On this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Plaid CFO Seun Sodipo to unpack how Plaid’s three-layer network powers digital finance and monetizes financial activity. Seun explains how her team is using AI to improve speed, accuracy, and ambition; why finance leaders need both bottom-up experimentation and top-down direction; and how she approaches planning, network effects, and building a durable company.
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SPONSORS:
RightRev is a revenue recognition platform built for the AI economy, helping finance support usage-based pricing, credits, hybrid contracts, seats plus consumption, and whatever commercial model comes next. It gives product teams the freedom to keep innovating without outdated revenue systems slowing them down. Learn how RightRev can help at https://rightrev.com/cj
Pulley is an equity management platform that lets you issue options, model dilution, and complete 409As without your cap table turning into a spreadsheet disaster. Founders raising, hiring, and scaling use Pulley to keep equity clean and stay focused on building. Learn more or request a demo at https://pulley.com/mostlymetrics
Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj
Maximor is an autonomous finance platform that runs order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, the close, cash management, and reporting on self-learning agents instead of a dozen disconnected tools. One PE-backed customer posts 98% of transactions directly to its ERP, with the remaining 2% routed to a human for review. You pay for outcomes, not seats. See it at
https://www.maximor.ai/
Brex is an intelligent finance platform with AI-powered workflows that enforce expense policies at the point of sale, match receipts automatically, and reduce month-end close from weeks to hours. Thousands of companies, including Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash, already run on Brex. Stop asking A-level finance talent to do B-level admin work. Learn more at https://www.brex.com/metrics
Anrok is the sales tax platform that watches your exposure everywhere, automates compliance, and flags risk before it turns into a surprise back-tax letter from a state you’ve never set foot in. Companies like Anthropic, Notion, and Vanta already trust Anrok to stay ahead of rules that move faster than any spreadsheet can. Talk to a sales tax expert for a personalized exposure estimate at https://www.anrok.com/rtn
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LINKS:
Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsN
Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seun-sodipo-1498b580/
Company:
https://plaid.com/
CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/
Mostly metrics:
https://www.mostlymetrics.com
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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Preview and Intro
2:12 What Plaid does
3:53 How Plaid makes money
7:04 Eight months in, not new anymore
8:57 Sponsors — RightRev | Pulley | Rillet
11:48 Career path: Stripe, Glossier, Plaid
14:32 Evaluating durability from the outside
15:36 Rising expectations and AI
17:23 Top-down vs. bottoms-up AI adoption
20:06 Sponsors — Maximor | Brex | Anrok
23:20 Coolest AI use case: sorting physical mail
25:21 How her questions have changed
27:11 AI should make you think deeper
27:51 Finance AI Day explained
31:23 A four-month journey to usable tools
32:22 How AI changed her leadership style
33:19 Skills that matter more now
36:22 The Objective, Strategy, Tactics framework
39:56 What planning reveals about an org
41:36 Sequential vs. parallel planning
45:38 Measuring the value of a network
47:33 What people underestimate about Plaid
48:56 Lightning round
48:56 Screwed up: the reversed page order
49:39 Advice to younger self
50:32 Finance software stack
51:43 Craziest expense: the photo shoots
52:20 Credits
#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #Fintech #AIStrategy #FinanceLeadership
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