CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Three accomplished CFOs. Three candid conversations. One revealing look at how finance leaders think about acquisitions before the headlines ever appear.
In this special CFO Thought Leader edition, we revisit conversations with Jonathan Carr, former CFO of Armis, James Redfern, CFO of Reltio, and Toby Driver, CFO of IdeaGen. Each discusses acquisitions from a different vantage point—planning, integration, organizational readiness, and the people challenges that ultimately determine whether a transaction creates lasting value.
What makes these discussions especially compelling is their timing. Carr and Redfern shared their perspectives months before their companies were acquired. ServiceNow completed its acquisition of Armis in April 2026, while SAP completed its acquisition of Reltio in May 2026. Their remarks offer an unfiltered look at how experienced CFOs approached M&A before those transactions became public realities.
Driver complements those perspectives by explaining why successful acquisitions depend on disciplined integration, thoughtful execution, and finance leaders who understand that value is created long after the purchase agreement is signed.
Together, these conversations reveal that successful M&A extends well beyond valuation models and deal negotiations. It requires aligning people, integrating operations, managing risk, and establishing clear decision-making processes across the organization. Whether discussing integration playbooks, organizational change, or strategic planning, each CFO highlights a different dimension of the finance leader's role in helping acquisitions achieve their intended objectives.
For finance leaders navigating growth, transformation, or acquisition activity, these three conversations provide a timely look at the strategic thinking that often precedes—and helps shape—successful deals.

Sinohe Terrero still remembers the timing. He joined Envoy in January, only to see the workplace transformed just two months later as offices around the world shut down because of COVID. The company had been building products for offices, but suddenly, almost no one was going to the office, Terrero tells us.
That abrupt shift forced Envoy to rethink its future. The company quickly introduced a product called Protect to help organizations safely welcome employees and visitors back into their facilities. From there, it expanded into desk management, room scheduling, deliveries, analytics, and ultimately a broader suite of workplace security solutions.
Today, that evolution has reshaped the business. Envoy now helps organizations across industries such as aerospace, defense, biopharma, and manufacturing secure their physical workplaces. Emergency notifications, visitor management, identity verification, and real-time visibility into who is inside a facility have become central capabilities, Terrero tells us.
Looking back, Terrero sees a different challenge driving the company’s growth. During the pandemic and the inflationary period that followed, organizations struggled to determine whether they would operate remotely, in hybrid environments, or fully in person. Now that most companies have settled on their workplace strategies, the demand for operational data has increased significantly, he tells us.
That demand extends beyond simply managing office attendance. Organizations want software that can verify identities, monitor facility access, manage security risks, and provide real-time information rather than relying on manual logs or random sampling. For Terrero, Envoy’s journey reflects how quickly a company can evolve when changing customer needs require an entirely new way of thinking about the workplace.

Taking a Company Public: What CFOs Know
What does it really take to prepare a company for life as a public company?
In this special CFO Thought Leader compilation, we revisit three conversations with finance leaders who helped guide some of the technology industry's most recognizable companies through the IPO journey. Rather than focusing on the transaction itself, these CFOs share what happened behind the scenes—the operational changes, leadership decisions, and financial discipline required long before the opening bell rang.
John Kinzer, former CFO of HubSpot, explains how preparing for an IPO required transforming finance from a back-office function into a strategic business partner. He discusses the importance of balancing growth with profitability and creating the operational discipline expected of a public company.
Kelly Steckelberg, former CFO of Zoom Video Communications, reflects on building the people, processes, forecasting capabilities, and financial infrastructure necessary to support a successful transition to the public markets. She also shares lessons from leading Zoom through its first earnings call as a newly public company.
Drawing on his experience helping lead IPOs at Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext, Steve Cakebread offers a broader perspective on why companies go public, how management teams should prepare, and why governance, investor communication, and long-term vision are essential to building enduring public companies.
Together, these three accomplished CFOs offer a practical look at what it really takes to take a company public—from preparing the organization and strengthening financial operations to communicating with investors and leading through one of the most significant milestones in a company's evolution.

When Martino Cadoni joined DeepL, he arrived with an unusual perspective—he already knew the company’s product firsthand. Earlier in his career at Klarna, he had helped introduce DeepL as a translation solution, making the transition from customer to CFO especially meaningful. Today, DeepL is backed by investors including HV Capital, Benchmark, Index Ventures, ICONIQ, and Atomico, Cadoni tells us. Working alongside those firms, he says, continually pushes him “out of the comfort zone.”
That mindset mirrors the company’s trajectory. DeepL supports “almost 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies,” Cadoni tells us, while continuing to grow and mature for its next stage of development.
Rather than viewing language translation as a commodity, Cadoni emphasizes its strategic importance in critical business workflows. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, rely on accurate translation of regulatory documentation before commercializing new drugs, he tells us. Legal firms, airlines, manufacturers, and multinational organizations face similar challenges where translation quality directly affects operational outcomes.
Customer adoption reflects those varied use cases. DeepL monitors daily and monthly active users, translated character volumes, language pairs, and traditional financial metrics, Cadoni tells us. He notes that demand often extends well beyond English, highlighting significant activity between Japanese and Korean as well as Portuguese and Spanish.
Enterprise relationships frequently begin with a single geography or department before expanding across functions, Cadoni explains. One airline customer, for example, uses DeepL to translate aircraft maintenance documentation before selling planes internationally, illustrating how specialized AI can solve highly practical business problems while supporting global growth.

When Jean Compeau joined Sonar as CFO in March 2025, AI coding was not yet dominating industry conversations. By the summer and fall that followed, however, the landscape had shifted dramatically. Today, AI agents are producing software code at a pace that humans cannot easily verify, creating both opportunity and risk.
That shift sits at the center of Sonar’s mission. The company is the global leader in AI code verification and governance in what it calls the agentic-centric development lifecycle, or “ACDC, just like the band,” Compeau tells us. The scale is significant. Sonar is trusted by 7 million developers, processes 750 billion lines of code daily, serves 25,000 paying customers, and counts 75 percent of the Fortune 100 among its customers, Compeau tells us.
For Compeau, growth is measured through both financial and operational signals. ARR, NRR, GRR, and EBITDA remain core metrics, she tells us. But she also watches utilization, adoption, lead generation, pipeline activity, and free-to-paid conversion rates because these indicators can reveal future performance before financial results arrive.
That perspective shapes how finance participates in strategic decisions. As Sonar invests in new AI-driven products, finance evaluates not only bookings potential but also the company’s long-term position in the AI market, Compeau tells us. The finance function remains involved throughout the process, helping operationalize everything from product introduction and revenue tracking to order management and cash collection.
For Compeau, finance’s role is not simply to measure growth—it is to help shape it.