RIMScast. [:17] About this episode of RIMScast. This is our special International Podcast Day episode because it's released on September 30th. We will be joined by Jim Swanke. He's a lecturer in the Risk Management Program of the University of Wisconsin. [:46] Jim started his career in broadcasting, and he still has the voice. We've got a lot to talk about today! [:54] RIMS-CRMP Prep Workshops! The next RIMS CRMP Prep Workshops will be held on October 29th and 30th and led by John Button. [1:06] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED Virtual Workshop will be held on November 11th and 12th and led by Joseph Mayo. Links to these courses can be found through the Certifications page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes. [1:23] RIMS Virtual Workshops! RIMS has launched a new course, “Intro to ERM for Senior Leaders.” It will be held again on November 4th and 5th and will be led by Elise Farnham. [1:39] On November 11th and 12th, Chris Hansen will lead “Fundamentals of Insurance”. It features everything you've always wanted to know about insurance but were afraid to ask. Fear not; ask Chris Hansen! RIMS members always enjoy deep discounts on virtual workshops! [1:58] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's notes. [2:09] Several RIMS Webinars are being hosted this Fall. On October 9th, Global Risk Consultants returns to deliver “Natural Hazards: A Data-Driven Guide to Improving Resilience and Risk Financing Outcomes”. [2:22] On October 16th, Zurich returns to deliver “Jury Dynamics: How Juries Shape Today's Legal Landscape”. On October 30th, Swiss Re will present “Parametric Insurance: Providing Financial Certainty in Uncertain Times”. [2:39] On November 6th, HUB will present “Geopolitical Whiplash — Building Resilient Global Risk Programs in an Unstable World”. Register at RIMS.org/Webinars. [2:51] We're very excited that today is International Podcast Day! Before we celebrate, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and mourn the passing of Todd Cochrane. Todd was a podcast pioneer. [3:06] I've linked in this episode's show notes to a wonderful obituary from Podnews®, about his career, starting with his time in the Navy up to launching his own podcast, and writing Podcasting: The Do It Yourself Guide, from Wiley Publishing in 2005. [3:25] Over the last couple of months, I've had the pleasure of communicating with Todd over email for the Podcast Awards, and it was only last week that I saw the unfortunate news of his passing, which occurred suddenly on September 8th. [3:30] Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and the greater podcasting industry. [3:47] On with the show! This is our special International Podcast Day episode, and I am delighted to be joined by James Swanke, the Director of the Risk Management and Insurance MBA Program at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [4:06] Jim spent four decades at WTW, specializing in financial and strategic planning issues, as well as captive insurance company design. [4:18] Jim was recently quoted in a new professional report, available on the RIMS Risk Knowledge page, and sponsored by LineSlip Solutions, titled “The Future of Captive Insurance: Governance, Technology, and Performance Optimization.” [4:32] Jim got his start at the University of Wisconsin in broadcasting. We're going to talk about his career path and how being a disc jockey led him to where he is today, educating the next generation of risk professionals. Let's get to it! [4:50] Interview! Jim Swanke, welcome to RIMScast! [5:38] When Jim was in high school, he competed in forensics, in extemporaneous speaking. He did very well. He did well at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it got put in the newspaper. WLDY, in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, saw it in the newspaper and contacted him. [6:03] They were looking for a radio jock to “spin vinyls,” do some DJing, and read sports and news. That job helped Jim get into the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [6:21] Jim studied actuarial science and risk management. He went into the Bachelor's program, the MBA program, and the graduate program in risk management, insurance, and corporate finance. [6:40] Jim was hired by the Wyatt Company and did lots of feasibility studies. After 42 years at Willis Towers Watson, he retired. Now he teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [6:57] Broadcasting set Jim on his path. He says that everything about what we do in the captive and risk management area is about communication. If you're not communicating, listening, helping out, and building stuff, you're not going to be a success. [7:28] When Jim was a DJ at WLDY, they played different kinds of music. On Sundays, he played polka music. On Saturdays, it was country western, and Monday through Friday, it was rock music. Rock music is what he enjoys. At the top of every hour, he did the news and weather. [8:13] Justin recalls his own career. He was just waiting for podcasting to be invented, then he was able to make it all work out. [8:31] Jim worked with captives at Willis Towers Watson. He is quoted in a new LineSlip paper, “The Future of Captive Insurance: Governance, Technology, and Performance Optimization.” Justin saw his name there and thought it would be good to have him on RIMScast. [8:53] Jim described captives as a lifeline during extreme market conditions, comparing today's hard market to the turbulence of the 1980s. Jim tells what makes captives effective under hard conditions. Captives allow organizations to control their own destiny. [9:20] When you're in a hard market, having a captive allows you to take premiums that you normally pay to a commercial insurance carrier and put them into your captive insurance company. A captive is a subsidiary of the captive owner. [9:41] Most of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States have a captive. It allows them to arbitrage whatever's going on in the insurance marketplace. When we're having a difficult market, they put more of their premiums into the captive and rely on the captive more. [9:58] When the market softens, carriers may provide insurance at premiums that are lower than the expected losses. Organizations will buy commercial insurance all the time when the premiums are less than their projected losses. [10:14] Depending on where it is in the market, a captive has a role in an organization's risk management program. [10:27] Jim says a lot of organizations have looked to captives since 2020. We were in the midst of the pandemic, with all kinds of economic hardship. The insurance industry was in despair, as well. A lot of insurance companies cut back on the limits they were willing to offer. [10:49] Insurance companies put additional exclusions onto their insurance, so organizations had to rely on their own sophisticated ways of financing their losses. If they hadn't set up a captive, they set up a captive. If they had a captive in the past, they re-engineered it to do more. [11:15] They also used their captives to access the reinsurance marketplace. Reinsurance is insurance for insurance companies. A captive can be used as a platform to access reinsurers. [11:37] Even in difficult markets, having reinsurers involved created more competition, provided more limits, and there was more flexibility in the coverage terms. [11:48] That was when the pandemic was going on, which triggered the hardening of the market and the lack of availability of insurance. Organizations with captives relied on them and did more. Organizations without captives had captive feasibility studies done and formed captives. [12:09] Jim says the CEO of a captive should be a senior person who will monitor what's going on, fairly senior in the organization. It's not a full-time position. It takes three or four hours a month, plus board meetings. [12:46] A captive is required to have a captive manager, who is an accountant. They keep the books and interface for the captive with the regulator. The President or CEO of the captive relies on the captive manager to do a lot of the daily work. [13:09] Jim says you need a senior person involved so people take the captive seriously. The senior person is going to be the driver in reducing the severity of loss through loss prevention and loss reduction. Having a senior person is so important to the success of the captive. [13:40] There are lots of considerations when you're looking to make changes to your captive. Changes could include adding emerging types of risks, like cyber risk. If you're a hospital, a lot of medical malpractice captives have been hugely successful and have grown surplus. [14:08] Healthcare institutions are passing on some of their capitated risk exposures into their captives because they've done quite well with their medical malpractice. These risks are not correlated with each other, so there is a diversification benefit. [14:22] As you look to make these changes, you need to look at increasing risk assumptions, different attachment points on reinsurance, and changing your investment policy. You have lots of levers, and if you make changes, you need to analyze what the impact will be on your captive. [14:52] Jim talks about leaning into technology. Before 9/11, we didn't have the sophisticated software we've created in the last few years. [15:06] To look at covering all the possibilities and changing your captives, from adding new coverages to reinsurance reattachment points, was a monumental amount of actuarial work to figure out how to optimize your captive. [15:19] Recently developed software looks at all the possibilities in terms of changing your captive to optimize what you're doing. 20 years ago, Jim would spend months doing the actuarial work, working with an investment bank and charging them heavy fees. [15:39] Now, with new software, what took Jim months and months to do can be done in a matter of two to three days. The productivity today, in terms of optimizing your captive, is far greater than it was 20 years ago, because of the software that has been developed. [15:55] Jim likes that the software looks at all the risks and how these risks interact with one another. Looking at risks in a captive holistically is very important because many of these risks are hardly correlated with one another. [16:15] Looking at risks holistically, you can figure out the diversification benefit of having all of these risks within your captive, which has a major impact on the amount of economic capital that your captive will need to maintain. This software has been a game-changer. [16:34] RIMS Events! On October 1st through the 3rd, the RIMS Western Regional Conference will be held in North San Jose at the Santa Clara Marriott. The agenda is live. It looks fantastic! Visit RIMSWesternRegional.com and register today! [16:55] On November 17th and 18th, join us in Seattle, Washington, for the RIMS ERM Conference 2025. The agenda is live. Check out Episode 357 for Justin's dialogue with ERM Conference Keynote Presenter Dan Chuparkoff on AI and the future of risk. [17:14] Visit the Events page of RIMS.org to register. [17:17] RISKWORLD 2026 will be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 3rd through May 6th. RIMS members can now lock in the 2025 rate for a full conference pass to RISKWORLD 2026 when you register by September 30th! [17:32] This also lets you enjoy earlier access to the RISKWORLD hotel block. Register by September 30th, and you will also be entered to win a $500 raffle! Do not miss out on this chance to plan and score some of these extra perks! [17:46] The members-only registration link is on this episode's show notes. If you are not yet a member, this is the time to join us! Visit RIMS.org/Membership and build your network with us here at RIMS! [17:56] If you are listening to RIMScast on our broadcast day, that means today is September 30th. It is last call for registration at the Earlybird rate! [18:08] In the spirit of it being September 30th, which is International Podcast Day, let's return to our interview with Jim Swanke! [18:22] Jim is the Director of the Risk Management and Insurance MBA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The curriculum includes technology, AI, and automation. In his classes, Jim is using the new software he discussed earlier. [18:46] Jim taught a class the day before on the principles of risk management. He talked about how risks are interrelated with each other and how you need to analyze them holistically, figuring out how they are correlated, not in siloes. [19:13] The holistic view will give you the best answer in terms of the economic capital that will be required to put into your captive. If you're analyzing risks silo by silo for each risk, that will lead you to having more economic capital in your captive than you need. [19:35] Jim has learned, in 42 years of consulting, that the CFOs in these organizations don't want to trap cash in their captives. Teaching this software to this new generation of students, they will be able to step into the roles of captive managers that the industry will need. [20:07] We're at the tip of the iceberg with AI. We're still learning in Academia what the power of AI is going to be. Jim foresees AI being very important in handling claims and in underwriting. [20:30] AI will allow commercial insurance companies to have a better way of doing their pricing and making decisions on whether or not risks should be accepted. It will also be beneficial to captives. [20:43] Jim thinks AI will advance the technology far ahead. We're just beginning to touch on some of the advantages within the insurance industry and within captives. [21:05] Jim started teaching in 2011. When University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Dan Anderson retired, Jim was chosen to teach a class on sustainability that was started by Professor Anderson. He has taught it since 2011. [21:41] At the time, some students did not think anything was going on with climate change. A couple of students stood up in class and said all of this was just made up. It was a fantasy. [22:03] Today, when Jim goes into class, students are there a half-hour early and stay late. They are very connected and working together to figure out how to reduce CO2 emissions to slow down the heating of the planet and the extreme weather events that are coming more often. [22:24] The class has evolved over the years, and the students are more engaged than they ever have been. [22:33] The students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison were the winners of the Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge at RISKWORLD 2025 in Chicago. Jim knows all of those students and had a couple of them in his class yesterday. [23:04] The students won with the Huntington, West Virginia case study, a six-month project. Huntington is on the Ohio River, and with extreme weather events, flooding has become a big issue in that community. They competed with students around the world to solve the issue. [23:49] Each school's team came up with things that could be done and conducted an analysis on what they thought was the best way of handling it. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's team focused on resiliency with levees and dikes to hold back the flooding. [24:27] The four Wisconsin students presented their paper and won, out of 61 schools competing. The University of Wisconsin-Madison received $10K. The second-place university, DePaul, received $7.5K, and the third-place school, IIRM Hyderabad (past year winner), got $5K. [25:04] The University of Wisconsin-Madison team entered two other contests last year and won them both. The CICA Captive competition involved case studies around Kaneka captives. It required an essay and a PowerPoint deck. [25:52] The MBA students entered the A.M. Best competition for insurance solutions to a global issue. The students used a combination of parametric and indemnity triggers to provide insurance to the disadvantaged in the Caribbean and Latin America. [26:23] If there was hurricane damage, it would trigger a parametric to allow an amount of money to be paid immediately to these disadvantaged families. Then there would be the indemnity insurance that would look at the actual losses and true them up to the loss amount. [26:49] It involved the combination of parametrics and conventional indemnity insurance, which was noteworthy and probably pushed the team over the top. [27:11] The professor who was the advisor in the Spencer Challenge is Carl Barlett. Carl is an attorney by training, and he has the energy to work with bachelor's students. He's graduated hundreds of people out of his program over the last four or five years. [27:59] The University has Career Fairs where 60 or 70 companies will come to meet with students. That's a credit to Carl. Not a lot of companies will come to a university to meet with students. Because of the program he put together, lots of organizations want to hire students. [28:21] The University of Wisconsin-Madison business school is typically ranked number 1. [28:31] A Final Break! The Spencer Educational Foundation's goal to help build a talent pipeline of risk management and insurance professionals is achieved, in part, by its collaboration with risk management and insurance educators across the U.S. and Canada. [28:50] Since 1999, Spencer has awarded over $2.9 million to create more than 570 Risk Management Internships. The Internship Grants application process is now open through October 15th, 2025. [29:06] To be eligible, risk managers must be based in the U.S., Canada, or Bermuda. A link to the Internship Grants page is in this episode's show notes. You can always visit SpencerEd.org, as well. [29:19] Let's Get Back to Our Interview with Jim Swanke of the University of Wisconsin-Madison! [29:46] Jim tells his students that we don't know today what the emerging risks are going to be. What we need to do is design our risk management program and keep our eyes and ears open to what is going to happen next. [30:04] Jim cites The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It gets into what we need to do as people of risk management and societies to try to identify the emerging risks that will impact us going forward. [30:21] In risk management, we look at the past to try to project what's going to happen in the future. We were caught by the pandemic. Very little business interruption insurance was offered. If we had been forward-thinking, we would have thought about coverages for the emerging risks. [31:19] An emerging risk after 9/11 was that insurance companies put exclusions on their insurance policies, excluding terrorism. The Federal Government passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) and offered it as a backstop to insurance companies. [31:55] Anybody with a captive could access that reinsurance through the U.S. Treasury, using their captive insurance company. [32:23] Jim sees more employee benefits going into captives. The advantages you have in the P&C area are also in place for employee benefits. Organizations with large workers' compensation self-insurance programs are putting excess workers' compensation into captives. [32:57] Jim says you need to be nimble and on your toes. Emerging risks are going to come out over the next 10 to 15 or 20 years. Keep your eyes and ears open so when they emerge, you can deal with them to reduce the frequency and severity of loss and see how to finance them. [33:19] Jim highly recommends reading The Black Swan. It's a good way to begin to think about how you should think about emerging risks. [33:42] Jim says school is going really well. One thing he noticed this year is the diverse nature of his students. There are more disciplines within the risk management area that people are interested in. [33:56] In class recently, Jim had a group that was in the investment banking area, a group that was in HR, and a couple of students from China. There was a broad diversity in the class. [34:16] It enriches the conversation to have people coming from different places with different backgrounds and different educational experiences. It shows the power of having diversity in the classroom. It's exciting. [34:32] The class will write papers on Enterprise Risk Management and talk about captives, and more. They'll compete in the CICA Captive Competition again, to maintain their number one rating there! They're off to a great start! It's nice to see students so highly energized! [34:53] Jim says the future is bright with the students graduating from the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [35:22] Justin and others have liked Jim's broadcasting voice. Jim thanks Justin for commenting on it. [35:55] Jim's time as a DJ was 50 years ago. He recalls two or three instances of hot mikes, when some of the FCC's seven deadly words may have been spoken. He says nobody wants that, but it was a real learning experience. [36:29] Jim recalls when the studio tower was hit by lightning. Jim was alone in the radio station when it happened. Lightning bolts were flying around the building after the tower got hit. The station went off the air, and Jim had to figure out a way to put it back on the air. [36:58] Jim highly recommends to young people, if you get an opportunity to get involved with radio or TV, give it a shot, because it's a lot of fun! Justin ties it to podcasting and video blogging. [37:42] Jim likes all the music of 1976 and didn't have a favorite album. He likes Deep Purple and Bob Seger. He says there's no better songwriter than Bob Seger. There was a diversity of good music going out at that time. It was a wonderful time to be working in a radio station. [38:47] Justin is a father of two young people under 12 who like to listen to classic rock. “Dancing in the Moonlight,” by King Harvest, is a greatest hit in the family. They love Van Morrison. [39:56] On the subject of podcasting, Jim thinks there is an opportunity to develop content that helps the everyday American with their personal insurances, like homeowners, auto, health, life, and how they buy their insurances. [40:45] In class recently, the MBA students, the brightest and best, designing plans for New York investment banks and worldwide financial institutions, told Jim that they had questions about what to buy in auto policies and homeowners policies. [41:07] Jim states that an insurance podcast for the everyday American is something the industry needs to be doing. Justin suggests that members of the global RIMScast audience could pick up the baton and get to work! [41:27] Maybe it becomes part of the coursework for a class like Jim's. It could be part of a challenge, like the Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge. [41:48] Jim says being able to talk about this with graduate students gives them some familiarity with what risk is, in terms of the instability of results. They can relate to it because they need to buy an auto policy or a homeowners policy. [42:03] While these coverages don't match up perfectly with what's going on in the commercial insurance marketplace, learning about them gives students a sense of what insurance is about, what risk management is about, and how to reduce the frequency and severity of losses. [42:22] Jim, it has been such a pleasure to speak with you and to pick your brain on risk management education, broadcasting, and music! Thank you so much for joining us here on RIMScast! [42:33] Good luck to you and your students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as you look to the 2026 competitions. I can only imagine they're going to do great things! [42:58] Special thanks again to Jim Swanke for joining us here on RIMScast! For more information, check out the links in this episode's show notes. [43:06] Remember to check out “The Future of Captive Insurance: Governance, Technology, and Performance Optimization”, a Professional Report sponsored by LineSlip. It is available through the Risk Knowledge Page of RIMS.org. That link is also in this episode's show notes. [43:22] The paper features a lot of Jim's fascinating perspective and insights on captives. [43:28] Plug Time! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in the show notes. [43:56] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information. [44:14] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information. [44:33] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more. [44:48] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management. [45:02] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org. [45:15] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continuous support!   Links: RIMS ERM Conference 2025 — Nov. 17‒18 Spencer Internship Program — Registration Open Through Oct. 15. RIMS Western Regional — Oct 1‒3 | Bay Area, California | Registration open! RISKWORLD 2026 — Members-only early registration through Sept 30! — Last Call! RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) The Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management — Featuring Instructor James Lam! Next bi-weekly course begins Oct 9. RIMS Diversity Equity Inclusion Council RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy | RIMS Legislative Summit SAVE THE DATE — March 18‒19, 2026 RIMS Risk Management magazine | Contribute RIMS Now “The Future of Captive Insurance: Governance, Technology, and Performance Optimization” — Professional Report, Sponsored by LineSlip | Featuring insight from James Swanke University of Wisconsin-Madison Wins 2025 Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge Internationalpodcastday.com Obituary for Podcasting Trailblazer Todd Cochrane RIMS Webinars: RIMS.org/Webinars “Natural Hazards: A Data-Driven Guide to Improving Resilience and Risk Financing Outcomes” | Oct. 9 | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants “Jury Dynamics: How Juries Shape Today's Legal Landscape” | Oct. 16, 2025 | Sponsored by Zurich “Parametric Insurance: Providing Financial Certainty in Uncertain Times” | Oct. 30, 2025 | Sponsored by Swiss Re “Geopolitical Whiplash — Building Resilient Global Risk Programs in an Unstable World” | Nov. 6 | Sponsored by HUB   Upcoming RIMS-CRMP Prep Virtual Workshops: RIMS-CRMP Virtual Exam Prep — Oct. 29‒30, 2025 RIMS-CRMP-FED Exam Prep Virtual Workshop — November 11‒12 Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule Risk Appetite Management | Oct 22‒23 | Instructor: Ken Baker Intro to ERM for Senior Leaders | Nov. 4‒5 | Instructor: Elise Farnham Fundamentals of Insurance | Nov. 11‒12 | Instructor: Chris Hansen Leveraging Data and Analytics for Continuous Risk Management (Part I) | Dec 4. See the full calendar of RIMS Virtual Workshops RIMS-CRMP Prep Workshops   Related RIMScast Episodes about Education, Risk Talent, and Captives: “Risk Management Momentum with Lockton U.S. President Tim Ryan” “RIMS 2025 Risk Manager of the Year, Jennifer Pack”   Sponsored RIMScast Episodes: “The New Reality of Risk Engineering: From Code Compliance to Resilience” | Sponsored by AXA XL (New!) “Change Management: AI's Role in Loss Control and Property Insurance” | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company “Demystifying Multinational Fronting Insurance Programs” | Sponsored by Zurich “Understanding Third-Party Litigation Funding” | Sponsored by Zurich “What Risk Managers Can Learn From School Shootings” | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog “Simplifying the Challenges of OSHA Recordkeeping” | Sponsored by Medcor “Risk Management in a Changing World: A Deep Dive into AXA's 2024 Future Risks Report” | Sponsored by AXA XL “How Insurance Builds Resilience Against An Active Assailant Attack” | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog “Third-Party and Cyber Risk Management Tips” | Sponsored by Alliant “RMIS Innovation with Archer” | Sponsored by Archer “Navigating Commercial Property Risks with Captives” | Sponsored by Zurich “Breaking Down Silos: AXA XL's New Approach to Casualty Insurance” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Weathering Today's Property Claims Management Challenges” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Storm Prep 2024: The Growing Impact of Convective Storms and Hail” | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company “Partnering Against Cyberrisk” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Harnessing the Power of Data and Analytics for Effective Risk Management” | Sponsored by Marsh “Accident Prevention — The Winning Formula For Construction and Insurance” | Sponsored by Otoos “Platinum Protection: Underwriting and Risk Engineering's Role in Protecting Commercial Properties” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Elevating RMIS — The Archer Way” | Sponsored by Archer   RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops On-Demand Webinars RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRMP Stories — Featuring RIMS President Kristen Peed!   RIMS Events, Education, and Services: RIMS Risk Maturity Model®   Sponsor RIMScast: Contact sales@rims.org or pd@rims.org for more information.   Want to Learn More? Keep up with the podcast on RIMS.org, and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.   Have a question or suggestion? Email: Content@rims.org.   Join the Conversation! Follow @RIMSorg on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   About our guest: James Swanke, Lecturer: Risk and Insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Wisconsin School of Business, Director of the Risk Management and Insurance MBA program Production and engineering provided by Podfly.  

Künstliche Intelligenz muss nicht komplex und teuer sein, um echten Mehrwert zu schaffen. Das beweist die Mehrer Compression GmbH eindrucksvoll: Das traditionsreiche Industrieunternehmen hat sein Servicegeschäft durch clevere KI-Anwendungen grundlegend transformiert – ohne teure Sensoren oder komplizierte Automatisierung. Mehrer Compression ist ein über 130 Jahre alter Spezialist für Kompressoren in Industrieanwendungen. Das Servicegeschäft macht die Hälfte des Umsatzes aus – war aber bisher rein reaktiv organisiert und damit nicht mehr zukunftsfähig. Anstatt auf vollautomatische Systeme zu setzen, wählte Mehrer einen schrittweisen Ansatz: Mit intelligenten Prognosemodellen können sie heute Service- und Ersatzteilbedarf vorhersagen. Das Ergebnis: deutlich bessere Lagerhaltung und optimierter Kundenservice. Jens Elfert, Bereichsleiter Finanzen und Personal bei der Mehrer Compression, berichtet über eine praxisnahe Geschichte digitaler Transformation im Mittelstand – ohne Buzzwords und mit konkreten Learnings für CFOs, Controller und IT-Verantwortliche. Weitere Informationen:  Controller Magazin 4/2024 https://www.haufe.de/controlling/zeitschrift/controller-magazin/controller-magazin-ausgabe-42024-controller-magazin_28_626584.html

We all know that knowing your numbers in business isn't just nice to have—it's essential. If you don't know your numbers, you can't optimize your business, pay yourself consistently, or make the kind of impact you want in your community.That's why I love bringing on experts who live and breathe accounting—bookkeepers, CFOs, and financial coaches—to remind us just how powerful it is to stay on top of this piece of our business.Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to my guest, Megan Schwan. Megan is a mom, a business owner, and someone whose personal journey has fueled her entrepreneurial drive—something I deeply relate to as a single mama myself. Often, it's those challenging seasons of life that sharpen our grit and give us the tenacity to keep showing up, believing, and building.Megan is the CEO and founder of Sidekick Accounting Services, a national virtual accounting firm on a mission to change the statistic that 8 out of 10 small businesses fail. With over 20 years in the accounting industry and more than a decade educating thousands of business owners on accounting and taxes, Megan and her team are passionate about helping entrepreneurs build sustainable, successful businesses.Your GO-TO LINK for all things Brick and Mortar Visibility-: Level UP : Your Business, Your Life, Google Business Profile Workshop, Visibility Workshop, Hire Melissa, Newsletter, & Referral Partners.Love today's podcast?

In this episode of One Vision, Theo hosts Priya Gore, General Manager and Head of Cloud and AI Platform Solutions for US Financial Services at Microsoft, where they explore the expanded role of CFOs and impact of AI. Gore dispels common myths about AI, emphasizing its democratization and responsible usage. She highlights the importance of organizational readiness and the future of AI-driven work environments. The conversation underscores how AI can transform businesses, enhance customer experiences, and drive innovation, urging leaders to embrace AI thoughtfully and strategically.00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome02:07 Impact of AI on CFOs and Finance Teams04:27 Addressing Myths and Pitfalls of AI05:54 AI in Regulated Industries08:19 AI-First Leadership and Organizational Change10:14 Future of Work and AI Agents14:06 Democratizing AI and Final Thoughts#AI #FinancialServices #CFO #FutureOfWork #Innovation #MSFTAmbassador

In this episode, we challenge the disconnect between how organizations judge CHROs on metrics like attrition, engagement, and onboarding success—yet deny them the power to actually fix the root problems. Too often, CHROs are treated as strategists without the authority to hold underperforming leaders accountable, even when the data clearly points to managerial failure as the source of turnover and disengagement.I break down why companies must give CHROs the same weight in leadership decisions as CFOs or COOs—complete with the autonomy to influence, develop, or even remove leaders who fail to create healthy, high-performing teams. Without that authority, measuring CHROs on retention is an unfair and hollow exercise.If your organization truly wants better culture, stronger retention, and a competitive edge, this episode makes one thing clear: respect the CHRO's voice, or stop blaming them when people leave.

Nonprofits talk about programs, fundraising, and boards—but rarely about how to build and lead a modern finance team. JMT Consulting's Taylor Bost and Samantha Tiso deliver a clear, practical playbook for turning finance from a back-office function into a strategic engine.Samantha reframes the relationship right out of the gate: “We view the finance department as the customer support for the rest of the company.” That posture—service, responsiveness, and clarity—reduces fear, boosts collaboration, and speeds decisions. It also demands better systems. As she puts it, “With the right system… that is possible if you have it structured the right way.” Translation: good data in, fast insight out.Taylor widens the lens to organization-wide alignment. Finance is not just P and L. It is grants, restrictions, repeat donor behavior, and cost to raise a dollar—metrics that reshape priorities across teams. That is why she pushes for a single ‘source of truth' and warns against siloed tools: when data is scattered, people end up re-keying information and fixing errors. Her reminder lands: “Every time a human's touching something… you're opening yourself up to room for error.”Measurement matters too—of the finance team itself. Taylor offers practical KPIs any CEO or board can use: monthly close time, volume of audit adjustments, and adoption of automation. If close cycles are drifting from 5–7 business days to 15–20, there is friction you can remove with better workflow, integrations, and roles.Governance shows up repeatedly. Samantha adds: “The C-suite needs to be looking at it. The board needs to be looking at it.” Confidence in numbers is confidence in the organization. And with grantmakers demanding more frequent and better-substantiated reports, integrated systems are no longer optional—they are essential.The quick-paced convo also tackles outsourced and remote finance. Success hinges on clear ownership of recurring tasks, documented deadlines, and transparent communication channels. Taylor's advice: break the monthly engine into parts—reconciliations, payment application, approvals—so nothing stalls.The icing on the cake? We get a preview of Innovate 2026 conference and JMT's three-decade journey—from early outsourced accounting to full-stack finance technology and process advisory. Samantha shares how Innovate blends training with thought leadership on grants, banking, interest rates, and board communication, ensuring every role—from CFO to controller to ops—walks away with practical upgrades.Big takeaway: modern nonprofit finance is a service mindset plus integrated tech plus shared accountability. Or in Taylor's words, “CFOs step a little bit more into the tech strategy role.” When finance leads with service and systems, everyone rows in the same direction—and mission moves faster.Find us Live daily on YouTube!Find us Live daily on LinkedIn!Find us Live daily on X: @Nonprofit_ShowOur national co-hosts and amazing guests discuss management, money and missions of nonprofits! 12:30pm ET 11:30am CT 10:30am MT 9:30am PTSend us your ideas for Show Guests or Topics: HelpDesk@AmericanNonprofitAcademy.comVisit us on the web:The Nonprofit Show

Modern finance leaders have had to navigate turbulent waters over the last five to 10 years, buffeted by waves of geopolitical and macro market forces, rising economic nationalism, trade protectionism and environmental instability. Add that to the unprecedented pace of technological change, shifting consumer behaviours and a reimagined workforce. Here to give us insight on how CFOs are dealing with today's tough climate while preparing for the future is Kwee Juan Han, Group Executive and Group Head of Institutional Banking at DBS, Marie Myers, CFO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Andre Khor, Group CFO & Deputy CEO at Aster, part of the Chandra Asri Group.Sources: FT Resources, Deloitte, Forbes, ProtivitiThis content is paid for by DBS and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this livestream, we dive into MetaDAO's futarchy-based fundraising platform, and its distinct approach to tokenholder rights and governance. We also discuss founder profiles, investor alignment, venture-style returns, and challenges of adoption. Additional segments cover DAT insider trading risks, Plasma's launch strategy, Solana market dynamics, and evolving AMM models. Thanks for tuning in! As always, remember this podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice. -- Bitcoin DeFi is heating up on Aptos, the BTCFi growth chain with nearly $400M in BTC assets supported by a secure, fast, and affordable MVM environment. Aptos users can acquire, hold, and earn attractive BTCFi yields via Echo aBTC and OKX xBTC, without typical bridge risks and high fees.  Explore BTC yield opportunities on Aptos via OKX Earn and Aptos-native platforms https://web3.okx.com/earn/activity/xbtc-aptos  -- Is your treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and SOL productive with uncorrelated, protocol-driven staking rewards.  A new report from Liquid Collective and EigenCloud outlines a practical guide for CFOs to integrate institutional-grade staking and restaking.  Read The Productive Treasury Report: https://liquidcollective.io/corporate-treasury-staking/  -- Crypto's premiere institutional conference returns to London in October 2025. Use code 0x100 for £100 off at checkout: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london -- Blockworks is hiring a Research Data Analyst. If you live in SQL and love making sense of onchain chaos, apply today: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Blockworks?utm_source=EQPb2dAAxr -- Follow Kollan: https://x.com/metanallok Follow Carlos: https://x.com/0xcarlosg Follow Shaunda: https://x.com/shaundadevens Follow Dan: https://x.com/smyyguy Follow Ryan: https://x.com/_ryanrconnor Follow Boccaccio: https://x.com/salveboccaccio Follow Blockworks Research: https://x.com/blockworksres Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ Join the 0xResearch Telegram group: https://t.me/+UFFz4z3qyrhhMDYx -- Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (5:23) Ads (Aptos & EigenCloud) (6:19) Updates From MetaDAO (45:42) Ads (Aptos & EigenCloud) (46:57) DAT Insider Trading News (51:34) Plasma's Launch (1:01:14) Market Outlook -- Check out Blockworks Research today! Research, data, governance, tokenomics, and models – now, all in one place Blockworks Research: https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ Free Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on 0xResearch is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Boccaccio, Danny, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Financial leadership is more than numbers—it's the heartbeat of nonprofit sustainability. In this Nonprofit Power Week finale of The Nonprofit Show, Regional Director Ellie Hume of Your Part-Time Controller (YPTC) brings clarity and candor to some of the most frequently asked financial questions. With an “Ask and Answer” format, the conversation covers everything from roles and responsibilities in financial leadership to the evolving landscape of fractional CFOs.Ellie sets the stage by redefining how we see finance in nonprofits: “Finance is literally the thread that draws every piece of the organization together because without it, nothing works.” She dismantles silos by urging finance professionals to engage deeply with program, marketing, and development teams to ensure that data isn't just accurate but also meaningful for decision-making.The discussion takes a practical turn as Ellie differentiates between controllers, comptrollers, and CFOs. She outlines the transactional oversight of controllers, the governmental nuance of comptrollers, and the strategic future-focus of CFOs. She also digs into the importance of internal controls, noting their role in fraud prevention and audit readiness.The lively session shifts into the governance space. How often should boards review and sign Conflict of Interest (COI) policies? Ellie's answer is clear: annually at minimum, but immediately when new conflicts arise. She gives a relatable example: a contractor-board member bidding on a capital campaign project must disclose and recuse themselves. Transparency, she argues, isn't optional—it's fiduciary duty.Ellie also challenges assumptions about credentials. Do finance directors need to be CPAs? Her answer: “You truly just need great accounting skills and a strategic mindset to help the organization use financial information to make good business decisions.” Certifications like CPA or CMA add credibility but don't replace experience or practical skill.The conversation also explores the rise of fractional leadership. Ellie frames fractional CFOs as an efficient way to access high-level talent at a fraction of the time or cost, particularly useful during transitions or to prepare for a new hire. Fractional arrangements, she explains, can be both short-term bridges and long-term partnerships.The conversation wraps with a powerful reminder for board members: ask tough financial questions. Are resources aligned with mission? What risks are we facing? Do internal controls hold up? And crucially—what training do board members need to responsibly interpret financial statements?#TheNonprofitShow #NonprofitFinance #FractionalCFOFind us Live daily on YouTube!Find us Live daily on LinkedIn!Find us Live daily on X: @Nonprofit_ShowOur national co-hosts and amazing guests discuss management, money and missions of nonprofits! 12:30pm ET 11:30am CT 10:30am MT 9:30am PTSend us your ideas for Show Guests or Topics: HelpDesk@AmericanNonprofitAcademy.comVisit us on the web:The Nonprofit Show

What does it take to build sustainable growth in a time of constant disruption? In this special CFO Insights edition of the SAP Concur Conversations podcast, leaders across finance, IT, and HR explore how cross-functional collaboration fuels long-term success, and why the future of growth depends on it.Hear from:Julie Schwendimann, VP of Global Shared Services Operations at Stanley Black & DeckerRahul Patel, CIO at KBC Bank USAPriyanka Sudarshan, VP & HR Head for North Central Europe at Capgemini EngineeringVictor Brito Domingos, CFO at SAP ConcurTogether, they discuss the evolving role of the CFO, how AI is reshaping the workforce, the language barriers that often stall collaboration, and why data—and trust—are the new currencies of cross-functional success.From overcoming silos to balancing risk with innovation, this conversation offers practical insights for any finance, HR, or IT leader navigating uncertainty and driving business transformation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brought to you by:D-CRBN - a Belgian startup turning industrial CO₂ emissions into valuable feedstock using cutting-edge plasma technology. If you want to learn more, reach out directly to David Ziegler or Gill Scheltjens.***This week on New Wave Weekly: change is no longer a scientific forecast.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-founder of Rise25 Media, a company that helps B2B business owners connect with their ideal prospects, referral partners, and strategic partners through a done-for-you podcast service. Dr. Weisz has been involved in podcasting for 11 years and was a senior producer for early business podcasts. He helped put all of their systems in place and helped them add volume, features, and edify various business leaders. Dr. Weisz has also been running his podcast, Inspired Insider, since 2011. He has featured top entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs of companies such as P90X, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, the Orlando Magic, and many more through video interviews on Inspired Insider. He also continues to run his chiropractic and massage facility in downtown Chicago and is the founder of a nutritional supplement business. In this episode… Marketing success today demands more than catchy ads — it requires the right mindset and smart money strategies. Entrepreneurs and leaders are discovering that growth comes from mastering emotions, creating irresistible offers, and building teams that scale. What lessons can you learn from top experts in marketing, mindset, and finance who have faced these challenges firsthand? David Gonzalez reflects on humanity's evolution from conquest and competition to purpose-driven values that matter in business and life. Bob Burg shares why controlling your emotions gives you true power and the ability to turn negative situations into wins for everyone. Dan Kuschell explains how to craft an irresistible offer by focusing on a buying system that makes clients eager to say yes. Ian Garlic reveals the key differences between filmmaking and effective video marketing and how understanding your audience leads to real impact. Nick Araco explores the evolving role of CFOs, highlighting why finance leaders must communicate decisions clearly and connect purpose with numbers. Justin Krane closes with advice on hiring employees with a clear growth path and compensation strategy to keep top talent engaged. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz brings together these standout conversations to share powerful insights on marketing, mindset, and money strategies. Their stories and advice provide a blueprint for entrepreneurs and business leaders looking to grow their impact and build lasting success.

In the early days of a startup, forecasting isn't about nailing the numbers, it's about setting the course. In this episode, the world's most interesting CFO describes the art of “Cowboy forecasting” and how this back-of-the-envelope model can be far more valuable than a complex simulation. Kevin Drost started his career as a musician and talent scout for Sony before becoming the chief strategy officer of the music gear marketplace Reverb. Now, as the CFO of New Era ADR, he explains how the company is disrupting the notoriously expensive legal industry by replacing the billable hour with flat fees, and making dispute resolution faster and more predictable for businesses. The conversation also covers why simplicity often beats complexity in financial modeling, how a hands-on understanding of the product and customer builds real financial confidence, and how finance teams can empower every employee to understand and drive the business.—LINKS:Kevin Drost on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevindrostNew Era ADR: https://www.neweraadr.comCJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.comRELATED EPISODES:Secrets to Scaling a Marketplace Business with Jack Greco, VC and Co-founder of ACV Auctions — —TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Preview and Intro(02:40) Sponsor – Aleph | RightRev | Navan(07:18) Kevin's Music Background & A&R at Sony(12:09) Record Labels Versus Venture Capital(17:01) Sponsor – Rillet | Pulley | Brex(20:53) Finding Motivation After Success(21:34) Building Reverb & the Etsy Acquisition(25:33) Stacking Skillsets & Interests(27:11) Cowboy Forecasting at Reverb(32:01) The Importance of Simplicity in Forecasting in the Early Stages(35:46) The Art and Science of Making Estimated Guesses(41:42) Building Firsthand Customer & Product Knowledge(45:36) Teaching Finance Across the Company(50:44) New Era ADR & Legal Industry Disruption(57:35) Legal Strategy Versus Financial Strategy(1:01:30) How New Era Gets Parties To Use the Platform(1:05:27) Other White Hot Use Cases for New Era ADR(1:09:25) The Long Ass Lightning Round: Kevin's Biggest Mistake(1:12:41) Advice to a Younger Self(1:14:01) Finance Software Stack(1:15:21) Life as an A&R Rep—SPONSORS:Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that can give you access to exclusive, proprietary Nasdaq-validated data that reveals what's happening with corporate travel investments. See the Navan Business Travel Index at https://navan.com/bti.Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it's faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics.Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: https://pulley.com/mostlymetrics.Brex offers the world's smartest corporate card on a full-stack global platform that is everything CFOs need to manage their finances on an elite level. Plus, they offer modern banking and treasury as well as intuitive expenses and accounting automation, bill pay, and travel. Find out more at https://www.brex.com/metrics#CowboyForecasting #FinanceLeader #StartupFinance #LegalTech #StartupForecasting This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

In today's private equity landscape, the CFO role has become one of the most difficult and misunderstood jobs in the business world. Everybody thinks it's about reporting numbers, tracking financials, and cutting costs.  But in reality, being a PE-backed CFO means living at the intersection of cash obsession, strategy, and leadership, while managing more stakeholders than anyone else in the C-suite. Too many CFOs still act like historians, closing the books weeks late and delivering rearview-mirror data. Meanwhile, companies are flying blind, making decisions without visibility into the most critical factor: cash flow. With leverage levels higher than ever and private equity funds demanding fast exits, that blind spot isn't just dangerous, it's fatal. That's why the best private equity CFOs don't just manage numbers.  They manage people, processes, and partners. They accelerate closes, implement real-time reporting, and educate leadership teams on how every decision hits the cash cycle.  One of the best at articulating this reality is my guest, Bob Gold. Bob has been CFO at public companies, private firms, and multiple private equity-backed businesses.  What are the biggest financial challenges in private equity, and why are they so common? How can CEOs set their CFOs up for success?  In this episode, Bob and I break down what it really takes to succeed as a CFO in private equity, from managing cash and banking relationships to designing the right KPIs and building a team you can trust.   You'll also learn: Why the first 90 days of a CFO's tenure should be focused on cash and team assessment How extending customer terms or delaying closes can quietly destroy a business Why private equity's reluctance to invest in technology creates hidden risks The difference between “knowledge” and “intellect” and why holding onto knowledge can sink a finance team How great CFOs educate divisional leaders on the financial impact of their decisions Why operating on “two clocks” is the real PE playbook What it takes to build a true CEO–CFO partnership that drives both strategy and execution Guest Bio Bob Gold is a CFO, operating partner, transformation expert, treasury and turnarounds specialist. He is a leader and finance executive with a track record of matching execution with strategy to drive improved results in global organizations. Bob led three private equity portfolio companies through successful exits. His industry expertise includes Industrial B2B, Defense Government Contracting, Defense Electronics, and Consumer Products. Bob is a key “influencer” using fact-based data and superior communication skills to drive business and financial strategy. He's recognized for building highly responsive finance teams and leading process improvements supporting rapid growth and organizational change in complex international companies. As a CFO, Bob has transformed complacent finance organizations into business partners that are a sought-after resource and advisor to internal business partners. Connect with Bob on LinkedIn.    About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Check out this episode on our website, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and don't forget to leave a review if you like what you heard. Your review feeds the algorithm so our show reaches more people. Thank you! 

Fractional CFOs: Turning Financial Chaos Into Strategic Wins with Emily Statler In today's episode, Cat welcomes Emily Statler, a seasoned Fractional CFO and Financial Coach who has spent more than 20 years helping consultants transform financial headaches into strategic victories. Emily shares how fractional CFOs are no longer just for big corporations — consultants, solopreneurs, and small-to-mid-sized firms can all benefit from high-level financial guidance without the burden of a full-time hire. Together, Cat and Emily dive into three key perspectives: For solopreneurs and consultants: How to know when it's time to bring in financial expertise (hint: when your bank balance is always scraping zero or you're working nonstop with little to show for it). For growing firms: Why having clean books, cash flow clarity, and an exit strategy early on is critical if you want to scale or eventually sell. For aspiring fractional CFOs: Emily's own journey from bookkeeper to trusted financial partner, including how to land that first client and build confidence in this fast-growing field. They also unpack hot topics like: How CFOs often bridge finance and operations What buyers really look for when valuing a consulting business Why having a clear exit strategy is essential, even if you never plan to sell The mindset shift required to stop “DIY-ing” everything and start building a sustainable business This episode is packed with actionable insights for consultants who want to not only hit revenue goals but also build a business (and life) they actually love.

Wie schaffen es Unternehmen, Ordnung in ein komplexes Datenchaos zu bringen und eine verlässliche Grundlage für Entscheidungen zu schaffen? Diese Frage steht im Zentrum der aktuellen Episode des Performance Manager Podcasts. CFO Sebastian Wassermann von der Interzero Plastics Recycling Group berichtet aus erster Hand, wie sein Unternehmen das Fundament für eine „One Source of Truth“ geschaffen hat – und welche strategischen, kulturellen und technischen Faktoren dabei entscheidend waren. Komplexer Transformationsprozess Interzero hat in nur zwölf Monaten eine umfassende Neuausrichtung der Finanzorganisation umgesetzt. Im Gespräch wird deutlich, welche Auswirkungen ineffiziente Prozesse und fragmentierte Daten für Entscheidungen und Reporting haben können und warum Handlungsbedarf bestand. Kultur, Team und Technik im Zusammenspiel Die Episode zeigt, wie ein kleines Team diese Transformation erfolgreich umsetzen konnte. Diskutiert werden sowohl die Rolle eines neuen BI- und Konsolidierungssystems als auch kulturelle Aspekte: der Umgang mit Widerständen, die Förderung einer unterstützenden Transformationskultur und die Frage nach der richtigen Balance zwischen Standardisierung und Flexibilität. Einblicke für CFOs und Controller Sebastian Wassermann teilt seine Erfahrungen und macht deutlich, wie technische, organisatorische und kulturelle Faktoren zusammenspielen müssen, damit eine Finanzorganisation den Sprung vom Datenchaos zur One Source of Truth schafft.

In the boardroom, the biggest enemy is often fear. CFOs and HR leaders get paralyzed by the fear of change, letting their teams suffer under broken health plans because doing nothing feels safer than taking decisive action.But on the battlefield, indecision gets people killed. My guest on this episode of Broker's Voice, Rich Hess, is a Marine Corps combat veteran who brings that battlefield mindset to the boardroom. In this episode of The Broker's Voice, he shares his game plan for employee benefits, forged on the front lines of Desert Storm. We get into why "combat preparedness" is the key to educating employees and how a Marine's approach gives you the framework to lead clients through fear to a real solution.Chapters:(00:00:00) From The Battlefield to The Boardroom: A Marine's Approach to Benefits (00:01:30) Forged on the Front Lines(00:10:17) Battlefield Lesson #1: Crisis is an Opportunity (00:14:42) The Mission: Defining Who You're Fighting For (00:21:07) Boardroom Strategy: Designing Plans Based on Culture (00:24:39) Battlefield Lesson #2: The Tourniquet Test & Preparedness▶▶ Sign Up For Your Free Discovery Callhttps://calendly.com/aneary/strategy-sessionCONNECT WITH ANDY NEARY

Sarah Keohane Williamson, CEO of FCLT Global and coauthor of The CEO's Guide to the Investment Galaxy, offers a disciplined primer for executives operating at the intersection of corporate strategy and capital markets. Drawing from her background in investment banking, government, consulting, and asset management, she explains why “investors are not a single audience,” how their incentives shape corporate outcomes, and what leaders must do differently to secure durable capital and strategic flexibility.   Williamson pushes back on conventional wisdom about investor relations, replacing it with practical routines and priorities. She emphasizes a consulting-rooted discipline, “Start with the answer”, as a communications principle, and translates it into a concrete playbook for CEOs who cannot afford ambiguity when describing long-term bets. She underscores that “quarterly calls are important, but they're often dominated by the sell side,” and CEOs should deliberately allocate their limited time toward building trust with long-term owners and anchor shareholders.   Key takeaways include: Map the owners. “Who actually owns your company? Who makes the decisions about those shares?” Owner types—retail, index funds, active managers, hedge funds—differ in incentives and time horizons, and executives should treat that map as a strategic input. Build an investor strategy like a customer strategy. Decide which kinds of capital the company needs, why, and how to attract and retain those investors. Use a long-term roadmap. Make risky investments intelligible by explaining milestones that link short-term actions to enduring value, and “don't be afraid to update the roadmap when the assumptions change.” Translate investor signals into operational choices. Avoid reflexive short-term fixes, like cutting R&D to meet a quarter, without measuring the long-term cost. Treat disclosure and dialogue as governance tools. Clarity about ownership, voting, and incentives reduces misalignment and reputational risk. Reframe consultancy input for execution. “The hard part is not the analysis, the hard part is making it happen inside the organization.” This episode equips CEOs, CFOs, and board members with a practical framework for raising capital, defending strategic bets, and managing shareholder composition. It reframes investor engagement from a compliance exercise into a core discipline of strategy and governance.  

In this episode of The Salesy Podcast, I sit down with Danielle, CPA and founder of a thriving accounting firm, to tackle one of the most confusing—and often taboo—topics for business owners: money. From LLCs and S Corps to building a strong financial team and avoiding “oh-shit money moves” in Q4, Danielle breaks down complex financial concepts into actionable, real-world advice you can use to run a profitable and sustainable business.Whether you're wondering when to transition to an S Corp, how to pay yourself more in 2025, or what role your “money team” should play in your business growth, this conversation gives you the clarity and tools you need to plan ahead, avoid costly mistakes, and set your business up for long-term success.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The difference between an LLC and an S Corp (and when switching makes sense).Why owner's draws aren't business expenses—and what that means for your taxes.The four key players every entrepreneur needs on their money team: bookkeeper, CPA, financial advisor, and business coach/CFO.Why quarterly tax estimates and intentional budgeting are non-negotiable.How to avoid dangerous end-of-year spending traps that hurt more than they help.The importance of building a cash reserve and planning your financials monthly.How to structure your business for a future exit—even if you're a coach or service provider.Key Takeaways:Transitioning to an S Corp around $75k in net income can lower your tax liability, but you must pay yourself reasonable compensation.Bookkeepers look backward, CFOs look forward—both are crucial for a healthy business.Don't let Q4 panic drive your financial decisions; intentionality beats quick fixes.Regular financial check-ins (monthly finance meetings) reduce overwhelm and help you make strategic decisions year-round.Profitability isn't just about numbers—it's about building a business that sustains you personally and professionally.This episode is packed with insights for entrepreneurs who want to pay themselves more, plan for the future, and finally feel confident about their business finances.Danielle Hayden is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kickstart Accounting, Inc., where she helps six- and seven-figure women entrepreneurs stop winging it with their money and actually understand their numbers. She's your no-BS financial co-pilot with a side of “let's make this business profitable and fun again.”With over 15 years of experience in the world of finance, Danielle has worked her way from accounting firm intern to the Co-Founder of Kickstart Accounting. She understands how complex business finances can be, and she knows that entrepreneurs, especially women, need more than just a bookkeeper; they need real financial analysis and support in order to get the confidence required to create the sustainable wealth they deserve. Danielle brings a unique perspective when it comes to providing business owners with “the total package” as it relates to their finances.She's been featured on dozens of top-rated podcasts, including The Proffitt Podcast, Eat, Blog, Talk, Oh Shoot! The How of Business, and more. Danielle also hosts her own hit show, Business By the Books.When Danielle isn't in her money mindset work, you can find her hiking or spending time with her family.

What if your business could actually work for your life instead of consuming it? This question lies at the heart of Tana Kramer's approach to financial strategy for women entrepreneurs.Tana, founder of TK Solutions and a self-described "profitable strategist," joins the To Be Bolder podcast to share her journey from answering phones at her father's glass shop at age eight to becoming a fractional CFO for women-led businesses generating $1-5 million in revenue. Her path wasn't linear – after graduating with a management degree, she quickly realized corporate life wasn't for her and found her calling supporting entrepreneurs through various ventures before launching her own business.The conversation reveals profound insights about the relationship between profitability and lifestyle design. Tana emphasizes that most entrepreneurs fail to regularly examine their financial statements, often relying on flawed memory rather than actual data. "Looking at your numbers is definitely going to be the biggest thing," she explains, noting how entrepreneurs sometimes mentally spend the same dollar multiple times. This disconnect between perception and reality leads to misalignment that manifests physically – grinding teeth, tension in the shoulders, persistent irritability – signaling something in your business model isn't working for you.Perhaps most valuably, Tana addresses the emotional and psychological dimensions of entrepreneurship. She shares how she discovered her own inherited scarcity mindset through conversations with her mother, and offers a powerful strategy for those struggling with similar limitations: "Get yourself into rooms where people are sure it's possible and you can borrow some of their confidence while you prove it to yourself." This environment shift gradually transforms your relationship with money and profitability.Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or looking to scale your existing business more intentionally, Tana's guidance offers a refreshing perspective on creating financial systems that support your vision rather than dictate it. Tune in to be inspired and learn two important insights about managing your money.Support the show When you subscribe to the podcast, you are supporting our work's mission, allowing us to continue highlighting successful women in a variety of careers to inspire others helping pay our wonderful editor, Chris, and helping me in paying our hosting expenses.

Leaders today are under pressure from every direction: an unpredictable economy, the rise of AI, and the constant demand for transformation while keeping the business running. Few people see those challenges more clearly than Michael Smith. He argues that leaders make the greatest impact when they act as architects of transformation rather than playing defense. In this episode, Mike and Dart discuss what happens when HR is seen only as a cost and how CEOs and CFOs can unlock the real value of the people in their organizations. They also explore the future of HR and why doing well and doing good go together.As CEO of Randstad Enterprise, a division of one of the world's largest HR services companies, Mike has spent more than 20 years leading businesses across four continents. That vantage point gives him a rare perspective on how people, technology, and transformation shape the future of work.In this episode, Dart and Jim discuss:- Why HR leaders have the most impact as architects of transformation- What happens when people are treated as a cost instead of the engine of growth- How CEOs and CFOs can unlock the real value of talent- The future of HR in a world shaped by AI and constant change- Why companies are hiring and laying off at the same time- How AI is reshaping recruiting and freeing HR for higher-value work- The risk of excluding talent through rigid hiring processes- Why HR must become data visionaries to stay at the table- The ethical challenges of leading with AI- And other topics…Michael Smith is Chief Executive of Randstad Enterprise and part of Randstad's global leadership team. Over two decades with the company, he has led businesses across the US, Europe, and Asia, including CEO roles at Randstad UK and Randstad Sourceright EMEA. Today, he oversees Randstad's global talent solutions portfolio — from recruitment outsourcing and managed services to career transition, coaching, and advisory. His work puts him at the center of how the world's largest organizations adapt to change, balance people and technology, and unlock the real value of talent.Resources Mentioned:Randstad Enterprise: https://www.randstad.comGet discounted tickets to the Responsive Conference, featuring past Work for Humans guests Bree Groff and Simone Stolzoff – September 17–18, Oakland, CA. Use code “11fold”: https://www.responsiveconference.com/tickets Register to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/ Connect with Mike:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljohnsmith/Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

The new $100,000 H-1B fee has sent shockwaves through HR teams, foreign nationals, and global hiring strategies. In this episode, we unpack what this seismic policy change really means — not just for compliance, but for retention, employer branding, and long-term talent planning.We'll explore why EB-1A and O-1 visas are suddenly becoming critical alternatives, how profile building can future-proof your workforce, and the steps CHROs need to take right now to stabilize their foreign talent pipeline.From understanding the emotional fallout among impacted employees to aligning CFOs and HR leaders around smarter investment strategies, this episode provides a clear roadmap for navigating the next 12–18 months of global talent disruption.Whether you're a CHRO, CFO, or a foreign professional navigating these changes, you'll walk away with actionable insights to protect your people and your organization in this new era of immigration policy.

In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Rob Freedman, VP of Marketing at EZO. Rob shares insights from his two-decade career in marketing leadership, including lessons from preparing companies for IPO and navigating high-stakes executive rooms. He discusses how the role of marketing has shifted from brand-led to performance-driven, and why CFOs and product leaders are now calling more shots in GTM strategy.Rob explains the pressure VC-backed companies face to deliver short-term results, and how that's reshaping what kinds of campaigns get approved. He also breaks down how marketers can earn a seat at the strategic table by adopting accountability early—well before any IPO is on the horizon.From failed international campaigns to executive transparency, Rob unpacks the realities of aligning across functions, staying data-driven, and owning the full customer journey. He shares why filtering messaging down to teams does more harm than good, and how applying IPO-level rigor can elevate performance—even for mid-market companies.

In this week's episode of The Law Firm Blueprint, Jay Ruane and Seth Price dive into the realities of running and scaling a modern law firm. From the headaches of hiring and retaining employees to the challenges of working with fractional CFOs, they share firsthand stories and lessons learned. The hosts also expose shady practices in the SEO world and discuss why building a strong, supportive culture can keep great attorneys from leaving. Whether you're a solo lawyer or leading a growing practice, this episode delivers practical insights you can't afford to miss.#LawFirmManagement #LegalMarketing #LawFirmBlueprint

In a world increasingly dominated by software and automation, how vital are human relationships in banking and finance? In this episode, CJ sits down with Meghan McKenna, founder of Females in Finance (FIF) and a seasoned banker with experience at JPMorgan, HSBC, and Stifel, to explore how trusted connections continue to drive success. As a community builder and banker, Meghan has a unique perspective on the intersection of human connection and capital markets. She explains the philosophy behind her community, which is based on generosity and genuine connection rather than a transactional mindset, and how this has become her competitive advantage. The conversation also covers sales as an essential leadership skill, the rise of the modular banking stack, changes in private credit, the evolving ERP landscape, how a personal touch proved invaluable during the SVB crisis, and career lessons Meghan learned along the way.—LINKS:Meghan McKenna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-curtin-mckenna-%F0%9F%94%A5-66a5022b/FIF Collective: https://www.fifcollective.comMeghan McKenna email: meghan@fifcollective.coCJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.comRELATED EPISODES:Venture Debt for Growth With Ruslan Sergeyev of Hercules Capital — The One Use Case for Venture Debt That Most Founders Never Think About — —TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Preview and Intro(02:30) Sponsor – RightRev | Navan | Rillet(06:41) Connecting People as a Skill(08:03) Sales as an Essential Leadership Skill(12:07) The Power of In-Person Community & Events(14:39) FIF's Ideal Customer Profile(15:42) Sponsor – Pulley | Brex | Aleph(20:05) The Evolution of the Banking Ecosystem(22:00) Modular Banking Stacks and Fintech Challengers(24:37) The Rise of Private Credit(27:32) Banks Adapting to Companies That Stay Private Longer(30:06) Fintechs vs. Traditional Banks(31:54) Current Trends in AI and ERP in Finance(35:07) Importance of Human Relationships When Software Fails(36:09) Reflecting on the SVB Bank Run & Facing New Risks in Tech(37:59) Building a Personal Brand in Finance(39:42) Community Spirit, Giving Back, & Sharing Your Network(43:25) Meghan's Early Career and Mentors(46:15) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Staying Too Long in a Role(47:49) Advice to Younger Self(48:24) A Memorable Deal & Client Story(50:07) Wrap—SPONSORS:RightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that can give you access to exclusive, proprietary Nasdaq-validated data that reveals what's happening with corporate travel investments. See the Navan Business Travel Index at https://navan.com/bti.Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it's faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics.Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: https://pulley.com/mostlymetrics.Brex offers the world's smartest corporate card on a full-stack global platform that is everything CFOs need to manage their finances on an elite level. Plus, they offer modern banking and treasury as well as intuitive expenses and accounting automation, bill pay, and travel. Find out more at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run#FemalesInFinance #FinanceLeadership #BankingInnovation #Networking #FinanceCommunity This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

This week Kyle Samani joins the show to discuss the successful $1.65B raise for Forward Industries. We deep dive into how Forward Industries plan to converge between traditional markets & DeFi, the ultimate vision for the Solana treasury company, the difference between SOL & BTC DATs & why stablecoins are crypto's iPhone moment. Enjoy! Although our guest this week is an Investment Partner of a registered investment adviser, nothing in this podcast should be considered an offer of Multicoin's investment advisory services or should otherwise be confused for investment, tax, legal or other financial advice. -- Follow Kyle: https://x.com/KyleSamani Follow Jason: https://x.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod -- Katana is a DeFi-first chain built for deep liquidity and real yield, by redirecting chain revenue back to active DeFi users. The 1 billion KAT campaign is live. Bridge and deposit directly into vaults in one simple click and start earning immediately on your ETH, BTC, USDC, and more.  Go to app.katana.network to check it out.  -- Is your treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and SOL productive with uncorrelated, protocol-driven staking rewards.  A new report from Liquid Collective and EigenCloud outlines a practical guide for CFOs to integrate institutional-grade staking and restaking.  Read The Productive Treasury Report: https://liquidcollective.io/corporate-treasury-staking/  -- Allora is the new AI standard for DeFi platforms and agents to achieve sharper, faster, and more reliable financial systems than any single language model can offer. Instead of choosing and managing models, users state their goal, and the system delivers the best result.  To learn more about Allora Network, visit https://www.allora.network/ and https://x.com/AlloraNetwork. -- Crypto's premiere institutional conference returns to London in October 2025. Use code 0x100 for £100 off at checkout: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london -- Blockworks is hiring a Research Data Analyst. If you live in SQL and love making sense of onchain chaos, apply today: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Blockworks?utm_source=EQPb2dAAxr -- Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ Join the 0xResearch Telegram group: https://t.me/+UFFz4z3qyrhhMDYx -- Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:25) The Ultimate Vision For Forward Industries (8:54) Raising $1.65B For Forward Industries (10:52) Partnering With Jump & Galaxy (16:31) Ads (Katana & EigenCloud) (17:28) Integrating DATs Into DeFi (25:22) M&A Strategies (30:00) BTC vs SOL DATs (32:28) Ads (Katana & EigenCloud) (33:36) How Will SOL ETFs Impact Solana DATs? (35:45) What's Next For Forward Industries? (41:55) Lessons Learned From Hyperliquid's USDH (46:36) Allora Ad (47:08) The Internet Capital Markets Thesis (53:58) Stablecoins Are Crypto's iPhone Moment -- Check out Blockworks Research today! Research, data, governance, tokenomics, and models – now, all in one place Blockworks Research: https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ Free Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

In this episode of the SaaS Brand Strategy Show, DRMG welcomes Winston Binch, Chief Brand & Experience Officer at Gale, for a frank conversation about the shifting ground under marketers' feet.We unpack:Why Cannes has shifted from a creative director's festival to a CMO showcaseWhat 70% of CFOs get wrong about AI's role in marketingHow big agencies are reengineering workflows around AI—from back office to big ideasThe real opportunity in the Creator economyHow strategy, not software, unlocks both efficiency and boundary-pushing creativeIf you're asking “How are we using AI to drive brand innovation, not just automation?”—this one's for you.

S3E10: What's Trending NOW is Reinventing Supplemental Health Benefits: How Group Captive Insurance Creates Transparency and Returns Value to Employees. On this episode host Shahid Shah is joined by Lamont Thurston, founder and CEO of BENERē, a company that is changing the way people think about supplemental coverage, one claim at a time. Lamont shares insights on how group captive insurance models are reshaping supplemental health benefits. From tackling runaway commissions to returning unused premiums as ERISA plan assets, BENERē is disrupting a $12B industry built on inefficiencies. Thurston explains why employers must act as fiduciaries, how transparency drives employee trust, and why the future of voluntary benefits may depend on scalable, low-risk captive models. A must-listen for HR leaders, CFOs, and benefits professionals navigating today's high-deductible healthcare landscape. To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask your Smart Device to “….Play Healthcare NOW Radio”. Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen

AI was supposed to make software cheaper and companies more efficient. Instead, costs are exploding, CFOs are getting squeezed, and founders are pushing their teams harder than ever. CJ and Kyle Poyar dig into the economics behind AI, usage-based pricing, and what all of this means for SaaS growth.* Usage-Based Credits: Why they're supposed to save SaaS margins but often trap customers in bad deals.* 996 Hustle Culture: The rise of 9 a.m.–9 p.m., 6-days-a-week work schedules — and why it's both romanticized and unsustainable.* SaaS Payback Periods: Public companies now take 3+ years to recoup CAC, with growth slowing and margins tightening.* Go-to-Market Engineers: Hype vs. reality of the “unicorn hire” role meant to automate GTM motions.* Consumer Businesses: Are we sleeping on DTC plays like Blue Apron and ButcherBox while chasing AI trends?* The “Cracked Engineer” Archetype: Why the most impactful hires might be the failed founders who love solving cross-functional problems.* Subscription Carwashes: What they teach us about predictable revenue and retention psychology.* More RVs Than EVs: What this surprising stat says about adoption curves and how we misread “the future.”* This Week's Growth Experiments: The tools, tactics, interview questions, and hacks we tried — what worked, what didn't, and why Kyle is disillusioned by some of them.Today's podcast is brought to you by Campfire.You may know that we use Campfire as our ERP, and it's been a game changer for our finance workflow. The interface is intuitive, migration was quick and painless, and it's freed us up to focus on strategic work instead of manual processes. In case you don't know, Campfire is an AI-first ERP powering next-gen finance & accounting teams. Helps you close fast, unlock insights and scale smarter.If you're curious about where finance tech is heading, and would like to hear more of my thoughts on the topic, don't miss Campfire's Finance Forward AI Summit - the upcoming summit bringing together the sharpest minds in finance and operations.You'll hear directly from industry leaders on how they're using AI to shape the future of finance, and how your team can get ahead of the curve. I'll be speaking on panels with finance leaders from Anthropic, Snowflake, Mercury and more. The summit is October 28th in San Francisco; I hope to see you there.Sign up for the summit at campfiresummit.ai or learn more about Campfire at www.campfire.ai. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

We're back to discuss the top stories of the week. We deep dive into Pump Fun & the future of media, why there is so much uncertainty despite massive positive tailwinds for crypto, Plasma's success story, is Base launching a token & more. Enjoy! -- Follow Rob: https://x.com/HadickM Follow Santi: https://x.com/santiagoroel Follow Jason: https://x.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod -- Join the Empire Telegram: https://t.me/+CaCYvTOB4Eg1OWJh Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts -- Crypto-native institutions and developers demand institutional-grade infrastructure with regulatory clarity and full asset control. Blockdaemon's Earn Stack is a non-custodial platform combining high-performance staking rewards and seamless DeFi integration with no intermediate smart contract or vaults. Programmatically access leading Ethereum & Solana staking rewards, plus DeFi opportunities across lending protocols, DEXs, and AMMs. Book a Demo! -- Welcome to Get Real — Web3's first-ever campaign rewarding you for creating real-world value. Connect your devices to real-world apps on peaq and earn rewards for: Measuring noise pollution Providing compute Mapping the word And more Total prize pool: 5% of $PEAQ's initial supply. Get Real is relaunching soon — follow peaq on X and get ready. -- Mantle is pioneering ""Blockchain for Banking"" as a revolutionary new category that sits at the intersection of TradFi and web3. Key elements for Mantle as the ""Blockchain for Banking"": - Transactions posted to the blockchain - Compatibility with TradFi rails - Integrated DeFi features Mantle Network, the access layer — transforms Mantle Network into a purpose-built vertical platform — the blockchain for banking — that enables financial services on-chain. Mantle leads the establishment of Blockchain for Banking as the next frontier. Follow Mantle on X (@Mantle_Official) for the latest updates on Mantle as the 'Blockchain for Banking'. -- Is your treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and SOL productive with uncorrelated, protocol-driven staking rewards. A new report from Liquid Collective and EigenCloud outlines a practical guide for CFOs to integrate institutional-grade staking and restaking. Read The Productive Treasury Report: https://liquidcollective.io/corporate-treasury-staking/ -- Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (01:15) Pump Fun, Livestreaming & The Future Of Media (14:48) Stablecoins (16:06) Ads (Blockdaemon, Peaq) (17:34) We're Still In A Bull Market, It's Still Not The One You Wanted (26:01) Why Has Plasma Been So Successful? (36:19) How To Develop A Successful Ecosystem (45:52) Ads (Blockdaemon, Peaq) (47:20) More DATs & ETFs Are Coming (57:40) CFTC Updates (01:00:30) Ad (Mantle, Eigen Layer) (01:02:04) Is Base Launching A Token? (01:14:54) Content Of The Week — Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Andrew and Ben react to the Meta Ray-Ban Display and the progress of the Meta Neural Band, including keynote FOMO, debating the value of handwriting words in the air, the strategic logic of shipping these products now, an incredible price point, and lots more. From there: A look at the Intel-Nvidia partnership that was announced Thursday morning, and Ben's thoughts on YouTube after a visit to New York City for an afternoon with creators and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. At the end: Positive buzz on liquid glass, the dangers of CFOs as CEOs, innovations from incumbent companies, Ben's repatriation takeaways, life advice for moving, and the five CEOs who have contributed most to the Stratechery bundle.

With over 9,000 merger and acquisition (M&A) deals closing in 2024, how prepared is your organization for a merger or acquisition? Travelers' 2024 CFO study found that 70% of CFOs say they have had to navigate M&A activity. Whether the deal closes or not, it's creating stress in their jobs and for their teams. And while successful M&As require strategic risk management at every stage, 38% of respondents admit to only having reactive risk management programs. Listen to learn about key findings from the 2025 M&A Study: A Travelers Special Report.Watch the original Wednesdays with Woodward® webinar: https://institute.travelers.com/webinar-series/symposia-series/mastering-mergers-acquisitions.View the 2025 M&A Study: A Travelers Special Report: https://www.travelers.com/resources/business-topics/business-risk/risk-professional-mergers-acquisitions-insights.---Visit the Travelers Institute® website: http://travelersinstitute.org/.Join the Travelers Institute® email list: https://travl.rs/488XJZM.Subscribe to the Travelers Institute® Podcast newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/travelers-institute-podcast-7328774828839100417.Connect with Travelers Institute® President Joan Woodward on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joan-kois-woodward/.

This week, Bread from MegaETH joins the show to discuss everything happening in the ecosystem. We deep dive into what's next for MegaETH, partnering with Ethena, state of the market, the return of CZ & more. Enjoy! As always, remember this podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice. -- Bitcoin DeFi is heating up on Aptos, the BTCFi growth chain with nearly $400M in BTC assets supported by a secure, fast, and affordable MVM environment. Aptos users can acquire, hold, and earn attractive BTCFi yields via Echo aBTC and OKX xBTC, without typical bridge risks and high fees. Explore BTC yield opportunities on Aptos via OKX Earn and Aptos-native platforms https://web3.okx.com/earn/activity/xbtc-aptos -- Is your treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and SOL productive with uncorrelated, protocol-driven staking rewards. A new report from Liquid Collective and EigenCloud outlines a practical guide for CFOs to integrate institutional-grade staking and restaking. Read The Productive Treasury Report: https://liquidcollective.io/corporate-treasury-staking/ -- Crypto's premiere institutional conference returns to London in October 2025. Use code 0x100 for £100 off at checkout: ⁠https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london⁠ -- Blockworks is hiring a Research Data Analyst. If you live in SQL and love making sense of onchain chaos, apply today: ⁠https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Blockworks?utm_source=EQPb2dAAxr⁠ -- Follow Bread: https://x.com/0xBreadguy Follow Danny: https://x.com/defi_kay_ Follow Boccaccio: https://x.com/salveboccaccio Follow Marc: https://x.com/marcarjoon Follow Blockworks Research: https://x.com/blockworksres Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: ⁠https://blockworks.co/newsletter/⁠ Join the 0xResearch Telegram group: ⁠https://t.me/+UFFz4z3qyrhhMDYx⁠ -- Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (05:18) DAS London + Analyst Plug (07:53) How To Grow On Crypto Twitter (11:51) What's Next For MegaETH? (35:01) Ads (Aptos, Eigenlayer) (35:45) The SOL DAT Trade (58:21) Ads (Aptos, Eigenlayer) (59:30) Will Trump Pardon CZ? (01:08:31) Final Thoughts -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on 0xResearch is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Boccaccio, Danny, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Databox is an easy-to-use Analytics Platform for growing businesses. We make it easy to centralize and view your entire company's marketing, sales, revenue, and product data in one place, so you always know how you're performing. Learn More About DataboxSubscribe to our newsletter for episode summaries, benchmark data, and moreIn times of ongoing volatility, agility isn't just a survival skill – it's the core growth lever. Kathleen Booth, SVP of Marketing at Pavilion, makes the case for ditching rigid planning in favor of dynamic, data-informed decisions, and explores how smart GTM leaders are embracing flexible org structures, full-cycle sales, and simplified roles to adapt fast.Kathleen shares what Pavilion is seeing across thousands of GTM leaders: the metrics that matter most now, why full-cycle selling is making a comeback, and how to tell a compelling story with your data that gets CFO and board buy-in.If you're leading a go-to-market team and struggling to keep up with messy market changes, this is your roadmap for building a culture – and system – for fast, confident decision-making.Watch the full episode to learn how top GTM leaders are:• Replacing rigid planning with agile execution• Using data to spot early signals and justify pivots• Simplifying org structures to move faster• Selling strategic brand investment to skeptical CFOs

QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse! Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week. Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends! In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Rob Cameron speaks with Carla Titus, Founder & CEO of Wealth & Worth Within, to explore the power of fractional CFO services for growing businesses. Carla explains how small business owners can access big-company financial strategies without the high cost of a full-time CFO, helping them boost revenue, improve profitability, and manage cash flow more effectively. She shares common challenges entrepreneurs face, such as lack of financial planning, unclear margins, and struggles with scaling, while offering practical solutions to overcome them. Carla also highlights the importance of knowing your numbers, setting financial goals, and aligning operations with finance for sustainable growth. Listeners will learn how fractional CFOs can support funding efforts, clean up financials, and prepare businesses for future exits. This insightful conversation provides actionable advice for business owners ready to strengthen their financial foundation and drive long-term success. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Think Big Without the Big Cost – A fractional CFO gives you Fortune 500-level financial strategy tailored for your small business. Plan or Pay the Price – Without clear goals, budgets, and projections, growth becomes chaos instead of strategy. Cash Flow is King – Revenue doesn't matter if money isn't in the bank; know where your margins leak. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Clean Books = Growth Fuel – Investors and lenders say “yes” to businesses with accurate, transparent financials. Profit Drives Valuation – The more profitable you are, the higher your exit potential and business worth. Pay Yourself First – Don't just build your business; build your personal wealth and secure your financial future. One action small business owners can take: According to Carla Titus, one action small business owners can take is to build a clear 12-month financial forecast – mapping revenue, expenses, and profit goals—to gain clarity, avoid surprises, and make data-driven decisions for growth. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

The venture capital landscape is evolving, and a founder's choice of fund size and partner could make or break their business. In this episode, CJ sits down with Kyle Harrison, General Partner at Contrary and writer of the Substack Investing 101, to make sense of the changing incentives and power dynamics in the field of venture capital. He explains how capital agglomerators and cottage keepers are playing dramatically different games, how the ethics of backing competitors have changed since the advent of AI, why a fund's size is its strategy, and what the potential pitfalls of dilution could be for founders. The conversation also covers why the line between hype and tangible business value in AI is so blurry, the role of narrative as an economic driver, and why the most valuable thing a VC can offer might just be "borrowed credibility.”—LINKS:Kyle Harrison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-harrison-9274b278/Contrary: https://www.contrary.comInvesting 101: CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.comLINKS MENTIONED:* “The Unholy Trinity of Venture Capital”: * “The Horse, The Jockey, or The Whole Race?” * Endowment Eddie on X (@endowment_eddie): https://x.com/endowment_eddie* “Institutionalized Belief In The Greater Fool”: * “The Unbundling of Venture Capital”: * “The Productization of Venture Capital”: https://kwharrison13.com/essays/the-productization-of-venture-capital—TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Preview and Intro(02:23) Sponsor – Navan | Rillet | Pulley(07:13) VC Models: Cottage Keepers Versus Capital Agglomerators(11:16) Balancing Taking On Money and Finding Great Investments(16:35) Sponsor – Brex | Aleph | RightRev(20:54) Founder-Friendliness: The Ethics of Backing Competitors(26:33) When Fund Size Sabotages Outcomes(32:32) The Sins of Omission Versus Commission(36:02) The Dilution Trap for Operators in Venture-Backed Companies(38:17) Underestimating the Magnitude of the Outcomes(40:35) AI Hype, Valuation, and Real Business Impact(45:37) Market Psychology: Narrative and Story As Economic Drivers(48:21) Valuation: Cursor and Windsurf(52:50) The Unbundling of Venture Capital: What Founders Really Hire VCs For(1:01:47) Things To Consider When Choosing a VC(1:04:35) FTX Lessons & Compounding Growth(1:10:02) Kyle's Predictions for the Future of VC—SPONSORS:Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that can give you access to exclusive, proprietary Nasdaq-validated data that reveals what's happening with corporate travel investments. See the Navan Business Travel Index at https://navan.com/bti.Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it's faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics.Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows, without the hidden fees or unreliable support. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: https://pulley.com/mostlymetrics.Brex offers the world's smartest corporate card on a full-stack global platform that is everything CFOs need to manage their finances on an elite level. Plus, they offer modern banking and treasury as well as intuitive expenses and accounting automation, bill pay, and travel. Find out more at https://www.brex.com/metricsAleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, so you can focus on the strategic work you were hired to do. Minimize busywork and maximize impact with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.##VentureCapital #VC #Startups #Founder #FundSize This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

Title: Inside the Secret Network That Billionaires Use to Pay Zero In Taxes with Alex Sonkin Summary: In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Alex, founder of the Due Diligence Project, to discuss the massive blind spot in tax strategy among CPAs and how his peer-reviewed CPA community solves that. Alex shares how traditional CPA firms, despite servicing ultra-high net worth clients, are often unaware of the vast number of advanced tax mitigation strategies available. His platform introduces vetted tax strategies reviewed by hundreds of independent CPA firms, much like an Amazon or Netflix model for financial services. Rather than relying on static, siloed in-house teams with mediocre solutions, Alex's vision is to empower CPAs and family offices through a Virtual Family Office model. This allows affluent individuals (not just billionaires) to access world-class, peer-reviewed tax and financial planning strategies while maintaining their trusted CPA relationship. The conversation emphasizes humility, proactive due diligence, and massive action as critical principles for success in tax planning and entrepreneurship alike. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/v8RSrMRslHU Bullet Point Highlights: Most CPAs, even in top firms, are not deeply versed in advanced tax mitigation due to limited time and exposure. The Due Diligence Project functions as an independent, peer-reviewed network, allowing CPAs to tap into the collective knowledge of hundreds of top professionals. Traditional large CPA firms and Wall Street structures are siloed and don't provide open-source best-in-class strategies. The future CPA firm is a Virtual Family Office — proactive, advisory-driven, and built with world-class independent specialists instead of static in-house teams. The Virtual Family Office model brings elite wealth management strategies to affluent individuals (e.g., $10M-$50M net worth), not just billionaires. Humility, curiosity, and willingness to collaborate are essential for CPAs and advisors to truly serve clients at the highest level. Success requires massive action and consistent pursuit of better solutions — complacency kills innovation and wealth creation. Transcript: (Seth Bradley) (00:02.094) What's up, Builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.   If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you, and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Alex, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Seth, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.   man. Fellow San Diegan. So, appreciate that and appreciate that you you love the weather like I do.   best weather in the world, All of San Diego County, even if it gets like 10 degrees hotter, it's as good or as better anything else on the planet.   (Seth Bradley) (01:05.698) Yep, yep. Sometimes you gotta go outside of San Diego for a little bit to appreciate it because you forget that every single day is fantastic.   We're not going to get into the June gloom and the May gray because people outside of San Diego, don't want to hear that. uh, know, we get to complain between each other. everyone outside of San Diego, were like, we don't want to know about any of your problems.   Right, Exactly, exactly. All right, man. Well, let's just jump right in, Tell everybody a little bit about your background, about your story, and take it back as far as you like.   Sure, graduated University of Michigan Business School undergrad and became an options trader in Chicago as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, the Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Options Exchange was a market maker down there for many years and came up with a couple ideas and moved to California. What we do now is we have the largest independent peer review community of CPA firms in the country. We support   hundreds of CPA firms who basically introduced their favorite resources, favorite tax attorneys, favorite strategies. And then as a community and independently, everyone independently vets out every strategy, every resource. And we rank and rate all of the strategies, all of the resources. Very similar to what you'd experience in Amazon or Netflix or the streaming services when you watch a movie or you buy a product on Amazon.   (Alex Sonkin) (02:35.534) you're going to go look for the 4.9 out of five stars and do a quick price comparison. So what we did is we've created essentially an independent peer-of-view ranking and rating system for sophisticated tax strategies and then cost mitigation strategies because the tax code is just way too big. No one knows how many pages there are in the tax code. It's constantly changing. we basically, we didn't even know we were doing this at the time because all we were doing was   putting together advanced tax planning institutes, filling them up with CPA firms, bringing speakers, specialists on to present their ideas. But the magic was happening in the hallway conversations between these tax attorneys and the CPAs in these Q &A sessions. And what we realized was that traditional CPA firms really have no clue how many pages are in the tax code, have no idea how many strategies there are that are available to them that have been fully vetted.   And they don't have the time and the resources to fully vet those strategies out. So we just realized we were onto something and we kept building and building and building. And we just had an event. Our last couple summits, diligence project summits had close to 700 CPA firms on one, close to 847 was our largest summit.   The more eyeballs, the more tax-focused CPAs are looking at the strategies and vetting out the strategies, the more refined the due diligence is and the more new resources they're able to introduce to our network. So we're able to go deeper, wider, and more refined in our due diligence when it comes to tax planning.   Yeah, that's awesome. So you you analyze and put a score on the actual strategy itself as well as the firm.   (Alex Sonkin) (04:25.76) Yeah, everything, right? Because you and I both know there's so many moving parts in our business. And when a CPA firm is dealing with their most, their highest net worth clients, billionaires, centi-millionaires, multi-millionaires, and they have, they're selling an appreciated asset, whether it's real estate or their company or shares in another company they've invested in, they want that sale to be tax efficient. Then they might want that money to be invested in other   parts of their portfolio. want that transition to be efficient. They want all the estate planning to be efficient asset to all these different moving parts. But the area where most CPAs and attorneys are the weakest is in the income tax mitigation part. There's a lot of decent estate planning out there, asset protection, other planning. It's really the income tax mitigation part where very few people are excellent at this.   Financial advisors, attorneys have very little experience with tax court, with audit. They should really not be involved in income tax planning. The CPA firms are the ones who are signing the tax returns. They have the experience with audit. They have the experience with tax court. But they're spread so thin just trying to produce tax returns and financial statements and meet all of the deadlines that they have to meet throughout the year. There's actually very little time for them to do proactive tax planning.   and to complete due diligence and even start the due diligence on a tax strategy. Where do we start? Who do we call? How do we find out if the client's going to go to jail? If there's issues with this? They really need to get their confidence level up at a very high level before they call their clients that you really need to look at the strategy and do this. So that's where we really live is we really there to support the tax focused CPA or the family office that's supporting that.   that ultra high net worth family that's led by a tax focused advisor, hopefully a CPA with at least 10,000, 50,000 hours of experience in auditing tax court, where they could look at the notes, look at, part of, join the due diligence project community, look at the notes, look at the strategies, meet the specialists, communicate with other CPAs in our network to really understand the risk reward of.   (Alex Sonkin) (06:48.088) the strategy when it as how it compares to other possible strategies or combination of strategies to bring to their client.   Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love the overall idea of kind of this Amazon marketplace for CPAs and tax firms and tax strategies. It's like, you know, I know when I'm looking for a new accountant or a new CPA with a different group, with a different real estate group or something, you know, I might have done some good business with one CPA and then some that I did not. And I don't have a consistent person to go to at this point. And it also depends on what we're talking about, right? This, the, the speciality of it. it's a   if we're talking W-2 tax mitigation or we're talking about real estate investment or we're talking about some sort of high cash flow entrepreneurial venture, it really depends. One CPA can't necessarily do all that. Maybe a large CPA firm that has all that stuff in house for sure. But when we're talking about your one CPA that you know that's been filing your tax return for the last 20 years, they're not very specialized in these sorts of things.   Here's what's interesting, Seth. You made some interesting points here. Here's what's interesting. Traditionally, people say, I need a CPA. My current CPA firm is not doing the job. That's kind of par for the course. They don't know what's wrong. They know something's wrong because they know that a lot of billionaires aren't paying any taxes. They're paying this 30, 40 % of their income in taxes. They feel something's wrong. So, I need a new CPA firm. So, what do they do? Hey, can you find me a great CPA firm that's local to me? Why is that important?   Why do you need someone that literally that is that's local to you right away? The business owner is already messing up. That is not the most important thing. Okay, then they'll want someone Okay, forget distance. I'm okay with just meeting them virtually. They need to be a specialist in real estate. That's fine Okay, you've got a real estate portfolio there, especially in real estate, but really That's that's a that's another that's a good question, but it's not the best question. It's not gonna get you to the promised land   (Alex Sonkin) (08:52.366) How fluent is that CPA firm in tax strategies? Are they plugged into a network like ours where they have hundreds and hundreds of independent CPA firms, former partners of KPMG, Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young, all proactively vetting strategies and introducing, unless you're part of a due diligence network like ours, you might be part of a very, very large CPA firm.   that also is part of other groups, other associations and none of them know, you know, three, four, five different strategies that would be perfect for mitigating taxes in a specific situation. So going to a large firm that has lots of in-house resources, are those resources the best? Do they have access to the best tax attorneys in the country? If those attorneys are in-house working for a CPA firm,   Or let's just say they're working for Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos' family office. Seth, do you think the best tax attorney in the country wants to be W-2 working for a CPA firm or working for a family   Right, right.   No, no. So right away, you've already discounted. You are not going to work with the best tax attorneys in the country. You're going to work with a static, the best attorney that's willing to be W-2, working for a CPA firm, working for a family office. If you look at the top 1000 tax attorneys in the country, you might now be working with number 945. Is that what you want to be like? No, no, no, we're fine. Our tax   (Alex Sonkin) (10:29.484) Our tax planning is done by my CPA and they've got this tax attorney that's the 945th best tax attorney in the country in their space. It's like saying, I'm building this orchestra and my trumpet player, instead of getting the very best trumpet player in the world, I have the 945th best trumpet player playing trumpet. You want to put that on your website? You want to market that? think your client's going to be like, this is going to be awesome. I'm going to have the 945th best.   You   (Alex Sonkin) (10:59.138) Resource in that space giving me planning ideas. Whereas I'm a business owner I've had to get to this point to have a tax problem here to overcome all these challenges and now you're gonna bring me a tax planning solution. That's like D minus That's what's going that's puts par for the course. This is what's going on. What we know is 18 % of Fortune 500 companies are zeroing out their tax returns Okay, just listen to this 18 %   of most profitable companies in the world have a team of attorneys and CPAs that zero out their tax return. That means 82 % have no idea what they're doing on a relative basis. those 82%, we're talking about 82 % of the most profitable 500 companies in the world. What we're saying is their tax planning from our vantage point, it's not that it's not good.   It's like average to below average, whereas their revenue and income is off the charts. That's like a big problem. It's like saying, you know what? We have a basketball team where our point guard, our forwards, and our two guard are really good, but our center is like garbage. You know, we've got like a high school level center, and then we have all-stars at all the other positions. That's not gonna work.   Yeah, yeah. mean, why is that? I mean, it's like, you know, they should have access to the best resources. They should be getting advised by the, you know, the top experts in the industry. But, you know, they're just not. Are they not putting the effort? Do they not have access? Do they not know, like, what's the...   Because the difference is when you look at Amazon and you look at Netflix and all the other streaming services that are providing an independent peer-review because back before Amazon and Netflix we had Blockbuster video and we had Barnes and Noble right and we did do diligence very differently going to all the different Blockbuster videos going into Blockbusters and Noble trying to find a book to buy right it's very different experience now we live in this very different world now with   (Alex Sonkin) (13:09.196) independent peer review and all these things. However, the financial services world was created by who? It was created by people like Bernie Madoff. It was created by Wall Street, right? So everything in the financial services world is really created by Wall Street, people like Bernie Madoff. And so Goldman Sachs doesn't want you to know what Morgan Stanley is doing. Morgan Stanley doesn't want you to know what JP Morgan's doing. And so really the financial services realm is   is kind of built in silos. No, come into the Goldman Sachs silo. Come into Ernst & Young. You don't need to worry about what our competitors are doing, what these other CPA firms are doing. We're Ernst & Young, we're Goldman Sachs, we're JP Morgan. You can have the products and services that we have in our back room. So essentially, when you look at JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse, all these huge shops, they're just stores with back rooms. And it's like shopping at a store.   It's like going to Toys R Us. What do we have in Toys R Us? Well, what do we have in our back room? Whereas when you walk into Amazon, what do you have? When you walk into Netflix, you have the full scale universe, open source. So what we've done is we've basically taken the financial services industry and we've created this open source peer-reviewed model. And we started with sophisticated tax planning because that's where most people are really, really bad at it.   And then we've added cost mitigation and other resources. You know, we're not trying to compete with asset management and money managers and all those other, know, certainly we vet those people out. But, you know, there's millions of people that manage money and our financial advisors. And certainly we do our vetting and due diligence on those people. Where we really differentiate ourselves is the income tax planning resources and solutions. Because what we found is the top biggest   most profitable, most famous CPA firms and law firms, that's their blind spot. That's where they're really, really bad because they don't know how many are in the tax code. They don't have the time and the resources and they don't know who to call to actually start and complete a successful due diligence process for sophisticated tax structure.   (Seth Bradley) (15:29.708) Yeah, yeah. So when you say independent peer review, what exactly does that look like? mean, walk me kind of through that and how that works.   I'll show you like this is what you and any let's say if you're a real estate investor right and you're about to sell let's just say a 10 million dollar asset that has nine million dollars of gain in it you're gonna do the same thing that we've done if you're smart what are you gonna do you're gonna go out there and be like what are all the tax strategies that are possible to help me mitigate this huge tax liquidity event right then you're gonna get a bunch of ideas and then what are you gonna do   You're going to show those ideas to your most trusted financial people who are probably your CPA, your lawyer, your advisors, all these other people that you think are financial gurus and really most of them are not even qualified to comment on the tax structure except your tax-focused CPA who has at least 10,000 hours of experience in audit and tax courts. So really you should only bring this to your CPA. But now you brought it to your attorneys and your advisors.   So they're all going to comment on it because they're financial experts even though they have almost zero experience in auditing the tax court. So what do these people do with this idea? Some of them will like, oh, I don't know, just pay your tax. So you're going to get all sorts of answers. Now, you're the business owner. You have no idea how to quantify these answers. So you're really the tax expert trying to manage all this information and trying to be like, what do I do? And what are you going to do?   you're gonna basically go with what your CPA kind of tells you that they're comfortable with. Now your CPA doesn't know all the strategies, so they might know 10 % of the possible strategies. So you're gonna go with the most comfortable strategy that your CPA is comfortable with, that they've completed their due diligence on, which may be strategy number 443 out of the possible thousand strategies that are out there. And now you have the 443rd best idea.   (Alex Sonkin) (17:35.522) that you're implementing and your ROI on that is going to look just like that. Meanwhile, it's taking you all this effort to create $10 million of asset and it's going to take you just like this to completely give away the tax on that because your CPA is not plugged into an independent peer review environment where they can work with other CPAs who have experience with other resources, be able to ask your questions, get your questions answered, maybe ask another round of questions.   But really at that point, you really need to be dealing with the thought leaders in that space, not some local attorney or other CP that also has no clue what's going on. It has no idea how many pages there are.   Got it. So when somebody comes to, you know, they have that issue, right? And they're trying to find the right CPA that can help them with that specific situation and find that number one best tax strategy. You know, what do they do? Do they come to your website to try to find someone in the network? Because anybody in your network can tap into everybody else in your network and find that optimum strategy.   There's really two ways of doing it. They either find a CPA in our network, which is one of the easiest things to do, or they have their trusted CPA plug into our network and complete their due diligence. That's probably the best way because they are this way. This gives them another warm and fuzzy. Hey, I've had this relationship with my CPA for 20, 30 years. I really like them. I understand the challenges that they're under just because they haven't plugged into the network doesn't mean they're a bad CPA or bad person.   It's like having a, you know, I just bought a gold plated cell phone. It's the greatest cell phone iPhones ever produced. But if I don't plug it into Verizon, if I plug it into Bob's telephone network that only works in four locations in America, I'm gonna have this $5,000 cell phone that's basically just a brick that I could just use as a paper holder. But if I have a normal cell phone, I plug it into Verizon and I can make a phone call from anywhere.   (Alex Sonkin) (19:43.298) That's a much better experience. it's not the quality of it. It's partially the quality of the CPA, but it's more so the quality of the network. and certainly these, the CPAs that really are attracted to us are the ones who have these huge hearts that want to do the very, very best for their clients. And they know that they need to pick up every rock and flip over because they know their clients don't want tax returns and financial statements.   They need those. They don't want any of that. What they really want is proactive tax planning ideas. And what the CPAs don't have time for is that. So they have to create time. And we show CPAs how to create that time. We eliminate all, 95 % of the time. It takes them to complete the due diligence because we just show them the notes. We get them 90, 95 % there. Then they take the notes. They take the resources.   They jump into the tax code and then they complete the last 5-10 % of the due diligence process on their own because they're going to have to actually do a little bit of work to get this done. But we've reduced their time and increased their confidence level in completing this project by a factor of 10x, which is a huge value to them because they don't have the time and they don't have the resource to get this work done, but they want to get it   (Seth Bradley) (21:07.616) the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.   Right. Yeah. And I can imagine it takes a certain degree of humility, right, from those CPAs to say, I don't know everything. I'm not just going to make up something. I'm not going to make it up. But I'm not going to do kind of half-assed research for a few minutes and tell you I know everything about the subject. Right? Like, I can admit that I don't know everything. I'm not an expert in every single tax strategy.   You nailed it. mean look we do a whole program about the ten pillars of extraordinary due diligence Curiosity is one of them independence is independence versus group think and you nailed one of those pillars. It's it's it's it's humility and You know being curious being humble when you're the tax expert as you know CPA that's been around for 30 years you like I've seen everything right? That's kind of how you feel   But if you have that idea, I've already seen everything. I already know everything. How many people, by the way, how many pages are there in the tax code? I have no idea. Well, that is that's not congruent. What's congruent is I've been in the industry 30, 35 years. Do I know the tax code? I don't know the tax code. It's constantly changing. I'm humble, but I'm working hard. Yeah, there are sections of tax codes that I know, but it would be awesome to be part of independent peer community of hundreds and hundreds of other tax geeks like me.   where we're chewing, know, we're eating this elephant one bite at a time and working together as a community. That's hard working humility. And if you think about it, those are the kind of people that are winning in every, in your profession, in my profession. Think about a basketball player. It's like the best basketball players, they are working to improve their game every day, every month, every year. As soon as you think, oh, I'm the best. Nobody does that. Kobe, Michael.   (Alex Sonkin) (23:25.034) Everyone was constantly improving their game every offseason even though they were achieving they were the grace of the world So when you see a CPA going, I already know everything. I'm not humble run for the hills You're in big trouble   Right, right. So I mean, I can see where this is. This could actually just change everything, right? I mean, it can change. Like if you get enough CPAs on this network and it's kind of the authority, the accepted way that things are done, it could really just change, you know, set the bar, right? So like, you know, where do you see the CPA firm or the future going? What does it look   Yeah, you know, we started out as the virtual family office hub. We're still the virtual family office hub. What we do is the due diligence project. So we've had a vision, you know, more than 15 years ago where the CPA firm of future, the CPA firm of today is no longer just a CPA firm, right? They're not just an accounting firm looking backwards. What does a CPA firm mean now? They're a proactive looking firm. So they're really   providing advisory services. They're bringing ideas to the table. That is not what accountants traditionally do. So right away, the CPA firm of the future in our world is a virtual family office led not by a money manager or an attorney or a financial advisor. It's led by a tax advisor who really has a tremendous amount of experience with audits, with tax court, with income tax planning.   that's plugged into this community. really let's build Wall Street underneath an elite tax advisor and let's give them vetted best in class peer reviewed resources for estate planning, money management, all the different resources underneath them. And let's make sure all these resources are trained to be part of a team that's led by the captain, which is the head of their family office. But in this case, it's a virtual family office because in our opinion,   (Alex Sonkin) (25:30.732) Like we said, the best people in the world don't necessarily want to be W-2 static living next to the family office or living next to the CPA firm that they support. These resources could be anywhere and everywhere. And it's like Lego pieces. Let's build out a custom build, a virtual family office with your favorite advisors, with your favorite CPA, plug them into due diligence project, and then maybe replace some of the resources with best in class peer reviewed.   I'm going to keep my estate planning attorney. I'm going to keep my CPA, but then let's build out the rest of my virtual family office with resources, specialists, specialized attorneys that my two estate planning attorney and my CPA need to help me do what I need to do and get from point A to point B.   Yeah, yeah, I love that. Let's let's unwind that a little bit. What what exactly is a family office? We have a lot of listeners that are, you know, high net worth individuals, wealthy, probably a high paying job of some sort. And, we still don't know what a family office is. Like, what is a family office? We hear about it all the time. People talk about it. You know, what is it? Is it just, you know, the Trumps and the Bidens that have them or what?   Well, look, when we first started doing this, we had to educate everyone. What is a family office? And there's still people that don't know what a family office is, and that's okay. So traditionally, what a family office is, is when a family or a business owner sells their business, and now they have a big pile of money instead of running their business where they don't need CFOs and C-level executives and marketing people. Now they have a big pile of money. Maybe they're building a real estate portfolio, private equity, various investments.   They, instead of having to make 17 phone calls, hey, I'm gonna call my CPA, I'm gonna call my attorney, I'm gonna call my advisors, they make one phone call to the head of their family office and their family office is gonna house their entire financial team. So their CPAs, their attorneys, their advisors are all part of a family office and there's usually a CEO of that family office.   (Alex Sonkin) (27:36.814) So that structure traditionally can cost anywhere from $250,000 a year up to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000,000 a year if you're dealing with very high net worth billionaires. our idea was to rebuild that structure and make it a virtual family office instead of a single family office or a multi-family office with everyone working W2 in a static place, was let's create a virtual family office environment where we can have a world-class tax attorney support   multiple virtual family offices led by CPAs around the country. And based on what their clients want and need, they may not need a full $250,000 or a million dollar yearly cost. Maybe they can have a family office with $50,000 worth of yearly expenses and they just need, you know, two, three advisors, six meetings a year, get their hands around what you're doing.   And they don't need check writing. They don't need a lot of these other services that maybe a ultra high net worth family needs where they just want to make one phone call instead of 17 phone calls and say, take care of this for me. In the virtual family office model, it's the same one phone call, except now the team underneath that person that's getting the call are vetted best in class peer reviewed resources who might be all around the world who will all get together on a virtual meeting.   to support the client when the client has, hey, I have a liquidity event or I have a tax event or I want to update my plan. Hey, let's bring the team together and let's look at all the moving parts and let's rebuild your plan. But now we're going to take advice and ideas from the smartest people in the world. We're all working together as part of a team.   Got it. Yeah. the virtual family office, makes it seem like that it offers wealth management, the best wealth management, more, it makes it more accessible to more people, right? Like not just billionaires, but maybe lower than that, right? Like maybe we've got $10 million or something like that and we can still get the best of the best.   (Alex Sonkin) (29:42.068) Exactly. And so our idea was, you know, you have these people who are worth $50 million and they can't afford a family office, but they want to, you know, the $50 million, they want to live life too. They want to be able to go play tennis. They want to give time to their synagogue, their churches. They want to do something else besides actually running their own, you know, basically overseeing their $50 million portfolio, which is a full-time job. the problem is they're not qualified to be doing that work.   Yet can they identify investments that they like? Sure. Can they identify the best planning around those investments? They're not schooled in that. So they really should not be involved in their family office. should identify a tax-focused CPA, have them build out a virtual family office for them. And then now they have the benefit of making one phone call instead of 17, which saves them lot of time. And they can now trust the fact that they have best-in-class peer-reviewed resources to give them the very, very best ideas.   So now what happens? Their confidence level goes up. So their time and planning goes down, confidence level goes up, the quality of the solutions goes up, and they're all of a sudden out, they can create a lot more wealth by doing world-class planning because we're seeing a lot of wealth just go away to state and federal governments and unnecessary taxes simply because the team does not know and has not completed their due diligence on all the possibilities.   That's we want.   Yeah, that's incredible, Alex. You know, I want to have you back on the show to maybe get into some of the more of nitty gritty stuff, right? Like what are some of these tax strategies that we might not know about or we might not hear about every single day because we tend to hear about the same ones over and over. And you've probably seen some pretty exotic ones, some very specific ones that people have never even heard of. But, you know, we're running out of time today. But, man, I would love to have a whole episode just kind of based on that.   (Seth Bradley) (31:40.91) But before we jump into the freedom four, you have one last gold nugget for our listeners.   Yeah, you know, just work hard, write your goals down, read your goals and update your goals. You know, there's a magic formula of being able to just writing down your goals, looking at your goals and just updating your goals. Be grateful. I know you get a probably get a lot of people just with gratitude and hard work and all that stuff. writing down your goals is something that very few people do. And of the people that write their goals down, a very high percentage of those people actually achieve those goals. So   simple way of getting successful and I do it and I recommend that little idea to every one of my friends and family.   Yeah, absolutely. you know, I think people sometimes they get caught up in, you know, the the mental stuff, they don't want to jump into that. But goal setting is more of a tangible thing. And all those things you hear about, like whether that's a vision board or affirmations or visualizations or setting goals, like it's all kind of the same, right? It's just even if it's like,   I want to update my tax planning. I want to have a better tax planning team. know, write that down. And every day you look down at all your goals and make them balanced. You know, some of it is they'd give back to the community, have strong relationships with my family members or have no relationships with certain families. I don't know, you know, what the goals are. But balanced goals where you're constantly reviewing those goals and then you're updating those goals. And every day you do something to take a step.   (Alex Sonkin) (33:15.278) towards achieving those goals. Those are little things. It's not a huge deal, but when you do that over time, there's a compound effect to it that is incredible that people just can't appreciate. It's been said, we think we can do a lot more than we do in a year, but we don't realize how much we can do in a five or 10 year period. It's incredible.   much we can do in a five or ten year period if we're just consistent every day for that period of   Absolutely, you get some momentum going over time. All right, let's jump into the Freedom 4. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?   I do strength training six days a week and I actually prefer using a rubber band training. This X3 bar program that's out there. There's a bunch of different competitors now, but it's like a 20, 30 minute training.   Nice, nice. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?   (Alex Sonkin) (34:18.968) Great question. You know, I think everyone experiences fears, fear of failure in different areas. And I think you have to attack your fear of failure. Whatever you're scared of, whatever's on your radar that's popping up as a fear, you have to literally identify it and attack it and just prove to yourself that you're really not scared of it.   Love that. What's one actual step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?   They can take action. Action is the key. The real problem is people just sit around, they get in front of themselves. They're too much thinking, too much analysis. What I've seen is people who have achieved incredible, let's just say business success, those people weren't smart enough to know.   that how hard that business was actually going to be to build. They were actually not, if they were smarter, they would have never done the business because they were like, the odds of me actually achieving this business and creating it are so small. I'm just better off not doing it. They weren't that smart. So they just went ahead and jumped into it. And so what I found is just taking massive, massive action. Even if it's a failure, that massive action creates a pattern because it's going to   Success is going to require massive action. And when you have a pattern and know this is going to take massive action and it's okay if it doesn't work out, I'm going to go for it anyway. I'm just going to assume it does work out. So being positive, massive action. If it fails, boom, you learn something and you go do something else and you just keep taking massive action.   (Seth Bradley) (36:10.402) Perfect. Last but not least, how's passive income or entrepreneurship made your life better?   You know, I've been very blessed. 20 years ago, I came up with an idea based on a diet that cured cancer for my aunt, my mother-in-law. And I suggested to my wife and my mother-in-law that they start selling my mother-in-law's cookies that were based on a diet that cured cancer for my mother-in-law. And so now today, we have a company called Go Macro, MacroMars, that my wife and my mother-in-law built based on an entrepreneurial idea that   you know, that I had over 20 years ago. And as soon as we had a little bit of success in the beginning, I knew this was bigger and better than we had even thought of. And I just continually supported my wife and really just in every way I could to watch this opportunity grow. So to me, that's been my my passive, even though, you know, I'm married to this business owner, you know, supporting her and watching this idea grow and flourish into a really   Successful health food company called comacro where we sell these macro bars. They're super delicious   Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's passive for you, maybe not quite as passive for her. I have the same issue with the gyms. You know, they make really good money and it's passive for me, but my wife is running those things, so no.   (Alex Sonkin) (37:31.174) Exactly, well you know she's had to be there to support you so yeah so for her it's passive and it's a great story for her and it's a great successful story for you as well. know how hard it is to build.   Yeah, awesome Alex. The list has been incredible, man. We're gonna let you find out more about you.   DoDiligenceProject.com or info at DoDiligenceProject.com. You can introduce your CPA to us or you can reach out to us if you hate your CPA and want us to recommend a great CPA for you that's already plugged into our...   Easy enough, man, easy enough. All right, brother, thanks for coming on the show.   Seth, it's been my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.   (Seth Bradley) (38:09.986) Absolutely.   (Seth Bradley) (38:13.944) Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey.   Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links: Seth Bradley's Links: https://x.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/ https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en   Alex Sonkin's Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsonkin/ https://encoursa.com/presenters/alex-sonkin https://www.facebook.com/asonkin/

School safety is not waiting for permission, it's urgent. In this episode of School Business Insider, John Brucato talks with Frank Guglieri, Director of Regional Safety Services at PNW BOCES, about rapid, real-world responses to recent crises like the Minneapolis school mass shooting and corrective action in cases of credible internal threats.They unpack what happens when crisis hits, what gaps become painfully clear, and how school business officials, operations leaders, CFOs, and SBOs can lead preparation and response. You'll walk away with actionable insights for strengthening alert systems, communications, interdepartmental drills, and districtwide readiness.Check out the Prevention, Preparedness, Partnerships and Pathways ForwardSchool Safety Benchmarks 2025-2026 here!Contact School Business Insider: Check us out on social media: LinkedIn Twitter (X) Website: https://asbointl.org/SBI Email: podcast@asbointl.org Make sure to like, subscribe and share for more great insider episodes!Disclaimer:The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the Association of School Business Officials International. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. The "ASBO International" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service. The presence of any advertising does not endorse, or imply endorsement of, any products or services by ASBO International.ASBO International is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan organization and does not participate or intervene in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for elective public office. The sharing of news or information concerning public policy issues or political campaigns and candidates are not, and should not be construed as, endorsements by ASBO Internatio...

In this episode of the Millionaire Mindcast, Matty A. welcomes Ellen Wood, founder and CEO of VCFO, who pioneered the fractional CFO model and has supported more than 6,000 companies through growth and exit planning.Ellen shares her journey in building VCFO, the inspiration behind trademarking “virtual CFO,” and why more businesses are turning to fractional financial leadership. From the power of the V360 Assessment to the critical role of accountability and culture, Ellen outlines the strategies that differentiate businesses that scale successfully from those that stall.She also dives into common exit planning mistakes, the importance of preparation years in advance, and her perspective on the future of fractional CFO services as AI and private equity reshape the office of the CFO.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The origins of VCFO and the rise of fractional CFO servicesHow the V360 Assessment identifies risks and opportunitiesWhy accountability and culture are key drivers of valueThe biggest mistakes business owners make before an exitStrategies to scale successfully and retain top talentHow AI and private equity are transforming finance functionsEllen's personal lessons and advice to entrepreneursTimestamps: 01:00 – Ellen Wood's background and founding VCFO 03:30 – Building the fractional CFO model 07:00 – Expanding into HR and operational support 11:45 – Using V360 to prepare for growth and exit 17:30 – Culture and accountability as hidden value drivers 21:30 – Exit preparation: what most founders get wrong 25:45 – Scaling vs. stalling businesses 29:00 – The future of fractional CFO services 32:00 – Advice to her younger entrepreneurial selfConnect with Ellen Wood: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenewood/Episode Sponsored By:Discover Financial Millionaire Mindcast Shop: Buy the Rich Life Planner and Get the Wealth-Building Bundle for FREE! Visit: https://shop.millionairemindcast.com/CRE MASTERMIND: Visit myfirst50k.com and submit your application to join!FREE CRE Crash Course: Text “FREE” to 844-447-1555FREE Financial X-Ray: Text  "XRAY" to 844-447-1555

This week Kyle Samani joins the show to discuss the successful $1.65B raise for Forward Industries. We deep dive into how Forward Industries plan to converge between traditional markets & DeFi, the ultimate vision for the Solana treasury company, the difference between SOL & BTC DATs & why stablecoins are crypto's iPhone moment. Enjoy! Although our guest this week is an Investment Partner of a registered investment adviser, nothing in this podcast should be considered an offer of Multicoin's investment advisory services or should otherwise be confused for investment, tax, legal or other financial advice.--Follow Kyle: https://x.com/KyleSamaniFollow Jason: https://x.com/JasonYanowitzFollow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod--Join the Empire Telegram: https://t.me/+CaCYvTOB4Eg1OWJhStart your day with crypto news, analysis and data from David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts--Welcome to Get Real — Web3's first-ever campaign rewarding you for creating real-world value. Connect your devices to real-world apps on peaq and earn rewards for: Measuring noise pollution Providing compute Mapping the word And more Total prize pool: 5% of $PEAQ's initial supply. Get Real is relaunching soon — follow peaq on X and get ready.--Is your treasury losing value to inflation? Learn how to make digital assets like ETH and SOL productive with uncorrelated, protocol-driven staking rewards. A new report from Liquid Collective and EigenCloud outlines a practical guide for CFOs to integrate institutional-grade staking and restaking. Read The Productive Treasury Report: https://liquidcollective.io/corporate-treasury-staking/--Timestamps: --Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

In this must-watch episode of Holistic Investments, host Constantin Kogan sits down with crypto veteran David J. Namdar, CEO of BNB Network Company! With over 10 years in the game, David shares his wild journey: from pitching Bitcoin to Millennium hedge fund in 2013 (and getting rejected for lacking shorts!), co-founding Galaxy Digital with Mike Novogratz during the 2017 bull run, launching the 2nd Bitcoin ETF attempt (right after the Winklevoss twins), and now leading the charge in digital asset treasuries as CEO of BNB Network Company (NASDAQ: BNC).Why BNB? David breaks down why BNB is the "digital equity infrastructure" powering Binance's 290M users and 40% of global crypto trading volume – outpacing Coinbase's market share 8x! Backed by CZ's Easy Labs (largest investor) and Tangem Capital, CA Industries holds the biggest BNB treasury on the planet. Learn how this MicroStrategy-inspired strategy (but for BNB) could 10x your exposure without direct access to Binance in the US. David predicts BNB surpassing XRP by end of 2025 – and why tokenized stocks, 24/7 markets, and AI agents will supercharge BNB Chain over Ethereum.Key Highlights:

In today's episode of the Second in Command podcast, Cameron discusses one of the most critical hires a business can make, a role that directly impacts leadership alignment, financial clarity, and long-term success: the Chief Financial Officer or CFO.The conversation highlights how small red flags during the hiring process, such as scheduling mishaps or lack of accountability, can be early indicators of deeper issues that shouldn't be ignored. You'll learn why asking tough, direct questions in interviews can uncover whether a candidate truly embodies the ownership and resilience needed for high-stakes leadership.Discover the relationship between this leadership role and the CEO, emphasizing the importance of trust, transparency, and mutual respect. Since not every CEO has the technical expertise to fully evaluate the position, Cameron shows how leaning on outside advisors or experienced professionals can provide the necessary insight to set clear expectations and define success from the outset. This ensures that both sides are aligned on responsibilities and performance measures.This episode offers practical guidance for any company seeking to strengthen its executive team and navigate the complexities of making the right leadership decision. Before you hire your next CFO, hear Cameron's insider strategies for defining the role and setting clear expectations.If you've enjoyed this episode of the Second in Command podcast, be sure to leave a review and subscribe today!Enjoy!In This Episode You'll Learn:The nuances of hiring a CFO, including addressing red flags and setting clear expectations. The importance of outside experts like fractional CFOs or accounting firms in defining roles and setting new CFOs up for success. The role of outside experts in guiding a new CFO and ensuring they meet the company's needs.The value of having a fractional CFO participate in the interview process to assess the candidate's skills. And much more...Resources:Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedInGet Cameron's latest book – "Second in Command: Unleash the Power of Your COO"Get Cameron's online course – Invest In Your LeadersConnect with Cameron on DephiDisclaimer:The views, information, or opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of The Second in Command podcast or its affiliates. The content provided is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this podcast and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. Listeners should consult with a professional for specific advice tailored to their situation. By accessing this podcast, you acknowledge that any reliance on the content is at your own risk.