In high-growth, pre-IPO environments, controllers must move fast, maintain accuracy, and balance innovation with compliance. In this fireside chat, Kristin Johannimloh shares firsthand experience navigating AI adoption as a solo controller in a performance-enhancement company preparing to go public. She explores the tensions between automation and human judgment, highlighting both successes and pitfalls. Attendees will examine three core challenges: - AI in lean teams: How to deploy AI effectively without a full finance team. - Compliance meets innovation: Ensuring documentation, SEC standards, and professional judgment remain intact. - Strategic evolution of controllership: Transitioning from manual reconciliation to shaping revenue structuring and decision-making.

With more than 70 percent of CFOs saying operational workload limits their ability to focus on strategic priorities (Deloitte), finance operating models are being judged on capacity creation as much as control. This panel examines how CFOs redesign ownership, cadence, and automation so finance delivers faster decision support without weakening accuracy, governance, or audit readiness. Expect a candid look at what leading teams centralise versus embed, how decision guardrails reduce escalation to the CFO, and which operating model shifts create real breathing room at scale. Key takeaways: - Identify the operating model decisions that remove bottlenecks while protecting control, compliance, and auditability. - Compare practical guardrails that reduce CFO dependency and clarify decision ownership across the business. - Distinguish where automation reliably saves time, and where human judgment must stay in the loop to avoid risk and rework. - Take away a clear set of levers to create capacity for planning, partnering, and growth leadership without adding fragility.

With more than 70 percent of CFOs saying operational workload limits their ability to focus on strategic priorities (Deloitte), finance teams are under constant pressure to move faster without letting standards slip. Most CFOs agree the operating model needs to change, but far fewer feel it actually works cleanly in practice. This panel gets into the real, sometimes messy decisions behind modern finance operating models, what CFOs choose to centralise, what they deliberately push closer to the business, and where automation genuinely helps versus where it quietly creates more work. Expect an honest conversation about trade-offs, false efficiencies, and the changes that actually create space without introducing new risk. Rather than theory, the discussion focuses on what has worked, what hasn’t, and what CFOs would do differently if they were redesigning their finance function today. Key takeaways: - Which operating model choices genuinely remove bottlenecks, and which ones tend to resurface elsewhere as rework or escalation. - How CFOs set guardrails that reduce dependency on finance leadership while protecting accuracy, compliance, and audit readiness. - Where automation reliably gives time back, and where human judgment still needs to stay firmly in the loop. - Practical levers CFOs use to create capacity for planning, partnering, and growth leadership without making the function more fragile.