Ep36—Ted Stone: Decades of Financial Strategy — Still in the Game and Giving Back
Episode Summary
Ted Stone, a 72-year-old career CFO, discusses his transition to fractional CFO work serving multiple clients across diverse industries. He shares detailed stories from three major private equity deals—Velocity Express (a last-mile delivery rollup), an office telephone company spin-out, and Solucent (a healthcare data integration)—while exploring current trends including the silver tsunami of retiring business owners, ESOP structures, and the value of executive peer networks like Executive Forum.
Key Quotes
"You need at least three things to be happy and successful in retirement: physical health, financial health, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning."
"The CFO's job is to help everybody else in the company do their jobs better because they've got the right information at the right time in a format that makes sense to them."
"If you've done one ESOP, you've done one ESOP—every company has its own individual circumstances that make each deal unique."
"When you get to that age where you're considering retirement, nobody cares that I'm old. In fact, they kind of look at it as 'this is cool'—I'm non-threatening because I'm not going to take anybody's job away."
Transcript
Hi, welcome to Tales from the Sky Lounge. It's a podcast about business, consulting, and venture investing. We get out there in the world, we talk to people who are making it happen, and we get their stories. You can like and subscribe. James would be very happy. And he asked me to mention our speedrun sister playlist where we go through current breaking AI topics and we give you very practical examples of how to become personally productive in AI.
So today's guest in the Sky Lounge, Ted Stone. Hey Ted, how are you?
If I were any better, Todd, I would have to be you.
That's awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you Ted. It's great having you here. So, first question, who are you and what are you working on?
I am a career CFO who's found a way to keep doing it long past my sell by date. Working on four, five really interesting clients, cover an incredible breadth of industries right now.
Want to go deeper?
Work With MeRelated Episodes
Ep42 Chris Thomajan: Bet on the Jockey, Not the Horse: A 35-Year CFO's Guide to Backing Winners
Chris Thomajan, a CFO with 35 years of startup experience, discusses his career path from English major to finance leader across 100+ companies, primarily in Boston's biotech ecosystem. He shares frameworks for evaluating CEOs, navigating venture capital cycles, and managing founder transitions, emphasizing that betting on the right team matters more than the product itself.
Ep 39—Neal Miller-Decades of Financial Strategy Across 70 Companies and Still Going
Neil Miller, a partner emeritus at Tech CXO with 19 years at the firm, shares his journey from public accounting through CFO roles at multiple public companies to fractional executive work. He discusses his involvement with 70+ companies including Cloud Sherpas and Boomtown, offering insights on fundraising challenges, the fractional executive model's value during economic uncertainty, and how AI is compressing business cycles while changing capital requirements.
Ep30 Bob Brogan—Road Warrior to Business Architect: 40 Years of Transforming Companies
Bob Brogan shares four decades of experience transforming companies across operations, IT consulting, and strategy. From early data warehousing in Canada to leading a $100M exit for a 43-year-old online ordering pioneer, he discusses business cycles, modular design principles, and the transition from tactical execution to strategic leadership. Now managing partner at Tech CXO Great Lakes, he emphasizes paying forward through mentorship, angel investing, and community work including founding the Legacy Guild scholarship program.