Stories of CFOs: Leading the AI Tsunami - Members +3

Top CFOs to Share Stories of How They Approve — and Kill — Technology PurchasesFive finance leaders sit at the front and walk through purchases they actually decided on — the ones they signed, the ones they cut in renewal, the ones that died in a spreadsheet nobody showed the vendor. Real evaluations, real business cases, real language used in the room where the vendor wasn't. Not procurement theory. What was actually said after the demo ended. Every founder thinks their deal died on price. The CFOs in this room know it usually died somewhere else — no owner, no line item, no number anyone would defend at board. Twenty funded founders get to listen and ask. The rules The CFOs are the guests of honor. Founders are the audience. Every story has to be a specific purchase — dollar range, who championed it, what killed or saved it. "We look at ROI" is not a story. At least one story in the night has to be a tool that got approved and then failed — adopted by nobody, cut at renewal, or expensed into irrelevance. No selling at the CFOs. You can ask for their advice. You cannot ask for a meeting. Chatham House Rule on vendor names and contract terms. Everything else is fair game. The format Round the room. Sixty seconds each — name, what you do, one purchase you regret. Host goes first. Host-led stories. Five CFOs, structured questions, no slides. Open floor. Founders bring their actual stalled deal and get it diagnosed by the person who would have signed it. Live demos. Five vetted founders demo AI and robotics products. The CFOs critique the business case — not the product. What line it comes out of, what it replaces, what number moves, who defends it in twelve months. Who this is for CFOs, VPs of Finance, and first finance hires who have owned a software budget and killed something in it. Founders with funding and revenue whose deals go to finance for approval and keep coming back with questions they can't answer. Not for: bankers, fractional CFO firms, recruiters, or anyone selling into finance teams who isn't in a demo slot. Agenda 5:30 — Doors. Charcuterie, wine, no programming. Come late if close ran over. We know.5:45 — Round the room. Sixty seconds each.6:00 — Host questions. CFOs tell their approval and kill stories.6:40 — Open floor. Founders bring their stalled deals.7:00 — Five demos. Two minutes each, CFOs advise on the business case.7:20 — Networking, snacks, wine.8:00 — Doors close. Tickets CFO Speaker — invite only. Free. You're the reason the room exists.Founder Seat — 20 available. Funded, with revenue.Demo Slot — 5 available. Application required. AI or robotics only. Risks worth handling before this goes live Recruitment is much harder than the AE version. AEs come for status and reputation. CFOs don't need either from a founder room, and they get pitched constantly. The pull has to be peer proximity — five finance leaders in a room with each other, not five finance leaders in a room with twenty founders. Consider leading outreach with who else is on the panel, and cap the founder count visibly so it doesn't read as a vendor gauntlet. "No selling at the CFOs" needs enforcement, not just a bullet. This is the highest vendor-infiltration risk of any format you've run. Every AI company selling into finance wants this room. Screen founder applications for who they sell to, and be willing to reject founders whose ICP is the CFO — or accept them only into demo slots where the pitch is structured. Contract terms may be too sensitive even under Chatham House. CFOs won't disclose pricing they're still negotiating or vendors they're mid-renewal with. Give them the out explicitly in the pre-brief: dollar ranges instead of figures, category instead of vendor name. Date matters more here. CFOs disappear during month-end close and the first two weeks of a quarter. Mid-month, mid-quarter, midweek. Host quality is load-bearing. AEs perform naturally. CFOs are trained to say less. Whoever runs the questi…