Scaling Financial Operations and AI Innovation with Rohini Jain

Speaker A: Financial leadership is changing. CFOs no longer record history, they make history. This podcast will help you become a better leader, strategic thinker and digital visionary. Welcome to Secrets of Rockstar CFOs, the ultimate podcast for chief financial officers. Follow along as Jack McCullough engages in exciting chats with accomplished CFOs, learning how they overcame obstacles and positioned their companies for the future. Here's your host, Jack McCullough.

Speaker B: Hello, rockstars, and welcome to another episode of the Secrets of Rockstar CFOs. I'm your host, Jack McCullough. Before we start a big shout out to our sponsor, Zoho. Let's get ready for a great episode. Welcome back to what was going to be a great episode of the secrets of rockstar CFOs. And I'm particularly excited about this guest today for a number of reasons. One, she certainly is a Rockstar cfo by any definition, she's working for one of the hottest companies in the game. And uh, most importantly, perhaps for me, I'm actually a client of this company, so I can actually have an intelligent conversation on the company's business model. That's not always the case in my case. So, really excited to be here. I'm joined by Rohini Jain. She is the CFO of Bill. Bill is a leading financial operations platform that helps small and m mid sized businesses automate the way they pay bills, send invoices, manage expenses and control cash flow all through a single AI powered platform. Rohini, welcome to the Secrets of Rockstar CFOs.

Speaker C: Thank you so much, Jeff. So excited to be here, but even more excited that you're a customer. Oh yeah, I did not know that. That's awesome. We should talk about this later.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And a happy one. I'm not the CFO of my company, so as much as I'd like to take credit and get some loyalty there, I'm just a happy and very happy user because we, we've had some other stuff that I wasn't as excited about, but this is great stuff. So. So I've been accused once or twice in my life of maybe oversimplifying things. Uh, but can you maybe expand a little bit about Bill from what I said?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think what you articulated it really nicely. Bill, what we try to do here is if you're an SMB business, we try to take out all the mundane work that you have to do to run the financial operations. Most of the SMB owners, they are not, um, finance CFO people. Right. They don't want to deal with all that, all they want to focus on is grow the business. So what Bill does is comes in and helps run their financial operations in the background. We started with, uh, nice automated workflows with, um, evolution into how we do the work with you. And now we are making a big leap with AI to do, uh, the work for you. So how do these workflows start to disappear with the human in the loop? And, uh, you're just able to manage the business, um, in different contexts and through chat and other things over time is where our vision is.

Speaker B: No, that's great. And yeah, it's definitely a game changer for those who aren't using it. So in the SMB space and, and we certainly qualify. But before we get into it, and I do look forward to that, I always love to have our audience get to know the cfo, you know, a little bit about their own background. And, uh, where did you grow up?

Speaker C: So I grew up in this small town. Well, I say small with a caveat. It. When I was growing up, that town still had a million people, give or take. But small town in India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Um, really well planned city called Chandigarh. And, um, uniquely, you know, a couple of things, uh, in my family I'd love to call out while growing up. Number one was I grew up in a joint family, which is not something that we hear of here. But in India at that time was, um, somewhat common, where my parents, my grandparents, and four of my, uh, father's siblings, they lived with their families there. So we grew up with 12 cousins in the house. And it was wonderful. So it really teaches you well very early on on how to work with people, how to have fun with the, uh, big family and things like that. And secondly, I think growing up, one of the things that was also unique in our upbringing, my sister and I, my dad really pushed us to be financially independent. He's like, I don't care if the guys in the family are or not, but as women, you need to be and take, uh, control of your financials. So I think those two were really interesting parts of my upbringing.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah, no, that's fascinating because I've always been jealous. Yeah. We don't have what you call a joint family, but, you know, I lived in a town with a lot of two family houses, and a lot of times the cousins were living on either side. I was always jealous of that extended family to a degree. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Uh, uh, and we are so tight.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's like your cousins or Your siblings. Right. So, yeah, there's a certain bonding that happens with big family. And, you know, I'm perfectly close to my sisters, and I'll would m If they do listen, so I wouldn't want them to think otherwise. But, yeah, it's. There's just something special about growing up with a lot of your generation. So. But fantastic. So I know you studied accounting and you got a master's in finance at the London School of Economics. So. And I'm curious, um, you know, look at you. Obviously, that. That was a fantastic, uh, decision you made, but what was the thinking around that, that you wanted to go into business and accounting and finance in particular there?

Speaker C: This is a funny story. So I always gravitate towards the unknown and things that are new and different. So I was standing in the queue, like all good Indian mothers, my mom really wanted me to be an engineer. So I was standing in the queue in my school to pay the fee for the, uh, engineering enrollment. And right next to me was, uh, what we call in India, commerce, um, line as well, where a bunch of kids were discussing, oh, I'm so excited to study, um, corporate law. And I'm so excited to go deeper into economics and accounting and stuff. I'm like, oh, this is not something I have done all the way until high school. Whereas physics, chemistry, everything else we had done and was quite familiar with. And literally one person away from the line to deposit the fees, I switched. So I switched into commerce, like, literally at the last minute. And I was terrified to go home and tell my mother because she really wanted my sister, older sister, to be an engineer. Um, she ended up being a doctor. She wanted me to be an engineer. Next, I ended up being whoever I am, cfo. And, uh, my younger brother, she also wanted him, finally, her last chance, uh, to have an engineer kid. And he ended up being a lawyer. So she doesn't have an engineering kid. So that is the story of how I got into finance, um, world.

Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, it's funny, I had another, um, CFO on. He actually mentioned the podcast CFO of AT&T. And, uh, he. I think he has, like, five brothers and sisters, and they're all professors. And, uh, I think there's, like, a medical doctor and like three or four professors and him. And he's like the black sheep of the family because he went into business.

Speaker C: It's like, I feel the same way.

Speaker B: Is no one in your family heard of AT&T, though? I mean, it's a pretty successful journey to become the CFO of AT&T.

Speaker C: So it's amazing. And Jack, I will tell you, most of my family doesn't know what a CFO means.

Speaker B: I would say in India, yeah, it's sort of an. It's actually a relatively new job. The first. It's only been around about 60 years, I think, for the most part, at least with the formal title, but. So I always wonder, like, yeah, I always find it interesting. What was your first job? And I mean, you know, maybe when you were a teenager. How do you mean? Babysitting. But something after babysitting, but before college graduation.

Speaker C: So I've off and on, taught. I feel very passionately about education generally, but off and on taught. Neighbors, friends got paid for it. But, um, you know, one of the jobs that I did while doing, um, ca. We are supposed to do internship, articleship, we call it. There I had done it for about two years when I realized, okay, I do not want to actually be a CPA for the rest of my life, and I'll tell you why. So the two audits that I got engaged in, some, like two of my first three or four audits. One was physical inventory in a watch factory. I don't know if you can imagine doing PI at watch, uh, factory, where you have these tweezers and you're counting the parts box at a time. Box at a time.

Speaker B: Oh, boy.

Speaker C: Second one was a, uh, transportation company. Had to create their cash flows for taxation because the year was over. And they took me to their office, and below the office was a basement. And they had these big sacks of invoices. Just big gunny bags, really. And you're like, okay, there's all the, you know, invoices and bills and everything. You need to document it and create a cash flow. It was the craziest thing I've ever done, like going through piece by piece. But you learn things out of every experience. And I would say what it taught me to do is everything can be done. You just have to break it into smaller pieces and celebrate the end of those little milestones that you create for yourself. And before you know it, you look back and it's done right.

Speaker B: I recently hear the expression, don't eat the elephant in one bite or something like that.

Speaker C: I love that.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not sure that I have it exactly right, but it's something like that. So. And you were a chartered accountant for. At some point in your career, you. You haven't kept it up. It doesn't sound like. So, yeah, yeah. I never had a job quite like your job at the watch factory. But yeah, there were, there's some good things about the accounting field. But yeah, occasionally, like, I would, um, I would tell my dad, I, you know, I thought my job was boring. And he's like, you know, look what you went into. His famous line was, do you know the Flying Wallendas? No, they're the trapeze artists, you know, at Circus.

Speaker C: Oh, okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like you're an accountant, you're not a flying Lewanda. So, yeah, so get with it. So, uh, cool. But anyway, you've had, you know, a fantastic career journey and you know, from a prior conversation and just, you know, looking at your LinkedIn profile, one thing that strikes, that jumps out at me is I know every single company you've worked for other than what appears to be the first one right out of college. So, uh, you know, you've worked for, Amongst other companies, GE, Walmart, you, uh, know, two titans and then, you know, PayPal and eBay, not quite as big, but certainly prominent, well respected companies. And was there something about big corporations that was intriguing to you early in your career journey?

Speaker C: No, I think, uh, ge, having your first career or first job happens more by chance. You apply to different things and then what resonates. And you know, I picked GE to start my career also because it's just supposed to be the best school for finance people. And you know, having spent, uh, I would say seven plus years at ge, I really look back. A lot of people used to tell me, you know, they don't pay you much, but this is a check you will cash at the end of. Really does feel like that. At the grounding and the uh, learning of nitty gritty, detailed finance process, business partnership, ownership of uh, accountability and stuff that you get from ge, I think it's quite exceptional. So it wasn't really intentional, but it was one of my best options. So ended up with ge and then from there I think it's a combination of trying to get the right skills and trying to, you know, go to the industries where I could learn more. It was the different new thing that was coming up. Yeah. So skill sets and uh, industries. And very important to me is the people that I work for.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's important. And that was actually my next question because almost everybody that I've interviewed on this podcast, they've had critical mentors along the way. And just because, you know, GE in particular, I mean, you know, by reputation. It's exactly what you just said, you know, they were it, you know, uh, you know, the Fortune 500 CFOs, a lot of them were former GE people. Uh, but you must have had some really important mentors along the way.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And I always say that, you know, whoever I am is because of a lot of those people. It's. It's no credit to me. It's really them. And not just great finance talent and leaders, but also just absolutely amazing human beings. So I. I've tried to learn as much as I can from them. There's, um, you know, one thing that stands out to me on all the great mentors is those are the people who have let me fly. You can't hire smart, hardworking people and tell them exactly what to do. You give them a problem, and they will. They'll find a different way to do it. So if you're one of those people who, you know, you got to do it my way, it doesn't work. So that's something that I've really appreciated in every manager that I've had, and I have grown the most, where people have just, you know, thrown me into the pond and let me learn how to swim. Um, so that's one, I think, uh, some of the things that I fondly remember within GE culture that I'm trying to take to all the companies that I work for also is, uh, not only a very high bar for talent, but also augmented by relationships. So my first manager in Milwaukee in ge, he actually drove our U Haul truck when we were moving homes, and I was expecting my first child, and we were new to the US and we didn't know how to drive here, so he literally helped us move our stuff and, uh, you know, assemble the crib and all of that. I'll never forget that I would work for that guy any day. Right. So it's kind of the loyalty these small things build. So, yeah, our work family has been very, very special over the last 20 years to me.

Speaker B: Wow. That's a pretty dedicated boss to do that. He's still working. My. My, uh, listeners might want to send him m. Send him their resume.

Speaker C: So John Kulka is his name. You should look him up.

Speaker B: Okay, I will. Perhaps a future guest on the program. So. No, but that's great. And you've had a great career path. And one thing I think. I think maybe PayPal was when things as an outside observer got kind of interesting because you took on. You were FP and a there, uh, you know, rapidly growing company, but you took on a lot of responsibilities that are outside the scope of traditional finance accounting. Is that fair to Say, here's what

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Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And it was a very deliberate choice. So what happened with PayPal was that I had, over the six or seven, six years of being there, done, um, the corporate FP and a role I had rotated and had portfolios that included all of the different functions like risk payments, marketing, sales, product, you know. So after a point I was like, okay, I understand enough from a finance perspective, all those pieces, what would be the next thing to do? So at that point I got pulled in because I understood all the different parts of the business, uh, into the big transformation we were trying to do for the business model. And that led me to being tapped for a role outside of finance to be the CEO of our, um, leading GM segment as well as, um, you know, get into product. It was hard. It was hard from being the person in the room who knows the most about their function to being the opposite of that. I would enter a room and I'd be the person who knew the least about this new domain. It was difficult, but I think in hindsight, one of the most enriching experiences. It's hard to learn about the product, especially if it's, uh, you know, technology based. When you're outside and you're in the finance function, to be able to really deeply understand the product, how the product gets built, use different muscles in the brain to, you know, learn and grow. And secondly, to view the function that you have, uh, been a part of for 20 years from an outside in perspectives, like seeing a mirror tells you a lot of things you would want to do differently and how would you want to ideally support the business with a growth mindset and not with a mindset of telling people what to do and what not to do, but to really try and see how will you make this happen versus saying no to something. So a huge amount of learning coming out of that. And I think, um, even when I did that, I always knew that I was going to go back into finance and this was just going to create a different muscle. Uh, when I came back, I saw myself as a different finance professional for sure. I'd really encourage people to do that,

Speaker B: there's nothing quite like working in a different function to give you an appreciation of what finance the value can bring across departments.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: So I think that set you up for what I believe was your first ever CFO role at Bill. And, uh, I'm not going to ask a really stupid question. Why'd you take the role? Because I think it's obvious to anybody that. That has been listening and knows anything about Bill. But tell me about the little process, you know, what that was like, you know, to get that role, because I'm sure it was a pretty coveted position.

Speaker C: It was, um, a fantastic process. I mean, I really enjoyed meeting Rene, who's our CEO, and, um, John, who's an. Was our outgoing cfo, is still in the company. So it was a very interesting dynamic there where the, uh, outgoing CFO was still going to be in the company, and a lot of people were like, have you thought through this enough? And I will say, after meeting with them and spending a lot of time just understanding the culture, the product, the passion Rene has for not only the SMB, but for the product that he has built himself, it was just so hard to say no to this. It was a great opportunity. And, uh, it's been a year now. I just completed a year last week. And, uh, you know, great decision. Oh, well, pleasure to be here.

Speaker B: Happy anniversary to you then.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, wow. One year goes by in a hurry. Right? So. Well, I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Renee, because, uh, the most common question members ask me, I mean, the younger ones, is how do you build that relationship with the CEO? You know, it's. You report to her or him. Yeah, of course. But it is best when it's a partnership between two people, even if one is higher on the York chat, so to speak. But, you know, and the, uh, the other wrinkle is Rene's the founder of the company.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. And, you know, they founders tend to be very passionate. So, you know, how do you build that meaningful and respectful relationship with him? You know, benefits you both and the company.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think, uh, first of all, Renee is just a very unique founder CEO. I've met a few of them, and I would say definitely Renee stands out in the humility of, um, acknowledging what he's good at and what he's not good at. And when he brings people into the team, he's very clear. Okay, here's what I need you to do, because I cannot do it as well as you can. You're the subject matter expert, so that's really important. I think, uh, building relationship as a finance person is sometimes, um, I would say in traditional finance roles was overlooked. So growing up in Georgia, you automatically had a seat at the table as a finance person. You didn't really need to make an effort to deeply understand the business, uh, to deeply build relationships, build credibility and earn that seat on the table. Right. So we grew up like that and I moved to tech from there, which is a completely different environment. And one of our, uh, ex GE CFOs, uh, was talking to me early in my tech phase, uh, and he said that, you know, you just have to evolve your thinking in terms of how you support the business. They're not just going to listen to you. So you have to learn the business. You have to. They're all very passionate people. You have to help them figure out how to solve the problem versus telling them what they can or cannot do. You know, the role of a CFO is also very rapidly evolving. To say, oh, this is, to not say this is a good ROI or a bad ROI project. How do you make a bad ROI project? A good ROI project is what we need, especially in the space that we work on. So I think there was just some mental shifts. And then, um, over time, one of my other amazing CFOs, um, I walked into PayPal and in six months my CFO gets me in the room, is like, I'm hearing great things about you. You're doing a great job. You're really changing how we operate. But I keep hearing you have sharp elbows. You need to do something about that because you wouldn't are. So it was his really, uh, direct, uh, but nice way to say, okay, here are the things, here is what you need to work on. And then I realized very quickly that until I have invested in building a relationship, understanding the motivations of the other side and what they're trying to accomplish, I'm not going to be able to add value effectively. I, uh, can't fight the tide. I want to be a part of that success story. So, you know, investing time and understanding the motivations, understanding what the other the team say. And it's not only about the CEO, it's practice that we need to do with all the people as a finance function we support on our job being, you know, how do we make the company successful, how do we make the partners we support successful? Um, so I think that's just over time been ingrained and have, you know, one thing through your career you do is you, uh, learn from the best but you also have to understand what are the things you will not do. Seeing other people operate right. So learn and not learn. So I have um, you know, examples of all of that. And uh, building relationships hence was a big part of uh, how I operated because I wanted to drive that success. And again, I'm very direct person, doesn't take away from that. And Rene makes it easy. I mean what he brings to the table is his deep understanding about the product. I was new to this uh, product. He understands SMB environment really deeply. He cares very passionately about all of this. What I bring to the table is the structure, the discipline, the accountability, the financial um, acumen to be able to grow and run the business uh, effectively. So I think it's a great coming together and uh, how we work together is just, you know, trying to get on the same page on a lot of things we do not sometimes agree on with long conversations. On Saturday morning, he'll call me if something's on his mind and we just talk through it for two hours and whatever time it takes and we uh, work through getting to the place which is best for the business. So I think that's um, and eating and drinking together is always uh, great for relationship development.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that, that's fantastic. And clearly, you know, it's, it's productive. So. No, no, no question about it. But you know, so sort of going the other direction when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, the pride that you take in the current team and the teams that you've built, I think throughout your career is pretty obvious. And I'm curious because uh, it's such a challenge right now, but how do you build and keep a world class finance time in an environment that's more challenging than it's ever been with multi generations and people changing jobs at historically high rates and all those other things. So how do you do it? Because clearly you've done it.

Speaker C: I think I've learned from some of that. I told you, the leaders and manager managers I've had in the past are some of my best friends here in the U.S. right. That's because relationship building is important. It's important to know your team as people, their families, what they do, what motivates them and show that thoughtfulness and care. Again, showing them what the high bar looks like with your own performance and very effectively given feedback. If they know you actually care, they will take the negative feedback for development as well, very effectively. So I think that's really important. Um, I do think that uh, it's important to take bets on people. A lot of people in the past took bets on me and gave me jobs that I always thought in my head I wasn't ready for. That's where you instill that confidence in the teams and your teams want to stick with you. I hire a lot of people I have worked with in the past and they want to work for me again and again. To me that's a really good metric to measure with whether I'm doing something well or not. So genuinely caring for the team, making sure they understand what they need to develop and work through and showing them a 10 year horizon of what their career could look like. A 15 year horizon versus you know, getting people anchored on job to job is really important.

Speaker B: It's interesting and that actually uh, you're setting me up for my questions pretty well. But I was sort of curious. You mentioned like a longer term horizon. I won't go too long. But when you think about, you know, Bill and it's evolved so much and I was surprised to find out it's actually a 20 year old company, it strikes me as such a cutting edge company. You know, it's like, can't be much more than five years old but it's actually, it's gone through some evolutions. But what do you think, you know, five years from now when we look back, how will we define success for Bill?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's uh, it's such a hard question Jack now because um, the pace of change is accelerating at a mind blowing speed. Right. It's just faster and faster. But what we do envision doing here at Bill is uh, making everything, even Bill fade a little bit in the background and you're just getting your work done either through chats or through like, it's almost like, think about it, you know, Bill becomes a big part of your life without being present. So you don't have to go to the website constantly. Or you could be texting uh, into the ecosystem. You could, you know, surface less almost support whereas your financials are being managed. But uh, in five years success would be where all kinds of customers, the smallest customers were like today, maybe not big, uh, enough for Bill where they say, oh, I'm not going to go through the process of uploading my vendors or do this or do that. They just get access to two or three things like a Gmail or whatever to Bill and everything gets done in the background so the friction is removed and everybody, whatever size you are, is able to use it seamlessly. That to me is you know, success. Where, where you kind of fade in the background, you're getting stuff done for your customers.

Speaker B: That makes sense. And you mentioned the pace of change and of course a lot of that is AI driven and rohini. You hit it, you, you heard, you're hearing it here first. AI is going to be big someday. Uh, I am going to go. I know it's not a popular thing, but, uh, absolutely.

Speaker C: Good to hear that. Now I'm going to keep my eyes open.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I'm going to look for some places to invest my money and whatnot. But, uh, but you know, on a more serious note, I suspect you are probably thinking about AI on the day to day more than your typical CFO just because of the company you work for. Right. It's gotta be a critical, critical thing. Uh, so when you think about AI and security in the context of the CFO function, you know, what are the first things that you think of? Because given, you know what, the information that Bill's handling, security has got to be job one or you know, right up there. So.

Speaker C: No, absolutely. And it was very, very top of mind in terms of what we do. It's not only providing support to the office of the cfo, but also moving money. You got to be really, really careful. And AI is amazing, but it's um, you know, not fully there yet. Where we have 100% confidence and 100% accurate movement of money. Right. We need to build that out. So what we did at build was really invest in a platform that had all the controls to make sure that all the safety, regulatory compliance features were built into automatically within that platform. And then we started building AI features as a second step which would then automatically be able to scale and be tested. Right. What we also built in was, um, our ability to switch around LLMs, driving the right economics for the company and for the customers. Right. So the, um, lots of elements of AI that you have to be thoughtful upfront before you start to launch and release at scale and trust obviously is one of them. Economics is the second one. So going back to the trust, I do want to throw out, um, a stat where we asked a lot of our customers on how do you feel about AI? What are you really excited about? So over 60% of our customers were like, oh, we absolutely believe that, uh, AI tools are going to help us manage our costs better, budget better forecast better, or uh, save money. But only less than 15% really trusted it fully. So I think having a bit of caution and understanding when to use AI and when to use machine learning versus Automation and applying the right tools at the right time, building the right controls. And as service providers, we just need to be very clear that, uh, we are building the right controls within our system before we give, before we use it for our customers.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I, it's not perfect in this case, but I sometimes have used the uh, analogy that CFOs are the adult in the room. You know, sometimes you, you don't want to get a reputation for always saying no, but yeah, sometimes we have to say no as a cfo. Right. And are you finding that's at all uh, relevant here? That your colleagues are, you know, people in general are just looking to do this without really. They see only the positive, but without really thinking of the downside or potential risks.

Speaker C: I would say differently, rather than saying no, I want to keep talking about, let's be very thoughtful about what AI is best for. Right. Where do we use AI and sometimes, you know, we use the wrong weapon for the, uh, wrong fight and it doesn't really help us. Probabilistic versus deterministic, very different things. So there are some things in FP&A analytics. I'm thrilled with the results that we are seeing seeing even internally in my teams in use of AI. But in accounting, I want to be very thoughtful in terms of what we are, um, using it for, reporting our numbers externally and things like that. So being thoughtful about where you're using AI is really important. And uh, I'm not saying no, I'm just saying let's be thoughtful.

Speaker B: Yeah, I used to say, uh, be a CF go, not a cf. No.

Speaker C: Love it. Love it.

Speaker B: I never trademarked it. So if you like it, you're willing to see it.

Speaker C: I may use it. I may use it. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, so. So Bill, you talk a lot about sort of the AI native experiences for CFOs and you know, help me understand. You know, it sounds compelling to me enough that I'm asking about, but, you know, what does that look like? You know.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's what I said earlier. And I think it's going to continue to evolve into where it goes with time. But basically it's every experience that we are building has intelligence embedded into it. Whereas, you know, you as a customer should always have a right to decide how much you want to lean in and be in the loop or let go of the steering wheel and let build, drive. So giving you examples is, um, onboarding. If you're just starting out, we are going to ask if you want to give Me access to your Gmail or this or that and or certain files. We are going to onboard the vendors automatically. You don't have to go sit there and do it. The bank information, wherever available, we just sort of, we have an ah, ecosystem, we have a network. We know a lot about the customers. We also know a lot about the people who are taking money from our customers. So how do we bring it together to leverage that data and build it into not only onboarding simplification, but if you have to make a payment, are you with your cash flow that we can see basically is it better to use payment option 1 or 2 or 3? Are you optimizing for time or convenience or cost? We can actually feed you the right answer that fits your um, context at the moment. So kind of really uh, doing a lot of the number crunching and data work for you so that you can just say yes or no to the

Speaker B: decision that makes sense. And you know, I don't want to say there's a debate, but maybe there's a tension because most companies are using AI in at least some capacity at this point. You know, maybe a friendly neighborhood grocery store still doesn't need it or something like that. But most of the companies that people like you and I are going to interact with are using AI and you know, boards are saying, and they're supportive of it, but yet they're saying they're not yet seeing the benefit. And obviously long term the benefits are going to be tremendous but they're not showing up in the short and medium term. And I'm wondering, do you have any theories on why this might be, you know, or when it's going to sort of be uniformly positive because the trains left the station, it's not coming back,

Speaker C: it's just when we get to the destination. Um, I just think that we went there very quickly, right? We expected the world of it and it's going to change the world. It probably will. But there is timeframes and horizons to it. The way I think about it is as I said earlier, putting the upfront controls on, you know, how you measure the cost of it. What is the hypothesis of uh, realizing the benefits us as not the creators of LLMs, but having the ability to use LLMs and pay for it. What I'm very thoughtful about is uh, being able to measure which teams are using how much and how do I control that with the output. It's really like putting ROI framework. Just like you have resource allocation of humans, there is resource allocation of AI capacity that we're looking at, um, from an outcome perspective, uh, this also goes to, you know, what do we use AI for? What do we use traditional automation and ML4? I think everybody's so overexcited about AI that they're forgetting that in some cases AI will be worse off in terms of giving you the answer because it'll think about a new answer every time. And finance, it doesn't always work. You have very clear rules and patterns that you need to detect and repeat them over and over again. Yeah, I think that's how I think about it. On what to use it for. It will give returns over time. One thing that I have noticed, um, is that there are a lot of companies that are. Right. Sizing their resources before the full potential of AI is demonstrated within the company. That puts a little bit more of a push in adoption of AI tools to the most effective way. Because it's hard to give people the tools and just say, okay, now work yourself out of a job. Right. Understand what the size needs to be and then give people the tools and they will figure out how to do job of one and a half person or two person. So I think there is some, some thinking around that space as well. So, you know, this will settle hopefully in the next 12 to 14 months where we start to figure out what are the real economics you're starting to see at the end of it.

Speaker B: Okay, well, I like the specificity. 12 to 14 months. So this is July 2026. I'm going to come back in September of 2027.

Speaker C: I would love to. I mean things are happening way faster than we ever envisioned. Uh, the amount of clarity, I mean this is all software, right? The amount of clarity I have in terms of seeing every person's usage and cost associated uh, with AI is unbelievable. And I can control it and redistribute it. It's, it's a different type of cost.

Speaker B: Oh yeah. Well, the pace of change ever. Oh, nothing. But I have a friend, he's, he's one of the leading thinkers on this.

Speaker C: Huh.

Speaker B: And he's written a book. But it's pointless for him to write a book because by the time he goes through the process of editing and everything else, it's 30% of it's wrong. You just kind of gave up on it.

Speaker C: So, uh, and we are all thinking through with the things that we see and trying to derive an outcome and you know what next year looks like. But as you said, we are all going to be wrong in some ways.

Speaker B: Yeah, indeed. So I want to change the subject a little bit. So. And you know I like to get CFOs, I like to ask them what their favorite KPIs are in the business, both for uh, their own measurement and you know, how they report success to other people who don't have your financial background. And for you it might be an interesting question Rahini, because you are, you have that old school background, chartered accountant, and yet you know, you spent more of your career in FP and a particularly with some evolving cutting edge customers. So I'd love to get your take. What are your favorite or most useful KPIs?

Speaker C: Yeah, I get that question a lot and it's interesting because KPIs are so in context, uh, what is the company trying to do? Where is it in its life, how we can measure but irrespective of a specific metric or so what I always like to say is that it can never be a uh, metric without a control metric. So every time you think that this is the right thing that you need to push the company to, you have to very quickly think what else will go wrong when the whole organization is trying to move the needle on one thing. What would be an effective control metric to make that balance. So I think that's really important to think about the KPIs. One of the things that um, well I would say two metrics that are a little bit non traditional that I'm starting to think a lot about is um, decision velocity. How fast are you making decision? I'm in a industry, I'm in an environment that is very rapidly evolving and there's no perfect answer immediately. So how quickly do we make decisions and how do we iterate on that is really important. Um, and the second one is always keeping an eye on the value driven uh, for the customer. How do we think about that and change the context from just inward looking to a little bit outward looking of what value are you giving to the customer? And hence you can think about your growth, your uh, pricing, what is the company value share that will come out of that, but not to lose sight of that.

Speaker B: So that's great. I'm glad you didn't say something really boring like inventory turnover.

Speaker C: Way back in my past, yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, but yeah, I always dread that somebody's going to answer that with like a really not a bad answer but just a really uninteresting answer. So far I've avoided that. So. But I want to get into the role of the cfo. Uh, and you've had uh, you know, a great run. You Know, as CFO for a highly prominent company, but you've also seen a lot of things. Uh, and so how do you think that the CFO role has evolved over the last few years? And you know, as an aside to that, is there something about the CFO role that will almost certainly never change?

Speaker C: Yeah, let me start with what never changes. Right? We always will wear the hat off. Maximizing shareholder value. That's never going to change. Governance aspect of the job will never change. The independence will never change. So some of those things are just fundamental. What is changing is I feel like the box in which the CFO place keeps getting bigger. Right. To the extent that there is probably not even a box around anymore. It really depends on, you know, who's the CEO you're supporting, what is the company, and how big of a role you can play in not only thinking or helping the CEO define the strategy and how does the long term, um, um, outlook of the company pan out? Right. So I think it's all about driving results and whatever it takes to drive those results, you should be ready to play, uh, that role as a cfo, by the way, I don't think that's a big change. Uh, it's always been in some way, shape or form like that, and there have been CFOs way back when who always played that role. Now I just think that the percentage of those are increasing and the people who are just doing the accounting and keeping the books and, um, you know, reporting on the numbers, that percentage continues to shrink.

Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. And I want to change again a little bit because I know you're very passionate about some philanthropic work that you do in India, and I'd like you to, you know, share a little about what, what are the things that you support in that capacity.

Speaker C: Yeah, it just happened. I just started working back in India and, um, you know, there was one of the guys who used to help us, you know, do the laundry and do, um, the clothes and stuff like that. He was talking to me and we kind of grew up together. And he said that, oh, I have a son and a daughter, and obviously it's really important for my son to go to school, and I can only afford to send one kid to school. I'm thinking of pulling out my daughter and just broke my heart. You know, you could not take your daughter out of school. So I started paying for her education. And after a few years, I saw her graduating out of high school. And, um, by that time I was getting more established in my career. So I tasked my mother to go find in India a bunch of girls whose education I would fund. And that has just kind of, you know, become bigger. And that cycle has continued where I now just fund, um, I feel very passionately about women's education, especially in India, and them finding financial independence and seeing it kind of play through. When I go back to India, I meet some of these girls and it's so exciting. Somebody's working in a bank, somebody's doing, um, is starting to be a doctor and things like that. It's, it's amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting because I, I tend to think of India as being a pretty forward thinking country when it comes to that sort of thing, just because I've known so many women of Indian heritage who are CEOs, entrepreneurs, uh, engineers and attorneys. But it sounds like it's not quite like as an American we perceive it.

Speaker C: So it's, it's not. There's just layers of India and layers of where you, you know, see that there is a stratification, uh, uh, so to say. And it's still in the smaller towns and villages and stuff, at least when I was growing up. Very different for girls.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm sure. But yeah, there's interesting. Well, you know, kudos for you for just kind of turning a casual conversation into something that is, you know, literally changing the lives of people. So that is just fantastic.

Speaker C: I want to do so much more and I just feel like it's not enough. But, um, you know, soon I will have time to invest more.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, you're in your first year of a new, highly, uh, visible role. You can, uh, give yourself a little grace for, for, for time monitor. So, but cool. And I am curious. You know, one of the other things is, um, work, life balance, you know, do you have any advice for people who want to have an impactful career? And I can't imagine that being the CFO of Bill is a 40 hour a week job. That's pretty easy. But you've got to do other things besides work too. So, you know, what are some tricks that people should be thinking about?

Speaker C: I think you have to find what excites you and what you absolutely love. So for me, I love food, I love cooking, I love to feed my kids, my family, my friends. So every time, you know, I'm stressed, I, you know, my breads become more complex because then I'm kneading more and taking out my frustration and anxiety on the bread doughs. But, uh, overall I think it gives me so Much joy to cook and experiment and, you know, do things like that. Uh, secondly, when things are really stressful, I'm a big reader. I read a lot of fiction. I just like nonstop. Almost, uh, every night I have to disconnect with that. And as again, the stress of the day or the week gets too much, the thrillers become more intense because it needs intensity to pull me out of the, the day. Day to day things. I think you've got to find what, what excites you. And those are my two things. I love to read and I love to, um, cook.

Speaker B: Oh, those are two great things. So are you reading anything right now?

Speaker C: I am. I'm in this phase of reading. Mark Cuban, I think, is the author. He has a lot of different books, the kind of thrillers and, uh, very exciting. I think Netflix is making a bunch of series on his books as well, which my daughter's watching. So we exchange notes on what's different book versus, uh, tv.

Speaker B: Oh, that's great that you can keep in touch with your daughter through that.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Cool. Well, this has been a lot of fun and some great insights, Rohini. So I, and I know you got a lot going on, so I do want to thank you for your time. But I'd like to ask before we go, do you have any advice beyond what we've already discussed, you know, for the next generation of CFOs? And I'm thinking maybe, you know, people who are just on the cusp of getting that first CFO position?

Speaker C: Um, I think just as the world is evolving so rapidly, we cannot be for one moment thinking that, uh, we know what we need to know to do the job. You have to have this absolutely accelerated pace of learning, reinventing yourself, and constantly thinking, um, how will I do something differently? So just having done something for 20 years, 25 years, and having the comfort in that is not good enough anymore. So the reason to keep learning is, uh, more relevant than any other time before.

Speaker B: Well, I think that's great advice. I've known very few CFOs who aren't intellectually curious by nature. So with that, uh, thank you again and I'd just love to give you the final word.

Speaker C: You know, um, it's probably not a word, but it's a thought. When I was growing up in my career, I always wanted to look around and see some women leaders who were at these top positions but had it all. They were homemakers. They had, and they spent time with the family and had a fulfilling career and was really hard to find and, uh, was not easy for me to then, you know, say, oh, here's where I want to go. And this is how I want to tell all the women out there who aspire to be women leaders, you can have it all. That's all I want to leave with.

Speaker B: That wraps up this episode of the secrets of Rockstar. CFO's a, uh, huge thank you to our sponsor, Zoho. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review at the end. Rockstar cfo. Com until our next episode. Rock on.

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