In this week's episode of the CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast, CNBC Senior Media and Tech Reporter Julia Boorstin spoke with Elena Gomez, president and CFO of Toast, about her path from the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador to one of the most influential women in tech and finance. Gomez reflects on the work ethic her parents modeled, the career risks that helped her grow, and the leadership principles that guided her through roles at Charles Schwab, Visa, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Toast.
They discuss what it takes to become a CFO, why women still face major barriers in corporate leadership, and how mentorship, self-awareness, and team-building can help ambitious professionals step into bigger roles. Gomez also explains how Toast is using AI to help restaurant operators make faster decisions, improve efficiency, and deliver more personalized guest experiences.
Listen to the full episode here. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
All references must be sourced to CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast.
GOMEZ ON LEADERSHIP IDENTITY
JULIA BOORSTIN: Tell us about your childhood and what it was like growing up with your siblings and your parents and what kind of values they instilled in you?
ELENA GOMEZ: Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. I actually just drove by my childhood home the other day this year, you're hitting at my heart. So I would say the first thing that comes to mind is work ethic. And so my parents, being immigrants from El Salvador, one of the things that they instilled in us from a very young age was the importance of work ethic and the fact that we had to really make them proud. Because they were immigrants, they were working very hard. My mom had multiple jobs. My dad was a milk driver here in San Francisco, and so I always saw them working all the time, multiple jobs. And one thing that instilled in me was the pride they had in their work. My dad was an incredibly proud truck driver. He ended his career at FedEx, and he would win "Employee of the Month" all the time, because FedEx really valued being on time, and he was in his 70s, and his boss was really young, and he was one of the best employees they had in that warehouse. So just an example of how he led throughout his whole career, my mom always managed multiple jobs. And so seeing that growing up made me have this ambition to think about, what can I do differently, how can I change the trajectory of my family, and really the trajectory of my parents as well? And so I feel that they really instilled in us this work ethic and also have confidence. Something I tell my kids today is you walk in a room and there's no reason why you can't be the same as someone right next to you.
GOMEZ ON IMPORTANCE OF WORK ETHIC Â
BOORSTIN: When you were growing up in the Bay Area, did you have aspirations of working in tech, of being an executive? What were your plans?
GOMEZ: You know, it's interesting that you say that I my goal. My first goal was really just to land a job, to be honest, and a job that I could help my parents. And if I, if I, I think I did that, I definitely helped them as I got older. But then it was I started realizing that work at this work ethic and this principle of always doing more than you're asked. Don't just do what is asked of you, but try to accomplish more and try to showcase your skills really stayed with me throughout my whole career, and that's something that can't be taught, really. It's something that's innate in you. And I never imagined I'd be a CFO to be honest, I was working at Salesforce about 11 years ago or so, and I remember one of my colleagues said, you know, you should either come work for me or go be a CFO somewhere. And so that inspired me to think, wow, I could actually go do that and do it well, given what I've showcased here at Salesforce. And so that was the first time I thought I could get into this role as a CFO. To be honest, my parents, when I explained to them that I was a CFO, they're very proud, and they understood it was a really important role. But because we're just different generations, I'm not exactly sure if they understood. My mom is still alive, and I'm not exactly sure if they actually understand the role of a CFO and the impact a CFO has on strategy, but they do understand one thing is work ethic is central to how I operate, and definitely they see how hard I work as well.
GOMEZ ON ADVICE TO YOUNGER SELF Â Â
BOORSTIN: How would you encourage people to think about preparing to take the next challenge, or being open to taking risks? It's sometimes a lot easier to stay in a stable company, in a stable position, than take a risk which might have more upside potential. What would you recommend?
GOMEZ: Yeah, it's a great question. There's so many moments where I thought I can't take that risk. I'm not gonna I have a young family, but when I go back in time, if I were to give myself my younger self, some advices, take the risk because some of your greatest learning actually comes when you make change, right? Some of your greatest growth opportunities come when you make change. And my own experience, I was at Schwab for a very long time, 11 years, and I continued to stay because I continued to have amazing learning in various roles in finance at Schwab. But I'll tell you when I went to Visa, and you know, months later, I was at Visa for about a year and a half. In that year and a half, I probably learned more than I did in the last five at Schwab, and simply because I took myself out of my comfort zone and put myself in a new environment. And so that's what I would tell people. You don't realize how much you learn when you change and you force yourself to be in a new environment, force yourself to go work with new colleagues, force yourself to learn a new product.
GOMEZ ON CAREER BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT
BOORSTIN: So many of the women I've interviewed who are CEOs or CFOs have said, it didn't even occur to me to to ask for the CEO position, or it didn't occur to me to apply for that CEO role, or raise my hand, and then people around them said, you're already doing the job of CEO, or you're already doing the job of a CFO. And that lack of recognition, I think, really reflects what's going on socially, and this idea that there are just so few women in these roles. But when, when your colleagues said to you, you should be, you should be a CEO either for me or someone else, was that, was that shocking to you? How was it to reflect on on the fact that you didn't recognize that in yourself?
GOMEZ: Yes, it's a really great question. I've reflected on that a lot because that was the moment that I realized that I underappreciated my value. And in fact, when I went to become the CFO of Zendesk, it was already a public company, so I reflected on why did I get this opportunity, which I know maybe my male counterparts may have not reflected on that. And in fact, when I went through the interview process, I got a lot of questions about, why do you think you can do this job? And so what I would tell people is, in that, in that assessment of whether or not I was ready, the one thing I thought about was, in the same way a coach manages a team, or you think about baseball manager managing the players on the field, you really think about, okay, I played I've done the finance strategy job. So I've been the pitcher before. I've done accounting, okay? I've done first base before. Have I done tax? I haven't done tax, but I know I can hire the right talent. And so as I was interviewing for that job, that's really what I used as the framework of how I thought about me being ready for the CFO job because being ready to be a leader often isn't that you know it all. It's that you know how to put the right team on the field, and you know how to change and course correct and substitute when the first baseman's having a bad day, you put someone else in. And so that's one thing I use a lot as a framework to think about when I see something that I might be a little bit afraid of, I think about having the right talent and having talent density on my team to help me be ready for that thing that I might be afraid of.