00:47:30 · CJ Gustafson, Paul Todgham
[00:47:30] S1: Paul, if you could tell your younger self something knowing what you know today, what would you tell him? [00:47:34] S0: I think the quicker you can figure out what's kind of unique to you, like, in your career motivation, in what brings you energy, in your style, the better and more fulfilled you'll be. So I'm a pretty ambitious guy. You know, had some great experiences. But kind of resisting that temptation to take the next sort of logical step if it doesn't align with that. Moving to a smaller company for a better cultural fit. Right? That would be an example of maybe a non, you know, career linear move. Or even just a smaller one of, you know, I've learned to lean into how I present. I like to use humor. I talk pretty fast. I'm not gonna win any TED Talks, but I'm much sort of more comfortable in my natural style than in kind of the coached coached version. [00:48:12] S1: I love that. It's kind of finding what makes you unique and stacking those talents rather than resisting them. [00:48:18] S0: You know, if you have career limiting things, you should fix those. If it's some question of more sort of good to great or, you know, the best people do x, but there are other, you know, other paths to to y or you actually don't really want x. [00:48:29] S1: More of a technical one, can you walk me through your finance software stack? What tools does your team use to get the job done? [00:48:34] S0: We currently use Adaptive for financial planning, NetSuite for ERP, and Coupa for kind of POs, procure to pay. [00:48:41] S1: What's the most recent tool you bought?
00:48:41 · CJ Gustafson, Paul Todgham
[00:48:41] S1: What's the most recent tool you bought? [00:48:42] S0: It's actually not kind of a pure play finance tool, but the most recent tool that I greenlit was TextQL. It's an AI powered data platform that acts as our virtual AI data analyst across our enterprise data stack. So I oversee a data and analytics team as well as a pure finance team, which I think is not uncommon for CFOs. But this was brought to me by my director of of data analytics who's fantastic. And it it connects directly to live data warehouses like like Snowflake for us, and it lets finance and analytic teams query databases using plain English instead of manual SQL or or Python. So, you know, we used to spend a lot of time building reports, and we now spend more time talking to Anna who builds them for us or who, you know, generates answers based on SQL queries of the data. [00:49:23] S1: I love how all these companies are giving their AI agents people names. I always laugh when you see a golden retriever named Kevin, or a dog with a human name. I don't know why I'm bringing this up, but it makes me laugh. [00:49:35] S0: Ezra is our voice AI agent, and she's wonderful. You should meet her sometime. [00:49:38] S1: Last one I got for you. What's the craziest thing you've ever had someone try to expense?
00:49:38 · CJ Gustafson, Paul Todgham
[00:49:38] S1: Last one I got for you. What's the craziest thing you've ever had someone try to expense? [00:49:41] S0: I did spend six years at Levi's who had their name on a stadium. So Super Bowl tickets would be an example of one that's like, it's no joke. This is not a crazy expense, but more kind of a fun problems to have at your job. Our head of tax, Dan, and I had a lot of fun and some effort working through which of the various perks we had at Levi's, including going to Super Bowl fifty. And I'm sure they dealt with it with the World Cup and the most recent Super Bowl, the current team. You know, which of those things were taxable events for our employees and their guests and, you know, which constituted work. In terms of specific outrageous expenses, I've kept in really good touch with my former colleagues. For fear of incriminating previous colleagues, I'm gonna plead the fifth on that one. [00:50:19] S1: Okay. Cool. And for the benefit of listeners, I've done about 350 episodes so far, and in the prep document, I say, what's the craziest thing you've ever had someone try to expense? And I always put in parentheses Super Bowl tickets, dot dot dot haircut, and, like, give some examples. No one's ever actually said Super Bowl tickets, so I'm so glad I finally got somebody. We did it [00:50:37] S0: right by the tax authorities. [00:50:38] S1: Paul, it's been such a pleasure getting to hang out with you. I appreciate you coming on the show. [00:50:42] S0: Thanks so much, CJ. I really enjoyed it.
00:50:42 · Paul Todgham, CJ Gustafson
[00:50:42] S0: Thanks so much, CJ. I really enjoyed it. [00:50:44] S1: Run the Numbers is a Mostly Media production. Yelling an intro by Fat Joe. Artwork by Meg D'Alessandro. Nothing said on this podcast is intended to be business or investment advice. It's the sole opinion of me, a guy who feeds his dog way too much ice cream and has a history of net operating losses, l o l. If you like this podcast, hit subscribe and give us five stars. It will take, two seconds, and our algorithm overlords love it. Drink water, call your mom, and have a great day. [00:51:09] S0: Peace.