You know you’ve made it when you’re verb material. Google it. I’ll Uber there. Let me just Venmo you.

With over 2 billion guest arrivals since its inception, Airbnb, the travel company that upended the very idea of a hotel, has been approaching verb status for some time.

In the event that you need at least one former president to have used your product before you’ve really made it, the company checks that box, too. Barack Obama thinks he gave his first Airbnb host five stars.

But the verb thing. It's a rarefied and lucrative territory that just about any major company is (at least privately) angling towards. And maybe that’s why last week’s debut of Airbnb’s next chapter put verb ambitions front and center, proclaiming: “Now you can Airbnb more than an Airbnb.” Or, as CEO Brian Chesky put it: “Basically, it’s the Airbnb of anything.”

The company unveiled a spate of new features that, indeed, majorly expand the company’s potential reach, branching out from homes and apartments to experiences and services.

Now, you can “Airbnb” in-home meals from professional chefs, appointments with personal trainers, or hair and makeup teams ahead of big events through the company’s newly revamped app. Everything’s been launched, but actually getting everything firing on all cylinders will take some time. Airbnb’s recent experience can be instructive for CFOs looking to guide a strategic pivot at their organization.

Keep reading about Airbnb’s new strategy here.—NP

When the CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS) first reached out to Kael Reicin about becoming its CFO, he was a bit bewildered.

But Reicin wasn’t convinced he was the right person for the job. “I have no healthcare experience, no nonprofit experience,” Reicin, who was CFO of Bloomberg’s financial products division at the time, remembers thinking. “I thought it was going to be 15 minutes, and maybe they'll ask me for money at the end of it.”

The quick call, though, turned into a 90-minute conversation as the CEO explained more about ACS and how it could use someone with Reicin’s expertise to help it grow. With the encouragement of his wife, Reicin accepted the role.

That was five years ago. Since then, he’s shepherded the organization through the pandemic and inflation, and is prepared to keep it resilient in the face of economic volatility. He spoke with CFO Brew about the striking similarities between the for-profit and not-for-profit CFO’s role, balancing mission with financial need, and what employers can be doing in the fight against cancer.

Click here for more on how this CFO balances resilience with a mission.—CV

External forces such as trade tensions and cybersecurity threats can put pressure on an organization’s financial results, and CFOs are painfully aware of that, according to a recent survey from spend management software developer Coupa.

The survey of 500 finance leaders in the US and Europe, conducted in January and February (before the stuff really hit the fan), found that 69% of CFOs were worried about meeting year-end financial targets. They listed geopolitical instability, supply chain disruptions, and inflation as their organizations’ three biggest external risks.

“Today’s finance leaders are facing an alarming set of external pressures and are navigating an ever changing set of risks which challenges their decision making,” Coupa CFO Michael Agresta said in a statement. “Despite these dynamic forces, they are driving cost discipline in order to fuel growth, building more resilient supply chains, and scaling their use of AI to fuel more efficient organizations.”

As CFO Brew recently reported, a lot of these risks are intertwined and require organizations to think differently about managing them.

Keep reading here.—AZ

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