Jennifer Ceran: From Treasury to CFO to the Boardroom

Jan 27, 2026

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(0:00) Intro

(1:36) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel

(2:22) Start of interview

(3:21) Jennifer's origin story

(8:06) Journey to Treasury starting with Sara Lee Corporation, to Cisco and eBay (20-year career in Treasury)

(15:05) From Box to CFO roles at Coupons.com and Smartsheet (took it public as CFO)

(20:50) Building a Board Career: True Search, Auth0 (acq by Okta), Nerd Wallet, Wyze, Riskified and Klaviyo.

(23:40) Private vs. Public Boards

(27:47) On founder-led companies

(30:01) The Role of Audit Committees

(30:50) Navigating AI in the board

(36:37) On increased politicization and geopolitics in the boardroom

(38:44) CEO-CFO strategy and talking about the hard stuff

(40:22) Qualities of a Great Board Member: "The best board members ask the right questions at the right time in the right tone" (from Anita Sands). "They're willing to help in however the company wants them to help."

(44:05) Effective Board Meetings

(45:59) Books that have greatly influenced her life:

Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers (1980)
Discover your Strengths by Donald O. Clifton and Marcus Buckingham (2001)
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown (1980)

(48:36) Her mentors

(50:09) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by "Don't take no for an answer and don't give up"

(51:09) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves: Family Search

(53:40) The living person she most admires: Taylor Swift

Jennifer Ceran is a seasoned finance executive and board member whose career spans treasury leadership, the CFO role, and public and private company board service. Jennifer currently serves on the boards of NerdWallet, Wyze, Riskified, Klaviyo, Flock Safety, and Mesh Payments.

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License