CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

2,600 CFOs. 1 Global Community. What Jack McCullough Learned from Leading Them All

• James Donovan • Season 3 • Episode 41

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2,600 CFOs. 100+ interviews. One framework every advisory-first firm should know.

Jack McCullough, founder of the CFO Leadership Council and host of the globally ranked Secrets of Rockstar CFOs podcast, shares what the best financial leaders do differently, and how to position your firm for where the industry is going.

This episode covers:

  • The CREATE Framework: 6 traits great CFOs consistently show
  • Why strategic thinking now matters more than technical skill
  • How to build CEO-level trust as a financial advisor
  • Lessons from interviewing 100+ top CFOs across industries
  • The mindset shift separating the rising stars from the stuck

Whether you're building your firm or advising one, this is the playbook serious leaders are listening to.

Want to connect with Jack?
Text: 617-678-0957
Email: jack@cfolc.com

Send us a text

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Speaker 1:

Today's guest is on a mission to redefine what it means to be a CFO. Jack McCullough is the founder of the CFO Leadership Council and host of the podcast Secrets of Rockstar CFOs. He's worked with thousands of finance leaders, helping them evolve from number crunchers to strategic powerhouses. In this episode, we explore what separates good CFOs from great ones and how today's financial leaders can prepare for the future of the role. Let's get into it. We have an amazing guest joining us today who actually has one of the top 10% podcasts going on in the world right now, which is super exciting, so hopefully I can learn a thing or two from him.

Speaker 1:

Before diving into the episode, I do want to give a massive shout out to the team over at Universal Accounting. Thank you so much for sponsoring the show. Anyone who's looking to build the premier accounting firm, make sure you check out Universal Accounting and Roger Connect. They got a ton of great resources. They're awesome what they do. We'll drop some information in the show notes To our guest, Jack McCullough. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I cannot wait to get into your story and learn a little bit more about your podcast and what you're doing on your side. Thanks for joining.

Speaker 2:

No, glad to do it. When you said you had an awesome guest and that I was in the top descent of podcasters, I thought you were confusing me with somebody else, but it's great to me. You know that for a fact. My podcast is within the top 10% that's.

Speaker 1:

That's what my my research shows online. Yeah secrets.

Speaker 2:

I literally did not know that, so good for me rockstar CFOs top 10% well, thanks, I'm glad to be here and I appreciate your reaching out and, you know, allowing. I've been looking forward to the conversation for a few weeks now awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, jack, tell me a little bit about you know you've had a remarkable journey, you, you know. Founder, author, you're hosting a podcast now I would love to dive into in your, your experience, what makes a great CFO.

Speaker 2:

It's. You're perhaps familiar with the expression horses for courses.

Speaker 1:

And I haven't heard that before horses for courses.

Speaker 2:

I haven't heard that before. Oh, the idea. It's, in horse racing, like there are some horses that you know they're good at long distance running. There are other horses that are really good at the sprint. There are some that perform well on a muddy track. There's some that need a different class. So you know there's not a one size fits all model for what's a great CFO, but there are certainly some qualities that are consistent across company sizes and regions and whatnot.

Speaker 2:

But you know, if I were to focus on the most important thing, in fact it's a presentation I give and it's easy to remember for your listeners it's uh, create, and it stands for collaboration, resiliency, empathy, agility, transparency and empowerment. And where that came from? I reached out to a lot of people who are not cfos and I asked them what are you looking for in CFOs? And it wasn't like good financial skills, it wasn't good technology skills, it was those leadership and personality traits which surprised me. And, by the way, it was an open-ended question, so it's not like a pull-down or multiple choice type of thing. They could write whatever they wanted and literally not one person said financial aptitude. And these were like good people. They were venture capitalists, pe investors, people who are on public company boards, ceos, other members of the C-suite and they were really wanting the leadership and the communication and the transparency more than anything else.

Speaker 1:

Did those answers surprise you?

Speaker 2:

Did those answers surprise you? I was. They didn't shock me. Okay, right, because I was surprised that not one person said finance or an understanding of the digital realities facing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that might be a better way to ask it. I guess Were you surprised that, yeah, that that didn't come up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like if I were to ask people what are the five most, I would have known for sure that many of those would come up. But I asked people for you know what's the most important? And I mean, you know, some people did give two or three, but yeah, it did surprise me a little bit. And then, you know, I had to manipulate it because they actually talked more about team building, but that would be creat, but that would be create. So I was trying to come up with a word that that ended in that started with e, that it meant teamwork, so hence empowerment. I kind of crammed that one in there to make the create framework. So, but it's an easy way to remember it. You know, when you're thinking about what do I do create? Okay, what do they stand for?

Speaker 1:

boom yeah, that's great. Um, and just for for everyone, for anyone who's not watching and just listening, I need to address the Incredibles action figure behind you on your bookshelf. That is just. I mean no pun intended. That is incredible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, a free Jack McCullough bobblehead doll for all of your listeners, right, that's perfect? No, I feel like when people notice it, you know two things. First of all, for those who can't see it, it is literally a bobblehead doll of me. I did not buy this for myself. My ego is not quite that out of control. In my last job, when I left, this was a going away gift. And also, you know, the head does look quite a bit like me, although I'm 10 years older, but look at the abs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that must be spot on though.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, exactly. I don't even know how they got a picture of my abs. I didn't know that this was one of the Incredibles, I think, so I wasn't familiar with them. I actually put that up during COVID when we all started using Zoom. I picked it up and people started commenting. I said, wow, that's the greatest conversation I could ever have.

Speaker 1:

No, that's great, that's really cool. I would love to hear a little bit more about the community you built with the CFO Leadership Council.

Speaker 2:

Sure, and a little about us. I started the group. I myself was the CFO and I just really wanted a network of my peers and I didn't have much of a vision for it. To be honest, I was thinking we can get 25 CFOs to get together, you know, four, six, eight times a year, whatever it is just to, you know, commiserate a little bit, maybe bring an outside sponsor. It wasn't that much more than that. I just wanted to learn from my peers and it was one of those things. I guess I touched a nerve because, without really trying the very first program we had had 60 CFOs come and then, you know, it sort of accidentally grew.

Speaker 2:

One of my members moved to New York and we launched a chapter there and then we did it in Philadelphia and they were all pretty successful, and at that point in my career I was actually working at KPMG and doing business development and great company liked the job, you know, good money, and so I had to make the decision, though this was something I was becoming very passionate about, and so the classic decision of love of money and idiot that I am, I pick love. So I've been doing it 10 years and we've grown to about 2,600 members. We have members on every continent, not Antarctica, but every continent that's inhabited. And you know, it's just been the ride of my life. You know, and I tell people like a lot of times people join for the content and we do have really good content, but they stay for the community.

Speaker 2:

You know the relationships that have been formed over the years between CFOs. You know, I've actually looked. I can't find anything like it amongst professionals like this. It's like we have an annual conference and it's covered by the you know CFO press, like CFO Brew, cfo Dive, et cetera. And CFO brew had a great quote about our conference. They said we set the world record for hugs at a financial conference. But it's such a tight knit community that people look out for each other. It's, it's just amazing what I sort of accidentally built here. So, along with a lot of other people, I don't want to take credit here.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, that's. That's incredible. What gets you the most fired up about what you have created or getting together with your community?

Speaker 2:

I think what I like most is the opportunity to really work with the next generation of financial leaders. I'm 102 years old myself, as you could probably guess from looking at me. Actually I'm 61. But my first CFO job came during the dot-com era and you know I don't want to say I didn't deserve the job, because you know I think I was successful in it. But it was lucky that I was born, when I was, that a lot of people were getting CFO jobs and a great experience and a great run at a relatively early point in their career. And so right now I recognize yep, me and a lot of people like me. We did a good job with it.

Speaker 2:

But let's keep this going a little bit. Let's make sure that the next generation of leaders has the opportunities and, more importantly, has the skills and the contacts to take advantage of those opportunities when they come, so that they can be successful. And that's what really excites me a lot, when I can reach out to somebody who's, say, a VP of finance or controller and they have everything to get that CFO role and I can help them get the role, whether it's positioning themselves, just thinking about a different way to solve problems, how to build relationships with CEOs, that sort of thing thing. That's what I love most about my job the chance to impact. Well, they're like your age, but, um, you know, younger professionals. I don't mean that patronizingly, but no, no, you know you're good.

Speaker 1:

That's really cool. Um, you've interviewed dozens of of standout CFOs. You get to engage with them in your community all the time. What are some of the key traits of their mindset that set them apart from others?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know the roles change dramatically. Like I, I often speculate, you know, could I be a CFO today? And you know I, I, perhaps I would, you know I'd have to change how I approached it and whatnot. But the best CFOs, you know, they think like CEOs to a large extent. They talk about they've been talking about for a while how critical the strategic partnership they have with the CEO is. But what's happened in the last couple of years is CEOs now are reciprocating it. That you know. They used to say, well, maybe the VP of engineering or the VP of sales was the most important relationship that they had. Now they're saying no, the CFO is the most important strategic partner that they have within a company. That's a big change.

Speaker 2:

And so I've coined the phrase that CFOs are almost the deputy CEO, that the CFO role is the closest one to a CEO within the company, except for those 10% that have like a COO type of role. It's an important position but it's largely vanishing because CFOs are taking on a lot of those responsibilities. So I think it's more the leadership and the partnership with the CEO and across the entire C-suite that sort of separates the one, the strategic leader, from the historian. You know I got my first CFO job promoted from a controller Still a great way to do it. You know the controllership is a great farm system for the CFO role. But you know it's limiting. If you approach the CFO role as a controller, you've got to approach the CFO role as a CEO Interesting that's so valuable. I came across as though I'm really confident, don't I? But I was kind of a mediocre CFO so maybe I should shut my mouth and listen to other people.

Speaker 1:

You're probably being extremely, extremely humble with this for everything that you've built. I'm curious, curious, jack, your your podcast we spoke about it earlier secrets of rockstar cfos. It's doing amazing, one of the top 10, or top 10 it's in the top 10 of podcasts in the world, which is really cool. What are some of the the lessons or conversations that you've been the most surprised by with with the guests of your show?

Speaker 2:

you know, um, not a lot has shocked me. Um, okay, you know I'm probably a little bit difficult to shock a little bit, but again, you know the comments I made about the strategic partnership. Um, I'd say a main thing that's comes up a lot is the great cfos, for, for one thing, they there's that humility gene. I never had it. But you know they can't seem to take credit for anything they've done. You know I praise them for the organizations they've built and you know they're thanking their controllers, they're thanking the HR people, they're thanking the board of directors. You know I half expect some of them to thank their third grade teachers or something like that. Directors, you know I half expect some of them to thank their third grade teachers or something like that. So the humility is really good. But the other thing is like on mine, I do tend to ask I don't want to say personal questions, but you know I'll ask questions about, you know, their early life and you know work, life balance and you know just personal struggles they may have gone through if they're willing to talk about it and it's.

Speaker 2:

I've been shocked a little bit about how vulnerable the CFOs are willing to make themselves during these conversations, because you know that's it's not a gender thing, it's a CFO thing. You know they, it's not easy for them to make themselves vulnerable. I don't think they're, you know, a tower of strength within their professional lives and but a lot of them, you know, they do make themselves vulnerable. There have been, like there've been a couple of instances. You know I've actually had to pause the recording because both of us are like near tears talking about our kids. I'm the father of two autistic adult sons and we just went off a little bit on, you know, the challenges of being a special needs parent. So you know, it's um, even though I have a lot of friends who are CFOs, I was a little surprised that people that I didn't really know before the process were willing to be so candid about their, their emotional sides, that's cool.

Speaker 1:

That speaks volumes to to the conversations you're having and the guests you're bringing on the shows, that you guys can get that vulnerable and open up that much.

Speaker 2:

That's really cool to hear it is a reflection on them, not me, right? So?

Speaker 1:

take, it takes two, takes two to tango. Um, I want to speak a little bit about the, the tough decisions that fall on cfos when, when the pressure is on and data is limited, how, how do the best CFOs lead decisively?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know it's interesting because you mentioned data limited, because that I didn't really know it at the time. But that's kind of the world I grew up in. You know, I didn't appreciate it until we lived in the world where there's, you know, seemingly unlimited data. Live in the world where there's, you know, seemingly unlimited data. But you know, data and AI type tools they're not going to replace human judgment. Common sense, intuition they enhance it. Right. When I see people that they're just data driven, that's great in some roles, but you know, sometimes you sort of need that, that human element in decision making. Never let go of that. You know, at least right now and I don't have a crystal ball maybe in 10 years Gen AI will actually be able to replace common sense with people and intuition with people. But right now it's a combination of data analysis and just common sense. You know, listen to the man or woman inside, whatever it might be. Intuition, taking advantage of, you know, if you're a CFO with 25 years experience, calling upon what you've learned during those 25 years and support it within data. They go hand in hand. But yeah, they are, you know, faced with difficult decisions.

Speaker 2:

You know I don't want to say it was easy to be a CFO, because that's unfair. But in the 10 years before COVID you had basically a very strong economy. The cost of capital was historically low. You had the advantage of the most well-educated workforce in the world. Globalization was expanding, so there were increasing opportunities. It was a glorious time to be a cfo because there's so many opportunities.

Speaker 2:

But with covid, and then seemingly every few months, some kind of crisis comes up. You know whether it be supply chain shortfalls or you know, talent shortages, uh, rising interest rates. You know the the worst recession we yeah, it's probably not the worst recession, but bad recession, um, and you know now the worst recession yeah, it's probably not the worst recession, but bad recession. And you know, now learning to deal with tariffs. You know there's always a new challenge that's vexing to CFOs and you know, with tariffs in the United States at least, you have to go back to Jimmy Carter, who was our president from 77 to 80, to you know to learn about tariffs because we basically have been eliminating them for four decades. And you know I don't know very many CFOs who are CFOs in the late 1970s that I can call to as a resource, right, yeah. So you know they've got to figure it out on their own, and these do impact people. So you know it's great because it's always challenging and changing. I'm not sure if I'm remotely answering your question or just babbling incoherently.

Speaker 1:

Sounds good to me. Little above yeah, call him A, call him B. No, it works, that's good. You spoke a little bit about AI and how that's not replacing common sense and that intuition that you have that gut feeling, common sense and that, that that intuition, that you have that gut feeling how much AI are you either? Are you hearing in your community that other CFOs are implementing? How are people implementing it? What should people try to be? This is a loaded question. What should, what should people be, you know, using AI for within their, their day-to-day role, and what should they just really stick? Shouldn't get AI anywhere near it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know it's a complex question and for CFOs it's harder than for other people, other executives. Excuse me for a couple of reasons, and partly it's cybersecurity, data privacy type issues, right, if you work in marketing and I've worked in marketing, so I'm not slamming the profession but privacy is not paramount, right, the way it is for a financial person or an HR person. And, in point of fact, some people would make the argument that marketing people should intentionally leak their private plans because it creates a buzz type of stuff. And you might know, famously early in Microsoft's history it allowed people to pirate their technology because it made it ubiquitous. There was a product that a little before your time called Lotus 1-2-3. It was the first spreadsheet and for quite a bit of time it was better than Microsoft Excel. It had like a two or three year head start. But Lotus protected its spreadsheet, microsoft did not. So all of a sudden everybody had Microsoft Excel on their computer because they didn't try to prevent anyone from stealing it and sort of the ethics around it weren't like they are today and it was a brilliant move and marketing sort of has that mindset.

Speaker 2:

Let's just get the information out there. They they're not flipping about it. But they recognize. Hey, you know, if we've got a new product feature coming out, that's a real game changer. Probably no harm in releasing it six months early. Our competition can't steal it and beat us to the market. So why not? Right?

Speaker 2:

Cfos can't think that way. Right, they've always got to be thinking about data privacy. Hey, we have our company's credit cards. We have highly confidential financial information that we can't allow to leak before the next year's earnings release, next quarter's earnings release, et cetera, et cetera. So that's slowing down the adoption, rightly so, and whatnot. But that said and I'm very pro-AI if I'm coming across as otherwise, but somebody shared with me what I think is a brilliant quote, because I asked will AI ever be able to replace CFOs ever? And the person he runs Stanford Center for Ethical AI, stanford Center for Ethical AI and he said absolutely not. However, cfos who embrace AI will replace CFOs who do not embrace AI. It's a critical tool. It's probably the most important tool in the toolkit, so embrace it. It's not for analytics. It's going to give your organization a genuine competitive advantage and you need to embrace that. But as a CFO, you need to do it in a responsible way.

Speaker 1:

So that's so good. Yeah, it's not going anywhere. It's here to stay. It's just how. How are you going to implement it for your best use case? But it's people who aren't using it. They, yeah, like you said, they will be left behind. They, they're already getting left behind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's, I've seen it a little bit and I have a friend.

Speaker 2:

He's a barber and you would think that would be maybe the least tech savvy operation but he actually he, he owns I think he might own like five barber shops now but he's using it, uh, gen AI and his marketing strategy and his staffing strategy and you know he's, when he opens up a new shop he uses it to explore, you know, the best places to go and you know he he noticed that there are, you know, a lot of mothers are bringing their sons into the shop. Does it make sense to make this a fun experience for the mom, not just waiting type of stuff you know can? Does it make sense to make this a fun experience for the mom, not just waiting type of stuff you know? Does it make sense to, you know, offer services that moms would want, type of stuff? So you know, barbershop simple job, right, you know, once you know how to cut hair pretty well, you can probably be a pretty successful barber. But he's embracing AI and he's building sort of a local dynasty.

Speaker 1:

It's really cool, yeah there's. It moves so quick there. There's so much to be to try to keep up with it. It's, it's, it almost is a full-time job, but there's a lot of really exciting stuff that can be can be done with it. We got a couple things in the pipeline that I'm excited about that we're hopefully releasing pretty soon. So I'm not gonna spill the beans on on the the marketing release just right now um jack. Last question for you what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Speaker 2:

professionally or in general. Let's go both, okay. Um, I'd say geez. Professionally, I would say the best advice is sort of to be true to yourself and because I have a little bit of a you've probably sensed it just from this conversation For a finance and accounting professional, I have a little bit of a oversized personality. You know I've got a unique sense of humor, let me put it that way and you know I was told that's a strength, it's not a weakness. Embrace it. You know, work for companies where the culture is such that they would actually value a funny chief financial officer, a funny leader. It's disarming, it makes people like you. Don't do it in a way that you're clownish, but, you know, just embrace your true self.

Speaker 2:

Other thing is a boss of mine told me it was actually pretty good advice and you know I was working for him. So when he told me at first I was like what the why is he telling me this? But he told me to rewrite my resume every three months. I'm like is he suggesting that there's going to be a layoff and he wants me to be ahead of the curve? But his point was do it every three months and if you can't come up with something new. That means you haven't learned anything. So use the next three months to learn something. And you know, maybe three months isn't the right thing, but you know, I was like 26, 27, so I needed to be always learning and growing professionally. So you know, just, it's a pretty simple exercise. You know, look at your resume every three months, job hunting or not. What did I learn in the last 90 days that that matters? That's going to help me grow and become a better professional. So those are the things. And then, uh, the last one is just, um, it's common sense. You, you know, maybe learned it from your parents, but just be nice to everybody. And it does tie into your career.

Speaker 2:

Um, and a friend of mine, she's a, a CFO. She shared this story with me. She works I won't say who she is because she'll kill me, but she works in a state that does not have a lot of IPOs. So you've eliminated Austin, texas, southern Silicon Valley and Boston and New York, but she works in a good Midwest state. She was the CFO for the only company that went public the year that her company went public and it was a great success story, a great source of pride, for you know the state that she lives in and it was her first CFO job and she took the company public within a year and so she was. She asked the boss after a while because she realized every CFO in the state by the way, she's pretty young at the time, she's 34'm going to say I didn't know her at the time but she eventually.

Speaker 2:

She asked the boss why did you pick me? You know, when every CFO in the state and a lot out of the state wanted this job, you could have had your pick of CFOs. And he said oh, is your reference? I said I know somebody you know and I called and asked and they gave you a good reference. And she said oh, who was that? And this isn't the real name, but mike downey.

Speaker 2:

And mike downey was a mentally challenged person who worked with her. She worked at um, one of the big eight accounting firms, the big four accounting firms and he grew up with the ceo of the company, grew up next door to mike downey, saw that she worked at the same company where he worked in the library and he called his old friend and said you know, what can you tell me about Maureen? And said oh, she's great, everybody likes her. She's one of the nicest people that I've ever worked with. That that put her over the top, so you know. So be nice, because who doesn't want to be nice? Right? And I don't believe in calm or anything like that, but when you're nice to people, they're going to say nice things about you and it's always going to pay dividends. It's going to help you build that world-class team because people are going to want to work for you. Investors are going to want to put money into companies that you work in Custom going to put money into companies that you work in.

Speaker 1:

Customers are going to believe you. So just be nice and decent to people. It pays dividends, much better than anything else I can share with you. That's incredible. Thank you so much for sharing all of that, jack. So much knowledge and especially the advice at the end Three amazing points. I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your time. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope the listeners enjoyed what's the best way for people to get in touch with you if they're looking to join the community?

Speaker 2:

Sure, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. It's Jack McCullough, cfo. I'm the bald guy for those who aren't watching the video of it, and if you reach out to me there, you can certainly text me. My phone number is 617-678-0957. You can email me too, jackatcfolccom. I am, for whatever reason, I'm pretty quick to respond to a text and reasonably quick to respond to email. Well, you reached out to me through LinkedIn. I think I responded within five minutes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, perfect, awesome Jack. We'll make sure those links and numbers and emails and all the ways to get in touch there in the show notes. I strongly encourage the listeners to get in touch with Jack, check out his community. You guys are doing some amazing things and again, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come on the show. Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. I hope you found value in today's conversation.

Speaker 1:

As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate and review the show. It helps others discover the insights we share here. Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnowcom or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy. Call it's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need. And don't forget you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth. We've got exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles. Until then, keep pushing forward your growth is just one strategic move away.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. We hope today's episode provided valuable strategies to help you attract more high-paying clients. Be sure to subscribe, follow and share with fellow professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn and leave a review or comment to join the conversation. Your feedback helps us bring you the best insights in finance and marketing. Until next time, keep striving for success and unlocking your business's potential.