BusinessTechnologyManagement

Portraits

Pigment

The Portraits Podcast lets you step inside the situation room of the most advanced, forward-thinking, and capable organizations in the world to understand how plans are built and decisions are made. Hosted by Pigment Co-CEO Eléonore Crespo, and Pigment Global Head of Sales, Stephen Macfarlane, each episode features in-depth conversations with planning and strategy leaders shaping how modern companies operate - from global enterprises to fast-moving tech firms.

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8 episodes
monthly
Avg 36 min
English

Episodes 8

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S2 · E3
Yesterday · 31 min
Rémi Maumon de Longevialle (VINCI Airports): Lessons from a CFO turned CEO
VINCI Airports CEO Rémi Maumon de Longevialle joins Edouard Beaucourt, Head of Revenue EMEA at Pigment to discuss what almost seven years as CFO taught him about running one of the world’s largest airport operators, and what he learned when he stepped into the CEO role. Rémi shares how the CFO seat gave him a 360° view of the business and why that allows him to trust his own CFO completely. He also explains how he came to see the human dimension of leading nearly 20,000 people as central to the job. He looks back on how COVID exposed a gap in short-term data at a company built around 40- to 60-year concessions, and how a single source of truth now puts the key figures, including CO₂ emissions, in front of him every morning. The conversation also explores how VINCI Airports approaches AI, from traffic forecasting and gate operations to passenger services. Rémi explains why his CFO background makes him cautious, and the three questions every use case must answer: is the data there, can it scale, and will it deliver real returns? For him, AI is a valuable challenger and sounding board, but strategy remains a human call. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/remi-maumon-de-longevialle-vinci-airports Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S2 · E2
October 19 · 30 min
Raymond Yue (Avalara): Making room to rethink planning processes
Avalara’s Raymond Yue joins Pigment’s Jay Peir to discuss how a complex, fast-changing business transforms the job of finance. Raymond shares why common definitions matter across finance, product, and go-to-market teams and why scenario analysis needs to move beyond static spreadsheets. He reflects on Avalara’s planning implementation, including the value of seeing the model as it was being built instead of first encountering it during user acceptance testing (UAT). That gave the team room to question old processes, simplify unnecessary complexity, and think more carefully about the drivers and business decisions the platform needed to support. The conversation also explores the return Raymond expects from the new approach, which is spending less time pulling data into pivot tables and more time analyzing scenarios alongside business partners. For Avalara, AI played a significant role in the initial build and will continue to support repetitive, data-heavy work – but Raymond is clear that human experience, curiosity, collaboration, and judgment remain central to finance leadership. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/raymond-yue-avalara Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S2 · E1
September 29 · 31 min
Keith Masiulis (Unilever): Positioning finance for faster, more confident decisions
Unilever’s Keith Masiulis joins Pigment’s Stephen McFarlane to discuss how the work of reconciling numbers can get in the way of the decisions that finance and commercial teams need to make. Keith reflects on the challenge of bringing functions together when each has its own systems, language, and priorities. He shares why Unilever is working to make forecasting an operating rhythm rather than an event, what changes when leaders can focus on closing a business gap instead of debating whose number is right, and how a trade-close process involving roughly 100 Excel files became a zero-day close. The conversation also explores how AI is changing finance work. Keith discusses using AI in a controlled environment to help build models, test ideas, and surface anomalies more quickly – while finance continues to supply the financial principles, oversight, and change management behind the process. His advice for finance leaders looking to stand out: build, don’t critique. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/keith-masiulis-unilever Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E5
July 23 · 33 min
Gurneet Kaur (Block): Turning planning visibility into agility
Block's Gurneet Kaur joins Pigment's Stephen McFarlane to discuss the judgment calls she applies across Block's many businesses, like knowing when a team needs structure and when it's better off trusted to move on its own. Gurneet shares what watching two teams define the same metric two different ways taught her about the cost of misalignment, why she believes giving people time back only matters if it's paired with deliberate coaching, and the principle that now shapes how she uses AI: let it handle the predictable work, and keep a person on anything ambiguous or high-stakes. She also reflects on her own shift from being the person with the answer to creating alignment across teams, and what she believes finance leadership will need as AI changes who has access to information. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/gurneet-kaur-block-turning-planning-visibility-into-agility Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E4
July 2 · 41 min
Aamir Zargham (Lightspeed): Rebuilding long-range planning in 60 days
Lightspeed Commerce’s Aamir Zargham joins Pigment’s Stephen MacFarlane to talk about rebuilding long-range planning in 60 days, after two years of running it in a single Excel model that only he could operate. Amir shares why scenario planning comes down to the three options you bring into the room, how lowering the cost of curiosity changed the way leaders engage with finance, and the principles behind how he approaches AI. He also reflects on what it took to make himself less relevant, and the qualities he believes will define finance leaders over the next five years. Read the full companion article here: www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/aamir-zargham-lightspeed-rebuilding-long-range-planning-in-60-days Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E3
May 27 · 35 min
Sofia Fatakhova (Chime): Building the finance function to go public
Chime's Sofia Fatakhova joins Pigment co-CEO Eléonore Crespo to discuss building a finance function capable of keeping pace with one of the more demanding growth stories in recent memory. She started with a broken forecasting process, ran straight into an IPO, and came out the other side leading a team now deep into figuring out what AI can do for a public company's finance function. Sofia shares what four years of hypergrowth taught her about infrastructure and accuracy, how she got her team from two weeks to two days on the reforecast, and the principle that now shapes every initiative she runs: “good enough” information used quickly often beats “perfect” information used too late. She also reflects on the unlearning that came with all of it, and what she believes finance leadership must look like from here. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/sofia-fatakhova-chime-building-the-finance-function-to-go-public Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E2
May 13 · 44 min
Sara Park (The Coca-Cola Company): Re-engineering the supply chain around its planners
Coca-Cola North America's Sara Park joins Pigment co-CEO Eléonore Crespo to talk about building a demand-driven supply chain across one of the most complex distribution networks in the world – starting with Excel, running straight into COVID, and coming out the other side with a planning model built for volatility. Sara shares what the pandemic clarified about the relationship between supply and demand, how she approached coordinating 65 bottling partners with a single platform, and the principle that now shapes every initiative she runs: if you build something people genuinely want, adoption takes care of itself. She also reflects on where AI fits into the future of supply chain planning and what she believes it means for the people doing the work. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/sara-park-the-coca-cola-company-re-engineering-the-supply-chain-around-its-planners Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E1
April 30 · 46 min
Pooja Agrawal (Docker): Designing a financial engine from scratch
Docker's Pooja Agrawal joins Pigment co-CEO Eléonore Crespo to talk about building an AI-first finance function at a company that operates with a startup mentality, even as it scales. Pooja shares why variance commentary was the right first process to automate, what the months of iteration to get there actually looked like, and the principle that now shapes every workflow her team builds: the quality of the output is determined entirely by the quality of the input. She also reflects on where human judgment stays essential, and what she believes the FP&A function will look like in the years ahead. Read the full companion article here: https://www.pigment.com/customers/portraits-podcast/pooja-agrawal-docker-designing-the-financial-engine Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Showing 1–8 of 8 episodes