David Den Boer traces the origins of the EPM Summit to a pattern he kept seeing across projects. “Sometimes the error is not necessarily beginning in the project,” he tells us, “but in the way they selected the product.” Too often, he observed, finance teams were locked into technology decisions before fully understanding their requirements—or their alternatives.

That realization reshaped how he thought about impact. While Den Boer says he enjoys solving customer problems through implementations, he began to focus on “slower, moving bigger problems,” including gaps in thought leadership and how organizations evaluate EPM solutions in the first place. The Summit, he tells us, was designed to address that upstream decision-making moment.

He draws on experience hosting EPM-focused events beginning in 2009, after SAP acquired OutlookSoft. At large vendor conferences with “hundreds of products,” he explains, it was difficult for EPM practitioners to get focused answers, connect with peers, or evaluate options objectively. As legacy platforms declined, customers increasingly asked him where to go next—and how to choose wisely.

That question has only intensified with AI. Den Boer tells us finance teams are now being asked to rethink processes “from a first principles perspective.” Without that reset, he warns, organizations risk “just bolting on AI” to workflows that haven’t fundamentally changed in decades.

The EPM Summit reflects that conviction. Den Boer says he personally curates content to avoid “glossy marketing stuff,” relying instead on practitioners who have delivered dozens—or hundreds—of projects. Panels, hands-on product access, and difficult vendor questions are all designed to give finance leaders what they rarely get: clarity before commitment. In an era of expanding choice, the Summit is built around a simple idea—better decisions start earlier.

As the year comes to a close, we’re revisiting a conversation that feels newly relevant. This week, we’re re-releasing our CFO Thought Leader episode with Jonathan Carr, recorded three years ago—long before any exit was in view, but rich with insight into how he thinks about leadership, growth, and decision-making under uncertainty.

That mindset was shaped early. Just 18 months after finishing college, Carr was placed in charge of a major Oracle implementation at a Stryker manufacturing plant in Puerto Rico. He had never led systems work before. The advice from his division controller was simple and direct: “find the opportunities that either get you promoted or fired,” Carr tells us.

The six-month project forced him to work across manufacturing, IT, and finance to understand how transactions actually flowed through the plant. Carr describes the learning process as peeling back layers “like an onion,” where each answer revealed more complexity, he tells us. It was an early lesson in getting out of one’s comfort zone and doing work before feeling fully prepared.

That approach carried forward as Carr moved through FP&A, accounts receivable, and customer-facing roles, and later joined SurveyMonkey when the company was generating less than $100 million in revenue. There, he helped build finance capabilities, supported acquisitions, and participated in capital raises totaling nearly $1 billion, with less than $100 million in primary capital, Carr tells us.

Later, at Atlassian, Carr was part of the finance leadership team during the company’s transition from on-premise software to the cloud. The shift required conviction, transparency, and clear communication with employees and investors, even as near-term economics changed, Carr tells us.

In the episode we’re re-releasing today, you’ll hear Carr reflect on growth, influence, and adaptability. “I reserve the right to get smarter,” he tells us—a line that neatly captures how he has approached each chapter of his career, long before the outcomes were known.

As we re-release this conversation with CFO Karen Williams during the holiday week, we’re opening the episode with a short preface drawn from something she shared recently on LinkedIn. In a post about books that shaped her as a leader, Williams reflected on culture, bias, and the importance of staying open to different perspectives—ideas that echo throughout this episode and frame how she’s built her career.

Those themes weren’t always obvious early on.

Williams traces a formative lesson back to her move from a 20-person startup into Mars, where she says she “bombed at networking.” Accustomed to a small, family-style environment, she kept what she describes as a “head down, get on with it” mentality. She didn’t yet understand the importance of relationships and networks, she tells us, and after a couple of years, she left.

That experience reshaped how she approached her next chapter at American Express. The culture there was “very people focused, very relationship driven,” Williams tells us, but progress still came slowly at first. It took time to move from analyst to manager as she built credibility and learned how influence actually works inside large organizations. Once she reached that level, things accelerated quickly.

A structural gap gave her direct exposure to a divisional CFO, who became her sponsor and helped unlock three to four subsequent roles, Williams tells us. Over fifteen years, she held roughly nine roles at American Express—calling the experience her “Harvard School of training years.”

In the episode, listeners will also hear how Williams continued to stretch herself by moving out of finance into business leadership, leading strategy through disruption, and later stepping into CFO roles where unexpected challenges—like cleaning up a balance sheet—tested her early credibility.

It’s a conversation about learning, reflection, and how experience—especially the uncomfortable kind—shapes leadership over time.