The CFO who doesn’t like spreadsheets - Rachel Wong (The Finance Hybrid)

Rachel Wong is back on The CFO Track, and she’s the first person we’ve ever had on twice!She’s CFO at EdSmart four days a week, spends one day in the VC world at a family office, and in her spare time she’s building The Finance Hybrid.A mission to break the finance and accounting stereotype.The thing I love about Rachel is how honest she is about it.“People who know me know that I don’t actually like spreadsheets that much,”Years ago that admission would have got her shunned. Instead, she leaned into it, and it became part of her whole motto.Don’t let anybody box you into a finance identity.She’s also become a genuine AI power-user and not in a hype way.Her month-end process took five months to build and now closes the books in a day.She talks about the “landline problem,” the idea that if you’re not hands-on with the tools, you don’t even realise you’ve fallen behind.And she manages AI like a junior, consolidating feedback and watching the token spend, which is how every CFO should think about it.What she said on careers is the one that stood outPassive is leaving the fate of your own career to somebody else.”After two rounds of maternity leave she rebuilt her presence from scratch, and a year and a half later she’s on the cover of a CFO magazine.If you’re in finance and wondering what is next for you. This one is a must-watch/listen!Highlights:Hear why our first ever returning guest built a career around not being a spreadsheet personLearn her “landline problem” analogy for why finance people fall behind on AI without realisingSee how she took month-end from a five-month build to closing the books in a dayUnderstand her case for an active career, and why she says we make our own luckGet her honest take on managing AI like a junior, and why more context does not mean better outputFind out how she runs a portfolio career across an edtech CFO seat and a day in venture capitalExplore why she believes there are no real AI experts yet, and no room for egoHear why she thinks a black-and-white finance mindset is a risk in an AI world Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment - first-CFO and first-finance-hire search for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups. Host of the CFO Track Podcast. Storyrecruitment.com.au