She spent her entire career in accounting and finance. Public accounting, FP&A, financial reporting, corporate accounting. Then she made a move nobody expected. She went into operations. And when she came back to finance as a CFO, everything was different.

In this episode, I sit down in person with Donna Cohen, Chief Financial Officer at CarMax Auto Finance. Donna has been at CarMax for almost 14 years and is a board-ready qualified financial expert with deep expertise in M&A, spinoffs, restructurings, and automation initiatives.

We talk about what operations taught her that finance never could and why she recommends every finance leader try it. How she uses a different part of her brain now that she has seen both sides. The PE experience in the hotel industry that broke her faith in corporate America, including the downsizing, the restructuring, and the day she negotiated her exit and called it her "liberation day."

How she ended up at CarMax after thinking she was done with corporate forever. Her strategy for making change stick inside a large organization, including finding champions, planting seeds, and being comfortable with not getting credit.

How she introduces AI to teams that have never even used ChatGPT at home. The mentor who gave her an engagement to run after just one year and wrote her a letter about growth over perfection that changed how she leads to this day.

The breaking point where she realized she was giving everything to work, her kids, and her husband with nothing left for herself. And why she says she never even knew she was capable of being a CFO.

This episode is brought to you by Fispan. Learn more at fispan.com.

Most finance leaders think about making the jump to a private equity backed company at some point. Very few know what they are actually walking into.

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Voudouris, a 3x PE CFO who has been on every side of the table. He started at KPMG in audit, moved into transaction services analyzing deals on both the buy side and sell side, then made the leap into private equity. He has led finance at multiple PE-backed companies across different industries and moved his family to Atlanta for his first CFO role knowing nobody in the city.

We talk about what nobody tells you before you take a CFO role at a PE-backed company. The three lenses he uses to evaluate any opportunity before saying yes: the investment, the business, and the people. What documents you should be asking for before you accept the role, from the confidential information memorandum to the quality of earnings report.

How he builds trust with his CEO and why he says the foxhole relationship is everything. The budget error that wiped out 15% of projected EBITDA growth he had just presented to the board and what happened when he told his CEO immediately. Why he lives by the rule that relationship always trumps the issue.

How to be the chief interpreter of your organization as a CFO. The difference between stress that motivates and distress that destroys. And his honest advice for anyone in public accounting thinking about crossing over into PE.

Whether you are considering a move into private equity, already in a PE-backed role trying to navigate the pressure, or a first-time CFO figuring out how to evaluate your next opportunity, this conversation is the playbook.

He spent over 20 years at Ernst & Young. He did a secondment to Berlin, Germany by himself. He went back to Alabama to take over the CPA firm his father started 50 years ago. And then he made the leap to CFO of a Nasdaq-listed AI company.

In this episode, I sit down in person with James White, CFO of ScanTech AI Systems. James is a multi-state CPA, an AICPA board member, and the son of one of the first Black CPAs in the state of Alabama.

We talk about what kept him in public accounting for 20 years when most people leave in five. How he made himself easy to get to know in rooms where he was often the only one who looked like him. Why he believes being the smartest person in the room is not what gets you ahead. What he had to learn and unlearn when he moved from auditor to CFO.

How he motivates people who are not as driven as the type A teams he came from in public accounting. Why he told a room full of AICPA leaders that he has always felt like an imposter and how that honesty actually helped him. T

he moment his daughter said she did not want to be an accountant because of how much he worked, and how that changed everything about how he leads. And the generational story that starts with his great-grandfather building a park in Alabama and ends with James sitting on the AICPA board.

Whether you are in public accounting thinking about making the jump, already in the CFO seat figuring out how to lead, or trying to understand what it really takes to make people want to work with you, this conversation covers it.