Show Notes
Strategic leader, collaborator, innovator, and communicator – the role of a modern CFO encompasses all of these and more. CFOs today are tasked with balancing financial expertise with creativity, guiding businesses through uncertainty, and building trust across their organisations. But what does all of that look like in practice? For this special episode of The CFO Playbook, we're joined by CFO of Soldo, Sacha Herrmann to discuss 6 lessons we have learned from world-class CFOs, finance leaders, and founders from some of the fastest-growing companies. Hear highlights of interviews with - Baron Anyngwe, Finance Director at We Are Fulfillmeant, shares his experience balancing risk and reward. Giles Andrews OBE, co-founder of the world's first peer-to-peer lending business, Zopa, who invested heavily in machine learning. Richard Dana, CEO of Tembo Money, shares the story of his first business venture in the volatile travel industry. The experience was harsh but valuable. Huiming Chen, CFO at American biotechnology company Illumina, describes the ideal CFO as someone who operates seamlessly between strategy and operations, acting as a co-pilot to the CEO. Helen Ashton, Former CFO of ASOS and now Founder of Shape Beyond, has a refreshing take on decision-making. Mehjabeen Patrick, Finance Director at Arts University Bournemouth, emphasises the importance of being a transparent and inspiring communicator. About Soldo: Soldo is the proactive spend management solution that frees up businesses to accomplish more. We champion the notion of Progressive Finance, because we believe in a decentralised approach to financial decision-making and greater spending autonomy for everyone. Over 25,000 organisations across 31 countries use Soldo to bring order, efficiency and agility to their decentralised spending, and empower the whole company to spend safely and responsibly. By combining pre-programmed cards, a user-friendly app and a powerful spend management platform, Soldo enables decentralised spend decisions and frees everyone from tedious admin, while ensuring compliance. Everyone gains back time to focus on the things that matter. For Finance teams, that means more time for the rewarding parts of your role, such as in-depth data analysis, defining overall business strategy, and implementing process improvements that empower everyone to achieving business goals. Liberate Finance. Accomplish More.
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How do you lead finance in a global human rights organisation, protect independence, and make sure every pound supports the mission? Is there someone you’d like to see on The CFO Playbook? Email us at: [email protected] In this episode of The CFO Playbook, David McClelland is joined by Rohan Hewavisenti, CFO at Amnesty International, one of the world’s most recognised human rights organisations. Rohan shares what financial discipline looks like when the stakes are not measured in profit, but in people’s lives. He explains how Amnesty International’s International Secretariat operates as a £100 million organisation, working as part of a wider €400 million global movement, and why preserving independence shapes everything from funding decisions to resource allocation. In his conversation with David McClelland, Rohan reflects on his career across the not-for-profit sector, from ActionAid and Breast Cancer Care to the British Red Cross, RNIB and Amnesty International. He discusses managing volatility, rebuilding from a £20 million deficit, investing in future areas of human rights work, and keeping finance closely connected to mission impact. Rohan also explores the role of generative AI in a human rights organisation, from the ethical questions around bias, data, and autonomous weapons to the internal opportunities for improving efficiency and accessing decades of research. He explains why CFOs need to understand the cost of AI, build data skills across their teams, and stay open to technology by using it regularly. Rohan’s CFO Playbook principle: Understand the organisation deeply, from what drives income and costs to what drives good performance in mission-related work.
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