From Finance Specialist to AI-Enabled Generalist with Chris Garber, CFO at Guild
February 3, 2026
In this episode of CFO Weekly, Chris Garber, Chief Financial Officer at Guild, joins Megan Weis to explore how AI and automation are transforming finance leadership from technical specialists to cross-functional business generalists, drawing from his experience leading diverse teams across FP&A, analytics, sales ops, IT, and his fifteen-year journey with a transformational mentor who consistently pushed him into new functional areas to drive company impact.
In this episode of CFO Weekly, Chris Garber, Chief Financial Officer at Guild, joins Megan Weis to explore how AI is reshaping the CFO role from technical specialist to cross-functional business generalist. Chris brings a unique perspective shaped by fifteen years working with a transformational mentor across multiple companies, leading diverse functions from FP&A and analytics to sales operations, IT, and workplace experience.
With deep experience across SaaS, public companies, IPOs, and large-scale business transformation at Guild, LiveRamp, and Acxiom, Chris shares how AI and automation are accelerating the shift away from traditional finance specializations toward more versatile, business-minded leaders. Currently serving as CFO at Guild, a company transforming workforces for Fortune 1,000 companies, Chris discusses why the future belongs to finance leaders who can move from being scorekeepers to coaches, from producing numbers to telling strategic stories, and from managing teams to driving cross-functional impact.
What You'll Learn:
- Why traditional finance specializations are breaking down in the AI era
- How AI is enabling finance leaders to shift from scorekeeping to coaching
- The importance of experimentation and hands-on AI learning for CFOs
- Why cross-functional experience matters more than ever for finance leadership
- How to build finance teams focused on scope of impact over scope of responsibility
- The skills future CFOs need beyond traditional finance credentials
Learn more about Chris:
Episode resources:
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Previous guests include: Tom McDermott, CFO at Career Certified, Claire Bramley, CFO at Teradata, Chris Miles, Founder of Money Ripples, Ranil DeSilva, CFO & COO at CARE, Jordan Grumet, Financial Independence Expert & Host of Earn & Invest & William Washington, Global CFO at Baker McKenzie
Check out some of our most recent episodes:
- Driving Value Beyond Finance with Tom McDermott
- Why CFOs Are the Chief Everything Officers with Claire Bramley
- Why Traditional Financial Advice Fails and What To Do Instead with Chris Miles
- NGO Finance Secrets: CARE’s $900M Strategy with Ranil DeSilva
- What Lights You Up? with Jordan Grumet
- Become a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with William Washington
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