We’re Ellen and Simone. After 36 years in finance, we’re ready to share what textbooks won’t tell you.

💛 Welcome to CFO Playbook – your practical finance insights delivered bi-weekly. The full read will take approximately 5 minutes. Like what you see? Share it! Use the button below.

☀️ WELCOME TO OUR SUMMER EDITION

This is our last edition before the summer break. We'll be back mid-August, recharged and ready to dive in again.

A quick look back: since last summer, we've covered everything from budgets to boardrooms, M&A to AI. In case you missed one (or want to revisit), here are the three editions you - our readers - engaged with most. You can find these and all past editions anytime at cfoplaybook.io.

🏆 Your Top 3 This Year

1. The Finance Tech Stack: What's Actually Shifting Right Now
The whole stack is in motion: AI-native ERPs like Rillet, Campfire, and DualEntry are rebuilding the system of record from scratch, some will even buy you out of your current ERP contract. Billing platforms that charge a percentage of your revenue are losing ground to challengers that don't eat your margin as you grow. And spend management is heading for consolidation, with Ramp entering Europe. The thread running through it all: the real leverage is getting clean data into a warehouse where AI can actually work with it. Plus: our take on how to get your finance team started with AI, one hated workflow at a time.

 2. The Boardroom Playbook: How CFOs Turn Updates into Decisions
Most board meetings don't fail because people are unprepared. They fail because everything is an update and nothing is a decision. This one is our field guide to fixing that: label every agenda item as Inform, Discuss, Align or Approve, so the board knows what's being asked of it. Replace the 15-slide strategy section with a one-page Briefing Sheet that makes trade-offs visible. And do the real work before the meeting: align the leadership team, pre-wire the big topics with key board members, and know which lens each investor is looking through: a VC in year one of a fund sits in a very different meeting than a PE investor twelve months from exit.

3. Build or Buy: The New Finance Tech Question CFOs Aren't Ready For
Fresh off the press, but it struck a nerve: your team is already building its own AI tools, with or without sign-off: the question is where that makes sense and where it just feels productive. We untangle the two risks everyone lumps together ("is it safe?" is really two questions with two different fixes), draw the line between workflows that read from your systems of record and those that write back to them and explain why hiring a developer makes you build more safely, but isn't, by itself, a reason to build more.

And for the accounting nerds among you: Management Accounting: From Ledgers to Levers earned one of our highest open rates of the year. Still worth a re-read. 

🍹⛱️🌴 YOUR SUMMER STACK

🎧 Listen

• 🎵 PORTOFINO '97: The Soundtrack Our summer playlist pick: Riviera vibes, aperitivo energy, zero spreadsheets. Press play, close your laptop

• 🎙️ Europe 2031 What getting AI wrong means for us A scenario study on where Europe lands if we sleep through the AI transition, now also on Spotify as a podcast. If you haven't listened to it yet, this is your must-listen for the summer.

📚 Summer Book Stack

Wishing you a relaxing, inspiring and sun-soaked summer ☀️

We'll see you back in mid-August, recharged and ready to dive in again. Until then: enjoy the pause, skip the spreadsheets (just for a bit) and soak up the good stuff.

🌐 Finance Collective - Your CFO Network

Finance Collective goes Nordics: save your spot for our Launch Night

Save the Date: Sep 15 · 17:00–20:00 · Norrsken House, Stockholm

The CFO network is coming to Stockholm! After growing to 200+ CFOs across DACH, we're opening our first Nordic chapter. Expect talks by Emily Villatte (CFO, Stillfront) and Daniel Ahremark (CFO, Nivoda), followed by food, drinks & DJ. DACH members are joining too.

Places are limited and curated, registration is free.

Save your spot before you head off.

CLOSING REMARKS

Thanks for reading 💛

Send your feedback, suggestions, or requests to feature something in future editions to [email protected]. We’d love to include your input.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more updates!

CFO Playbook reflects our personal opinions, not professional advice.