Spendesk

VLOOKUPs and INDEX MATCH expert : from data plumber to strategic advisor. Last week, our CFO Pauline Bellée Babel and Albert Malikov from Stacks sat down with finance leaders in Paris to discuss what's really stopping finance teams from adopting AI. Pauline shares her perspective on living this shift, the most important change in her career: from being the fastest at Excel to understanding how AI redefines the CFO role. Worth a read 👇🏻

Last week, we brought our AI Champions together for a full-day summit, seven months after we first launched the programme in September 2025. These are the people who volunteered to go first, to experiment, and to pull their teammates along across teams such as Marketing, Support, Product, Engineers, Rev Ops, Finance & Legal. Seven months of quiet, consistent work. They know what works, what doesn't, and where the friction points are. We wanted to give them dedicated space to share those learnings and build together. The summit started with retrospective of collective wins and a roundtable on the encountered difficulties. Then we had a session on what keeps them motivated as AI champions, a talk on where AI is heading, and a 90-minute buildathon with live demos where teams shipped live prototypes. The day ended with a fun activity and a great team dinner in Paris. When you give autonomy and time to people who've been living with AI daily, they move fast, and what they learn lifts everyone's results. At Spendesk, AI is a decentralised practice. We deployed Dust company-wide from day one in 2025. No top-down mandate. The results since September speak for themselves: ▪️ AI usage stayed consistent at 85-90% monthly active users as headcount grew 24% ▪️×2 messages in Dust since September 2025 ▪️25% of the company building agents You transform how people work by giving space to the people already doing the work. A huge thanks to every champion for making the time to experiment, share, and help the rest of us get better at AI. And a special congrats to Cécile H., who designed and organised the day, and the entire programme. Anaël D., Pietro Tamburrini, Claire Rougevin-Baville, Cédric Urvoy, Luc Hancock, Thomas Vergnas, Adam SPENCER, Jordan Bégny, Ilina G., Nathan Harbour, Gregory C., Camille Imbert, Vincent Haywood

What does it take to close the gender pay gap from the inside? While the pay gap is shrinking, CFO Connect's latest salary report uncovered that women in finance still earn €15,000 less on average and only 1 in 4 CFOs is a woman. This is what Spendesk's CFO, Pauline Bellée Babel, is covering in her next live session: "The CFO Table: Closing the Finance Gender Pay Gap." Not policy statements or good intentions, but real action, inside real organisations, by people who've actually managed to close the gap. Joining her will be Alyona Mysko, Founder & CEO of Fuelfinance. Alyona spent over a decade in finance, moving from auditor to analyst to CFO, before founding Fuelfinance to help other teams work smarter. She knows the pressures women carry in finance leadership, and she's not shy about naming them. Together, Pauline and Alyona will share unfiltered insights from the 2026 salary data, first-hand stories of negotiating and advocating for equity, and practical steps you can take to accelerate change in your own team or career. 📅 7th of April, 4PM CET 🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/d9zSPEwn

Spendesk is accelerating its AI strategy with two strategic appointments. 🚀 We are thrilled to welcome Quentin Vigneau as our new Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Alan Wright as our new Chief Technical Officer (CTO). Their arrival marks a new phase of AI-driven growth for Spendesk, as we pioneer the new SP&A (Spend Planning & Analysis) financial category, investing heavily into exciting new products, and strengthening our existing offering. 💬 As our CEO, Axel Demazy, said, "Quentin's product vision, combined with Alan's operational expertise, are major assets for accelerating innovation at Spendesk and deploying AI-powered capabilities at scale." Quentin Vigneau (formerly of Swile, Checkout.com) will drive our product vision to anticipate the needs of finance teams and design the next generation of financial tools. Alan Wright (formerly of Spotify, Monzo Bank, Signal AI) will lead our technology strategy to ensure reliability, security, and the integration of AI at the core of our platform. Their combined experience will be instrumental in strengthening our leadership and turning budget decisions into a strategic advantage for European SMEs. Please join us in welcoming Quentin and Alan to the team! 👏 #Finance #Fintech #AI #Leadership

The gender pay gap in European finance has narrowed from 17% to 13% year-over-year. Progress is real. But a 13% gap is still a gap. Women in finance still earn on average €15,000 less than men. Bonus payouts remain 29% lower. And just 1 in 4 CFOs is a woman. CFO Connect, Europe's premier finance community that we're proud to support, is hosting a live conversation on closing the gender pay gap in finance. Our CFO Pauline Bellée Babel will lead the session, sharing her own journey, from seeing her salary as "a decision that happened to her" to learning to negotiate and advocate for herself. She'll discuss what shifted, what worked (and what didn't), and the practical tactics that helped her move from "be good" to "be bold." 📅 Monday, April 7, 2026, 4PM CET 💻 Virtual - Free to attend You'll get: ✔️ A first look at CFO Connect's 2026 Finance Salary Survey findings on gender pay ✔️ Real stories from senior finance professionals on how they've negotiated and advocated for equity ✔️ Practical tactics you can use to accelerate change in your own teams and careers Register: https://lnkd.in/d9zSPEwn #CFOConnect #Finance #PayEquity

What separates finance teams making AI work from those stuck in pilot mode? AI adoption within teams is now accelerating. While most finance teams remain "tinkerers", using ChatGPT to summarise emails or draft reports. Very few have moved to "integrators", embedding AI into core workflows like forecasting, compliance, or strategic decision-making. CFO Connect just released the new edition of The State of AI in Finance; a 50-page report exploring what separates the two groups. Based on 11+ hours of conversations with CFOs at OpenAI, Zapier, ClickUp, and Adyen, it covers: ✔️ The tools finance teams actually use in production (not demos) ✔️ 6 real-world use cases showing ROI in weeks ✔️ A 30/90/365-day roadmap to move from pilot to production We're proud to support CFO Connect, Europe's premier finance community, alongside NetSuite and Remote on this research. Get your copy: https://lnkd.in/dFwnkmvY #AI #Finance #CFO

One approval workflow with dozens of nodes, one frustrated finance manager clicking through each one just to find who approves what. Most finance teams using approval workflows know this experience. Managing complex approval setups deserves better than clicking through multiple pages, hoping they picked the right workflow, and manually exporting data for audits. So we've added search, preview, and export to approval workflows. ▪️ Search by name or approver to find workflows in seconds. ▪️ Preview the full approval process with an extended view showing approval scheme details ▪️ See assigned values clearly in one clear panel view ▪️ Easily "undo" and "redo" your actions thanks to help prevent mistakes ▪️ Export to CSV, Excel or JSON for offline auditing Managing complex approval workflows is now dramatically faster and less error-prone with Spendesk. Built for finance teams that scale; faster to navigate as you grow, easier to manage as complexity increases, giving you control at every step. Part of our Q1 releases: https://lnkd.in/er_2JT7H #Finance #Spendesk #ApprovalWorkflows

While digital tools advance at speed, many finance teams are stuck in slow cycles of outdated systems, skill gaps, and stalled transformation. That's the reality behind "Mind the Tech Gap"; a discussion our FP&A Manager Maxime Reding is joining at GENCFO Live this Thursday organised by GENCFO Events. Following this panel on why finance teams stay stuck with outdated systems and stalled transformation, Maxime will join an interactive discussion with the CFO community, turning honest reflections into actionable next steps. He'll bring perspective on the blockers finance teams face, the mindset shifts needed, and practical examples from scaling finance operations at Spendesk. 📅 Power Play #2: "The Beat of Change” | Thursday, 12 March | 12:10 PM | GenCFO Live | Kachette, Shoreditch Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eyyzVgP7 If you're there, come join the conversation. #GenCFO #Finance #FinanceOps

New quarter. New features. Payment flexibility. Smarter workflows. Compliance ready. This quarter, we've released major updates across payments, operations, and compliance, all designed to help finance teams scale faster with less manual work. Four highlights in this carousel: ✔️ Approval workflows: Search, preview, and manage complex approval chains faster with extended views. ✔️ E-invoicing compliance: France PA certified and Belgium Peppol ready. ✔️ Outbound transfers: Move funds from your Spendesk wallet back to your entity's bank account when you need. ✔️ Analytical splits upon request: Split transactions across cost centres and projects without manual workarounds But there's more: cost centre management improvements. NetSuite analytical splits. Single-use cards in your Cards view. Bulk analytical field updates. Built for finance teams who want to spend less time managing systems and more time partnering with the business. 📋 See all Q1 releases: https://lnkd.in/ejat6-Eh #Finance #Spendesk #FinanceOps

71% of AI purchases in the UK are now subscriptions. In early 2023, that number was 43%. This shift changes everything for finance teams. AI isn't being "tested" anymore. It's being embedded into operations, renewed quarterly, and treated like critical infrastructure. That creates a different challenge: renewal management is the new battleground. Usage tracking matters: are we paying for seats no one uses, for example? We’re consolidating vendors to create efficiency, but are we also opening our businesses up to the risk of having a single point of failure? In our State of AI Spend report, we found that the companies managing this well have moved from "let teams experiment" to structured governance. They're tracking usage, consolidating vendors, and treating AI spend like SaaS. Want the playbook? Our full UK report includes procurement frameworks, vendor analysis, and benchmarks from thousands of organisations. 📊 Download it here: https://lnkd.in/ezYXGNtq