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Author and instructor of the Linkedin Course "Strategic Financial Intelligence for Business Leaders"

 Course Author - Strategic Financial Intelligence for Business Leaders

The CEO Financial Intelligence Program

Built for CEOs, CFOs and executives who want to lead with strategic financial insight and engineered performance. 

Through expert sessions, real-world cases, and a private executive community, you'll learn to connect the dots between vision and results, challenge financial assumptions, ask the right questions, and make confident decisions that drive enterprise value.

Founder

Financiario

Financiario delivers the financial foresight of a strategic CFO — automated into real-time dashboards — to unlock capital, drive growth, and lead with confidence.

Always know how today’s decisions impact cash flow, profitability, and long-term value — without the guesswork, spreadsheets, or delays.

Designed for mid-market companies, Financiario connects financial planning, forecasting, and reporting into one powerful, fully managed platform.

From multi-entity consolidations and scenario modeling to capital allocation and debt management, every dashboard and report is engineered to align financial performance with strategic objectives.

Experience real-time financial intelligence. Book a demo at Financiario.com.

Founder & CEO

OanaLabes.com

Hi, I'm Oana Labes.

As one of the top worldwide Linkedin content creators, my strategic finance content has been seen by over 140 million people over the past year.

My Linkedin following has grown to over 350,000 followers, and the business and finance Checklists and Cheat Sheets I created have been viewed and downloaded by millions of people worldwide.

My 'Cash Flow Masterclass' has transformed hundreds of careers and businesses and my Corporate Trainings have helped thousands of professionals around the world.

Join over 55,000+ people and subscribe to my free newsletter 'The Finance Gem 💎' to get strategic finance insights every Saturday and compound your impact & influence on in boardrooms and beyond.

Get in touch at www.OanaLabes.com

The Finance Gem

Join 55,000+ subscribers to get The Finance Gem 💎delivered to your Inbox every other Saturday. Don't miss the strategic finance insights enjoyed daily by my 350,000+ Linkedin Followers.

Founder & Content Creator

Corporate Finance Institute® (CFI)

Founded in 2016, CFI is the world-leading provider of practical learning and productivity tools for finance and banking professionals. Powered by expert instructors, hands-on lessons, and proprietary technology, CFI delivers the skills, certifications, CPE credits, and resources to help anyone—from beginner to seasoned pro—drive their finance career.

Guest Writer

Profitability Analytics Center of Excellence

PACE is an independent, non-profit, community of professionals dedicated to developing ways for companies to strategically manage and improve revenue, cost, and investments using causal analytic models to help make better, more informed decisions and drive greater value creation.

Advisory Board Member

I enable the financing that supports the growth and success of growing businesses operating in the Manufacturing, Wholesale and Logistics space.  I also lead RBC’s relationship with my clients at the enterprise level; I oversee the overall risk monitoring process for my portfolio and actively manage the portfolio credit risk within the bank’s risk appetite.

Senior Commercial Manager - Supply Chain Industries

Commercial Manager / Technology Banking KBI

Holidays Inc.

After working in the industry for 6 years I founded a travel concierge business at the age of 23, and bootstrapped it to 1.3MM EUR in revenues, 13 employees and 2 offices over the course of 4 years. We partnered with Thomas Cook in Germany to gain exclusive access to the full travel offering of more than 70 of the world’s largest 70 wholesale operators including Thomas Cook, Neckerman, TUI, ITS, DERtour, Schauinsland or ITS. 

Our strategy focused on product leadership, customer service, and innovation, which helped to differentiate us in the local market and afforded us record high retention rates and customer referrals.

I used to think finance wasn’t rocket science — until I saw how many CEOs and companies get crushed by it.

Great products with solid margins - consistently struggling to engineer growth with proactive cash flow planning and smart capital allocation.

That’s when I realized: it’s not just about numbers — it’s about knowing what they mean, how to plan around them, and how to make decisions that actually build value.

That’s what I teach. And that’s what my company Financiario delivers.

📌 I’m a CPA, MBA, and Founder of Financiario — the only financial intelligence platform built to think, report, and advise like a CFO in real time — whether you have a CFO or not.

📌 My background:

→ 15+ years of mid-market capital expertise
→ $300M+ secured and deployed across growth, M&A, and enterprise value acceleration
→ Scaled hundreds of companies 10–20x by aligning capital, cash flow, and strategic planning

📌 I’m also:

→ A Top 10 U.S. LinkedIn Finance Creator
→ A LinkedIn Learning Instructor
→ Read weekly by 45,000+ CEOs and CFOs via The Finance Gem
→ Followed by 500,000+ worldwide across platforms

📌 I’ve taught over 5,000 leaders through:

→ The CEO Financial Intelligence Program – master the 20% of finance that drives 80% of results
→ The Cash Flow Masterclass – used by thousands to turn liquidity into leverage
→ The Financial Analysis Masterclass – helping leaders turn numbers into strategy

📌 Brand partners & highlights:

→ Oracle, SAP, HubSpot, Mercury, 
→ AFP speaker (largest finance conference in the world): 3 years running

If you’re a scaling company, ambitious executive, finance pro, or growing brand — I can help.

→ Follow me here, on IG and YouTube (coming soon)
→ Scale with me: Financiario.com
→ Learn with me: oanalabes.com
→ Reach me: hello@oanalabes.com

Oana Labes, MBA, CPA

Most CEOs are building strategy on Adjusted EBITDA.

But Operating Cash Flow is the number that tells the truth.

➡️ Learn to analyze an income statement in 10 steps and never miss another red flag again: https://bit.ly/3QsGLyV

Let’s talk about the most abused metric in finance:
Adjusted EBITDA.

On paper and in quarterly calls it looks impressive.

↳ Big number
↳ Solid growth story
↳ Great for pitch decks

But dig deeper, and it’s often nothing more than a sanitized version of the truth.

📌 Save your spot for the upcoming executive masterclasses covering EBITDA, Valuation and our exclusive CEO Panel: 

➡️ https://bit.ly/4nHxemo
➡️ https://bit.ly/4nZwau8
➡️ https://bit.ly/4oCA2RK

Here’s what happens when the heat of real business pressure kicks in:

↳ Adjusted EBITDA: a full pan of spinach — puffed up with “one-time” add-backs

↳ EBITDA: a few wilted leaves left — still disconnected from actual cash

↳ Net income: the bare truth — what’s left after everyone else takes their share

↳ Operating cash flow: the real litmus test — what the business actually generates to reinvest, repay, and survive

Most CEOs are obsessed with EBITDA.
But it’s operating cash flow that fuels today and builds tomorrow.

Smart CEOs understand this:

✓ Adjusted EBITDA is easy to manipulate — operating cash flow isn’t
✓ EBITDA ignores working capital swings — OCF exposes them
✓ Operating cash flow shows what’s sustainable — not presentable

Because at the end of the day, only one number fuels:

Payroll
Debt repayment
Growth reinvestment
Dividend distribution
Breathing room in downturns

That number is Operating Cash Flow.

If you’re not tracking it religiously, and planning it carefully - you're in for some seriosu financial trouble.

This isn’t about becoming a CFO.

It’s about being a CEO who actually understands how value is created — and destroyed.

So here’s the question:

Are you managing by numbers that survive heat?
Or by metrics that evaporate when reality sets in?

📌 Want to transform your leadership, company and career?

▷ Scale yourself with my CEO Intelligence Program: https://bit.ly/3ZCI0kr
▷ Scale your knowledge with courses & graphics: https://bit.ly/3RlTCDD
▷ Scale your company with Live CFO intelligence: https://bit.ly/3Aa36fG

♻️ Like, Comment, Repost if this was helpful. And follow Oana Labes, MBA, CPA for strategic insights on financial leadership.
------------

10 more days left to enrol into The CEO Financial Intelligence Program
Last cohort for 2025 kicks off November 12, 2025
6 weeks with me, 2x live weekly, recorded
Transformational & immediately practical
Enrol now: https://lnkd.in/e_4V8pWR

CEO @ Financiario | Real Time CFO Intelligence for Mid-Market Companies | Rolling Forecasts • Dynamic Dashboards • Board Decks | Founder & Coach @ The CEO Financial Intelligence Program | Top 10 LinkedIn USA Finance

Vaughan Broderick

Wiley

Co-Author, Innovation in Action

Helping organisations become future-ready & thrive in constant disruption through field-tested human-centred innovation methods

- Customer insights
- Customer experience design
- Growth strategy
- Service design
- Lean innovation methods
- Workshop design and facilitation
– Human-centred design capability programmes

🔥 Highlighted Testimonials:

"The experience was so positive and impactful for us that we have asked Vaughan back on numerous occasions to assist us with designing services.  His expertise in design thinking coupled with an engaging personal style makes him a valued member of the team that is transforming our organisation." 
- Nick Scott, General Manager, Service Delivery, Brackenridge

"Vaughan facilitated our value proposition workshop as we were at a loss as to how to get started. Vaughan skilfully challenged our thinking through a range of activities and questioning, and we left the workshops feeling a sense of clarity, newfound enthusiasm and collective understanding. We would not hesitate to use Vaughan again in the future.” 
- Sara Luckman, Strategy Manager, NZ Young Farmers

"The group greatly appreciated the interactive nature of the program combined with the opportunity to think and reflect on how the practices and skills developed would benefit the public sector and challenges with which they are grappling. Thanks Vaughan, hopefully we can repeat this next year." 
- Dr. Chris Vas, General Manager Food Innovation Precinct, Western Australia

Founder - Innovation Lab

University of Canterbury

Lecturer - Innovation by Design - July 2023 - Present

- Teaching human-centred design to business masters students.

Guest Coach - Executive MBA March 2023 - Present

- Coaching MBA innovation students

Mentor - Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Mar 2021- Present

- Mentoring student founders to utilise design thinking and lean innovation methods

Impact Lead - Centre for Entrepreneurship - July 2023 - Present

Innovation Lecturer - Executive MBA Coach - Startup Coach

Festival for the Future

Guest innovation workshop facilitator at Aotearoa’s biggest leadership and innovation summit.

Guest Workshop Facilitator

Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand

Authoring training content on Business Models, Value Propositions, Pitching & Storytelling, Strategy and Creative Problem-solving using a design thinking approach

Author - Strategy and Creative Problem-solving

Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury

Helping public sector organisations use design thinking to collaborate, innovate and create more insight driven, human-centric organisations.

+ Design thinking projects
+ Workshop facilitation
+ Design research
+ Prototyping and testing

Design Thinking Coach

Brackenridge Services Ltd

Helping to reimagine, redesign and implement service and system change to meet regulatory requirements, exceed client and stakeholder experiences and outcomes. So far, we have redesigned the assessment and transition process for individual service offerings that have resulted in reduced lead time, improved quality, reduced risk and increased customer experience and outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:
Co-designing service and innovation
Stakeholder engagement and communication
Amplifying the voice of the customer
Change leadership and embedding new ways of working

Change and Innovation Project Manager

Consulting in the social services sector as part of my MBA (and post-graduation), I am leading the digital transformation of Life Storybooks for young people in care. This project requires multi-stakeholder management, the development and maintenance of key relationships across all levels, meeting and surpassing key project deliverables and the development of effective change leadership implementation strategies.

The project necessitated the effective use of design thinking, lean and change leadership methodologies to manage various stages of the project and included the establishment of the additional project supporting elements such as foundation and design principles, organisational structures and development specifications.

Innovation Project Manager

Sabbatical

Taking a year off to travel with my family provided a great opportunity for many amazing experiences together. The most valuable part was how we developed personally and as a family when confronted with challenges and obstacles that required adaptability, problem-solving, teamwork and coping skills.

World Traveler

Broderick Consulting Ltd

Broderick Consulting was in the business of helping clients achieve their financial goals. I founded and grew a successful business serving hundreds of clients throughout New Zealand until a successful sale was executed.

Founder and Adviser 

Innovation coach helping you & your organisation thrive in disruption | Teaching proven practical methods to help people innovate | UC MBA | Follow for posts about startups, innovation & leadership

Innovation shouldn’t feel like pressure without progress.

Yet many leaders I work with are stuck in exactly that space.

They’re expected to move fast—but don’t have time to think.
They’re leading innovation—but unclear whether they’re solving the right problem.
They’ve run strategy sessions and pilots—but can’t make the change stick.

I help leaders and teams slow down where it matters—so they can move faster where it counts.

My work focuses on four key challenges:

Understanding the real problem behind the problem (no more jumping to solutions)
Designing smarter decisions in complexity (move forward with clarity, not chaos)
Aligning teams and stakeholders (so change feels shared, not forced)
Implementing innovation that sticks (not stalls)

I blend psychology, human-centred design, and practical strategy to help people turn insight into action - especially when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

As an innovation coach, advisor and educator, I’ve supported 225+ teams across business, government, and education to design smarter decisions and lead real change.

I’m known as The Slow Strategist - not because I move slowly, but because I help leaders pause where it matters most. Before assumptions harden. Before decisions get baked in. Before “solution mode” derails the real work.

I’m the co-author of Innovation in Action: Unlock Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity with the DUCTRI Method, and I write a weekly newsletter read by 10,000+ professionals who want to lead with confidence - not chaos.

Earlier in my career, I founded and scaled a financial services business to 2,000+ clients and $500M in assets. Burnout led to a complete reinvention: I sold the company, travelled through 23 countries with my family, completed an Exec MBA, and retrained in human-centred innovation.

That reset equipped me with the real skills leaders need to thrive in a VUCA world: slowing down to think clearly, making human-centred decisions in ambiguity, and turning insight into action.

If you’re:
	•	Leading innovation on a complex challenge
	•	Building something new from scratch
	•	Or stuck trying to make change stick

…here’s how I can help:

1. Read by 10,000+ smart professionals each week
-> https://vaughanbroderick.com/newsletter/

2. Join 275+ smart innovators on the Innovation in Action book waitlist:
-> https://vaughanbroderick.com/the-ductri-playbook/

3. Workshops | Consulting | Speaking | Innovation Training
-> Let’s have a conversation: DM me

Research Associate

Co-authoring academic research papers on innovation and design thinking.

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

One of the best aspects of co-writing a book is the opportunity to engage in conversations with innovators from around the globe.

I recently sat down with Andy Blackburn to learn about his experience as an innovator for some of NZ's largest organisations and what it was like being at the forefront of NZ's ecosystem.

Andy's one of the most purpose-led leaders I've met and it was a joy to talk with him and learn about enabling creativity in large orgs.

Cheers Andy 🙏 and thanks for helping build the book.

FYI - The Innovation in Action waitlist is open and growing. Join 280+ others here: https://lnkd.in/g55_9G9J

Christian Walsh

Want to get better at strategy? 

Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva is holding her excellent intro to agile strategy workshop

Chief Reinvention Officer | I help corporations thrive in perpetual turbulence and capitalize on disruption | Teaching my science-based methods to help 1B people reinvent continuously

Deliberate vs. emergent: which one still works outside the boardroom?

Most teams still treat strategy as a one-and-done plan — agreed at an offsite, handed to “implementation,” and defended all year. That’s deliberate.

But in 2025, plans age in weeks. The teams that win use emergent strategy: try → learn → adjust while reality is changing. Decisions get better because feedback is built into the process.

If your calendar is full of approvals, handoffs, and re-prioritizations, you don’t have a strategy problem — you have an outdated strategy tool problem.

Ready to upgrade your strategy toolbox — and get massive relief for yourself, your team, or your client?

Join my Agile Strategy Workshop — live, free, on Zoom — Wednesday, November 12th at 12:00 PM ET (replay included). 

We’ll lay a clear foundation and then give you TONS of practice.
No theory dump. 
No boring 60-slide deck.

✅ Field-tested across tons of industries, countries, and situations
✅ Works for team, project, enterprise, or personal strategic planning
✅ Hands-on training with immediate feedback and mistake correction

212 professionals have already registered for this 2025 Agile Strategy workshop - the only one we are having this year, so don’t miss out! 

Register now — link in the first comment 👇

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The Battle

Oana Labes, MBA, CPA

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

Followers

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taplio

The Battle

Oana Labes, MBA, CPA

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Oana Labes, MBA, CPA's LinkedIn Performance

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