At the B2B Expo podcast, Antonia Ferrero, CFO of her LLC Dragonfly Financial Consulting with 30+ years across industries including tech, discusses why cross-functional relationships fail when departments don’t communicate, harming both external customers and internal “customers” (employees and executives). She emphasizes transparency, empathy, and understanding other teams’ pressures (sales quotas, marketing’s big-picture messaging, finance’s service and process needs) to streamline workflows and improve results. Ferrero recommends asking, “What can we do to help each other?” and encouraging teams to learn each other’s roles through job shadowing and sitting in on executive meetings for context. She outlines a leadership philosophy of teaching, sharing wins with the team, taking responsibility for faults, and leading by example. Her advice: work hard, keep learning, ask for help, build confidence, and stay empathetic.

00:00 Meet Antonia Ferrero
01:43 Why Departments Disconnect
03:24 Internal Customers Matter
05:36 Asking Better Questions
07:33 Leaders Normalize Curiosity
08:49 Job Shadowing Builds Empathy
11:05 Leadership Versus Bossing
12:09 Leading by Example Story
14:58 Advice for Aspiring Leaders
17:08 Closing Thanks and Wrap

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Contact Meredith: info@compressionmarketing.co