Evolving Trust and Authenticity in CFO Leadership | 23min snip from Run the Numbers

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The Era of “I Need a COO and a CFO” Is Over: Jim Cook on the Next Evolution of the CFO

Run the Numbers

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CHAPTER

Evolving Trust and Authenticity in CFO Leadership

This chapter explores the complexities of building trust in professional relationships from a CFO’s perspective, emphasizing transparency and authenticity. It discusses the evolution of the CFO role, highlighting the need for continuous learning and adaptation in response to technological advancements. The speakers underscore the transition from traditional financial management to strategic partnership, demonstrating how modern CFOs must excel in future-oriented decision-making and authentic leadership.

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Jim Cook, Netflix co-founder, former CFO of Mozilla, early employee at Inuit, executive coach, and author of Substack Cook’s Playbooks, returns to the podcast for the third time. In this episode, he breaks down the evolution of the role of CFOs from traditional scorekeepers to more strategic and operator roles, before looking ahead at what’s to come. This episode is packed full of helpful advice about transparency, building trust, authenticity in your executive role, and why “fake it till you make it” is actually bad advice. Looking at the future of the CFO role, Jim explains why he believes there will be no need for both COO and CFO roles in an organization, the biggest mistake a CFO can make at this time, and how CFOs should be adapting in order to succeed in this next era.

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@cjgustafson222 (CJ)

LINKS:

Cook’s Playbooks

www.benchboard.com

Jim Cook on LinkedIn

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(01:37) Sponsor – Planful | Brex | Vanta

(05:49) CJ’s Career Growth Since First Interviewing Jim

(08:35) Making Finance Transparent