Podcast

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In this episode, Kevin Appleby hosts GrowCFO Mentor Lee‑Wen Chan to explore the confidence blueprint every new CFO needs. Drawing on a 40-year trans-Pacific career spanning Deloitte Taiwan, FedEx, and ultimately a history-making CFO appointment at NTT Communications, Lee‑Wen distills how new finance leaders can build durable confidence, overcome imposter syndrome, and translate financials into business impact. Her story threads together cultural dexterity, executive coaching, and practical leadership habits that help CFOs step into influence quickly and credibly. 

The conversation focuses on how confidence is learned and operationalized: knowing one’s strengths, confronting low-confidence areas, and using clear business language that resonates across functions. Lee‑Wen shares how executive coaching refined both her capability to operate as a CFO and her ability to communicate as one—offering pragmatic guidance for newly appointed CFOs who must move from technical mastery to strategic partnership, change leadership, and people empowerment.

Key topics covered:

• A first-principles confidence blueprint: “be comfortable in your own skin,” know your strengths, and deliberately shore up low-confidence areas to maximize influence. 
• Confronting imposter syndrome with structure: targeted executive coaching for “being a CFO” and “communicating as a CFO.”
• Translating finance into business action: simple narratives that resonate (e.g., “$1 cost saving equals $4 of sales to hit the same bottom line”).
• Cultural agility as a leadership multiplier: thriving across Taiwanese, American, and Japanese corporate contexts; first non‑Japanese CFO at NTT.
• Strategic impact through proximity to the business: learning sales/engineering to make financial data genuinely useful and forward-looking.
• Change leadership at scale: FedEx supply chain expansion to 20+ countries; building regional hubs and accelerating learning under pressure.

Links

• Lee-Wen Chen on LinkedIn
• Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn
• GrowCFO Mentoring

Timestamps

• 0:03:29 From master’s graduate to CFO: mentors, adaptation, and the stepwise journey to the first non‑Japanese CFO at NTT.
• 0:07:37 Lessons from Japanese leadership: zooming out to strategy, zooming in to detail, and reading between the lines.
• 0:12:17 The confidence blueprint: self-respect, truth-telling, leveraging strengths to counter low-confidence areas.
• 0:13:56 Tackling imposter syndrome: why new CFOs struggle and how executive coaching accelerates confidence.
• 0:17:01 Making finance useful: business-first framing (the “$1 saves equals $4 sales” clarity test).
• 0:18:42 Strategy via business partnership: learning sales/engineering to turn numbers into decisions.
• 0:19:55 Change leadership case: FedEx global supply chain expansion and accelerated capability building.

Find out more about GrowCFO

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GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here.

You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Ziv Raviv’s Micro Niche Podcasts model combines coaching with a full marketing agency (logo design, copywriting, web dev), delivering tangible results and justifying higher fees.

• Micro-Niche Strategy: Focus on a highly specific niche (3k–20k people) for rapid market entry. The small size enables high-touch outreach, turning a low reply rate (e.g., 2%) into enough collaborators for a full year of content.
• Podcast as a “Free Party”: A podcast is the core tool for building trust and authority. Interviewing niche experts leverages their networks for audience growth and provides a platform for “listening harder” to discover real client needs.
• The 3-Test Validation Framework: Before committing, validate a niche with three tests: Findability (can you easily find people?), Braggability (will interviewees share the episode?), and Sellability (can you monetize the audience?).

Summary of Podcast

The “Super Coaching” Model

• Ziv Raviv’s “Fully Booked Coach” model defines “fully booked” as a sustainable 15–18 retainer clients, a number that avoids burnout.
• This model evolved from a standard coaching practice to “super coaching,” which includes a full marketing agency stack.
• Rationale: Clients often need execution support, not just advice. This model delivers tangible results (e.g., a new logo) between sessions, justifying higher fees and increasing client retention.

Micro-Niche Strategy

• Core Principle: Serving everyone means serving no one. A micro-niche enables focused, high-impact outreach and rapid market entry.
• Size Sweet Spot: 3,000 (minimum) to 20,000 (ideal maximum).
• Rationale: This size provides enough people for outreach but is small enough for high-touch, personalized communication.
• Findability Test: A niche must be easy to find.
• High Findability (4.5/5): Dentists, plumbers (use Google Maps, Sales Navigator).
• Low Findability (1/5): Introverted business owners (no public identifier).
• Significance: High findability is critical for rapid results (within 100 days).

Podcast as a “Free Party”

• A podcast is the core tool for establishing authority and building trust in a new micro-niche.
• Strategy: Interview well-known niche experts.
• Benefit: Leverages their networks for initial audience growth.
• Benefit: Provides a platform for “listening harder” to uncover the niche’s true problems and pivot the service offering accordingly.
• Monetization: The goal is to sell coaching/services, not ad sponsorships.
• Rationale: Micro-niches have small audiences (e.g., 100–1,000 downloads/episode), which is insufficient for ad revenue but highly effective for converting a few listeners into high-value clients.

Niche Validation Framework

• Use this three-test framework to validate a niche before committing.
• 1. Findability: Can you easily find and contact people in the niche?
• Example: Women studio photographers (easy via directories).
• 2. Braggability: Will interviewees be proud to be featured and share the episode?
• Example: Model railway enthusiasts (high).
• Example: “Ugly Skin Disease Podcast” (low).
• 3. Sellability: Can you monetize the audience?
• Example: Offer a 10% coupon for a niche product (e.g., “NXT 2000 model”).
• Significance: A niche must have a clear path to monetization; enthusiasm alone is not enough for a business.

The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-Hosts

Graham Arrowsmith

Graham founded Finely Fettled ten years ago to help business owners and marketers market to affluent and high-net-worth customers. He’s the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, where he introduces AI Agents that you can talk to, that increase engagement, dwell time, leads and conversions. Now, Graham is offering Answer Engine Optimisation that gets you ready to be found by LLM search.

Kevin Appleby

Kevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He’s the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com