NetSuite’s Tom Kelly on the tech driven evolution of finance

Episode summary

The conversation starts with an overview of Tom’s career and his blending of experiences across finance, technology, and marketing at companies big and small. The theme throughout his experiences has been leading teams through technological leaps in search of greater process efficiency.

The conversation then shifts to Tom’s priorities at NetSuite. His role encompasses product marketing, product management, and analyst relations - and all of it pulls from his past experiences as a finance leader and his deep understanding of the problems that NetSuite’s products need to solve. He shares how he has influenced the NetSuite roadmap to date, and his high level goals for the years to come given where he sees the ERP and broader finance ecosystem headed. AI and automation of course feature heavily as finance leaders look to reduce manual work and free up time for strategic thinking.

This episode is jam packed with invaluable wisdom from Tom amassed over the years. Above all else, Tom passionately advocates for the embrace of technology by finance leaders, noting that they need to become “astute technologists”, especially if they are at companies with ambitious growth projections where scalability will be key.

The episode closes with Tom’s favorite joke that highlights a truth around making sure finance teams and senior leadership have a shared language of success.

Show notes

Tom’s journey in finance [1:46]
Helping companies embrace new tech [05:40]
Tom’s role & priorities at NetSuite [13:20]
NetSuite’s roadmap & how AI fits in [27:55]
Finance leaders are fun too [36:05]

Guest bio

Tom Kelly, Director of Product Marketing, Oracle NetSuite

Tom is the Director of Product Marketing, Management, and Analyst Relations at Oracle NetSuite. In this role, he helps define product offerings, competitive positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy. He has a diverse range of prior experience in finance, marketing, HR, and IT roles across Fortune 500 and private equity backed companies. He got his start as an auditor at KPMG after graduating from North Carolina State University with a BA in Accounting. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from Fordham Gabelli School of Business.

“The CFO needs to be a strategic business partner. Businesses want CFOs who can win the hearts and minds of others. They want CFOs who have got data analytics skills. They want CFOs who understand technology.”

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