The pivot began when Jim Rogers raised his hand. Groupon was shifting from mobile daily deals to a goods business in Europe, and—still early in his career—he volunteered to help lead the finance work. That step, he tells us, bridged his path from technical accounting into FP&A and set a pattern: seek out the build stage, then make finance a partner to the business.

Rogers started in audit at Ernst & Young before moving through technical accounting and controllership into planning. He earned a master’s in accounting at Northern Illinois University to qualify for the CPA, he tells us. At Groupon, he advanced to head of FP&A for North America, experience that informed his philosophy at Tempus AI: “we’re not here to report the news,” he says—finance should enable decisions.

Joining Tempus in 2017 as the first finance hire—when the company was pre-revenue, he tells us—Rogers built the function, became CFO in 2021, and helped steer the company public. He also stood up investor relations, initially outsourcing the function before bringing it in-house by the end of 2021, he tells us, investing time to educate analysts on a business that spans multiple categories.

AI runs through Tempus’s work. Externally, a physician portal (“positive”) and the researcher tool “Lens” aim to make diagnostics and data more useful. Internally, large language models sift “hundreds of petabytes of data,” Rogers tells us, and surface real-time finance insights. The strategic throughline is discipline: double down on oncology, keep pilots siloed, and expand only when the core is ready—because, as he notes, “no two days are alike.”

In this Planning Aces special, three finance leaders map how AI is moving FP&A from dashboards to decisions. Andrew Casey (Amplitude) shows agents automating analytics, experiments, and order-to-cash checks to democratize insight and speed action. Eric Brown (Cohesity) contrasts AI’s capital intensity with the cloud era and spotlights an “epic data battle” where privileged datasets drive advantage. Chris Miorin (APEX Analytix) links on-prem investment and clean data to faster product velocity. Co-host Brett Knowles ties it together: avoid AI-washing; structure data; target reconciliations and cycle-time compression; and lead with outcomes. Viewpoints, AI’s value depends on governance, access, and execution discipline.

Chris Miorin’s path to the CFO office began in a crucible of leadership. At West Point, and later at Ranger School, he was forged in environments designed to test resolve. Commissioned shortly after 9/11, he knew combat was certain. Leading an infantry platoon in Iraq, he found himself working side-by-side with a colonel “30 years my senior.” The challenge, he tells us, was learning how to add value humbly yet confidently in an environment where everything was fluid. Those early lessons in partnership and adaptability became cornerstones of his leadership style.

When Miorin left the Army, he reset with an MBA at Kellogg, which he calls “two years to really immerse in how businesses run.” Investment banking followed, where he advised some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. In capital-intensive, cyclical industries, he saw firsthand how major decisions on raising capital, acquisitions, and divestitures shaped enterprise value. “It helped me understand how finance could have that strategic impact,” he recalls.

From there, corporate development and M&A roles deepened his conviction that the CFO’s crucial role is capital allocation—directing resources to projects that generate the highest return on invested capital. At Ingersoll Rand, he added investor relations to his toolkit, learning how to tell a “story with numbers” that connected business strategy to investor interest.

Looking back, Miorin points to four experiences—Army, investment banking, corporate development, and investor relations—as the foundation for his CFO journey. That foundation ultimately led to his first CFO appointment at SpendHQ, an opportunity introduced through his Kellogg network.