In this episode, David McClelland is joined by Thomas Schindler, CFO at Allianz Global Investors to explore the evolving role of finance leaders in today's dynamic business landscape.

As Thomas shares in today’s episode, Asset Managers have a unique, if under-recognised, impact on the world around us – one that touches each of our lives.

A lawyer by training who previously served as the company’s General Counsel, Thomas discusses his journey to CFO, revealing how his legal expertise enriches his approach to leadership and decision-making in Finance.

He advocates for a collaborative culture within finance teams, where open communication and cross-functional partnerships lead to better decision-making and strategic growth. Hear how Thomas’ approach to making himself replaceable has allowed him to empower teams who innovate in their roles, ensuring that they add value to their organisation beyond traditional financial metrics.

The episode also explores highlights from Soldo’s 2025 Productivity at Work report, with Thomas reinforcing the necessity of continuous improvement in processes to avoid bureaucratic bottlenecks, ultimately positioning finance as a key enabler of business success.

Click here to download the report.

Strategic leader, collaborator, innovator, and communicator – the role of a modern CFO encompasses all of these and more.

CFOs today are tasked with balancing financial expertise with creativity, guiding businesses through uncertainty, and building trust across their organisations.

But what does all of that look like in practice?

For this special episode of The CFO Playbook, we're joined by CFO of Soldo, Sacha Herrmann to discuss 6 lessons we have learned from world-class CFOs, finance leaders, and founders from some of the fastest-growing companies.

Hear highlights of interviews with -

Baron Anyngwe, Finance Director at We Are Fulfillmeant, shares his experience balancing risk and reward.

Giles Andrews OBE, co-founder of the world's first peer-to-peer lending business, Zopa, who invested heavily in machine learning.

Richard Dana, CEO of Tembo Money, shares the story of his first business venture in the volatile travel industry. The experience was harsh but valuable.

Huiming Chen, CFO at American biotechnology company Illumina, describes the ideal CFO as someone who operates seamlessly between strategy and operations, acting as a co-pilot to the CEO.

Helen Ashton, Former CFO of ASOS and now Founder of Shape Beyond, has a refreshing take on decision-making.

Mehjabeen Patrick, Finance Director at Arts University Bournemouth, emphasises the importance of being a transparent and inspiring communicator.

About Soldo:

Soldo is the proactive spend management solution that frees up businesses to accomplish more.

We champion the notion of Progressive Finance, because we believe in a decentralised approach to financial decision-making and greater spending autonomy for everyone. Over 25,000 organisations across 31 countries use Soldo to bring order, efficiency and agility to their decentralised spending, and empower the whole company to spend safely and responsibly.

By combining pre-programmed cards, a user-friendly app and a powerful spend management platform, Soldo enables decentralised spend decisions and frees everyone from tedious admin, while ensuring compliance.

Everyone gains back time to focus on the things that matter. For Finance teams, that means more time for the rewarding parts of your role, such as in-depth data analysis, defining overall business strategy, and implementing process improvements that empower everyone to achieving business goals.

Liberate Finance. Accomplish More.

In this episode, Christopher Striano, Chief Operating Officer of Global Finance at Blackstone, joins David McClelland to discuss the impact of corporate culture on business success, from the perspective of the world’s largest alternative asset manager.

With over $1 trillion in assets under management, Blackstone invests in businesses across industries and geographies, including private equity, real estate, credit, and hedge funds. In this revealing discussion, we hear how global entities need to balance culture and strategy to attract and retain great talent.

Chris shares highlights from his 25-years at Blackstone; how the company has evolved from a small entity to a global powerhouse, while maintaining a cohesive and inclusive culture; and how it stayed true to its core values by embracing regional influences in its 26 offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Highlighting a trinity of healthy competition, teamwork, and philanthropy in creating an engaged and unified Finance team, Chris puts his long-term career growth and job satisfaction down to nurturing relationships and great communication.

We also explore how integrating technologies and AI might be changing strategy for Finance teams, through strategic alignment, it doesn’t have to change culture.

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