CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Neely Rosen, CFO of Greyson Clothiers, blends public accounting, apparel finance, and major ERP transformations. She discusses funding store expansion before returns arrive, balancing wholesale, e-commerce, and retail, and managing inventory, tariffs, and cash flow. Rosen also explores AI-ready finance teams, responsible experimentation, and Greyson’s next moves: footwear, new stores, and profitable growth.

Hemant Kapadia, Anaplan CFO and former GE engineer, discusses the company’s journey from carve-out IPOs to profitable, efficient growth. He explores AI investments, agentic planning, daily financial visibility, value-based pricing, and expanding enterprise use cases. Kapadia also shares how Anaplan is redesigning work, aligning employees with shareholder value, and scaling without dramatically increasing headcount.

At SuiteWorld 2026, NetSuite’s founder outlines how AI is transforming business software—and what the shift means for CFOs.When Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, declares that ERP as we know it is over, the statement carries particular weight. Goldberg helped pioneer cloud-based enterprise software in 1998, challenging the conventional wisdom about how businesses should manage their financial and operational systems.Nearly three decades later, he sees artificial intelligence driving an equally consequential transformation.Speaking with CFO Thought Leader at SuiteWorld 2026 in Las Vegas, Goldberg described a future in which ERP systems do more than organize information, automate transactions, and generate reports. Increasingly, they will anticipate problems, recommend solutions, and execute work—with human oversight.Read MoreTo Goldberg, the transformation rests on three developments: AI becoming the primary user interface, ERP becoming tailored to individual businesses, and software gaining the ability to perform more work autonomously.The implications extend well beyond technology.Goldberg believes finance teams will increasingly apply their analytical capabilities across the enterprise, identifying operational issues before they affect financial results. He also sees the traditional month-end close giving way to more continuous financial visibility.Rather than focusing exclusively on achieving a zero-day close, Goldberg argues that CFOs should consider how accurately their systems can reflect the business throughout the reporting period.That shift could fundamentally change how finance contributes to decision-making.“We’re really trying to free up the CFO from firefighting mode to strategic analysis mode,” Goldberg explained.For CFOs, the emerging opportunity is not simply to automate existing responsibilities. It is to redirect financial expertise toward decisions that shape business performance—while increasingly intelligent systems handle more of the underlying work.

Steve Fox, CFO of men’s personal-care brand Every Man Jack and former EO Products finance leader, discusses scaling finance without scaling headcount. He explores “Nix the Clicks by 26,” automated command centers, NetSuite, AI governance, private-equity discipline, and the people-first work of making technology stick.

Joe Iantosca, CFO of Cyera and a former Morgan Stanley, Palantir, and BetterCloud finance and operations leader, explores building cybersecurity for the AI era. He discusses data-driven finance, acquisition-led growth, enterprise sales, securing AI agents, and balancing bold experimentation with financial discipline. He also looks at AI-powered automation and the future of the month-end close.

Tom Steer, CFO of international payments company Sokin, draws on experience at Deloitte, WorldRemit, and FT Partners. He discusses Sokin’s cross-border payments infrastructure, North American expansion, embedded finance, and AI-powered treasury tools. He also explores forecasting unpredictable revenue, building finance systems for growth beyond $100 million, and the high-stakes SendWave acquisition.

Kara Childress, CFO and president of Vensure Employer Solutions, has helped steer roughly 120 acquisitions and build a global payroll and HR technology powerhouse. She discusses transforming integration into a disciplined 1,400-step process, restructuring finance for scalable growth, using workforce data as an economic signal, and applying AI to human capital services and M&A decisions. She also reflects on global leadership, resilience, and trust.

Perry Beberman, CFO of Bread Financial and a veteran of MBNA and Bank of America, discusses rebuilding a fragile capital foundation into a platform for growth. He explores balancing retailer approval demands with credit losses, shifting funding toward consumer deposits, reading early signals in consumer credit, and using AI without sacrificing human judgment. He also shares lessons from crisis leadership, capital allocation, and finance transformation.

Guy Zeltser, CFO of Hippo Insurance and a former McKinsey consultant, charts an unconventional path from family retail to transforming a technology-driven insurer. He discusses why Hippo shrank homeowners premiums, how fees, underwriting, and investments create a more resilient model, and where AI is accelerating claims and finance. He also explores balancing quarterly results with long-term growth.

Sam Chung, Salesforce’s Chief Customer Officer, has spent more than two decades spanning finance, strategy, revenue operations, and enterprise transformation. He explores how consumption pricing changes visibility and cash flow, why CFOs are moving into product and operations, and how AI agents are reshaping finance. The conversation also examines pilots, measurable baselines, automation, controls, and accountability.