Financial Executives International

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » Nelson set out to become an artist. She enrolled at the University of Utah after high school with plans to earn an art degree, but a change in circumstances brought her back home to finish school. Art remained her passion, but life took a different turn when she moved with her husband to Dallas and needed steady work. She took a job at Texas811 as a call center representative and gradually moved through the organization, role by role.

The financial function has never carried more weight in the boardroom. Controllers are advising on strategy. CFOs are shaping culture. And the leaders steering these functions, at every level, are being asked to do more than manage numbers; they're being asked to lead people, influence decisions, and set the tone for how their organizations respond to change. That kind of leadership doesn't happen by accident.

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » This episode of the FEI Podcast features Thomas DeFabrizio, CFO of Impellam Group Americas, introducing a concept he believes every financial leader needs on their radar: the reaction tax.

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » Some of the strongest lessons in financial leadership arrive long before anyone sets foot in a boardroom. That is the throughline of the latest episode of the FEI Podcast, recorded live at the FEI Financial Leaders Forum in San Antonio, and featuring Dolly Lalvani, a CPA whose career has taken her from India to Belize to the United States. Dolly's path to the CPA license was not a straight line.

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » Curran has spent more than two decades working with CFOs across banking, insurance, telecommunications, and technology, helping them solve complex finance and accounting challenges.

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » Chrissy O'Hara built her career the traditional way: audit at EY, a financial reporting role at Fannie Mae, time at the hedge fund Citadel, and an MBA earned at night. Then she helped build the accounting software she and her husband wished existed, and stepped into life as a startup CFO.

Every business-to-business payment involves conflicting incentives. The payer wants to hold cash as long as possible, preserving working capital and the value of float. The payee wants the cash as soon as possible for the same reason. Both are trying to do the same thing: optimize their own cash and working capital, from opposite perspectives. When the payment is made, the tension is resolved. This resolution is rarely reached on merit.

The efficiency case for AI in finance has been made, and in many organizations, the decision has already been made along with it. AI is now embedded in journal entry processing, financial close workflows, variance analysis, and more. The conversation has moved from whether to adopt these tools to how to govern them – and for financial leaders responsible for the integrity of their organizations' financial reporting, that’s where the real work begins.

🎧 Listen to the full FEI Podcast episode » The biggest AI challenge facing CFOs today may not be the technology. It is the organizational culture, process readiness, and governance required to use it well. In a recent episode of the FEI Podcast, host Heather Cole, executive advisor and FEI Member, sits down with Jennifer Witts, Partner at CohnReznick's Client Advisory Services Practice, and Kyle Vroegh, Director at CohnReznick's Client Advisory Services Practice.

The pressure on financial leaders to develop a point of view on artificial intelligence has been relentless. Boards want AI strategies. Leadership teams want ROI frameworks. Auditors want governance controls. And while the expectations around AI continue to stack up, a separate – and equally consequential – wave of technology challenges has been building in the background. The reality for financial leaders in 2026 is not just that AI is transforming their function.