Full Transcript: Why CFOs Get Blamed for IT Failures

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Jayson Hahn: You approved a $12 million technology investment. The business case looked clean, the operations were aligned, and the board signed off. Six months later, the strategy deck and the financials tell two very different stories. That gap is not a technology problem; it's a governance problem. In this briefing, you will see exactly why CFOs keep getting blamed for decisions they never made.

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The Three Conflicting Priorities

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Your CEO returns from the board meeting convinced the company needs to modernize. Your CIO brings a slide deck of 40 PowerPoint slides explaining how to do it. Neither document answers the same question. The CEO is chasing market position, the CIO is chasing technical stability, and the board is chasing return. The CFO is expected to turn these three conflicting priorities into one capital story the board will believe. When these three operators move without a shared definition of winning, governance breaks—and the CFO pays for it.

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Why Alignment is Not Governance

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I’ve watched this pattern destroy execution in companies from $50 million to $2 billion. Governance fails the moment capital moves without a shared economic logic. Alignment is what happens after the decision has already been made; people nod, slides are approved, and capital moves. Governance is what happens before the decision is locked in. It is the moment someone forces the economics into the room. Most companies fail because they rely on intent or trust rather than a system that forces that economic moment.

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The Framework: Command, Control, and Confidence

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You don't need another meeting; you need a mechanism that slows the decision down and forces trade-offs. There are only three things governance must do:

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• Command: You see exactly where capital is going and what decision it enables—not tasks or timelines, but the financial impact.

• Control: One owner, one deadline, and one definition of success. This is about accountability, not consensus.

• Confidence: The board receives one story measured by one metric that ties spending to outcomes they can understand.

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Case Study: $26M Visibility for a Global Manufacturer

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I applied this system to a $600 million manufacturer with a $26 million budget and almost no visibility. The CEO wanted transformation, the CIO wanted stability, and the CFO wanted to know if the spend earned its place on the balance sheet. By applying Command, Control, and Confidence, we exposed the real financial drivers. The investment was approved without cuts because the board finally understood what they were buying.

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The 60-Second Summary

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IT governance fails because operators hold different definitions of winning. The fix is one framework that gives visibility, creates decision clarity, and provides the board with one narrative. CFOs who use this system stop surprises, stop collisions, and stop defending technology they never approved in the first place.

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Jayson Hahn: 18-year Global CIO and Board Advisor.