Strategic Finance Lab NeuGroup

How Emily Backstrom of General Mills navigates career and family, and how the company supports women in finance. In this Strategic Finance Lab podcast marking Women’s History Month, Emily Backstrom, vice president for corporate finance at General Mills, shares with NeuGroup’s Nilly Essaides how she has successfully managed a 21-year career at the company, rising to her current position overseeing enterprise FP&A among other responsibilities.

Ms. Backstrom also discusses the value of deciding to lean into your career at certain times and, at other times, to step back to devote more time to family, as she did when she was a new mother.

In addition to offering advice for women juggling work and family and describing how General Mills supports women employees, Ms. Backstrom walks through her career journey, including a decade of experience in commercial finance leadership roles across the company’s operating segments and four years in Singapore, where she served as vice president of finance for Asia & Latin America.

Loop Capital’s Sidney Dillard and Sobani Warner of Siebert Williams Shank discuss their careers, working at Black-owned firms, the role of D&I coordinators and more.

Many multinational corporations in recent years have increased their commitment to hiring banks, brokerage firms and asset managers that are owned by members of minority groups—so-called diverse-owned firms. NeuGroup is committed to learning and sharing more about these firms, the people who run them and the value they bring to corporates in capital markets transactions and other activities.


So to celebrate Black History Month, this episode of the Strategic Finance Lab podcast features two women in senior leadership positions at two of the top Black-owned financial firms in the US: Sidney Dillard, partner and head of the corporate investment banking division at Loop Capital Markets and Sobani Warner, co-head of corporate finance at Siebert Williams Shank.
Ms. Dillard and Ms. Warner speak with Andy Podolsky, head of NeuGroup for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a working group for NeuGroup members, to discuss their career paths, how corporates can prioritize diverse-owned firms by providing more meaningful, active roles in capital markets transactions and more.

Bank of the West’s Andreas Bubenzer-Paim on markets, ChatGPT and bankers helping tech firms weather recessions.

The collapse of the IPO market in 2022 is just one factor weighing on growth-tech firms that need financing as they prepare for a possible economic downturn while watching many mega-cap tech companies eliminate jobs. That’s the backdrop for this timely Strategic Finance Lab podcast conversation with Andreas Bubenzer-Paim, managing director and head of technology banking at Bank of the West. You can listen to it now by heading to Apple or Spotify


Mr. Bubenzer-Paim shares his insights with NeuGroup’s Antony Michels on the outlook for growth-tech firms, cryptocurrency, space technology and how tech companies can forge stronger ties with banks—and what they should expect from those banks during good times and, more importantly perhaps, when the going gets tough.



Mr. Bubenzer-Paim also gives his take on ChatGTP and artificial intelligence. The interview took place before Microsoft announced it would integrate ChatGPT technology into its Bing search engine and Google’s event on Wednesday to promote its new AI chatbot called Bard.


Those developments dovetail nicely with what Mr. Bubenzer-Paim says about ChatGPT: “It’s certainly a milestone development. It’s still a very specialized tool, it’s built to fulfill a very specific purpose. I think those kind of AI [tools] are bound to be successful.”

Baxter International FP&A head Aaron Bloomer shares insights on how FP&A can lead finance into the digital future.

The buzz surrounding the OpenAI tool ChatGPT has highlighted the power of artificial intelligence and the potential for AI to bring the future of finance forward—in ways that will further disrupt and transform finance organizations.

That’s the jumping-off point for a lively Strategic Finance Lab podcast conversation between NeuGroup’s Justin Jones and Baxter International FP&P leader Aaron Bloomer about AI, advanced analytics and the leading role finance should play as corporations turn insights derived from data into strategic action.

NVA treasurer Chris Ingoldsby shares insights grounded in his creation of the treasury function at two companies.

Building a complete treasury team is a marathon, not a sprint. However, there’s real value in a new treasurer scoring some quick wins soon after joining a company. That’s according to Chris Ingoldsby, an ultramarathoner who created the treasury function at NVA, and previously built it from the ground up at Riverbed Technology.


You’ll hear more insights from Mr. Ingoldsby about his approach to building treasury from scratch in the newest episode of the Strategic Finance Lab podcast, a conversation with NeuGroup’s Antony Michels.
Listen to the podcast now by heading to Apple or Spotify.

NVA, short for National Veterinary Associates, is a for-profit business owned by the European private equity firm JAB Holding Company, and comprises 1,500 locally run veterinary clinics, hospitals and pet resorts located in North America and overseas.


Because the company has a vastly different business model from the tech companies where he worked before, Mr. Ingoldsby stresses the need for an incoming treasurer to know what they know and then surround themselves with people with knowledge they don’t possess but need. It also helps to have an open mind, a taste for adventure and a tolerance for risk.
Mr. Ingoldsby—who in addition to running ultramarathons likes to hang glide—said this about his experience so far at NVA and making treasury a strategic partner of the business: “It was really kind of going out and figuring out how do I define treasury, what is treasury going to be? It really started out with the basics….creating the building blocks. Once you create the building blocks, then you get to do more of the fun stuff.”

Timely insights on liquidity and how finance can add value to the business from Chris Ortega of Fresh FP&A.

“Profits are a dream but cash is a reality.” That’s among the timely, on-target insights aimed at CFOs, treasurers and other finance executives in this episode of NeuGroup’s Strategic Finance Lab podcast.

It’s delivered by Chris Ortega, the CEO of Fresh FP&A, a consultancy focused on finance transformation that provides businesses with fractional CFO, FP&A and finance support. Mr. Ortega’s insights are grounded in his extensive background in accounting, audit, FP&A and finance leadership at high-growth companies.


In an interview with NeuGroup’s Nilly Essaides, he makes clear and compelling the need for finance teams to adjust to volatile capital markets and a shifting economic landscape by building paths to cash flow sustainability and optimizing working capital management. It’s all about liquidity.
Equally critical for finance leaders: partnering with business units and providing value amid rising inflation, higher interest rates and the likelihood of recession.

And as you’ll hear, Chris Ortega is passionate about urging finance leaders to put “people before the profits,” in part by taking a hard look at what they spend— on technology and consultants for starters—before reflexively turning to head count reductions. “At the end of all your analysis,” he says, “there’s a human element involved.