Cynthia Jamison ascended to the top echelons of corporate governance after a successful career as a turnaround CFO. With an undergraduate degree from Duke University and a master’s in finance from the University of Chicago, she ascended through the financial world with jobs in banking, accounting, consumer products, professional services, and various other industries. She became a first-time public company CFO in 1999 at the age of 39.

From there, she became a partner at an interim CFO equity partnership specializing in middle-market turnarounds. There she successfully led six different organizations (both public and private-equity backed) through turnarounds as either CFO or COO—eventually moving into a practice leadership role within the firm where she had three hundred-plus CFOs reporting to her. She elevated the profile of the firm through thought leadership initiatives which included keynote addresses to major financial audiences on topics such as the risks of the CFO role.

In 2009 she accepted one last CFO role at a small environmental start-up, secured equity funding for that company during the Great Recession of 2008–09, and built out the finance function. That company survives today, although Ms. Jamison formally retired as CFO in 2013. She remained on the board of directors until she recently stepped down, in part to focus on this book. Ms. Jamison joined her first public company board of directors in 2002 and continued from there to build an impressive board portfolio.

In the twenty-plus years since then, she has chaired four boards, three public and one private, and actively chairs one today. She has chaired five audit committees. She retired in 2023 as chairman of the board of Tractor Supply Company—one of the highest-performing stocks in this century—where she had served for twenty-one years.

Today she serves on the boards of Darden Restaurants, Office Depot, and International Flavors & Fragrances. Ms. Jamison recently completed a four-year term as a member of FASAC, the advisory board to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). In addition, she is an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and was awarded the honor of “Top 100 Director.” She also sits on the board of Save the Children.

She is a frequent keynote speaker on CFO and boardroom topics, and has been quoted as a financial/economic expert in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CFO.com, Agenda, Corporate Board Member, and the Economist.