Gavin is an Asia-based executive search leader specializing in AI, technology, and PE/VC-backed companies, helping founders and investors build high-performing leadership teams across Southeast Asia and Greater China.

With over two decades of experience, Gavin partners with PE/VC funds and fast-growing technology ventures to build world-class leadership teams across North Asia, Southeast Asia, and Greater China. His work spans technology, consumer tech, AI, and digital transformation, with mandates from Series A through pre-IPO.

Gavin collaborates closely with global investors and their portfolio companies, including:
• PEs: L Catterton, Permira, EQT, CVC, Carlyle
• VCs: Sequoia, Lightspeed, Qiming Ventures, NLVC, Cathay Capital, New Horizons

Outside of executive search, Gavin is also an investor, founder, and executive coach, guiding leaders through personal reinvention, mindset development, and navigating growth with clarity and self-awareness.

🌐 https://www.mindssearch.com
📩 gavin@mindssearch.com

Gavin Ng

I’m grateful to GlobalBiz Outlook for this recognition.

After more than 20 years in executive search, what matters most to me is the journey shared with people.

Being part of their paths — helping companies grow with the right leadership and helping many find meaningful roles — has been the real privilege.

This recognition feels less like a milestone and more like a reflection of that collective journey.

Thank you to those who’ve been part of it.
There’s more to build ahead.

— Gavin

Full article:  https://lnkd.in/gXkz2DzE
Join my community: https://lnkd.in/gNTbRf53

Executive Search Leader | Founder | Investor | Coach

Executive search at startup speed in Hong Kong taught me one rule: move like a founder, not a recruiter.

A year ago, a VC-backed company in Hong Kong came to us with a simple but brutal ask:

We need a CMO.
We have eight weeks.
Our runway won’t wait.

Two traditional search firms had already told them the standard line:
“Senior hires take 2-3 months.”

And on paper, they were right.

But startups don’t operate on paper.
They operate on time, burn, and momentum.

So instead of treating it like a textbook search, we treated it like a founder problem.

Week 1: We dissected the role to its non-negotiables.
Week 2: We activated founder-to-founder referrals, operator circles, ex-CMO WhatsApp groups.
Week 3–5: We ran a decision cadence that matched startup tempo—daily calls, not weekly check-ins.
Week 7: Offer signed.
Candidate onboarded before the deadline.

And that experience reinforced three truths that still shape how I run searches today:

🧠 Speed is not a luxury in scaling companies — it’s a survival variable.

Every week without the right leader compounds lost revenue, slower execution, and operational drag.


🧩 The hiring formula is simple: clarity × network × decision cadence.

If any one of these three breaks, the whole search slows.
Most companies fix the wrong parts.

⚡️ Search leaders must translate startup tempo into hiring rhythm — or they fail their clients.

Founders don’t need a fancy “process.”
They need motion.

Let me leave a few thoughts for our executive search friends and senior recruiters:

1️⃣ Set a real hiring runway for your next leadership role
Not “as soon as possible.”
Pick a number (5–6 weeks) and commit to the tempo.

2️⃣ Mobilise your founder and operator network immediately
Hiring is faster when you pull warm pipelines, not cold ones.

3️⃣ Design your decision gates upfront - set higher bar
Shortlist by week 2.
Finals by week 3.
Offer by week 4.
Onboard by week 6.

What leadership hire are you racing against — and how fast can you move?

- Gavin

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#ExecutiveSearchforstartup #AsiaStartups #Foundersupport

Growth game, health and wealth aren’t separate — they compound each other.

A few months ago in Hong Kong, I met a founder who ran a fast-scaling fintech across three markets.
Burnout wasn’t theoretical for him — it had hit twice.

But this time, he told me something different.

“My 5am workout is my best business decision,” he said.
Not because it made him feel good.
But because by the "start" of his days, his judgment was sharper, his team interactions calmer, and his execution cleaner.

And it hit me:

The people who win long-term aren’t just the ones who grind the hardest.
They’re the ones who manage the inputs that sharpen their internal instrument — the body, mind, and energy system that every decision flows through.

Here’s what I’ve observed working with founders and executives across the region:

🧠 High performance isn’t only strategy at work — it starts in the life wellness practice
You can’t out-strategize chronic stress.
You can’t out-hustle low energy.
The quality of your decisions is downstream of the quality of your physiology.

⚡️ Younger professionals in Asia often trade health for hustle — and it works… until it doesn’t.

In your 20s you can brute-force your way through.
In your 30s and 40s, the body sends invoices.
The cost shows up in decision fatigue, emotional volatility, slow recovery, and inconsistent output.

🧩 The real role of a leader today is integrating health, wealth, and purpose into a sustainable system.

Designing life in a way that energy and clarity become competitive advantages is paramount, not afterthoughts.

The top performers I work with don’t optimise for hours.
They optimise for capacity.

Action Steps

1️⃣ Block 30 minutes each morning for a health anchor
Movement, breathwork, meditation — anything that stabilises your physiology before the world demands from it.

2️⃣ Track one health metric this week
Sleep hours, HRV, resting heart rate, mood.
What you measure becomes the thing you improve.

3️⃣ Make one business or financial decision that frees future time
Delegate one task.
Automate one workflow.
Invest in something compounding.
Reduce friction, increase space.

What health habit are you locking in this week — and what business decision will it unlock?

- Gavin

Join 5,000+ leaders and founders to get regular insights: https://lnkd.in/grbwK4By

#HealthAndWealth #ExecutiveCoaching #PeakPerformance

The least technical CEO I worked with this year is leading the boldest digital transformation.

A Malaysian founder running a F&B SME told me over Zoom:

"I don’t understand transformers.
I don’t understand APIs and GPUs.
But I know my business.”

He wasn’t being humble.
He genuinely had no technical background.
He's telling the truth that many SMEs are facing these days. 

But here’s what he did surprised me:

He appointed a strong technology transformation lead.
Someone who successfully led digital transformation at small businesses.
He re-wrote KPIs and digged into the data.
Let data speak and drive their decisions,
And he ran monthly reviews. 
Pivot fast.

No fancy jargon.
No 200-page strategy decks.
Just clarity, ownership, and accountability.

And it worked — his organisation moved 10x faster. 

He taught me one thing:

Non-technical CEOs don’t need to understand the AI, technology etc.
They need to understand leverage.

You can lead a successful transformation without touching a line of code — if you set the right metrics, owners, and timelines, and leveraging the right talent.

Investors don’t expect you to build the model.
They expect you to own the direction.

If you are in a similar eat, here’s where I’d start:

1️⃣ Choose one clear AI owner
Someone who can coordinate across teams, remove blockers, and keep momentum — not necessarily someone “technical,” but someone who gets things done.

2️⃣ Define what “AI success” means for your business
Is it faster operations? Better customer experience? More revenue?
Pick three simple outcomes — not tasks.
(If your board asked “What did AI improve?” — what would you want to say?)

3️⃣ Create a monthly AI rhythm
One meeting.
One hour.
One agenda:
💡 What moved forward?
📊 Where did we save time, money, or effort?

4️⃣ Normalize experimentation
Give your team permission to start small, start messy, and test ideas without waiting for you to be the expert.

5️⃣ Communicate direction, not instructions
Your job isn’t to tell people “how” to use AI.
Your job is to set the why and the where — and let your team build the “how.”

That’s it.
Focused. Executable. Repeatable.

If you’re a non-technical founder…
what’s actually stopping you from leading an AI program like this?

#NonTechnicalFounders #ExecutionMatters #executivesearch

- Gavin

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How long do we really have before AI stops being a competitive edge… and becomes basic hygiene?

A PE partner in Hong Kong told me something over a group dinner that stuck with me:

“We think there’s a short window where basic AI adoption can still move valuation multiples.”

Some founders at the table immediately responded.

One said 5+ years.
Another said 12 months.
A third said “we have time.”

No one had a real framework.
Everyone had an opinion.

McKinsey’s 2024 “State of AI” survey shows 65% of organizations already regularly use gen AI in at least one business function, nearly double from ten months earlier — and “AI high performers” are already pulling ahead in financial performance.

And, BCG writes that deploying gen AI is already becoming “table stakes” in today’s competitive environment — meaning basic adoption will soon no longer be a differentiator

Whether you believe the window is long or short doesn’t change what’s actually happening.

We’re already moving through phases of AI adoption — faster than most leaders realise.

Phase 1 (now):
The obvious things still differentiate.
Chatbots. Summaries. Auto-emails.
Simple tools that improve margins and speed.

Phase 2:
These things become table stakes.
Every company will have them, the same way every company today has email or CRM.
The edge shifts to data quality, workflow depth, and integration.

Phase 3:
AI becomes invisible infrastructure.
Models won’t matter.
Your data + distribution will.

And the companies that win won’t necessiarly be the ones who built the best model —
but the ones who built the best system around it.

So here’s what I learnt from the rest of our dinner discussion:


1️⃣ Start mapping your AI roadmap into two buckets:
Today (fast, obvious wins)
and
Edge (data, systems, process, deeper integration roadmap)

2️⃣ Treat the next 18–24 months as your “catch-up or get left behind” window. Pick whatever timeframe that works for your companies. Key is sense of urgency.

3️⃣ Move fast on anything generic.
Start messy on anything data-heavy.
Don’t wait for a perfect strategy — build the muscle now.

AI advantage isn’t a lifetime advantage.
It's a window of opportunity. 
And it’s closing.

If you had to bet: is the AI window 12 months, 24 months, or more?

- Gavin

Join 5,000+ leaders and founders to get regular insights: https://lnkd.in/grbwK4By

#aiadoption #executivesearch

The 30-Day Experiment

I once worked with a founder, a solopreneur, who looked exhausted in our first coaching. 
He was brilliant and obviously diligent — first in, last out, and knew every inch of his business.

But his team?
Frozen.
No one made a move without him.

In our session, I asked one question:
“What would happen if you did nothing for 30 days?”

He laughed.
Then frowned.
Followed by a 10-second silence.

After a long pause, he said,
“Everything would gradually fall apart.”

I told him,
“That’s exactly the problem.”

So we tested it.
He stopped jumping into Slack threads.
Stopped rewriting pitch decks.
Stopped “just helping” in every meeting.

Week one — chaos.
People stalled. Mistakes happened.
He almost gave up.

Week two — something shifted.
His team started making decisions.
Not perfect ones, but theirs.

By week four, they were operating —
faster, clearer, more confident — without constant sign-offs.

He didn’t lose control.
He gained trust.
And the team? Stepped up. 

What Every Founder Should Remember 🧭

🔥 1. Over-functioning leaders create under-functioning teams.
When you overhelp, you quietly teach people you don’t trust them.

🧠 2. Step back to build ownership.
Real leadership isn’t about control — it’s about space.

🤫 3. Silence reveals capability.
When you stop talking, you see who’s ready to lead.

⚙️ 4. Decide what’s truly yours.
If every decision needs your approval, you’re not leading — you’re babysitting.

💬 5. Reward initiative, not permission.
Praise those who move, not just those who ask.

👉 When was the last time you gave your team space to surprise you?

- Gavin 

Join 5,000+ leaders and founders to get regular insights on entrepreneurship and investing: https://lnkd.in/grbwK4By 

#executivecoaching #trueleadership

What do you do when AI is clearly the future… but your entire team can’t code?

A founder and friend from a logistics SME asked me this over lunch last week.

He looked genuinely worried.

“Gavin… be honest. Are we already too late for AI? I run my business pretty much the same way in the last decade. I know nothing about AI. My team can’t code anything. "

then we had an hour long discussion on his operations and workflow — customer support, monthly reporting, sales outreach etc.

And here’s what surprised him:

None of those workflows needed a single engineer.
None needed a machine-learning team.
None required “building an LLM.

They just needed workflow redesign.

Because the first 50–70% of AI impact in most businesses doesn’t come from technical brilliance.
It comes from operational clarity.

You don’t need a research lab.
You need to a clear  workflow to be followed, by teams or AI. 

"What are we doing repeatedly?
What slows us down?
What can be automated without rewriting the entire business?"

Most SMEs in Asia don’t have an AI problem.
They have a "clarity first, adoption later" problem.

And the real danger isn’t lacking AI skills — it’s waiting until your competitors prove the ROI first.

Here’s what I told him:

Start small.
Recommended step emojis:

1️⃣ Pick one workflow. Start with baby steps.
2️⃣ Test a no-code AI tool for 30 days.
3️⃣ Assign an AI project owner from operations, not IT.
4️⃣ Measure one thing: time saved.

Once you see the ROI, then decide whether to hire, partner, or stay no-code.

AI rewards the curious, not the technical.

If your whole team is non-technical, where would you deploy AI first — support, operations, or sales?

- Gavin

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#AIforBusiness #SMEAsia #LeadershipAsia #ScalingSmart

AI won’t kill your valuation overnight. It’ll erode it quarter by quarter—until one day your buyer shows you the comparison.

At a dinner in Singapore, a growth-stage founder asked me if she could “wait a year” before thinking about AI.

An investor at the table didn’t even blink:

"You can.
But your buyer in two years will compare you to someone who didn’t wait.”

The table went quiet.

Because the real risk isn’t AI adoption itself.
It’s the compounding opportunity cost of not adopting it.

And this is what more investors have started telling me privately:

🧠 Not adopting AI is a decision.
And the opportunity cost compounds every quarter.
Your peers keep compressing cost, improving throughput, and accelerating cycles.
You don’t feel the gap today—but it widens silently.

📊 The first valuation impact won’t come from “AI narrative.”
It’ll come from margin and productivity comparisons.
Lower cost per ticket.
Faster cycle times.
Higher output per employee.
That’s what buyers measure.

👉 Every buyer, acquirer, or IPO investor will start asking:
“Where is AI in your story?”
Not as hype—but as proof of operational leverage.

If you’re a founder today, here’s what I’d do:

1️⃣ Benchmark against one AI-forward competitor
Look at cost per output: per ticket, per order, per lead.
This tells you exactly where the valuation gap begins.

2️⃣ Set a hard cutoff date
“By X date, at least Y functions must be AI-enabled.”
Not perfect—just directionally real.

3️⃣ Add an ‘AI roadmap’ slide to your next investor conversation
Even if it’s version 0.1.
Investors don’t expect perfection—
they expect intentionality.

Because in three years, someone will look at your company and ask:

Did AI help your valuation—or quietly hurt it?

Which side of that question do you want to be on?

- Gavin 

Join 5,000+ leaders and founders to get regular insights: https://lnkd.in/gNTbRf53

#AIAdoption #executivesearchasia #ValuationDrivers

Break it down before you build it up.

Thinking more isn’t the problem.
Thinking on top of a poorly framed question is.

Many people don’t get stuck because they lack ideas.
They get stuck because they’re applying effort to the wrong problem.

So they add more thinking.
More discussion.
More analysis.

And the confusion gets smarter, not smaller.

I see this constantly in start-ups' meetings.
The room is full of capable people, all thinking hard, yet progress stalls.

Not because they aren’t thinking enough.
But because no one has slowed down to ask the right question.

Strong problem solvers don’t think less.
They think lower first.

They go back to fundamentals before they scale ideas.

They ask, what has to be true for this to work?

That question changes the quality of thinking that follows.

Here’s the shift most people miss.

More thinking is only useful after the problem is clean.
Otherwise, you’re just building complexity on top of assumptions.

Clarity comes first.
Then depth actually pays off.

Here’s a simple way to apply this.

👇 Use this when you feel stuck or overwhelmed 👇

🧭 1. Reframe the problem
Describe the issue in one clear sentence.
If it feels vague, you’re still too high-level.

🔍 2. Question the question
Ask yourself: Is this the real problem, or a convenient one?
Often, the real issue is hiding underneath.

🧱 3. Identify first principles
List what must be true for success.
Facts only. No habits. No “this is how it’s done.”

🧠 4. Think deeply from there
Now add thinking.
Now explore options.
Now invite more ideas.

That’s the difference between productive thinking and expensive thinking.

Where might asking a better question change the outcome this week?

- Gavin

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Cameron Kinloch

I am a Board Director, former CFO & COO, and advisor to high-growth CEOs and CFOs with experience across SaaS, consumer, fintech, and global markets. Over 20+ years, I’ve led 4 exits, supported 2 IPO journeys, and partnered with founders, boards, and investors through the moments that define a company’s trajectory.

My career spans high-growth venture-backed companies, public-company transitions, and complex strategic situations. I bring experience from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, as well as executive roles where I’ve scaled companies through hypergrowth - from tens of millions to hundreds of millions in revenue.

Examples of impact:
↳ Led Weights & Biases through a strategic exit to CoreWeave after 10x ARR growth
↳ Turned around a $200M+ P&L at Bulletproof, achieving profitability in six months
↳ Scaled Sunrun and Box through their IPO journeys, building FP&A and public-company readiness
↳ Guided multiple VC-backed companies through successful exits to private equity and strategic buyers
↳ Served as Board Director across public and private companies, including Finance, Audit, Risk, and Governance Committees

Today, my work centers on three areas:

1. Board Service
I serve on public and private boards, including EROAD (NZX/ASX) and Copper Cow Coffee, partnering with CEOs on strategy, governance, M&A, and scaling through inflection points.

2. Advising CEOs & CFOs
I help leaders navigate growth, fundraising, M&A, and strategic alternatives, with a focus on the leadership alignment required during critical transitions.

3. Finance Leadership at Inflection Points
I work with sitting CFOs and CEOs during the moments that matter most: first 100 days in role, preparing for IPO, leading M&A, scaling the finance function, and strengthening the CFO–Board partnership.

If you’re navigating a pivotal moment - or preparing your company for its next chapter - reach out at cameron.kinloch@gmail.com.

Chief Financial Officer

We are building the best in-class, enterprise grade tools for AI developers. Our vision is to be the single system of records for all things AI within an organization.

Used by teams at NVIDIA, OpenAI, Lyft, Blue River Technology, Toyota, and MILA, W&B is part of the new standard of best practices for AI.

After 15 years in the C-suite and 4 board seats, I’ve noticed the same mistakes that quietly stop talented finance leaders from becoming CFO:

1) They think like controllers, not operators.

CFOs don’t just report numbers - they shape decisions.

If you never talk about customers, product, competitive pressure, or revenue levers, you’re signaling you’re a functional expert… not an enterprise leader.

2) They build relationships up, not across.

Great CFOs aren’t just trusted by the CEO and board.

They’re trusted by GTM, Product, Ops, and People because they show up early, listen, and help solve real problems.

3) They can model a forecast but not tell the story.

The CFOs who earn board confidence connect everything in one clean thread: what’s happening, why it matters, what options exist, and the trade-offs behind each path.

Boards remember the narrative - not the spreadsheet.

4) They wait to be invited in.

Future CFOs don’t sit back. They initiate scenario plans, pressure-test strategy, and surface risks before anyone asks.

5) They stay stuck in precision mode.

Perfect accuracy slows companies down.

Standout CFOs set decision thresholds, embrace scenario ranges, and call out the unknowns so the business can move faster.

6) They solve today’s problem, not the next stage.

Boards choose the leader who can scale the company from $20M → $50M, $50M → $200M, or pre-IPO → public.

Your mindset must shift with the stage.

7) They underestimate how much the CFO role is leadership.

Most misses aren’t technical - they’re about influence.
CFOs lead rooms, drive alignment, and bring clarity in moments where ambiguity is high.

The difference between a great finance leader and a CFO isn’t technical skill.
It’s how you think, how you lead, and how you show up.

PS: I coach finance leaders on strategic storytelling, board communication, and executive presence. If you’d like to explore working together, send me a DM.

Board Director | CFO & COO | 4 Exits, 2 IPOs | Advisor to High-Growth CEOs and CFOs

Forbes called her the most powerful and influential CFO of the last decade…

But when Google hired Ruth Porat in 2015, most analysts doubted she was the right fit.

A Wall Street operator at an innovation-driven tech giant? 
Many assumed her discipline would slow Google down.

The opposite happened:

📈 Alphabet’s market value grew past $3 trillion during her tenure
🚀 The stock jumped after her early earnings calls
💡 The company consistently beat revenue and profit expectations

Here’s what she actually changed - and what today’s CFOs can learn from her:

1) Anchor decisions in data.

Porat was famous for saying, “The answer is a number.”
Data over opinions. Signal over noise. It cut through politics fast.

2) Replace passion projects with real frameworks.

She introduced structure to how Google funded big bets.
Teams had to prove why they deserved capital - not just ask for it.

3) Challenge the status quo.

She pushed back on excess, tightened spend, and reset expectations.
Not to clip innovation - but to fuel the right innovation.

4) Think in decades, not quarters.

Her support for AI and Cloud was grounded in long-term value creation.
CFOs don’t just protect the present. They underwrite the future.

5) Earn investor trust through transparency.

By separating core results from “Other Bets,” she gave investors clarity.
Clarity → confidence → multiple expansion.

Porat didn’t shrink Google. She sharpened it.

That’s the new era of finance leadership:

CFOs don’t just keep companies healthy. 

They shape strategy.
They influence product priorities. 
They build investor conviction. 
And they make the long term impossible to ignore. 💪

PS: If you’re a CFO or VP of Finance preparing for that next step, I coach leaders on the real levers of the role: strategic narrative, board communication, and enterprise leadership. 

DM me if you want to explore working together.

I recently sat through a board meeting where an independent director challenged a core assumption.

What the Chair did next changed the room in seconds 👇

Instead of brushing past the moment, the Chair leaned in and:

- Slowed the discussion
- Separated ideas from identity
- Asked “why” before defending positions
- Pressure-tested the assumption in real time
- Pulled quieter directors into the conversation
- Sat in the discomfort until clarity emerged
- Made it explicit that challenge ≠ lack of support

The result → a stronger decision, with full alignment behind it.

I’ve sat on boards across scaled CPG brands, public companies, and PE-backed companies.

And I’ve seen dissent mishandled when boards:

- Take pushback personally
- Default to hierarchy over logic
- Letting power dynamics decide what gets airtime
- Rush to a vote to escape tension
- Push real debate into hallway conversations
- Boards are designed for dissent.

Not as disruption.
As a governance tool.

The best boards don’t avoid tension. They use it.

They create enough psychological safety for dissent to surface, and enough rigor to turn it into better judgment.

Handled well, dissent accelerates insight.
Handled poorly, it delays the truth.

After 9 years as a board director, I’ve seen CFOs walk into a board meeting and lose credibility in minutes.

Not because of the numbers. But because of a weak CEO–CFO dynamic.

Boards don’t evaluate executives in isolation. 🔍

They assess how the leadership system functions.

And the CEO–CFO relationship is the core of that system.

Here’s what boards are actually watching for:

1) Shared narrative 🎯

Do the CEO and CFO tell the same story about the business?
Or does alignment start to drift once questions begin?

2) Respectful tension

Do they challenge each other cleanly?
Or does disagreement feel defensive, corrective, or personal?

3) Decision flow

Does alignment speed decisions up?
Or does the board slow down because something feels unresolved? ⚠️

4) Signals under pressure

When the topic gets uncomfortable, do they stay aligned?
Or does the partnership fracture in real time?

The most credible CFOs I’ve worked with do one thing exceptionally well:
They resolve tension before the board meeting.

Specifically, they:

✅ Align with the CEO on a single narrative
✅ Resolve disagreements privately
✅ Clarify which decisions the board is being asked to make and why
✅ Pressure-test sensitive topics together

What boards want to see in the room is cohesion.

One direction. Clear ownership. Leadership that holds under pressure.

That’s what earns trust.

When I got promoted to my first CFO role, the #1 piece of advice I heard nonstop was:

“Be a strategic business partner to the CEO and the Board.”

No one explained what it actually meant.

After four CFO roles, here’s the simplest definition I’ve landed on...

A strategic CFO doesn’t just report results.

They actively shape:

🎯 Decisions
⚖️ Trade-offs
📈 Outcomes

Here’s what that looks like in practice 👇

1/ Strategy = owning the “so what” 🎯

Every real strategy decision is a trade-off. 

Being strategic isn’t about better slides. It’s about making those trade-offs explicit.

- What we gain
- What we give up
- What happens if we wait

At Adobe, leadership made a fundamental shift.
They stopped selling one-time software licenses and moved to subscriptions.

Finance clarified the trade-off, short-term revenue pressure, and long-term recurring growth.

✅ Strategy is helping leadership commit with eyes open.

2/ Partnership = influencing before decisions are locked ⚖️

Decisions aren’t shaped in the boardroom.
They’re shaped well before the meeting.

Real partnership happens upstream.

- Pressure-testing ideas early
- Challenging assumptions privately
- Helping the CEO see second-order effects

At Oracle, alignment didn’t start at the board table.

Safra Catz shaped major M&A and the company’s pivot to cloud well ahead of board approval.

✅ Partnership is influence before positions harden.

3/ Implementation = turning strategy into action

Great CFOs don’t just approve strategy.

They make sure it actually gets executed.

- Pulling capital from underperforming areas early
- Funding the next growth engine
- Accepting short-term discomfort to avoid long-term stagnation

At Netflix, leadership made a clear choice.

They leaned into original content and international expansion.
Spencer Neumann supported sustained investment despite rising cash burn.

✅ Implementation is forcing strategy into motion.

Being a “strategic business partner” isn’t a title upgrade.

It’s the moment finance stops describing reality and starts helping leadership decide what to do about it.

That’s when CFOs earn real influence.

Here’s the difference between a VP of Finance and someone the Board trusts as CFO:

Most finance leaders think it’s about experience. Boards know it’s about how you show up.

VP of Finance thinking 👇

- Measures success by a clean close and forecast accuracy
- Optimizes the finance function
- Brings analysis and waits for direction
- Executes the CEO’s agenda as given
- Prepares board decks and walks through the numbers
- Frames impact primarily in dollars
- Operates mostly inside the company
- Explains what went wrong after the fact

Board-trusted CFO thinking 👇

- Measures success by better decisions made earlier
- Optimizes enterprise value
- Brings a point of view and recommends a path
- Partners with the CEO to shape the agenda
- Controls the narrative and decision flow in the boardroom
- Frames trade-offs across growth, risk, and resources
- Brings an external lens: investors, markets, benchmarks, and capital conditions
- Reorients the business and clarifies what happens when something goes wrong

Becoming CFO isn’t about being better at finance.

It’s about owning how the company competes, allocates capital, and creates value.

That’s the real shift the Boards are watching for. 🎯

P.S. After 15+ years in the C-suite, 4 exits, and 2 IPOs, I now coach finance leaders on strategic storytelling, board communication, and executive leadership.

If this resonates, feel free to reach out via DM.

I’ve been both a CFO and a Board Director. This is where strong CFOs still lose the room.

↳ They speak finance. Boards speak trade-offs.

Here’s an example:

Early in my tenure, I told the board in a quarterly meeting: “The risk is too high.”

A director smiled and asked: “Compared to what?”

That question changed how I show up in boardrooms. 💡

Most CFOs learn to see risk in absolutes:

- Can we afford it?
- What’s the downside if it fails?
- How does this hit the plan or forecast?

Those are necessary questions, but they’re incomplete.

Boards think in portfolios.

They’re asking different things:

- What does this unlock that staying safe won’t?
- Is the upside meaningfully larger than the downside?
- Which risks are reversible, and which ones lock us in?

Here’s the bridge between CFO thinking and board thinking 👇

1) Frame risk relative to the whole business

Not “this could fail.”
But “this risk is small relative to our growth gap, capital base, or strategic exposure.”

Context changes the conversation.

2) Separate visible risk from hidden risk

What shows up in the forecast isn’t always the biggest risk.
Inaction, delay, and missed learning compound quietly.

Boards are very aware of that. ⏳

3) Pair every risk with a lever for action

If the risk starts to show up, what do you do?
Slow it down, narrow the scope, cap the spend, or stop the initiative altogether.

Boards aren’t risk-averse.

They appear risk-averse when the risk isn’t framed in context. 🧭

When CFOs learn to speak in their language, they stop sounding like the brake.
And start sounding like the guide.

40% of CFO dismissals come down to one thing:
A strained relationship with the CEO or the board. ⚠️

And yet, CFOs are still expected to:

- Challenge the CEO
- Say no when momentum is high
- Deliver bad news before there’s a fix

After serving as a 3× CFO and 4x board director, here’s how the best CFOs manage this tension without becoming “the problem” 👇

1️⃣ They align strategy with finance

Boards push for ambition. CFOs protect discipline. The best CFOs bridge the gap by:

- Translating strategy into cash, margin, and capital risk
- Modeling outcomes: what hitting X costs, what it earns, and what breaks if execution slips
- Framing decisions as explicit trade-offs

2️⃣ They eliminate surprises

Trust erodes when issues show up late or without context.

- Surface problems early
- Use simple dashboards the board can read in seconds
- Explain why numbers moved and how the team is responding

3️⃣ They challenge the CEO in private, align in public

- Push hard behind closed doors
- Present a unified leadership team in the room
- Never put the board in a position to choose between the CEO and the CFO

This protects the CEO’s authority and the CFO’s credibility.

4️⃣ They design the decision framework before taking a position

Strong CFOs don’t start with “no.” They structure the conversation.

- Separate facts, risks, and recommendations
- Make opportunity cost visible
- Frame choices, not ultimatums

This shifts the CFO from blocker to decision architect.

5️⃣ They manage confidence as much as accuracy

In a miss, boards read presence before precision.

- Stay calm under pressure
- Anchor discussion on what changes next, not who was wrong
- Surface second- and third-order effects instead of re-arguing the decision

Great CFOs don’t avoid tension. They structure it so the CEO, the board, and the business can make better decisions. 🎯

P.S. I coach CFOs and VPs of Finance on strategic narrative, board communication, and enterprise leadership. 

Slots are full until mid-March. Reach out if you’d like to join the waitlist.

I’ve watched brilliant Directors and VPs of Finance get passed over for the CFO seat because of this one mistake…

↳ You wait for the title before adopting CFO-level ownership.

Every CFO I’ve worked with started acting like one long before the title showed up.

Because those years of owning outcomes build trust with the CEO, create visibility with the board, and sharpen judgment under pressure. 🎯

All of which quietly drives the promotion.

Here’s what CFO-level ownership actually looks like:

1️⃣ You optimize for enterprise value, not just finance outcomes
You balance growth, risk, capital, and talent instead of chasing a single metric.

2️⃣ You earn trust outside finance 
🤝 You understand what motivates functional leaders, where they’re constrained, and the trade-offs they’re making.

3️⃣ You take a position 
Not just “here are the numbers,” but what you would do, why, and what it means if you’re wrong.

4️⃣ You think in second-order effects 🔍 
You explain how today’s decision shapes behavior, incentives, culture, and flexibility over the next 12 to 24 months.

5️⃣ You own outcomes when plans miss 🧩 
You frame a clear narrative on what happened, what it means, and what changes next.

6️⃣ You act as a true thought partner to the CEO 
You pressure-test strategy, surface blind spots, and share accountability for results.


The pattern is always the same:
CEOs promote the person who already thinks, decides, and owns like a CFO.

Be that person today.

I’ve served on boards across $200M CPG brands, public companies, and PE exits. And the more boardrooms I sit in, the clearer this becomes 👇

Fiduciary duty gets referenced constantly
Yet it’s misunderstood just as often.

Some directors think it means loyalty to management.
Others think it means aligning with the room.

Neither is right.

Fiduciary duty is loyalty to the process that protects the company. 🛡️

What that actually looks like in practice:

1️⃣ Asking the uncomfortable question

Not to be difficult, but to surface risk, trade-offs, and blind spots before they become expensive.

2️⃣ Testing assumptions before approving decisions

Every decision teaches the organization what to optimize for.
If short-term wins erode retention, pricing power, or trust, fiduciary duty is to call it out.

3️⃣ Anchoring decisions in long-term value

Today’s incentives shape tomorrow’s behavior.

If this quarter’s results are borrowed from future credibility, it needs to be named.

4️⃣ Holding the line between oversight and execution

Boards own decisions and consequences. Management owns the how. Blur that line, and accountability breaks.

Fiduciary duty isn’t about being agreeable.

It’s about being accountable to the work, even when it creates tension.

And accountable boards build resilient companies. 💪

1999: Joined Oracle as a Senior VP
2005: Became CFO
2014: Named Co-CEO and helped scale Oracle to a $1T company

The board didn’t promote Safra Catz for financial excellence.

They promoted her because her decisions reshaped Oracle’s business model and long-term relevance.

And that’s the gap most CFOs never close.

Here are 4 moves that earned her the top seat and what other CFOs can learn from them.

1) She was already functioning as a de facto co-CEO before the title

Safra didn’t stay inside finance. 
She took ownership of the company’s hardest decisions across M&A, operating trade-offs, leadership changes, and long-term bets.

The Co-CEO title didn’t expand her scope. It formalized it.

✅ You don’t get promoted into scope. You expand scope first and let the title catch up.

2) She turned capital allocation into the company’s growth engine

Safra reframed the CFO role from financial stewardship to enterprise design.

- Every dollar was a strategic lever
- M&A followed a thesis, not one-off deals
- Acquisitions like PeopleSoft helped Oracle skip long build cycles and reshape its platform

✅ Use capital to shape how the business grows, not just to protect performance.

3) She earned trust with the Board and CEO by owning the hardest calls

She didn’t just report to Larry Ellison. She helped shape the strategy with him.

By the time she became Co-CEO, the board had already seen her navigate hostile acquisitions, activist pressure, cost discipline, and leadership changes under real stress.

✅ Credibility compounds when you show judgment when pressure is highest.

4) She steered Oracle through its most disruptive pivot

The shift from on-prem to cloud wasn’t incremental. It was existential.

Safra balanced short-term pain with long-term survival and kept stakeholders aligned through years of uncertainty.

✅ Top leaders don’t avoid disruption. They turn it into durable growth.

Most CFOs master cost control, forecasting, and governance.
Few build the judgment to shape the company’s future.

Boards don’t promote CFOs who protect today’s P&L.

They promote CFOs who help the company survive its next reinvention.

That’s how a CFO becomes a CEO.

Most CFOs think being “board-ready” means knowing their numbers cold.

It doesn’t.

Every CFO who’s ever been hired has clean financials, a tight forecast, and answers to last quarter’s variances.

If technical competence were the bar, boards would never struggle to find leaders.

But boards don’t evaluate you the way operating teams do.

They’re not asking, “Is this person good at finance?”
They’re asking, “Can this person help us govern uncertainty?” 🎯

That’s a very different test.

Here’s what boards actually look for:

1) Alignment

If every executive tells a slightly different story, the board sees fragmentation immediately.

Reporting results isn’t the job.
Unifying the narrative is.

Strong CFOs connect strategy, risk, capital allocation, and execution into one coherent story.

2) Thought discipline

Boards look for your ability to separate signal from noise and surface the decisions that matter most.

That means you:

✅ Frame the 2–3 variables that actually move outcomes
✅ Name what’s immaterial, and why
✅ Prevent the discussion from drifting into operational weeds

3) Confidence without rigidity

When assumptions break, the board isn’t judging the miss.

They’re judging how quickly you recalibrate capital, priorities, and expectations. 🔍
“I believed X. Here’s what changed. Here’s how we adapt.”

4) Scenario thinking

Boards don’t want a single forecast.

They want confidence you’ve pressure-tested multiple futures and understand the trade-offs.

The most credible CFOs don’t say, “Here’s the plan.”
They say, “Here’s the plan if conditions hold and here’s how we’ll respond if they don’t.”


The real test is simple…

Can you clearly explain:

- What’s happening
- Why it’s happening
- What you’ll do if the world shifts tomorrow

When a CFO can do that, the board stops seeing a functional leader.
They see a business leader. 🧭

And that’s when trust deepens, influence expands, and bigger roles quietly open up.

I’ve seen seasoned ex-CEOs join boards and fail in the role within 90 days.
Here’s what they get wrong 👇

Board meetings turn into operational working sessions because they default to execution instead of judgment.

- They dig into the org.
- They second-guess execution.
- They try to “oversee” the CEO.

And this quietly erodes trust and authority. ⚠️

Boards are not there to run the company.
And directors are not there to replace management.

When directors operate instead of govern, three things tend to break:

1) The CEO loses air cover when directors step into execution.

2) The board loses altitude when time shifts from strategy, risk, and capital allocation into operational details.

3) Accountability breaks when directors do the work, because ownership of outcomes becomes unclear.

This is the shift new directors have to make. Being a good director means:

✅ Asking the questions management can’t or won’t
✅ Setting direction without prescribing execution
✅ Holding the CEO accountable without undermining them

The strongest directors I know are disciplined about where they engage.

They influence outcomes without stepping into the line.

Getting the seat is the milestone.
Learning how to stay out of the weeds is the real work. 🎯

If you’re early in your board journey...

What’s the hardest instinct you’ve had to unlearn, or expect to unlearn?

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