S4, EP9: Mary-Anne Matthews | From Cadet to CFO: Building Her Own Path

On this episode of From Go to CFO, Kunal Gupta sits down with Ian Bucknell, CFO of Amplitude Energy, to look back on 19 years in the role across oil and gas and lithium. Ian talks candidly about the risky leap from a comfortable mid-cap company to a small one, the imposter syndrome that never quite goes away, and how he builds trust with boards, managing directors and his own team. He also shares practical advice on hiring for fit and why it’s fine to say ‘I don’t have that answer’.

On this episode of From Go to CFO, Dave Goldbach sits down with Mary-Anne Matthews, CFO of Next Capital, to trace a career that began with a KPMG cadetship at 20 and has run through Lendlease, PwC and Macquarie. Mary-Anne talks candidly about negotiating part-time roles after starting a family, the cold call that got her back into the workforce at PwC, and leading global teams through hundreds of deals a year. She also shares practical advice on building your network, delegating well and having the confidence to take a calculated risk.

On this episode of From Go to CFO, Kunal Gupta sits down with Aleksandar Zlatkovic, CFO of Indara Digital, to trace a career that has run through investment banking, infrastructure funds, a privatised utility and now a digital business. Aleksandar talks candidly about the eight months it took to land his first corporate role, the 'board whisperer' nickname he earned bridging a new set of shareholders and a sceptical executive team, and how his remit kept expanding from there. He also shares practical advice on leading specialist teams you're not an expert in yourself, without pretending to be one or micromanaging the people who are.

On this episode of From Go to CFO, Dave Goldbach sits down with Linda Benson, CFO of Kaplan, to trace a finance career that has run through bread, cars, construction, banking, gaming and now education. Linda talks candidly about the mentors who shaped her biggest decisions, the hardest conversation she's ever had (walking away from a role that wasn't right for her), and what it took to lead a finance team through COVID-19 while based in Las Vegas. She also shares blunt, practical advice for anyone, particularly women, who talks themselves out of putting their hand up. 

Nimesh Shah has said yes to five CFO roles he wasn't entirely sure he was ready for, and it's paid off every time. On this episode of From Go to CFO, he joins Kunal Gupta for a properly candid look back at a career spanning newspaper finance floors, an ASX IPO at Isentia, eight years at ReadyTech, and his current seat at Storypark, backed by Potentia. Along the way he's helped structure more than fifty acquisitions, learned the hard way what makes an earnout work, and formed a clear view on the one relationship every CFO needs to get right.Key takeaways:Backing yourself matters more than having all the answers. Nimesh's biggest career moves came before he felt fully qualified for them, and he's candid about learning on the job each time.The CEO relationship is the one that counts. More than any board or investor tie, it's the working relationship with the chief executive that shapes a CFO's success.Willing buyer, willing seller. After fifty-plus acquisitions, Nimesh's clearest lesson is that a deal only works when both sides genuinely want it, not when one is talked into it.Agentic AI is already changing finance work day to day, from board reporting to accounts payable, freeing up time for the parts of the job that actually need a human.

Nick Barnes set himself a goal early in his career: become a CFO by 40. In this episode of From Go to CFO, he talks to [axr]'s Dave Goldbach about the winding path that got him there, from audit at EY in the UK, through PepsiCo, Suntory and SunRice, and into Australia's startup and scale-up world with Koala, MILKRUN and Vow, before landing as CFO of Karma Drinks.It's a career built on deliberate moves, but Nick is just as candid about what didn't go to plan. He talks through a gruelling SAP rollout he felt completely unprepared for, the culture shock of moving from a highly structured multinational into unstructured startup life, and the goal he eventually hit, though not in the way he expected. The most revealing part of the conversation is what happened next: how ten minutes a day of journaling and meditation changed his relationship with ambition, self-criticism and what actually drives performance.Along the way, Nick and Dave cover the real differences between big business and startup finance, why breadth of experience matters more than a straight line up the ladder, and how to keep pushing for more without letting it define your sense of self-worth.This one's for anyone building a career in finance, and for anyone quietly wondering whether the goals they set years ago are still serving them.

In this episode of From Go to CFO, [axr]'s Kunal Gupta sits down with Nick Williams, CFO of Tellus Holdings, Australia's only geological repository for hazardous waste.Nick's career took him around the world before it brought him home. Eleven years at BHP moved him from a graduate role in Melbourne to Adelaide, Houston, the Netherlands and Chile, building the kind of broad, hands-on experience most finance careers take twice as long to gather. A mentor he clashed with in his first week in Holland went on to shape the next decade of his career, encouraging him to make the leap to Brazil, and eventually back to Sydney.He talks candidly about the private equity stint at Pacific National that changed how he saw the numbers, and the reality of his first year as a first-time CFO at Tellus, refinancing debt on a business with no contracts behind it yet.Nick shares what he'd tell himself five years ago: get your team right before anything else, learn to sell the business you work for, and keep saying yes to the next hard thing.This episode is for finance leaders navigating their own path to CFO, and anyone weighing up a leap into industry or a new country.

Michelle Reynolds backpacked solo through Europe while her friends signed up for two-year stints working in London. It's the kind of call that sums up her whole career: take the path most people skip, and see where it leads. That path has since taken her through insurance, construction, rail and a hydrogen startup to the CFO chair at CIP Construction. In this episode, she joins Dave Goldbach, Director of [axr]'s Accounting & Finance practice, to talk about:How she picked up technical finance skills without a big-four background or a formal mentoring system to rely onWhy she deliberately tries to make her own role redundant, and what she does with the time that frees upThe board-paper lesson from her time under private equity ownership that still shapes how she reports to leadership todayWhat it actually takes to run a startup's entire finance function alone, from payroll to capital raisesThere's no single route to the top of finance, just the one you're willing to take.

Dave Goldbach and Kunal Gupta continue [axr]'s relaunch of From Go to CFO with a look at how the finance leadership market is shifting, and what it means for anyone building toward a CFO seat. They cover three areas: what's changing in the roles [axr] recruits for, the bigger market trends behind those changes, and what candidates should be doing about it.In this episode, listeners will:Get a clear read on why technical finance skills are now the baseline, not the differentiator, for senior roles.Understand how AI is reshaping day-to-day finance work, and where it's freeing up time for higher-value strategic input instead of replacing people.Hear why businesses are increasingly rewarding adaptability and range across a career, rather than long, unbroken tenure in a single role.Learn what kind of experience (transformation, M&A integration, ERP projects) is becoming genuinely valuable on a CV, and why.Come away with practical steps for building commercial and influencing skills, whatever finance role they're in today.

Season 4 of From Go to CFO is here. Dave Goldbach and Kunal Gupta are kicking things off with [axr]'s 2026 Finance and Accounting Salary Guide, including why it was built differently and how to get the most out of it.This episode covers:Why [axr] structured the guide around role scope and skills, not just job titles and salary bandsHow compensation varies significantly across large, mid-tier and small businesses, and why segment mattersWhy STI and LTI data becomes increasingly important from manager level upwardsHow roles have evolved, and why the title tells you less than it used toThe mid-tier accounting market and common pathways from practice into commercial financeWhere transformation is heading in 2026, from ERP and process improvement through to AI capability in financeDownload our [axr] 2026 Finance and Accounting Salary Guide here: [axr] Salary Guide; Sales, Marketing, Category, Finance, Accounting