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The Finance Leader Podcast
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The Finance Leader Podcast

Author: Stephen McLain

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What separates finance professionals who influence strategy from those who only report the numbers?


The answer isn't better spreadsheets. It's developing the judgment, leadership, and business acumen to become a trusted strategic advisor.


The Finance Leader Podcast helps finance and accounting professionals, FP&A teams, controllers, CFOs, business owners, and executive leaders strengthen the connection between finance, operations, and strategy. Episodes provide practical insights, proven frameworks, and real-world lessons to help you improve decision making, develop executive presence, build stronger partnerships across the organization, and create measurable business value.


Hosted by Stephen McLain, a retired U.S. Army Finance Officer and corporate FP&A and accounting consultant, the podcast combines military leadership experience with practical corporate finance expertise to help finance professionals lead with greater confidence and strategic impact.


Start with the trailer, then subscribe so you never miss an episode. Thank you!

262 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail Episode # 158: A hotel room empty tonight is not “lost demand” on a spreadsheet. It’s gone forever. That one reality makes hospitality one of the clearest places where FP&A has to operate in real time, not on last month’s variance deck. We start with the big strategic priorities: building demand sensing forecasts that update with signals like booking pace, cancellations, group sales pipelines, local events, weather, transportation constraints, competitor pricing, and dig...
Send us Fan Mail Episode # 157: We walk through how we build an FP&A training plan that develops individual talent while raising the effectiveness of the whole finance organization. That starts with a formal development strategy, not ad hoc learning squeezed in when time allows. We talk about the capabilities that separate high-performing FP&A teams from strong reporting teams: business acumen, critical thinking, stakeholder management, leadership, decision support, and financial stor...
Send us Fan Mail Episode # 156: Most SWOT analyses fail for one simple reason: they end as a four-quadrant chart instead of becoming a set of decisions. I’m breaking down how to run a strategic SWOT assessment that actually changes what you do next so you can outperform competitors over the next three to five years, not just document what you already know. We walk through what SWOT analysis is really for in modern strategic planning: clarifying your competitive position, surfacing vulnerabil...
Send us Fan Mail Episode # 155: AI can feel like it’s coming for your job while you’re still trying to close the month. If you’ve felt overwhelmed by artificial intelligence, unsure which tools matter, or worried you’re falling behind, we’re going to slow it down and make it practical, especially for finance leaders, FP&A, accounting, and anyone responsible for decisions, controls, and credibility. We start with the real reason AI creates anxiety: finance professionals build careers by b...
Send us Fan Mail Episode # 154: Most FP&A teams aren’t short on effort they’re short on time to think. When the calendar is dominated by budgets, monthly reporting, variance explanations, and forecast refreshes, finance can end up reacting to problems after they’ve already hit results. That’s risky in a world of rapid market shifts, customer behavior changes, supply chain disruption, and nonstop technology transformation. We walk through how agile strategy applies to financial planning a...
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