GrowCFO Show

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/2TUU4Nmtl7w7NGfAz2nzdf

A product’s strong gross margin does not always translate into strong profit. When support, sales, customer service, and other indirect costs are left out of product-level analysis, a high-margin product can consume more resources than it generates. In this episode, Pauline Healey explains why businesses need to look beyond headline margins to understand the true cost of serving each product and customer.

Pauline Healey, founder of Logical BI, discusses how her fractional CFO work combines finance with operational, supply-chain, and inventory expertise, particularly for manufacturing and engineering businesses. She explains that reliable cash-flow forecasting must account for the full operating cycle—from purchasing stock and managing production to delivery and customer payment.

The conversation explores how businesses can improve profitability by investigating operational waste, checking that completed work is invoiced, and examining product costs more closely. Pauline and Kevin discuss how a product with an apparently attractive margin may still reduce overall profit if it drives unallocated costs such as customer support and additional sales effort. They also cover business systems, data consistency, and Pauline’s use of AI and her Profit Harmony Hub membership platform.

Key topics covered:

Pauline’s background in corporate finance and operations led her to build Logical BI around fractional CFO support for manufacturing and engineering businesses.

Supply-chain complexity affects cash flow: forecasts need to account for inventory, supplier payments, production, delivery, and customer payment timing.

Businesses should assess whether existing systems and plug-ins can meet their needs before making a costly move to an ERP system.

A single source of truth helps teams avoid conflicting figures and focus on business decisions rather than reconciling inconsistent data.

Looking for shop-floor waste and process gaps can uncover profit improvements; Pauline described a process loophole that left around £30,000 of completed work uninvoiced.

Product profitability analysis should include indirect costs: a high-margin product may reduce overall profit if it requires substantial support, customer service, or sales resources.

Links

Pauline Healey on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:01 — Kevin introduces Pauline Healey and Logical BI.

04:07 — Pauline describes Logical BI’s focus on manufacturing and engineering, and its broader operational support.

06:13 — The discussion turns to supply-chain complexity and its effects on cash flow.

16:29 — Pauline discusses evaluating existing systems and reducing reliance on disconnected spreadsheets.

24:14 — Kevin and Pauline discuss finding waste and improving processes rather than defaulting to overhead cuts.

25:00–26:42 — Pauline describes a missed-invoicing process gap and explains the revenue impact of unbilled work.

28:15–30:42 — They explore how hidden support costs can make a seemingly high-margin product less profitable overall.

31:00 — Pauline shares her perspective on AI use in business and finance.

35:11 — Pauline introduces Profit Harmony Hub, her membership platform for business and finance insights.

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/3ZNZMVgTlQPe0bhhozHSRb

For fifteen years the software P&L was a settled question: hosting was a rounding error, gross margins held above 80%, and investors underwrote growth against a predictable annuity stream. That assumption is breaking. AI and cloud infrastructure has become one of the largest and least predictable costs on the P&L, moving faster than most finance teams have built the vocabulary or forecasting discipline to handle it. Ed Barrow, Founder and CEO of Cloud Capital, joins Kevin Appleby to unpack research with 100 growth-stage CFOs: 96% blew through their AI budget last year, with overruns driven more by compute and storage than by model costs, and the average software company now spends 15–20% of revenue on compute and AI,  a fourfold jump, while over half of AI-native companies exceed 30%.

Barrow draws a distinction many finance teams miss: workforce AI scales with headcount and belongs in OPEX, while product AI scales with customer usage and belongs in COGS. Getting that split wrong distorts unit economics badly — he has seen entire cloud bills dumped into gross margin, and entire model bills buried in R&D.

He also warns against betting on falling token prices: consumption has outrun per-unit declines, and providers will pivot to profitability much as Uber did. With roughly $800 billion of debt-financed data centre buildout this year, the market will shift from pay-as-you-go to committed multi-year contracts. His prescription: befriend engineering, learn the language of tokens and model selection, and act as a chief investment officer who sets guardrails before the bill arrives.

Key topics covered:

96% of CFOs exceeded their AI budget last year, and the overruns were driven more by compute and data storage than by model and token costs, a blind spot for teams focused solely on token spend

AI spend has reached 15–20% of revenue for the average software company, up fourfold in months, with over half of AI-native companies above 30%, a fundamentally different business model from the 80%-margin SaaS playbook investors built their assumptions on

Workforce AI belongs in OPEX and product AI belongs in COGS, and misallocating between them distorts gross margin in either direction, particularly when tokens arrive through three or four billing routes at once, including hosted models inside AWS, Google Cloud and Azure invoices

Seat-based pricing breaks when costs scale with customer usage, creating the “token treadmill”, loyal, highly engaged customers accumulate data and context and become the least profitable cohort over time unless pricing is aligned to value and outcomes

Betting on falling token prices is a dangerous gamble, consumption growth has outrun per-unit price declines, and heavily funded model providers heading toward IPO will move from subsidised customer acquisition to profitable pricing, following the Uber trajectory

Debt-financed data centre buildouts will push the market from pay-as-you-go to committed contracts, handing CFOs material long-term liabilities to underwrite, with commitments often carrying 30–40% discounts but real balance sheet risk if utilisation falls short

Links

Ed Barrow on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:32 — From rounding error to runaway bill: how the cloud line item changed

03:32 — Workforce AI vs. product AI: the OPEX/COGS split that changes everything

13:15 — 96% of CFOs blew their AI budget — and compute, not tokens, was the culprit

18:18 — The token treadmill: why your most loyal customers become your least profitable

20:55 — The end of the 80% gross margin playbook, and the Uber analogy for token pricing

26:41 — $800bn of debt-financed data centres and the coming shift to committed contracts

30:53 — What to do tomorrow: befriend engineering and think like a chief investment officer

36:11 — Paying for tokens through four different channels, and the allocation trap

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/3iVbLkvEWH7j8zxvRzOsK6

Rapid advances in AI are transforming how finance teams forecast cash flow, detect fraud, and automate routine reporting, raising difficult questions about what happens to traditional roles when machines can achieve in minutes what once took analysts days. At the same time, many economies are grappling with skills shortages in some areas and structural unemployment in others, especially among younger professionals trying to break into the industry. Understanding whether new technologies are eliminating jobs, reshaping them, or creating entirely new categories of work has become a strategic imperative for anyone leading—or aspiring to lead—in the finance function.

Amid these shifts, Kevin Appleby is joined by Ademola Odewade, CEO of K-Dems Consulting Ltd., to examine the real impact of AI on employment in finance and whether the industry is drifting toward a full-blown jobs crisis. Drawing on Ademola’s background as a former Big 4 chartered accountant and CFO, and his new book Human Led AI Powered Finance, the discussion reframes AI from a perceived threat into a powerful enabler whose effects depend on how leaders choose to design teams, workflows, and controls.

Ademola introduces his ACCOUNT framework—Aim, Capability, Controls, Operating Workflows, Underlying Data, Numbers, and Trust—as a practical blueprint for adopting AI without losing the human judgment that underpins sound financial stewardship [episode302]. Rather than focusing solely on job losses, the conversation challenges finance leaders to rethink skills, data foundations, and governance so that automation handles the heavy lifting while people move into higher-value analytical, strategic, and advisory roles.

About Ademola Odewade

Ademola Odewade, MBA, ACA, BSc (Economics), is a finance leader, entrepreneur, author and podcast host with a background in Big Four advisory at PwC and KPMG. He is the Founder and CEO of K-Dems Consulting Ltd and CAIO at CreatrHub, where he contributes to the intersection of AI, innovation and the creator economy.

He is also the host of Diary Of A CFO and The King Dems Podcast, where he explores finance, leadership, AI and business growth with global executives and thought leaders.

A Chartered Accountant and MBA, Ademola’s work focuses on helping finance leaders and organisations move beyond traditional reporting towards more strategic, human-led and AI-powered decision-making. He is also the author of Human-Led, AI-Powered Finance, which examines how finance professionals can combine human judgement, leadership and emerging technology to create greater business impact.

Key topics covered:

Ademola explains the vision behind Human Led AI Powered Finance and why finance leaders must take a proactive stance on AI rather than wait for disruption to hit their teams.

The conversation tackles fears about a “jobs crisis” head-on, contrasting rising youth unemployment with the capacity of AI to automate routine work and free humans for higher-value activities.

Ademola lays out his ACCOUNT framework (Aim, Capability, Controls, Operating Workflows, Underlying Data, Numbers, Trust) as a practical blueprint for implementing AI responsibly in finance.

Kevin and Ademola explore how AI can enhance cash flow forecasting, anomaly detection, and decision support—while still requiring human oversight of assumptions and data quality.

They discuss AI’s role in strengthening fraud detection and controls, highlighting how AI can surface unusual transactions and support better segregation of duties.

The episode closes with clear guidance on measuring AI success through efficiency, accuracy, risk reduction, and, crucially, the level of trust business leaders place in AI outputs over time.

Links

Ademola Odewade on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

0:00:01 – Introduction to Ademola Odewade, his background in finance and digital technology, and the premise of Human Led AI Powered Finance

0:05:22 – Why early adopters in finance can gain a structural advantage from AI, and why the “AI will take all our jobs” narrative is overly simplistic

[0:15:33–0:15:56] – Direct discussion of whether AI is driving a jobs crisis in finance, with reference to UK youth unemployment and the need for re-skilling and training

0:16:18 – Deep dive into the ACCOUNT framework for structuring AI initiatives in finance teams

0:18:59 – Practical examples of AI in cash flow forecasting, including the importance of understanding assumptions, data quality, and anomaly detection

0:26:31 – How AI can enhance fraud detection and internal controls, and where human judgment must remain non-negotiable

0:32:54 – The critical role of documented processes and high-quality data in making AI implementations reliable and auditable

0:37:53 – Metrics and KPIs for AI success in finance—time savings, accuracy, variance reduction, and risk impacts—plus how to build executive trust in AI

0:41:45 – Wrap-up and details on the book’s availability, reinforcing why staying current on AI is now a core responsibility for finance leaders

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/2VMHWSc8joPjk5plFwizjr

High-achieving leaders often pride themselves on attention to detail, relentless drive, and demanding the best—from themselves and everyone around them. Yet the very qualities that fuel success can quietly erode team confidence, autonomy, and performance. When expectations become uncompromising, people stop taking initiative, avoid risks, and operate in fear of making mistakes. A critical leadership challenge is learning how to maintain excellence without creating pressure that stifles creativity, burns people out, or drives the best talent away—and how a few intentional shifts can turn high standards into a force for sustainable growth rather than harm.

In this GrowCFO Show episode, host Kevin Appleby is joined by Jeanné Els, GrowCFO Mentor and founder of coaching and facilitation practice Selah, to explore how high standards play out in real teams and real careers. Drawing on more than a decade in corporate finance and her work with high-performing professionals, Jeanné shares candid reflections on times when her own drive and perfectionism unintentionally created pressure and reduced ownership in her teams, and contrasts that with a more sustainable approach built on psychological safety, trust, and clear expectations. Together, Kevin and Jeanné connect these leadership lessons back to finance business partnering, showing how insight, storytelling, and curiosity can raise the bar while keeping both leaders and teams out of burnout.

Key topics covered:

Jeanné shares her journey from aspiring musician to chartered accountant and ultimately to coach and facilitator, illustrating how high performers often reinvent themselves when their old success patterns stop working

The discussion reframes finance business partnering as a storytelling and insight function, not just a reporting role, emphasizing the importance of communicating what really matters to stakeholders

Jeanné unpacks the concept of sustainable ambition, explaining how unchecked high standards can push leaders into overdrive, creating disconnects between who they are and how they show up at work

She explains how her own high standards once created pressure for her team, and how focusing on psychological safety, questions, and trust led to stronger, more autonomous performance

The episode explores imposter syndrome and the transition from technical expert to leader, highlighting why leaders must let go of needing all the answers and instead create space for their teams to learn and experiment

Jeanné outlines her vision for Selah as a community and support system for high-performing professionals who want to maintain ambition without sacrificing wellbeing or team health

Links

Jeanné Els on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:00 – Kevin introduces Jeanné Els, her background in corporate finance, and sets up the importance of examining how high standards shape leadership and team dynamics

03:20 – Discussion of finance business partnering as moving beyond historic reporting into insights, communication, and influencing decisions—not just “being right” with the numbers

13:11 – Jeanné reflects on lessons she wishes she’d known earlier, including how relentless standards and over-responsibility can backfire on both career and team

13:27 – Jeanné explains the story behind Selah, her focus on sustainable ambition, and the need for safe spaces to step back and reflect on how you’re leading and living

20:47 – Deep dive into psychological safety, trusting your team, and treating mistakes as learning opportunities instead of evidence of falling below impossible standards

32:06 – Jeanné shares her vision for expanding Selah and building communities where driven professionals can maintain high standards without burning themselves or their teams out

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/1fQvZ06RhWiGAaCPATzx08

In today’s finance function, the question is no longer whether AI will have an impact, but whether it will fundamentally change team size and structure. This landmark 300th episode of The GrowCFO Show asks directly: will AI actually reduce finance team headcount, and how should CFOs prepare? Dan Wells, Founder & CEO of GrowCFO, examines how automation, machine learning, and generative AI are reshaping core finance activities—from reporting and month-end close to forecasting and transactional processing—and what that means for resource planning, role design, and long-term capability building.

Dan sets out a pragmatic framework for separating hype from reality. He considers which finance activities are most automatable, where AI is likely to create capacity rather than eliminate roles, and how leading CFOs are using that capacity—whether to cut cost, reinvest in analysis and business partnering, or build new capabilities altogether. Listeners come away with a structured way to think about headcount, role design, and capability building in an AI-enabled finance function, along with practical next steps they can apply in their own teams.

Key topics covered:

Why the question “Will AI Reduce Finance Team Headcount?” is now a strategic issue for CFOs, not just a technology debate

A clear distinction between automating high-volume tasks and making decisions about structural headcount

Specific areas where AI can meaningfully reduce manual effort in reporting, month-end close, and forecasting workflows

Which finance roles and skill sets are most exposed to automation, and which will become more valuable in an AI-enabled team

How progressive CFOs are redeploying capacity towards partnering, scenario analysis, and decision support instead of pure cost-cutting

Key governance, risk, and change-management considerations when using AI to reshape the finance operating model

Links

Dan Wells on LinkedIn

Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps: 

00:00 – 03:30 – Introduction: why AI and finance headcount is now a board-level topic

03:30 – 10:00 – Mapping the current finance operating model and identifying automation hotspots

10:00 – 18:00 – Tasks vs. roles: what AI can automate today versus what still needs human judgement

18:00 – 28:00 – Example scenarios: where AI could change team size and structure in reporting, close, and forecasting

28:00 – 38:00 – Future skills and profiles: what CFOs should hire, retain, and develop in an AI-driven finance function

38:00 – 45:00 – Strategic implications: balancing cost savings with capability, culture, and stakeholder expectations

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