The CFO Track

Tom Hunter
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Most finance people never get mentors who have lived and learnt through capital raises, IPOs, administrations or ACCC scrutiny. The CFO Track changes that. I am Tom Hunter, and every week I sit down with top Australian CFOs to unpack what happened and what they learned. Clear steps, real lessons and as always, free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and LinkedIn Live.

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    Financial Storytelling and Using Your Powers for Good - Karma Auden

    A private number from the UAE rang at 8:30pm on a Thursday night. Karma Auden almost didn't answer, but it changed her career. The person on the other end was a recruiter calling from Dubai. They asked one question: had Karma ever thought about working in the Middle East? She had not. Three months later she was on a plane to Abu Dhabi. Business class, for a three-day job interview. It was her first trip overseas. Her second was to move. She landed in the UAE in January 2009, to work with a property business during the GFC. Her new employer was so quiet in those first two weeks they nearly sent her home. They didn't. What followed was 8 years of incredible learning experiences: - Managing shopping centre development finance during a listed property trust era. - Running commercial operations from a site shed 20 feet from the water on an Abu Dhabi beach. - Leading regional finance for an education company funding solar lamps for girls in rural Kenya. - Dealing with runaway camels from a neighbouring Sheikh's palace. When Karma moved back to Australia, she had no house and no job. But 1 recruiter in Canberra took the call. Today she's CFO at the University of New England, reporting directly to the Vice Chancellor, running what she calls "five businesses in one." She was never meant to be an accountant. Karma was going to be a pharmacist, a double degree fell through, but a three-day intro course at Coopers and Lybrand changed her mind. This episode is about what happens when you stop planning your career and start taking the calls you almost didn't answer. This week on The CFO Track. Karma Auden is a CFO and financial storyteller.

    51 min

  2. 28 APR

    Problem solving and hitchhiking to work in -40C for 6 Months – Sammy Michaels

    Sammy Michaels hitchhiked to work in -40 degrees for six months. He was in Mongolia, helping PwC set up their local office. Negotiating ride fares with local drivers who didn't speak English, then trying to expense a trip that came with no receipt. That kind of problem-solving has defined his career since PwC in the UK. Then Anglo-American in Singapore where he learned the hard way that not everyone wants to be promoted. Qualtrics, where he helped list on the NASDAQ and watched APAC grow from under 100 people to 600 across 12 countries. Now he’s with Octopus Deploy, overseeing finance, legal, IT and compliance across 20+ countries. “I made so many mistakes,” Sammy says. “It was unbelievable. Mistake after mistake, but each one of those was a really great learning platform for me.” He also helped built something outside of his day job. A quarterly meetup for tech CFOs in Australia that now has a wait list. Sessions with senior finance leaders from some of Australia's best tech businesses, sharing what they’ve learned. Sammy credits that group with cutting out 80 per cent of the problems he’d have to otherwise solve alone. He says he wouldn't be where he is today without this group. Episode Highlights: Why Sammy hitchhiked to work in Mongolia at minus 30 degrees and what that taught him about solving problems with no supportThe management mistake that got him a confronting employee net promoter score, then what he changed to fix itHow he moved from energy and mining into tech after years of tryingWhat it’s like to be finance person number one at a company growing 40 per cent year on yearThe life stories framework he uses to actually understand what his team wantsWhy he believes you don’t need a great culture to be successful, but the best companies have one anywayHis concern that AI is removing the junior roles that create future finance leadersHow he built a tech CFO community from a Slack group into a quarterly meetup with a wait list If you’re a finance leader wondering whether the path you’re on is the right one, this is the episode to tune in for!

    51 min

  3. 21 APR

    Becoming more than Finance – Rachel Wong

    Rachel Wong’s finance role disappeared overnight. So she went and ran the retail stores instead Rachel picked accounting because she ran out of other options at university. Her dad taught her debits and credits at the kitchen table because she had never done the subject at school. That accidental start has led to one of the most varied careers in Australian finance. Six months into her first startup job, COVID wiped out every dollar of revenue. Rachel was at July, a luggage company, when global travel shut down overnight. "Nothing scares me anymore," she says. "At July we were selling suitcases when global shutdowns were in place. We were making absolutely zero dollars in sales." Finance had nothing to do, so she volunteered to manage retail stores instead. That decision is a good summary of how Rachel operates. She took a CFO role that was only guaranteed for three months because saying no felt worse than the uncertainty. She was made permanent in a week. She has never worked in the same industry twice, moving through student accommodation, luggage, separation services, EdTech and venture capital. Rachel would tell you that is the whole point. She is now CFO at EdSmart 4 days a week and a VC investor at Gravel Road Ventures 1 day a week on Fridays. She also mentors through StartMate, writes The Finance Hybrid for finance professionals who do not want to be defined by their title and is raising two kids under five. "I am capable of more than Finance. I like to do more and I like to grow outside of that department." Episode Highlights How Rachel went from not knowing what audit was to building her entire career foundation at KPMGWhy she quit her job and booked a one-way ticket to London with no plan, no contacts, and no accommodationThe reality of being the first finance hire at a startup selling suitcases during a global pandemicHow volunteering for a retail manager role during COVID changed her approach to career growthWhy she calls herself a “finance hybrid” and what that means for how she approaches every roleThe identity crisis that came with having children and stepping away from a career she was buildingHow she went from asking investors for money to evaluating startups as a VC on FridaysHer practical, no-playbook approach to using AI in finance every single day If you're looking to build your career outside of finance, this is one you don't want to miss.

    1hr 3min

  4. 14 APR

    Jorrick Chivers - Building Australia’s Most Successful Sports Startup

    Jorrick Chivers was a school business manager in Tasmania when a once-in-a-career opportunity came to him A brand new NBL franchise (Tasmania JackJumpers) needed someone to build the entire operation from scratch. With no office, computers, or staff. He said yes. Day one was his kitchen table. Jorrick became the first employee. Within three seasons, they had sold out arenas from their first game, ticked every internal success metric and won the championship. A timeline virtually unheard of in Australian sport. But Jorrick will tell you the championship was never the only measure. "There's no point winning a championship and then going broke financially in two years time. Sport is a business. Where clubs get themselves into trouble is that they forget that it's a business." As COO and later in a shared CEO role, he ran operations, finance and basketball recruitment simultaneously. He balanced salary cap management with recruitment trips to Las Vegas and kept the business is running, while the team kept winning. He also tells his board and CEO one of the most important things a CFO should say. "I'm not a scorekeeper." What that means for how finance actually adds value is one of the best parts of this conversation. Now as CFO of Stadiums Tasmania, he is overseeing Macquarie Point Stadium. One of the most significant infrastructure projects in the state's history. As well as delivering the Foo Fighters, the biggest concert Tasmania has ever seen. He has built from zero twice. The details are different, but the principles are the same. Full episode on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

    38 min

  5. 8 APR

    Season 2 – Episode 1: Alexey Mitko (Partner at CoVentures)

    There aren't many people who have built a finance function inside hypergrowth from scratch three times. Alexey Mitko is one of them. He built it at Canva, then Koala, then Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus just sold for $1.6 billion. The same instinct ran through all three. At some point, Alexey stopped thinking of himself as just the finance person and started going upstream into HR, legal and operations. Because that is one of the most valuable things an early-stage finance professional can develop. In the opening episode of CFO Track Season 2, he walks through what that actually looks like in practice. He unpacks the fundraising process from both sides of the table, what founders consistently get wrong, Then how the role of financial modelling shifts from seed to Series B, and what he means when he says time kills all deals. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS · Canva at 20 people: joining as one of two accountants and watching the business grow to 200+ in two and a half years, and the moment Alexey realised the business was outpacing what he could provide. · Going upstream at Koala: arriving to a Xero file breaking under transaction volume, growing revenue from $10M to $100M, and learning what a digital marketing function running at scale actually costs. · Founding CFO at Eucalyptus: one day of accounting, three days of medical-legal set-up for a telehealth brand launching during COVID lockdowns, and what it looks like to hire a specialist into a new function every three months. · Fundraising across five or six rounds: why early-stage modelling is about testing the analytical thinking of a founding team, not predicting numbers, and why running your operations with diligence in mind at all times is the highest-leverage habit a startup CFO can build. · Knowing when the role has narrowed: the point at which Alexey realised others were simply better suited to the CFO seat at Eucalyptus, and why not placing your identity in a title makes that a straightforward decision. If you're working in finance inside a startup or scaleup and trying to understand what the best operators actually do, this is one you don't want to miss. Stream the full episode now on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts.

    45 min

  6. 18 MAR

    Episode 16: Steve Abbott (CFO – Waste Services Group)

    In episode 16 of the CFO Track podcast, Steve Abbott shares the value of mentorship in progressing your career, alongside developing decision-making skills and building relationships in joint ventures Steve reflects on his experiences at Alcoa and Fenner Dunlop, highlighting the challenges of operational management and the significance of understanding the cyclical nature of industries. He also shares insights from his brief stint at St Kilda Football Club, the future challenges facing the waste management industry and the impact of AI on accounting roles. If you're looking to push your career in a more commercial or operational direction, or build something structured around mentoring, this is an episode you want to check out EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS · Energy trading in a deregulated market with no blueprint: learning to make fast decisions daily alongside currency traders crossing into energy. · Eight years at Alcoa: running East Coast commercial operations and managing a three-way joint venture across a US, Japanese, and Chinese partnership. · First CFO role at Fenner Dunlop: responsible for three manufacturing facilities, learning that taking the work seriously doesn't mean taking yourself seriously. · Stepping into COO: managing 800 people across mining sites and building a mentoring program whose graduates became a CEO and COO. · Ten acquisitions in two and a half years: managing founder transitions and running a full PE equity sale spanning 80 hours of presentations. If you're looking to push your career in a more commercial or operational direction, or build something structured around mentoring, this is an episode you want to check out Stream the full episode now on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts.

    42 min

  7. 11 MAR

    Episode 15: Michael Oraniuk (CFO – JAM TV Australia)

    Michael Oraniuk provides an interesting perspective of finance in sport. He completed two stints working in London, before returning to Australia and landing at Jam TV; the media production business behind the NBL, A-League and AFL W, where he now serves as CFO. In Episode 15 of The CFO Track, Michael shares what it's like to step into the CFO role at a business built entirely around live sport, one month before COVID shut it all down. He goes through managing cash flow week by week, when forward visibility barely stretched beyond three months. The business has now grown from a seasonal, winter-skewed operation into a year-round production house behind some of Australia's biggest broadcast moments. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS · Pivoting from architecture to accounting in Year 11, spending six years at Pitchers Partners before two stints in London including leading a DD project on a virtual casino venture for an online gaming business. · Joining Jam TV within six weeks of returning from London, stepping into a business built on winter sport and growing it across the NBL, A-League, AFLW and major documentary productions. · Stepping into the CFO role one month before COVID: no live sport, no broadcasts, and a team whose entire purpose had temporarily disappeared. · Keeping every person in the business employed: restructuring the whole team's days and output week by week to match whatever revenue remained. · Managing production P&Ls in live sport: each production runs as its own mini P&L, with cash flow, ratings exposure, and seasonal revenue cycles all requiring close management simultaneously. If you're navigating a career move into a non-traditional industry or leading through a business crisis, this one is worth your time. Stream the full episode now on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts.

    41 min

  8. 4 MAR

    Episode 14: Abhishek Singla (CFO – Toshiba Australia)

    Abhishek Singla moved from India to Australia as a student, completed his Master of Accounting and his CPA, before working his way up through multinationals and landing his first CFO role at Toshiba Australia. In Episode 14 of The CFO Track, Abhishek shares how he stepped into a Japanese business after a career built inside American multinationals. Which meant navigating a deeply hierarchical culture where long-tenured staff had to be brought on a journey of change rather than pushed through it. He goes through the cultural and leadership adjustments required to manage functions well outside his finance background. While also focusing on why communication is the only thing that makes managing up across international borders actually work. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS · Starting out with no clear plan: following his brother's lead into accounting in India before migrating to Australia as a student, landing his first role as an accounts payable officer at Nestle, and using that multinational brand name as the foundation to build from regardless of how junior the entry point was. · First management role at Valeant Pharmaceuticals: stepping into a finance manager position inside a business that grew its share price from $25 to $350 in two years through an acquisition-a-year strategy. · Six and a half years at Leica as Financial Controller: taking on warehousing, customer care, and service alongside finance in a lean Australian operation, then stepping in as acting GM for six months and learning to lead sales and service teams by relying on strong functional leaders rather than pretending to be the subject matter expert. · Navigating Japanese corporate culture at Toshiba: shifting from the open, cutthroat pace of American multinationals to a hierarchical environment where staff of 30-plus years needed to be taken on the change journey. · Building a broader CFO remit: managing supply chain, warehousing, logistics, IT, and property across a 300-person business while building AI capability within each of those teams. If you're navigating an international career path or stepping into your first CFO role, this episode is full of practical value. Stream the full episode now on Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts.

    37 min
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About

Most finance people never get mentors who have lived and learnt through capital raises, IPOs, administrations or ACCC scrutiny. The CFO Track changes that. I am Tom Hunter, and every week I sit down with top Australian CFOs to unpack what happened and what they learned. Clear steps, real lessons and as always, free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and LinkedIn Live.

Information

  • Creator
    Tom Hunter
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Tom Hunter
  • Show Website
    The CFO Track

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