The Transformative Role of CFOs

This chapter explores how CFOs are evolving to prioritize influence through effective questioning and storytelling rather than command-and-control communication. It highlights the significance of transparency in finance to build trust and foster a collaborative organizational culture.

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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