🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://feipodcast.fireside.fm/178
From Career Ladder to Career Vision
One of Catherine Hoovel’s most powerful insights for financial leaders: stop focusing solely on the next promotion and start articulating long-term aspirations.
Rather than simply moving from manager to director to vice president, she learned to define her ultimate goal – leading the accounting function – and build a flexible development plan around it. That plan included intentional “detours,” such as serving as a business unit CFO, leading FP&A, and overseeing global tax and shared services.
Her advice to emerging financial leaders: set your aspiration, but don’t laminate the plan. Let it evolve.
AI in Finance: Redefining Entry-Level Roles
Hoovel also offers a timely perspective on artificial intelligence and the future of finance talent.
While AI dramatically accelerates access to data and improves efficiency, she cautions financial leaders to rethink how organizations develop early-career professionals. If automation replaces traditional entry-level tasks, leaders must redefine training models to ensure the next generation still develops:
- Critical thinking
- Business context
- Strategic problem-solving
- Human connection
For senior-level financial leaders, the challenge isn’t just implementing AI – it’s ensuring talent development keeps pace.
Empathetic Leadership in High-Performance Environments
Throughout the conversation, Hoovel reflects on how personal challenges shaped her leadership style. Navigating single parenthood while advancing her career deepened her commitment to empathetic leadership – creating environments where professionals can “bring their whole selves to work.
Her philosophy is simple but powerful: business pressures matter, but people matter more. As she puts it, “We’re going to sell hamburgers tomorrow.” In other words, take care of your people first.
Retirement with Intention: Designing What’s Next
For financial leaders considering retirement or a transition, Hoovel shares a practical framework:
- Keep learning and growing.
- Do something fun or meaningful.
- Pay it back or pay it forward.
After stepping away from McDonald’s, she built a portfolio career that includes angel investing, consulting for small businesses, nonprofit board service, and new entrepreneurial ventures – all aligned with her criteria.
Her message to senior-level financial leaders: retirement isn’t an ending. It’s a strategic redesign.
This episode is part of FEI’s special Icons podcast series featuring leaders from the ICONS: Leaders in Finance event. Join us on March 25, 2026, at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel to hear directly from distinguished financial leaders shaping the future of finance.
Learn more about the upcoming ICONS: Leaders in Finance event here: https://www.financialexecutives.org/icons2026
🎧 Listen to the full conversation here: https://feipodcast.fireside.fm/178