GrowCFO Show

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/38fJP7clsDYlUsNT51JxH5

In today’s finance landscape, corporate reporting is undergoing one of the most profound shifts in decades. Boards, investors, regulators, and lenders are no longer satisfied with backward‑looking financial statements alone; they expect CFOs to explain how evolving risks, regulation, and stakeholder expectations will shape business models, capital allocation, and long-term resilience. For finance leaders, this is no longer a peripheral compliance task but a core strategic responsibility that will increasingly determine market credibility and access to capital.

In this GrowCFO Show episode, host Kevin Appleby speaks with returning guest Paula Kensington, GrowCFO Mentor, about what she describes as a “once in 100‑year change” in corporate reporting and why CFOs must act now rather than treat it as a box‑ticking exercise. The conversation explores the new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) climate and sustainability standards (S1 and S2), their adoption in markets such as Australia and across Asia, and the phased implementation by entity size that is rapidly pulling mid‑market businesses into scope.

The episode reframes so‑called “climate reporting” as a strategic exercise in business resilience, not a peripheral ESG disclosure. Paula explains how climate‑related risks and opportunities will increasingly drive strategy, governance, risk management, and metrics—and why these new disclosures may, over time, become more important to investors than traditional backward‑looking financial statements. She highlights the emerging regulatory expectations, the evolving role of assurance and audit, and the personal liability implications for directors and CFOs who underinvest or delay, emphasizing that the apparent savings from aiming for “minimum compliance” today may be dwarfed by future costs once standards, regulator expectations, and market scrutiny have fully matured.

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Key topics covered:

Paula positions the new ISSB climate standards (S1 and S2) as a once-in-a-century shift in corporate reporting that many CFOs are still underestimating.

She explains the phased roll-out by company size, showing how mid‑market organizations (Group 2 and Group 3) are quickly becoming subject to these requirements and cannot rely on being “too small” to be affected.

The discussion reframes climate reporting as forward‑looking resilience analysis, where climate scenarios and risks inform strategy and may ultimately become more critical to stakeholders than traditional P&L and balance sheet statements.

Paula distinguishes between physical risks (e.g., assets and warehouses threatened by climate events) and transition risks (e.g., changing policies, markets, and customer expectations making existing products or models obsolete).

She outlines how governance, risk registers, and board oversight must evolve so climate risks and opportunities actively drive decision‑making rather than sit as a static compliance document.

The episode stresses that aiming for minimum viable compliance is a high‑risk strategy in light of director liability, potential fines, and increasing regulator and investor focus on the quality and consistency of climate disclosures.

Links

Paula Kensington on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:00–02:30 – Introduction to Paula and framing of the topic as a major, under-appreciated change in corporate reporting.

02:30–04:30 – Explanation of Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 entities and why mid‑market CFOs are now “on the hook.”

04:30–07:30 – Reframing climate reporting as business resilience rather than ESG box‑ticking; climate disclosures as potential primary statements.

09:17–11:19 – Deep dive into physical vs transition risks with practical examples (warehouses, energy, low‑cost apparel).

15:19–18:38 – How assurance and audit standards are evolving, and why investors will focus on climate‑driven risks and opportunities more than last year’s earnings.

19:47–21:25 – The four pillars of ISSB (governance, risks and opportunities, metrics and targets, strategy) and their implications for how strategy is set.

22:11–23:33 – Discussion on the risk register as a living, strategic tool rather than a periodic governance formality.

28:22–31:40 – Why only ~20% of CFOs are taking this seriously; dangers of focusing solely on AI and cyber while underplaying climate risk.

33:28–34:51 – Regulator expectations, linkage between prior risk disclosures and current climate scenarios, and potential fines and director liability.

35:09–36:54 – Global implications, including differences in US regulation and why international supply chains will still force adoption.

Find out more about GrowCFO

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode.

GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/6raW3lf3gJuwTrYNbdkf0F

Too many organisations are pouring time and money into AI only to find that the promised efficiency gains and cost savings never materialise, leaving CFOs struggling to justify the investment. Understanding why most AI projects fail to deliver ROI, and what finance leaders can do differently, is now a critical skill for anyone responsible for steering strategy, systems, and spend.

In this GrowCFO Show episode, host Kevin Appleby sits down with Sinohe Terrero, CFO and COO of Envoy, to explore why so many AI initiatives fall short and how finance leaders can change the outcome. Drawing on his experience as a serial startup CFO and operator in high-growth tech companies, Sinohe reframes AI as a practical toolkit for augmentation, task automation, and application development, and explains how confusion between these use cases leads to poor deployment and weak returns.

Throughout the conversation, Sinohe shares real examples from Envoy’s finance function, from AI-powered reconciliations and automated interview workflows to custom dashboards that bring data together in one place. He also dives into AI governance, describing the AI council he leads and the data policies that allow innovation while protecting sensitive information, ultimately positioning the CFO as a hands-on AI leader focused on both value creation and risk management.

Key topics covered:

Companies misunderstand what AI can do, deploy it inappropriately (e.g., trying to “fully automate everything”), and often lack in-house application developers who can tailor solutions to their actual workflows.

Sinohe breaks AI use into augmentation, task automation, and application development, arguing that most ROI today comes from targeted task automation and small, purpose-built tools, not sweeping end-to-end automation projects.

Envoy’s finance team used AI to automate health insurance and other reconciliations, identifying about $40,000 in recoveries and turning tedious, quarterly work into a largely automated process.

Sinohe personally builds AI-powered applications to reconcile accounts, summarize emails and Slack, prep and debrief interviews, and create a “morning coffee” dashboard that consolidates operational and financial insights into a single pane of glass.

As head of Envoy’s AI council, Sinohe has helped design a data governance matrix that clarifies what data can be used in which tools, allowing experimentation and creativity while strictly protecting company and customer data.

Sinohe is bullish on increased data accessibility (e.g., via banks and platforms like Salesforce) and predicts a shift toward custom, CFO‑designed dashboards and tools, with legacy point solutions being displaced by in‑house applications that do exactly what the business needs.

Links

Sinohe Terrero on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

0:01:36 – Sinohe explains Envoy as a workplace technology platform focused on managing physical spaces (visitor check-in, security, emergency notifications, desk allocation) with 6,000+ global customers and around 250 employees.

0:03:35 – He shares how timing, a tight investor story, and demonstrating strong cash flow and operational discipline were critical to a successful Series C raise during a turbulent market.

0:04:47 – Sinohe lays out the core reasons AI fails in many organizations and introduces his three-part framework: augmentation, task automation, and application development.

0:07:11 – He describes teaching himself to build AI-powered applications, including an asset-account reconciliation tool that cut a two-hour monthly process down to about two minutes.

0:12:21 – Using tools like Scribe to document workflows, Envoy’s finance team identifies automation candidates; a payroll-led AI skill for health insurance reconciliations surfaced roughly $40,000 owed to the company.

0:17:53 – Sinohe explains Envoy’s AI council, clear AI policies, and a data governance matrix that defines what data can be used where, enabling safe experimentation at scale.

0:21:17 – He details his personal AI setup: automated interview briefing/debriefing via Granola + Claude, daily digests of emails/Slack/meetings, and automated summaries of operational metrics and customer activity.

0:24:58 – Sinohe predicts job disruption in large teams (e.g., 100 accountants potentially shrinking to 60) but sees smaller teams using AI to focus on higher-value, advisory work rather than basic reconciliations.

0:26:30 – He describes replacing tools like Flowcast, Asana/Monday, and other SaaS products with custom AI-enabled applications that do 75% of what generic tools do—but 100% of what Envoy actually needs.

0:33:36 – Sinohe forecasts greater bank and platform data accessibility, more automated reconciliations, and a shift that frees CFOs from operational drudgery so they can focus on higher‑value strategic work.

Find out more about GrowCFO

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode.

GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rFlxuL66fW6AAkx6MShdM

For first-time CFOs, board leadership is not merely a governance checkpoint; it is the arena where strategy, risk, and capital allocation converge. The board is the highest‑stakes audience, setting direction, probing assumptions, and expecting crisp narratives grounded in data and judgment. Mastering board dynamics early enables a new CFO to accelerate trust, shape decisions before they harden, and navigate uncertainty with confidence. From scenario planning and accountability to stakeholder alignment and strategic storytelling, board fluency becomes the multiplier that elevates a CFO from competent operator to indispensable strategic partner.

In this episode, Michael Anderson, a GrowCFO Mentor, traces a varied finance leadership journey that began at KPMG in Silicon Valley and evolved through operating roles in tech, biotech, media, and international logistics. He reflects on the pivotal shift from compliance to value creation, sharing how exposure to IPOs, M&A, and complex post-acquisition integrations at Getty Images sharpened his instincts around urgency, risk, and decision-making with imperfect information. Anderson underscores that the best finance leaders pair technical acumen with character, curiosity, and the courage to have difficult conversations early.

Anderson emphasizes understanding business processes before technology decisions, scenario planning to navigate uncertainty, and the importance of mentorship to build clarity, confidence, and conviction. He illustrates how board effectiveness grows when CFOs bring structured thinking, stakeholder empathy, and strategic storytelling, and he connects leadership depth to personal experiences, including lessons learned as a parent, that inform how he supports CEOs and boards in high-stakes contexts.

Key topics covered:

Why the AI skills gap is now a core strategic issue for finance leaders.

Guy’s journey from chartered accountant and VC to AI trainer for finance teams.

The essential foundational skills: prompting, architecture, and context management.

How AI is creating new roles and responsibilities instead of simply removing jobs.

Managing AI cost, tokens, and model choice like any other major operating expense.

The danger of AI-built financial models without proper financial modeling discipline.

Links

Michael Anderson on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:03 — Transition from KPMG to tech; push beyond compliance into value creation

00:07 — Getty Images lessons: urgency, risk, and integrating acquisitions effectively

00:15 — Cross-industry perspective: biotech and logistics shaping CFO judgment

00:21 — Mentorship frameworks for leadership clarity and confidence

00:24 — Financing story: aligning with lender strategy to expand credit

00:39 — Supporting CEOs in board contexts; priorities for first-time CFOs

Find out more about GrowCFO

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode.

GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/3kw8uHSos6XKFrZncc2CEa

Artificial intelligence is transforming the finance function, but most finance teams are still missing the skills to use it confidently, safely, and at scale. The real competitive advantage now lies in how quickly finance leaders can close this AI capability gap across their teams. 

In this episode, GrowCFO host Kevin Appleby is joined by GrowCFO Facilitator and AI training specialist Guy Weaver to unpack the AI skills gap that is rapidly emerging across finance teams. As AI tools move from experiment to everyday infrastructure, finance leaders face a stark choice: either build the skills to harness these tools strategically or risk falling behind competitors who do. AI is presented not as a “nice to have” experiment, but as a core capability that will shape productivity, decision quality, and the operating model of modern finance functions. 

Guy shares his journey from chartered accountant and venture capital portfolio director to AI practitioner and trainer, showing how a period on gardening leave became a deep dive into tools, agents, automations, and real-world business use cases. He explains that the real differentiator is no longer access to platforms like Copilot, Claude, or ChatGPT, but the human skills to design prompts, architect workflows, manage context files, and control costs at scale. Rather than eliminating finance jobs, AI is creating new responsibilities around context management, token and cost optimization, and continuous model evaluation—and finance leaders who invest early in mindset shifts, foundational skills, and disciplined experimentation will unlock both efficiency gains and new strategic opportunities that slower adopters will miss.

Key topics covered:

Why the AI skills gap is now a core strategic issue for finance leaders.

Guy’s journey from chartered accountant and VC to AI trainer for finance teams.

The essential foundational skills: prompting, architecture, and context management.

How AI is creating new roles and responsibilities instead of simply removing jobs.

Managing AI cost, tokens, and model choice like any other major operating expense.

The danger of AI-built financial models without proper financial modeling discipline.

Links

Guy Weaver on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:00–05:00 – Why AI skills matter for finance leaders and how Guy’s career led him into AI training. 

05:00–12:00 – From “AI will take our jobs” to new responsibilities around AI, context, and automation. 

12:00–18:00 – Prompting, architecture, treating AI like an employee, and managing context files. 

18:00–24:00 – Who owns context files, how they’re maintained, and the implications for CFOs and COOs. 

24:00–29:00 – Rising AI costs, token limits, and the need to optimize AI usage across the finance function. 

29:00–34:00 – What Guy sees in finance training sessions and how teams can keep up as tools evolve.

Find out more about GrowCFO

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode.

GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/3cW4LImOlr2eDc6opOmyPp

Going public is often seen as the ultimate milestone for a successful business, yet for many great companies it marks the beginning of decline rather than a new chapter of sustainable growth. In this episode of The Grow CFO Show, host Kevin Appleby sits down with Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, to explore why so many mission-driven, high-performing companies lose their way after an IPO – and what CFOs and boards can do differently to prevent this fate. The conversation frames governance not as a legal box-ticking exercise, but as a strategic discipline that protects long‑term value, mission, and trust.

Through vivid case studies – from Saul Price and the origins of Costco, to Novo Nordisk and its foundation structure, to Johnson & Johnson’s Credo – Eric shows how governance choices can either entrench short‑term shareholder primacy or build what he calls a “governance fortress” that shields companies from destructive external pressures. He argues that CFOs are uniquely placed to champion this new governance, redefine profit around human flourishing, and ensure the organization can’t make money except by achieving its mission. The result is a powerful toolkit for finance leaders who want to keep their companies “incorruptible” long after they hit the public markets.

About Eric Ries

Over the last two decades, Eric Ries’s ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method, and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup; The Leader’s Guide; and The Startup Way. 

As a founder, he has put his own ideas into practice with The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU. On The Eric Ries Show, he talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives building for the long-term. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.

Key topics covered:

Why good companies lose control and drift after going public.

FedMart and Costco: how governance protects long‑term value.

“Governance fortress” structures that resist short‑term investor pressure.

Novo Nordisk: mission‑driven governance leading to massive value creation.

Why most M&A destroys value and how CFOs should filter deals.

Redefining profit around human flourishing and the CFO’s new role.

Links

Eric Ries on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

0:00 – 1:42 — Why great companies lose their way post‑IPO.

1:42 – 4:27 — FedMart: investor pressure kills a great business.

4:27 – 7:30 — Costco and the “governance fortress” idea.

10:39 – 14:39 — The CFO as guardian of mission and structure.

15:21 – 20:19 — Novo Nordisk: foundation ownership and GLP‑1 success.

21:35 – 22:27 — Why many acquisitions are value‑destroying.

22:59 – 27:53 — J&J’s Credo vs reality: mission statements aren’t enough.

28:08 – 32:06 — Rethinking profit as human flourishing.

33:47 – 34:48 — Incorruptible as the essential book for CFOs.

Find out more about GrowCFO

If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode.

GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net