FinOps In Full Bloom

The Finance Leader Who Audited AI Spend — And Won

CloudZero — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:39:53 -0400

This episode covers how Emily Allen used CloudZero data to analyze AI tool usage across her organization, identify model-level inefficiencies — specifically the over-reliance on Claude Opus for tasks better suited to Sonnet — and generate approximately $30K in annualized savings through targeted conversations with internal teams. She also addresses the broader challenge finance leaders face with AI spend: the shift from centralized procurement to distributed, card-swipe adoption, and what that means for visibility and accountability.

Emily Allen is the Director of Finance and Accounting at CloudZero, where she sits in the rare position of actively using the product she helps support financially. A CPA with Big Four roots, she has held finance roles at CarGurus and Roku before landing at CloudZero, where her
proximity to the product gives her a practitioner's view of how FinOps tooling can serve finance teams beyond the engineering org. Her perspective in this episode is grounded in hands-on execution — not theory.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

Governing AI Spend Without Slowing Engineers Down

CloudZero — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:05:13 -0400

This episode covers how Corin is approaching the new layer of complexity that AI introduces: governing access without blocking engineering velocity, building a centralized LLM API gateway (LiteLLM) to provide secure, auditable, and cost-attributed AI access at scale, and keeping an eye on the cloud spend that teams are quietly leaving behind while chasing the next model release. He also shares how carbon footprint data has become an unexpected but effective lever in convincing engineering teams to make smarter infrastructure decisions.

Corin Bishop manages public cloud operations at Cloudera, a $1B+ enterprise data company, where he is responsible for both keeping multi-cloud infrastructure running and ensuring that every dollar spent on AWS, GCP, and Azure is owned, allocated, and accounted for. He introduced FinOps as a formal practice at Cloudera from scratch and has driven it largely as a one-person function, using a combination of tooling, cross-functional partnership, and governance discipline. His current work spans AI access governance, LLM cost attribution, and cloud carbon footprint reporting.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

The Telemetry Trap — and How to Avoid It

CloudZero — Thu, 28 May 2026 09:27:30 -0400

Brian Mullins is the Head of Engineering at Diaceutics, a platform company improving patient identification in precision medicine. He brings a technically grounded, detective-minded approach to FinOps — one built on granular telemetry, unit cost modeling, and the discipline of not optimizing prematurely.

This episode covers how Brien's team doubled platform query volume while holding costs flat by applying the same cost visibility and attribution practices to AI workloads that they already had in place for traditional cloud infrastructure. He walks through real examples: eliminating $6,000/month in redundant processing, catching a warehouse left on the wrong tier, and using unit cost experiments at 10, 100, and 1,000 records to project AI spend before it scales. He also makes the case that cost anomalies are not just a FinOps signal — they are a security signal too.

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The Bridge to Clarity: Season 1 Reflections

CloudZero — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:14:11 -0400

In this solo-hosted recap episode, Thalia Elie reflects on the key insights, transformations, and moments of inspiration from the first season of FinOps in Full Bloom. From CloudZero customers and internal leaders to global FinOps advocates, Thalia shares what she’s learned, what moved her, and what’s coming next in the journey to cost clarity and cultural change.

This episode features solo commentary by Thalia Elie, FinOps Account Manager at CloudZero and host of FinOps in Full Bloom. Known for her empathy, clarity, and community mindset, Thalia reflects on what she’s learned from interviewing FinOps practitioners across industries—and how their stories illuminate the path to lasting impact.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

From Naming to Normalizing: Driving FinOps Maturity at Scale

CloudZero — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:10:31 -0400

What does it take to drive FinOps maturity across a multi-cloud, acquisition-heavy enterprise? In this episode of FinOps in Full Bloom, host Thalia Elie sits down with Greg Colletti, Senior Principal Service Partner at Progress, to talk about building FinOps maturity brick by brick—from account naming and tagging to cross-team buy-in and automation. Greg shares how Progress implemented the FOCUS framework, scaled FinOps from 8 to 80 stakeholders, and selected CloudZero as their tool of choice.

Greg Colletti is a Senior Principal Service Partner at Progress, leading a team of project managers and product owners across enterprise operations. With roots in business and finance, Greg brings a uniquely holistic lens to cloud transformation—combining technical rigor with organizational empathy. He’s spearheaded initiatives to implement the FOCUS framework, scale cloud governance, and activate product teams across a rapidly growing, acquisition-driven company.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

FinOps + AI: From Overwhelm to Operational Excellence

CloudZero — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:21:28 -0400

In this episode of FinOps in Full Bloom, DebraAnn Braun, Chief Solutions and Advisory Officer at UbiMinds, shares how AI is transforming FinOps - when done right. She outlines how to measure innovation velocity, build trust between humans and AI, and create self-healing budgets with agentic AI. If you’ve been overwhelmed by where to start or how to scale, this episode offers a clear, value-driven roadmap.

DebraAnn Braun is a 25-year tech veteran and current Chief Solutions and Advisory Officer at UbiMinds. A recognized leader in AI readiness and agentic systems, she helps enterprise teams align technology velocity with FinOps discipline - while maintaining ethical governance. DebraAnn is a powerful advocate for human-AI collaboration and operational efficiency at scale.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

The Next FinOps Frontier: AI, SaaS, and Sustainability

CloudZero — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:51:53 -0500

Bindu Sharma, Senior Director of Cloud FinOps at Teradata and FinOps Foundation sustainability leader, joins FinOps in Full Bloom to share her transformation story - from manual reporting to enterprise-scale optimization. In this episode, Bindu explores how to embed cost-aware culture, why carbon metrics matter, and how AI is reshaping both FinOps and her personal growth.

Bindu Sharma leads global FinOps strategy at Teradata across AWS, Azure, and GCP. As the Cloud Sustainability capability chair within the FinOps Foundation, she champions operational efficiency, automation, and climate accountability. Known for her collaborative style and strategic vision, Bindu brings over a decade of leadership in cloud financial management and enablement.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

From Chaos to Clarity: Building Trust Through Cloud Visibility

CloudZero — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:44:08 -0500

When you make the invisible visible, everything changes. In this episode of FinOps in Full Bloom, host Thalia Elie sits down with cloud engineering veteran Sam Marx to unpack how visibility, trust, and culture shift when FinOps practices take root. Sam shares how CloudZero helped his team replace manual reporting, build cross-functional alignment, and empower teams with real-time insights. If you’re tired of siloed cloud cost data and guessing games with finance, this one’s for you.

Sam Marx is a veteran engineering leader with decades of experience in operations, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure. He’s led technical teams through periods of major change, including M&A transitions, and is known for his empathetic approach to building empowered, cost-aware cultures. Sam is a long-time FinOps practitioner, even before the practice had a name.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

Tagging, Tenacity, and the Power of Persistence

CloudZero — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:40:53 -0500

Director of IT Service Desk Operations and FinOps at Best Egg, Melissa Canfield, joins FinOps in Full Bloom to share how she helped lead a FinOps transformation rooted in visibility, tagging accountability, and culture change. From completing her FinOps Pro certification to achieving 50%+ resource tagging, Melissa’s story is one of persistence, collaboration, and bringing engineering along for the ride.

Melissa Canfield is the Director of IT Service Desk Operations and FinOps at Best Egg. With 14 years in IT and a growing list of FinOps certifications, including FinOps Pro, Melissa leads cloud cost visibility, resource ownership, and service optimization efforts across her organization. Known for her authenticity and collaborative spirit, Melissa is building a culture of cost awareness one team at a time.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

Engineering for Impact: Real-World FinOps at Scale

CloudZero — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:19:37 -0500

What does it take to unlock massive cost savings - without compromising performance or compliance? In this episode, host Thalia Elie sits down with Tyler Lynch, Field CTO at IBM supporting HashiCorp, to share stories of strategic savings, AI cost modeling, and why aligning FinOps to business value - not just uptime or savings - is the future. From time complexity to Terraform, Tyler breaks down why collaboration across teams beats hero engineering and how FinOps is a mindset, not just a method.

Tyler Lynch is a Field CTO at IBM supporting HashiCorp, where he helps large, regulated enterprises architect for scale, security, and cost efficiency. With experience at AWS as lead architect for public sector technologies, Tyler brings two decades of technical depth, including Terraform contributions and engineering for outcomes that matter - like 96% cost reductions and secure AI delivery.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

Cost-Aware Culture, Year-Over-Year Results

CloudZero — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:06:43 -0500

Balaji Narayanan shares how Clari’s FinOps practice became a cross-functional team effort where visibility, finance–engineering alignment, and a culture of shared accountability create the energy to drive sustained optimization, innovation, and long-term business value.

Balaji Narayanan is VP of Infrastructure and Engineering at Clari. With over 25 years of experience managing large-scale systems, Balaji is known for turning complex challenges into actionable solutions. He champions innovation, visibility, and accountability across engineering, infrastructure, and financial operations—building cultures where FinOps thrives from the ground up.

Learn more at https://www.cloudzero.com/

Follow the Value: What Most FinOps Programs Miss

CloudZero — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 12:57:36 -0500

If you've implemented all the "right" FinOps practices and costs are still climbing, this episode is for you. Host Thalia Elie welcomes Erik Norman — CEO of Caligo and self-proclaimed “FinOps troublemaker” — for a candid and insightful discussion on what really drives cost, value, and culture in engineering. From eliminating millions of unnecessary API calls to cutting 98% of cloud spend in one engagement, Eric breaks down why asking better questions matters more than tagging.

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Guest Bio:

Erik Norman is the CEO and founder of Caligo, a FinOps consultancy focused on asking better questions — not just implementing better tools. With over 20 years of experience as a software engineer, cost optimizer, and community mentor, Eric is known for his sharp insights and sharper candor. Whether mentoring junior FinOps practitioners or challenging legacy thinking, he brings clarity, efficiency, and a little disruption to everything he touches.

Crawl, Walk, Run: A FinOps Leader’s Formula for Value

CloudZero — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:21:41 -0500

How do you go from zero to FinOps maturity without losing focus—or momentum? In this episode, host Thalia Elie is joined by Anderson Oliveira, FinOps Account Manager at CloudZero and longtime FinOps leader, to share the repeatable formula he uses to drive real results: visibility, budgeting, and unit economics. From challenging assumptions about cost optimization to crafting business value from every line of spend, Anderson offers a people-first perspective shaped by decades of experience across Brazil, Portugal, and now, CloudZero.

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Key Takeaways:

FinOps is not about cutting—it’s about delivering value.
Start with visibility before budgets or unit metrics.
Every persona sees value differently—aligning perspectives is the real work.
Cloud spend is a byproduct of engineering decisions—FinOps makes those choices visible and accountable.
Transformation isn’t rigid—it’s a dance between structure and empathy.

Guest Bio:

Anderson Oliveira is a seasoned FinOps practitioner with over 20 years in IT leadership and transformation. Based in Portugal and originally from Brazil, he now serves as a FinOps Account Manager at CloudZero, where he helps customers align engineering decisions with business value. Known for his frameworks, warmth, and cultural insight, Anderson brings both strategic vision and empathy to every client engagement.

From Zero to Value: Inside the Mind of Fred FinOps

CloudZero — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0400

What does it really take to build a scalable, impactful FinOps practice from the inside out? In this episode of FinOps in Full Bloom, host Thalia Elie is joined by Larry Advey, aka Fred FinOps, Director of Cloud Platform and FinOps at CloudZero. From his work on the FinOps Foundation's TAC to his leadership at companies like Twilio and CloudZero, Larry shares what it means to align teams, deliver quick wins, and go from “zero to value” with cloud cost data.

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Key Takeaways:

Zero to value is the goal: Start with small wins that deliver quick insight and long-term trust.
Relationships matter: Cultural integrity and trust fuel data integrity and team activation.
Explorer is your superpower: The ability to slice and iterate on dimensions helps every team speak the same language.
FinOps is cross-functional by design: Success comes from uniting engineering, finance, and product around common context.
Customer success isn't optional: Great tooling only works if you have partners who help make it usable and impactful.

About the Guest

Larry Advey, known in the FinOps community as Fred FinOps, is a veteran technologist with over 25 years of experience across infrastructure, engineering, operations, and platform strategy. He currently leads FinOps and Cloud Platform at CloudZero, while also serving on the Technical Advisory Council of the FinOps Foundation. A practitioner and thought leader, Larry is driven by one core idea: help organizations go from zero to value — faster, smarter, and with people at the center.

Metrics On Metrics: From Engineering Curiosity To Cloud Cost Control

CloudZero — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 09:53:56 -0400

How do you reduce cloud spend by 50% without compromising availability or velocity? In this episode of FinOps in Full Bloom, host Thalia Elie speaks with Anthony Leung, VP of Engineering Platforms and Security Research at Forcepoint, about driving radical transformation through visibility, accountability, and the right tooling. From managing 600 developers in CloudZero to deploying unit metrics at scale, Anthony breaks down how data-driven engineering can create business-wide clarity.

Key Takeaways

Cloud cost control is everyone’s responsibility. Alignment starts with a shared tool and a common language.
Visibility enables trust. he ability to drill from business rollups to engineering detail builds confidence and action.
Unit metrics drive smarter decisions. Knowing your per-user, per-feature, or per-service cost changes how you scale.
Data must drive action. True transformation happens when teams commit to change based on ROI, not instinct.
Understand your stakeholders. Knowing what motivates each team makes data actionable across the org.

About the guest

Anthony Leung is a seasoned engineering executive with a background in mathematics, distributed systems, and large-scale infrastructure. Currently VP of Engineering Platforms and Security Research at Forcepoint, Anthony leads initiatives that align engineering operations with business outcomes. From multi-tenant architecture to real-time cloud cost modeling, he’s an expert in turning technical complexity into financial clarity

Foundational Fixes: How FinOps Starts With Listening And Labels

CloudZero — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:38:20 -0400

What does real FinOps transformation look like at the ground level? In this episode, host Thalia Elie sits down with Kellie Righini, Associate Director of Business Systems and Applications at Aras, to explore what it takes to shift a culture from chaos to collaboration. From siloed tagging to unified dashboards, Kellie shares how she used listening, leadership, and a lot of tagging to bring finance, IT, and engineering into sync.

Host: Thalia Elie
Guest: Kellie Righini, Director of Business Systems and Applications, Aras
Theme: Culture shifts, foundational tagging, and cross-functional empowerment

Episode Highlights:

Kellie shares how inconsistent tagging and siloed teams made cloud cost tracking nearly impossible — until visibility changed everything.
CloudZero’s dashboards and dimensions helped teams across finance and engineering take real ownership of spend.
Tagging compliance jumped from 60% to 94% after Kellie established cross-functional cadences and coaching-style collaboration.
With better data trust, Aras began rebuilding its budgeting process from the ground up. Using CloudZero metrics as the foundation.
Kellie reminds us that transformation isn’t instant. It’s a marathon powered by curiosity, accountability, and listening.

Key Takeaways:

FinOps begins with listening: Cultural change starts by bringing people into the same room and asking better questions.
Dashboards drive momentum: When teams see clear data, they move from resistance to curiosity to action.
Tagging matters: 60% to 94% tagging compliance is a quiet revolution with big results.
Budgeting needs better inputs: Visibility unlocks not just savings—but smarter planning.
Transformation is a team sport: Kellie’s soccer-inspired approach shows how alignment creates forward motion.

Connect:

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