The Fine Balance of a CFO Between Finance & Operations

Amartya Singh: Welcome to Episode 13 of Inside the CFO Office. Today, we're exploring the fine balance a CFO must strike between finance and operations. Joining me is Alexander Freeman, CFO at Wursta, with prior leadership roles at Visa, Dell, HID Global, American Express, and Diebold. Alex has built high-performance teams across the U.S., Europe, and emerging markets. Welcome, Alex!

Alexander Freeman: Thanks, Amartya. I'm excited to be here. Always glad to share and give back to the community.

Amartya: Your journey spans risk, controllership, and now global finance leadership. What moments stand out?

Alex: One early moment was during my MBA at Purdue—Citigroup invited me to a recruitment event in Orlando but didn't cover expenses. My mentor told me, "You've got to go. It's an investment." I did—and that led to my first job. From there, I took every opportunity

Amartya: That's such a powerful outlook. Let's talk about your current role at Wursta. What's it been like leading finance at a fast-growing firm?

Alex: I joined at a transitional point. Wursta was growing fast and needed to mature its finance function. That meant hiring the right people—a strong controller, nearshore FP&A and accounting support, and a staff accountant for day-to-day operations. We also moved from QuickBooks to NetSuite. People are everything. Good hires made it all possible.

Amartya: And now your team's supporting sales ops too?

Alex: Exactly. Because of my sales ops background, we've been able to support pipeline forecasting, sales comp, and customer segmentation. Cross-functional work is easier when finance understands operations.

Amartya: That brings us to a key theme

Alex: You start by understanding the business. Spend time with ops leaders. Identify what drives the P&L. Build relationships with the people behind those levers. It's not linear—it's a complex system. But if you learn it and cultivate trust, you become a true business partner.

Amartya: Great perspective. How do you think about tech stacks today?

Alex: There's too much noise—so many tools claiming to solve everything. My advice

Amartya: You mentioned testing with real data. We do the same at FinFloh. It's crucial for adoption. Let's talk AI—how are you experimenting there?

Alex: We're a Google reseller, so we use Gemini across the company. It's part of daily workflows. I'm also meeting AI vendors to understand their value propositions. If someone claims 70% cost reduction—I'm curious. We're not at a plug-and-play stage in finance yet, but it's evolving fast.

Amartya: What's your view on AI adoption globally?

Alex: From what I see, early adoption is happening faster outside the U.S., especially in places like Russia and Ukraine where prompt engineers are already in high demand. The legal field has Harvey—accounting will get its own version soon. We're not there yet, but it's coming.

Amartya: Let's close with advice for the next generation of finance leaders.

Alex: Three things:

Keep learning—but don't expect it all from school. Find mentors, books, and experiences that push you.

Build partnerships. Help others succeed and you'll grow too.

Stay on the edge of what's next. Whether it's tech or trends—curiosity is your superpower.

Amartya: Couldn't agree more. And I really appreciated your customer-first mindset—understanding what they value and tailoring finance strategies to support that. It's rare and incredibly valuable.

Alex: Thanks, Amartya. I really enjoyed the conversation—it helped me reflect and learn too.

Amartya: Thanks for joining, Alex. And thanks to everyone for tuning in. See you on the next episode of Inside the CFO Office.