In this episode, Sasha sits down with Jim Cook, dubbed the CFO Whisperer, after 30 years in Silicon Valley as CFO at Netflix, Intuit, and Mozilla. Jim shares CFO hiring mistakes and the misunderstandings most board members and investors have about the CFO role, why being precise is the finance professional’s Achilles heel, tactical advice for impactful communication in board meetings, and more.

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LINKS:

Jim's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cookflix

Benchboard: https://www.benchboard.com/

X/SOCIAL:

@sashaorloff (Sasha)

@cookflix (Jim)

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(03:19) Early lessons from Intuit

(05:28) Evolution of finance teams

(09:06) Customer-centric finance

(11:14) Effective stakeholder management

(12:47) Strategic decision making in finance

(15:39) Board meetings preparation

(19:04) Sponsor: Netsuite | Attio

(21:07) Meaningful discussions on board meetings

(24:07) How to be a successful CEO

(31:38) Sponsor: Beehiiv | Babbel

(34:11) Early days of Netflix

(37:05) Monetization strategies

(44:14) Hiring the right CFO

(47:26) Interview question for a CFO candidate

(49:35) Introducing BenchBoard

(53:38) Common skills and advice

(57:19) Wrap