CFO 4.0 Podcast

Jack McCullough, President of the CFO Leadership Council, is back on CFO 4.0 to sit with Hannah to talk about the idea that every organisation has quiet specialists - rarely high on the org chart, rarely natural leaders who are so irreplaceable that losing them would do more damage than losing a member of the C-suite.
Jack introduces his new book "The Rodman Paradox". Borrowing his title from NBA legend Dennis Rodman (a specialist who never scored much but became, by some measures, the greatest winner in basketball history)

In this conversation, Jack and Hannah dig into:

Why traditional org charts fail to capture who really holds a company together
How to spot your own "Rodmans" using organisational network analysis
Why promoting a Rodman is often the worst thing you can do for them (and for the business)
How to recognise and reward specialists who don't want titles, meetings, or management responsibility
Real stories from the book

Roger Castle is a fractional Finance Director and CFO with The CFO Centre. In this episode, Roger joins Hannah to unpack what it really takes to lead through change, from persuading a fast-growing team to accept its first-ever cost cuts, to helping SME owners turn vague ambitions into concrete, achievable growth plans. Roger shares the practical realities of working as a fractional CFO across multiple clients at once, and the mindset shift required to move from corporate scale to hands-on SME finance.

In this episode, they cover:

Leading a workforce through its first-ever cost-cutting exercise
Reading personality types to get sales, ops and product directors aligned around the numbers
Turning short-term-focused CEOs into long-term planners
Blending top-down market data with bottom-up revenue modelling
Managing a management buyout alongside an incumbent FD

In this episode of CFO 4.0 Revisited, we're looking back at Hannah Munro's conversation with Sabrina Castiglione at the time, Chief Operating Officer at Pento, and now CFO at Omnea.
Sabrina's path into finance leadership is anything but conventional. She studied chemistry at university, spent years in financial services, then made the leap into startups as CFO at Tassie before stepping into the COO seat at Pento.

In this session, Hannah and Sabrina cover:

How a business's needs shift as it moves from Seed to Series A and beyond
What life as a startup CFO really looks like
Making the move from CFO to COO
The current landscape for startup funding
How the economic climate has changed what investors look for
People vs roles - what recruitment looks like inside a startup

Links mentioned in this episode
Sabrina’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scastiglione/
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In this episode of CFO Stories, Hannah is joined by Sophia Levell FCCA, CFO of Access Fertility and one of the youngest CFOs in the UK. Sophia shares the fast-tracked path that got her there and what she's learned since.

In this episode, we cover:
Why she dropped out of college to start her ACCA journey early
The mentor-shaped transition from finance operator to strategic CFO
Hiring for complementary skills, not personality
Building trust with the C-suite through constant, unfiltered communication
Sophia's advice for anyone stepping into their first CFO role

Links mentioned
Sophia's Linkedin
Learn more about Access Fertility
Learn more about ACCA
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In this episode of the CFO 4.0 Podcast, host Hannah Munro is joined by returning guest Sara Daw, CEO of The CFO Centre Group, to explore how CFOs can build the right team around them from smart delegation to bringing in a fractional "CFO's CFO" for M&A, systems work, or steady-ship support.

In this episode:

Why delegation should focus on outcomes, not tasks
How to build a team that plays to individual strengths
What to do when a delegated task goes wrong
The emerging "CFO's CFO" model and when to use it
Ground rules for successful peer-level fractional partnerships
Why the future of executive work is a team sport, not a solo act

Links mentioned in this episode:
Sara's Linkedin
Learn more about the CFO centre
Explore other CFO 4.0 Podcast episodes here.
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