Episode 25 - The CFO Owl

Welcome to episode #25 of Agents of AI, Capto’s podcast for leaders who want to understand how humans + AI agents are reshaping the future.
The "CFO Owl" joins us to share:

• Our guest is based in Western Europe and serves as a Finance and Operations Director in the payments industry, connecting merchants with acquiring banks to deliver payment solutions. They were the company's first employee four years ago, hired to help the founder set up operations and support growth. They consider themselves a generalist, connecting the strategic and operational sides of a business and believe the CFO role is evolving into the "Chief Future Officer" because finance is now about designing the company's future, not just reporting or risk.

• What excites them most about their role is the mix of strategy and execution, with their combined CFO and Head of Operations role allowing them to see the business at every level, from daily tasks to long-term plans. They also enjoy taking projects from start to finish and putting strategy into practice. They believe a modern CFO must be a "system builder" and make the system work for them by designing processes and tools so the company can grow without getting stuck on small daily problems.

• What feels like a common underappreciation of the CFO role is the belief that they only manage budgets or "just there to say no". Modern finance is the department of "how" and a modern CFO helps the company grow by supporting new ideas and deciding how to use money in the smartest way. 

• An early and powerful use case for AI was automating daily client reports. Before automation, the process was to download a big data set, filter it for each client, and manually send a bunch of emails every day, which was time-consuming and created errors. Working with Capto, they automated the whole process, which now takes less than one second, and clients receive accurate data each morning. 

• The guest is currently working with Capto to build partner reports that combine different data sources into a clear and "decision ready PDF". The goal is not only faster work but better communication, with the guest stating, "clarity is the real automation" because when a report is clear, people act on it. They are shifting from automation for simple productivity to automation for insight.

• Advice for peers is to "start now" with AI, believing that the best time to start was yesterday, and the second best time is now. They state that people do not need to be an expert in AI, but just need to partner with the correct partner and begin with very easy tools. Practical advice includes using GPT to write, summarize, or analyze, and using Zapier to connect simple workflows.
  

...and finally their identity is revealed as Antoine Allard, CFO of eFlow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allardantoine/ 
Agents of AI features CFOs, other practitioners, technology leaders, and AI visionaries to share real wins, failures, and strategies, so teams everywhere can learn, adapt, and lead. You can also learn any time from the entire knowledge base of our guests via our "AI Twin". https://hey.speak-to.ai/agents-of-ai 
If you know a superhero and "Agent of AI" that should join our program, or you are one yourself! Comment, tag them, or reach out to Alexis Chevallot or Peter Steube on LinkedIn.  https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearecapto