Why the Future Requires the CFO as Chief Data Officer

Megan - 0:59

Welcome back to CFO Weekly. Today I'm joined by Courtney Colmenares, Chief Financial Officer at Crane Stationery, a company with a two-hundred-year legacy of craftsmanship and design. Courtney is a finance leader known for helping high-growth brands scale with clarity, control, and confidence, bringing deep expertise across accounting, FP&A, systems implementation, and operational improvement. She's passionate about transforming finance into a true growth engine by simplifying complexity, improving decision-making, and building systems that actually work for the teams using them. In this episode, we'll explore the evolving role of the CFO as chief data officer, why owning the data stack is becoming essential for modern finance leaders, and how finance teams can move from reactive reporting to driving real-time, data-informed decisions across the business. Welcome, Courtney. Thank you so much for being here.

Courtney - 1:57

Thank you, Megan. I'm so excited to be here.

Megan - 2:00

Thinking back to earlier in your career, was there a moment when you realized that the real power of finance wasn't just the numbers, but in how the data behind those numbers was structured and used?

Courtney - 2:13

Absolutely. Early in my career, I worked for CFOs who really functioned more like controllers. They reported on what had happened in the business, but we were already a few weeks into the next reporting cycle and in a constant state of reacting to the next issue. I then moved to Spanx, where I worked on Sarah Blakely's personal finance team. The CFO there functioned more like an operator. She was in the data, in the weeds, discussing the most important problem in every meeting — spanning product, procurement, planning, and financials — but it was rarely about what had happened in the past. That's when I realized how much power there is in making decisions with real-time data. She used to say, "Decisions don't have to be emotional when they're backed by data." I think about that almost every week. That was the first time I saw a leader who came armed with data every single day and made quick, factual decisions. I've tried to emulate that ever since. In a small organization, the most important data can change wildly week to week, but I view the finance role as more of an operator role than a traditional accounting or finance role.

Megan - 3:57

These days, data feels almost limitless. How do you determine what's actually critical?

Courtney - 4:10

It depends on the organization and the stage it's in. In my seat, I try to take the biggest problem or question mark in the organization and trace it backwards. In manufacturing, for example, we're constantly focused on pricing and margins. I take that decision and trace the data all the way back — to retailer contracts, to pricing, even to merchandising on our website — and bring all of that to the team so we're unified around a common data set. Everything feeds back to what supports our business, which for us is gross margin.

Megan - 5:08

You've worked across accounting, FP&A, and systems implementation. At what point did you start to see the CFO role expanding toward something closer to a chief data officer?

Courtney - 5:28

The role that helped me see it was the one just before this one. I joined an organization that was rapidly growing but quite small — about $10M in revenues — with a very lean team. We needed to make decisions quickly and didn't have the systems to support sophisticated data, so we had to be scrappy. Prior to that, my roles had been more defined. At a place like Spanx, you have large teams, a data team, a planning team. But in that role, the CFO seat was the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. I covered everything from inventory procurement to retailer sales contracts to pricing, and worked closely with our controller to make sure everything was recorded completely and accurately, while constantly reforecasting the business. We were running on QuickBooks, so I built a small data lakehouse to pull everything into one source and create quick — not pretty, but functional — daily dashboards we could refresh and act on. Until that was in place, the first six months were chaotic. I had to own that missing piece and put a stopgap in place to get visibility across the business. In companies from $10M to $100M in revenues, there typically is no chief data officer, so that role falls to the CFO. Who else is better positioned to own it?

Megan - 7:35

When you hear the phrase "owning the data stack," what does that actually mean in practical terms for a finance leader?

Courtney - 7:42

I think it means three things. First, understanding the architecture — where the data lives, how it flows through the systems, where it could break, and where the known gaps are. You don't necessarily have to write the code, but in small companies, sometimes you do. Second, being the organization's source of truth. All transactions ultimately flow to the general ledger, which finance owns. So you have to maintain a complete and accurate dataset at all times — with the processes, reconciliations, and controls in place so people trust what's coming out of the system. Third, owning what I'd call the decision layer on top of it: what KPIs need to be monitored, what are the red flags, what are the leading and lagging indicators you need to bring to the leadership team so everyone knows when you're on or off track. It's not helpful to flag, two months after close, that you're off on sales. So owning the data stack means understanding the systems, ensuring accuracy, and surfacing the right information to the executive team in a timely way.

Megan - 9:15

In many organizations, data still lives in silos across departments. Why is finance uniquely positioned to bring it all together?

Courtney - 9:27

Three reasons. First, accountability. Every department owns their KPIs, but they often need finance's help determining what those KPIs should be. I work closely with our sales and marketing teams to help set monthly goals, because I have more historical data at hand and I understand the forward forecast. Finance can allocate those KPIs and give teams clear goalposts. Second, neutrality. I'm not rooting for one department over another. My role is to meet the budget and forecast we've set for our board of directors, so I'm an unbiased party supporting each team with the data and reporting they need to hit the common goal. Third, finance acts as the universal translator. We see the marketing data, the sales data, the working capital data — all of it. A good CFO can bring that together and report back to each team in their own language — planned versus actual, where they're off track, what needs to be tweaked. Over time, that builds a lot of trust. People want to understand how they're performing, and data can do that.

Megan - 11:21

What are the most common challenges when companies try to build a unified data foundation for finance and operations?

Courtney - 11:32

The company I'm at right now is at a fork in the road — ready for a new ERP that comes with a heavy price tag and a long implementation timeline. One common roadblock is companies waiting for the perfect ERP. If you say "we'll wait," you could fly blind for months or even years, and that's never the right answer. You don't want to be held hostage by a big system transition. A bigger mistake is treating ERP or data improvements as an IT project. Early in my career, I led a QuickBooks-to-NetSuite migration and treated it exactly that way — and I consider it one of my bigger failures. Finance and accounting has to own the implementation, because who understands better how transactions flow through a system than the finance team? The third challenge is allowing departments to operate in silos. As a finance leader, you have to zoom out and see how all the dots connect, then implement systems accordingly. As a bridge while we evaluate new ERPs, I built a lakehouse — pulling data from our current ERP, AP system, AR system, banks, and shop floor manufacturing system, then joining and standardizing it so it can be filtered and reported on consistently. I also trained the team on common language: consistent terminology for sales channels, for product categories. It sounds simple, but it wasn't. What came out of it was everyone receiving the same reports every day with the same terminology. People quickly learned what their department was accountable for. The biggest pitfall is letting each department run its own reporting — you immediately end up with disjointed data and gaps everywhere.

Megan - 14:35

As you evaluate different ERPs, how are you choosing one you can grow into versus one you'll outgrow in a few years?

Courtney - 14:49

We've been very intentional and taken our time — about six months of scoping — and I've narrowed it down to a top three. Everyone thinks when they migrate ERPs, it's the last time they'll ever do it. I know realistically that may not be true, but I want at least five years of runway, ideally longer. So I'm looking for systems that are highly customizable, flexible, and have an open API. The best ERPs I've seen have libraries of prebuilt integrations, and I review those in detail: Does it integrate easily with Microsoft Office products? My data lakehouse? My AP software? Can I self-serve when I need to add something to the stack, without relying on developers or third-party contractors? That's the direction ERPs are moving — open access with prebuilt connectors. The other thing I keep reminding my team is: focus on the system that checks 80% of the boxes, not on what makes our company unique. If we discount every system because of that last 10% that's specific to us, we'll never find the right one. Accepting that has definitely sped up the process.

Megan - 16:46

How do you balance the need for clean, structured data with the reality that many systems and processes are still messy and manual, especially in a growing company?

Courtney - 17:00

You can't wait for clean. If you do, you'll never make a decision. I work in layers. I call the rawest data "bronze data" — it comes straight from the source, might be a little messy, might be a little inconsistent, but it's complete. I standardize it enough to join with data from other systems. A good example: we have two sides of our business — make-to-stock and personalized items — whose orders, invoices, and customer records land in two different systems with some overlap. For years, the company ran two separate daily sales reports. We simply joined them. It was messy, but it unlocked enormous insights. Instead of two teams looking at two separate reports, the whole organization looked at one. That led directly to pricing changes and staffing decisions across sales channels. If we'd waited for a clean solution or a new ERP, we'd have waited two more years. My biggest piece of advice: don't wait for clean. Make sure it's complete and accurate, then keep moving — or you'll always be behind the eight ball.

Megan - 18:48

As CFO, how do you ensure that data being used across the organization is both accurate and actually driving decisions rather than gut hunches?

Courtney - 19:04

For accuracy, I make sure there are strong controls and reconciliations in place. Every report I generate comes with a reconciliation file for my controller and me to review before it goes out. If we're sending an AR aging report to the sales team, the reconciliation confirms it ties to the GL. If it doesn't, we investigate, fix it, then publish. The worst thing finance can do is send out reports that turn out to be wrong — you lose trust, and it's very hard to earn back. I've learned that the hard way. We'd rather reports go out at 10AM and be right than go out at 8AM and be wrong. For usefulness, I review the reports constantly, and as soon as I notice something isn't being used or is no longer relevant, I kill it. I'm always reiterating the reporting packages I send to each team. If it was built for a specific product launch or a particular season, I retire it when that moment passes. I stay close to each team leader — talking to the COO, CEO, and head of sales daily or at minimum weekly — to make sure what I'm sending is still relevant. A lot of CFOs set it and forget it. A year later they hear through the grapevine that nobody looks at a particular report anymore. That's a missed opportunity. Owning the role means constantly improving what goes out — and nothing's more rewarding than when someone says, "That helped me make a decision" or "That helped me catch an issue."

Megan - 21:39

Beyond reporting, how has owning or influencing the data stack changed how you partner with other leaders?

Courtney - 21:48

Finance has shifted from the people who always say no to the people who help you see around corners. I'm regularly talking to the sales director about margins for a particular retailer, or to the CTO and web team about website promotions — things that ten years ago I would never have thought were a finance function. When you have visibility across the entire planning cycle and you're providing that data, it changes the conversations people bring to your desk. CFOs who operate only in the historical tend to be seen as the people who tell you that you can't spend money. But when you own the data and understand the technology — when you can trace how every transaction flows through the systems from beginning to end — people start bringing you different problems and looking to you for a different kind of input. When everyone owns their inputs and their KPIs but collaborates with finance, the whole organization benefits: forecasting gets better, KPIs get stronger, and there are fewer surprises at month end.

Megan - 23:50

Last question: looking ahead, how do you see the CFO role evolving over the next three to five years, and what new skills or mindsets will be critical?

Courtney - 24:02

The CFO seat in the next five to ten years will look completely different from what it is now. It won't just be about reading a dashboard — it'll be about understanding the underlying architecture and knowing how to ask the right questions of the data team. AI literacy is going to be huge. I try to stay close to it: understanding what should be automated versus kept human, where to use AI tools, how to deploy the right tools to your team, and how all of that fits within the organization's security framework. That's already disrupting the space. The CFO role will continue to lean further into the operator model. Accounting and reporting work won't disappear, but more of it will be automated — what's left for the CFO will be the high-level strategic work: capital allocation, scenario planning, organizational design, and being the spoke in the middle of the wheel that integrates all the functions of the organization. It can feel daunting given the pace of change, but I'm genuinely excited to see how it unfolds.

Megan - 25:40

Courtney, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your insights and experience with us.

Courtney - 25:46

Thank you for having me. I appreciate all of your questions.

Megan - 25:50

To all of our listeners, please tune in next week. Until then, take care.