How CFOs can regain strategic control in times of economic volatility ft. FIS’ Chrissy Wagner and Seamus Smith

Episode notes

CFOs are abandoning quarterly planning cycles for week-by-week assessments as trade tensions, tariff uncertainty, and supplier volatility force a new short-term reality onto financial leadership. Seamus Smith, EVP and Group President of Automated Finance at FIS, and Chrissy Wagner, SVP of GTM at FIS, break down how finance leaders can balance urgent risk management with strategic growth positioning through data quality, automation, and AI. Smith and Wagner reveal that cybersecurity tops the list of CFO concerns, but inefficient processes and lack of visibility into money flows are the real operational killers, particularly as organizations grow through M&A. They explain how FIS helped clients navigate recent tariff disruptions through better data visibility, why paper checks remain one of the biggest fraud vectors in modern finance, how supply chain finance is underutilized in the US compared to Europe, and why AI is already delivering $3.70 in returns for every dollar invested in credit underwriting and collections.

Related episodes across the Index

Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.

• Why Vienna Could Become Europe’s Next Startup Hub. Markus Raunig | Ep. 005Hospitality x Disruption: HXD212 · on fintech81 / 100
• Jamie Funfinergi, Co-founder & GP of Nazca VCVenture Passport · on fintech81 / 100
• The Future of Data Teams in the AI Era: Insights from Alex Welch, dbt Labs' Head of Data and AnalyticsData Hurdles · on fintech80 / 100
• Episode 46 - from Tashkent to Termsheet with Victor OrlovskyThe GoingVC Podcast · on fintech77 / 100
• Crypto-Powered Commerce Across Africa | A Conversation with Chris MauriceThe Money Movement with Jeremy Allaire · on fintech76 / 100
• The $300 Billion Embedded Finance Revolution: AI, Payments, and Strategic GrowthBanking on Information · on fintech70 / 100

• Trust, stablecoins, and the AI margin squeeze:What McKinsey and QED's fintech report means for banks89 / 100
• How Figure and Method closed the loop on debt consolidation and cut delinquency in half70 / 100
• The bank account is the product: Slash's bet on vertical SMB banking74 / 100
• How Kudos built a consumer data moat on top of credit card rewards72 / 100
• Stablecoin infrastructure is rewiring cross-border payments