Spend Culture: Conversations on Spend Management, Procurement, and Finance Leadership

The Fiscal Responsibility Method: How to Navigate Charter School Finance Complexity

Can charter schools beat budget pressure? In this episode, from Procurement Week for Charter Schools, Raj Thakkar, Founder & CEO at CSBM, shares proven strategies from his Fiscal Responsibility Method to help charter schools tackle financial challenges, optimize spending, and ensure fiscal responsibility. Gain actionable insights from an award-winning financial leader with 20+ years of experience in charter school finance, and discover how to prepare your school for long-term stability and growth.

Navigating the New Normal in Charter School Budgeting

How are finance leaders preparing for 2025–2026 budgeting? In this episode, from Procurement Week for Charter Schools, school finance leaders share strategies for financial stability, transparency, streamlined operations, and compliance. Get ahead of the curve with insights from experienced leaders on adapting to funding shifts, rethinking staffing models, and navigating the complexities of modern charter school finance.

How Leading Charter Schools Are Transforming Procurement for Maximum Impact

Discover how real charter school leaders are enhancing their purchasing and accounts payable workflows in this episode from Procurement Week for Charter Schools. Featuring four innovative charter school leaders at the forefront of procurement transformation, you'll hear firsthand how they’ve optimized purchasing workflows, improved budget visibility, and leveraged technology to streamline operations. Learn how to tackle rogue spending, gain real-time spend visibility, and stay compliant as budgets tighten and regulations increase.

How Charter Schools Can Ace Their Purchasing Process with Procurify

What does smarter school spending look like in action? This episode, from Procurement Week for Charter Schools, explores how AI-powered procurement and AP tools are helping schools cut costs, reduce manual work, and gain control over every dollar—just in time for budgeting season. Listen to learn about Procurify’s latest features, including AI-powered contract management and AP automation, and learn how these tools can help your school save time, stretch your budget further, and eliminate procurement headaches during budgeting season.

Using Technology to Bridge the Gap Between Finance and Business With Darrell Cox

In this episode of Spend Culture Stories, Darrell Cox, CFO at Vena Solutions, explains how technology is bridging the gap between finance and everyone else, why self-created uncertainty can be a boost, and the importance of being a business partner as well as a numbers guy.

How Procurement Can Be an Innovation Centre with Anna Mcgovern

In this episode, Anna McGovern, the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Food Bank for New York City and procurement/supply chain influencer shares how procurement can truly have a seat at the executive table as a business partner. Procurement is often seen as a cost-cutting role, but Anna gives specific case studies and examples on how procurement can truly become a value-driver, and how it can influence innovation within organizations big and small.

Adopting an Entrepreneurial Mindset in Accounting and Finance

Twyla Verhelst joins us to chat about how accounting leaders can adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to their work, and how to elevate themselves to become better business partners to the organizations they work for. In addition, Twyla provides some great tips to deal with change management and automation issues, and how to overcome them.

How to Prepare for Your First ERP Project - Sam Gupta

In this episode, Sam Gupta, the Principal Consultant at ElevatIQ and host of the WBS Rocks podcast joins us to discuss how growing companies can identify whether they are ready for an ERP, and also how to make the best decision on behalf of their organization.

We chat about ERP implementations gone wrong, how to evaluate a solution, and getting the right stakeholders on board to make your tech stack a success.

Elevating Women in Finance and the Future of Payments With Pamela Steer, CFO of Payments Canada

Pamela Steer, CFO of Payments Canada and CFO of the Year™ award winner for 2019 joins us in this episode to chat about the newest developments in Payments, and also her experiences being a woman finance leader. We chat about how organizations can leverage the newest payment technology to stay competitive in 2021, and how to elevate other women in the finance and accounting sector. 

 

How Softbank's VC CFO Navneet Govil is Making Finance Strategic

In this episode, Softbank Vision Fund's CFO and Managing Partner Navneet Govil shares his insights on scaling the vision fund's finance team, how he was able to use technology to make finance strategic, and his opinions on how finance leaders can be better business partners.

In addition, he gives a glimpse into how Softbank Vision Fund selects their portfolio companies and how portfolio company CFOs can benefit from being a part of the Vision Fund ecosystem.