Breakthrough Work Podcast

Join us as Erik Zhou, SVP of Finance and Accounting at Brex, walks through 7-plusyears building the finance function behind one of the most consequential deals infinancial services: Capital Ones $5.15 billion acquisition of Brex. Topics covered: • The range of emotions inside Brex when the deal hit, and why longtime employees feltpride and relief at the same time (2:13)• What Brex gets on day one: Capital One's deposit base and a lower cost of financing(3:53)• Whether a $5.15 billion exit kills the scrappy-startup identity (8:26)• Moving company spend off wires and onto cards, and why procurement teams light upat the rewards (13:25)• His first journal entry at Brex posting straight to the P&L with no review, and learning tobe his own control (18:19)• Making peace with "good enough" after a career trained on precision, and the movefrom auditor to trusted advisor (22:11)• The client relationship from his audit days that got him the Brex job 3 years later(28:35)• Staying almost 8 years on an owner's mentality, and the 3-year cycle he carries fromPwC (32:00)• Running finance as the steward of company data, and catching customer churn beforespend ever drops (37:40)• Why new customers take 9 to 12 months to fully ramp, and how today's bookingsforecast next year's revenue (41:44)• The infrastructure that made Capital One's diligence clean: a Big Four audit from yearone, no accumulated tech debt (47:21)• The 3 ways Brex actually uses AI in finance, from off-the-shelf reconciliation to anFP&A agent wired in over MCP (51:51)• His honest take on whether agentic AI threatens finance and accounting jobs (58:23)• The time machine question: would he do it all again the same way? (1:03:51)Erik spent over a decade at PwC before joining Brex as one of two accountants at a 70-person company. For CFOs, Controllers, finance and accounting leaders, and anyonescaling a startup finance team, this conversation is a working guide to the audit-to-industry shift, preparing a company for acquisition, and what Ai actually changes in the day-to-day of finance.

Join us as Will Billings, CAO and Treasurer at Chewy, walks through a finance career built across six industries, two public company boards, and one of the most-cited pandemic RIFs in tech history. Topics covered:The three foundational lessons from Big Four audit that still govern how he leads (2:22)Why he left audit for industry, and the shift from validating to building (8:47)Joining GE and the move from leading teams to influencing leaders without formal authority (11:18)The 90-day listening rule he runs every time he enters a new finance seat (15:46)Elevation, not elimination: his blueprint for AI in finance, clean data architecture, and the future of the record-to-report function (18:17)What the Big Four's campus hiring cuts mean for your 2030 Senior Accountant bench, and the internal rotation program he's building at Chewy in response (19:33)Pursuing public company board service during an active operator career, and how to get recruited onto your first board (28:32)The operator-to-director mindset shift, and what board service taught him about running his finance team (35:56)Going back for his MBA mid-career, and the family essay that got him in (39:11)Leading Airbnb's 25% RIF in April 2020, the public pitch book that helped impacted employees land, and why clarity and empathy coexist (47:04)The back injury that rewrote his view of resilience, and the workout routine that kept him steady (50:46)The one equation Will wishes he'd learned a decade earlier (57:29)Will's career spans EY, oilfield services in Houston, GE's industrial portfolio, Airbnb, Global Foundries, Chewy, and public board seats at Sucro and an autonomous security robotics company. For CFOs, Controllers, finance VPs, and aspiring accounting executives, this conversation is a working manual for scaling finance teams across industries, cycles, and the AI transition.

Join host Ravi Kumar as he sits down with Greg Henry, CFO of 1Password and former CFO of Couchbase, for a masterclass in turning crisis into career-defining moments. Greg shares his journey from the Big Four to leading finance teams through IPOs, FDA shutdowns, and global pandemics, as well as fully embracing AI as a CFO.In this episode, Greg takes listeners inside: • CFO factories (2:52) • The FDA crisis that became a "million-dollar experience" (10:09) • Becoming CFO is moving from the “control tower to the cockpit” (17:30) • “I literally thought we had wrecked the company” (22:02) • 1Password's AI hackathon: creating 21 automated agents in one day (39:35) • Career wisdom from someone on the "16th hole" of their journey (49:31)Through 30+ years of hard-won lessons, Greg proves that the experiences you least expect often become the ones that define your entire career trajectory.

Larry Fitzgerald Jr., recent Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductee, and Kelvin Beachum, 14-year NFL veteran, investor, and philanthropist, join Ravi Kumar for an in-depth conversation on elite performance, leadership, investing, and service beyond the game. What does it take to perform at an elite level for decades and successfully transition from the field to finance? Together, Larry and Kelvin reflect on the habits, mindset, and humility required to sustain excellence in both sports and business.Key topics include:The unseen discipline behind peak performance and career longevity (2:22)Preparing for life after football before the game ends (8:05)Becoming a rookie again: humility, reinvention, and intellectual growth (13:29)Breaking myths about athletes in business (19:46)What great investors really look for in founders (31:06)Lessons from venture capital, early-stage investing, and battle scars (36:05)Advice for athletes and young professionals entering investing, tech and entrepreneurship (39:05)Service, philanthropy, and using influence responsibly (42:27)Kelvin Beachum’s children’s book and redefining athlete stereotypes (46:00)Golf as a mirror for leadership, character, and decision-making (51:26)Whether you’re an athlete, investor, or leader navigating your next chapter, this conversation offers perspective and practical wisdom–you won’t want to miss it.

From scaling Silicon Valley icons like Yahoo and SurveyMonkey to helping bring more than 1,000 missing people home, Dharti Patel, Chief Accounting Officer at Flock Safety, reveals what it truly means to lead when the stakes are real.In this episode, Dharti takes listeners inside:Building career foundations at high-growth tech companies (2:55)Finding courage in discomfort (4:29)The emotional weight of Flock Safety’s mission (10:21)Leading when lives are on the line (12:45)Scaling chaos without slowing the business (23:09)Knowing when to build internally vs. bring in outside experts (26:29)The breakthrough that changed her leadership forever (30:00)Advice for the next generation of CFOs and CAOs (38:23)Join us as Dharti draws on her Silicon Valley career to deliver a masterclass on scaling with integrity, leading with empathy, and choosing work that truly matters.