Bryan Long of Arizona is an experienced finance executive who has more than 20 years of practical experience in accounting and finance across a range of industries, including public accounting, technology, and healthcare. He started his career by spending over a decade at Deloitte as an auditor, including over two years with the firm’s National Office, where he developed a deep working knowledge of complex financial reporting, regulatory compliance, and risk management. His clients included public entities registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as private equity backed companies.
Following his tenure at Deloitte, he transitioned into managerial accounting roles that broadened his expertise in strategic decision-making and operational finance. He has spent several years working with private equity firms, a market that is rapidly expanding its influence across nearly every industry, as well as healthcare finance. He led the spinoff of PayPal from eBay, launching PayPal as a separate public entity, as well as recapitalized private-equity backed companies. These experiences have given Bryan a well-rounded perspective on corporate finance, from the intricacies of regulatory compliance to the challenges of leading large-scale corporate transformations.
Most recently, Bryan served as the Chief Financial Officer at Signature Dental Partners (SDP) in Phoenix, Arizona, where he significantly contributed to the company’s growth. Under his leadership, SDP expanded from 66 clinical locations to 98 and doubled its revenues. His oversight of all accounting and finance functions, including GAAP accounting, financial planning, financial reporting, and revenue cycle management, ensured the company maintained its financial health and operational efficiencies while the company scaled. He worked closely with the company’s private equity sponsors to approve business acquisitions, ensuring they aligned with SDP’s goals and strategies.
Bryan’s leadership style has been recognized for his ability to work collaboratively cross departmentally as well as with his senior executive peers, ensuring that financial and operational strategies are not only effective but aligned with the company’s long-term vision. This approach has earned him the trust and respect of colleagues and partners alike.
Outside of work, Bryan enjoys getting outdoors by hiking and playing golf, taking full advantage of Arizona’s beautiful landscape. He is also a passionate sports fan, following college football, college basketball, MLB baseball, and NHL hockey, particularly the University of Illinois teams. Living and working in Phoenix, Arizona, Bryan continues to balance his successful career with his personal passions, always seeking new ways to apply his expertise while enjoying the finer things in life.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
I prefer to start my days with a little “me” time. This usually involves spending time at the gym. I find starting my day with cardio and strenuous weight training helps me focus better once I start my workday. This exercise helps improve my sleep performance at night and helps me stay energized throughout the day.
Most of my days at the office are a mix of strategic planning, financial analysis, and leadership. I believe that finance-lead organizations are more effective organizations. Finance (including accounting) departments have insights into every area of the company and access to data that nobody else in the organization has. I believe it is the role of the finance department (again, which includes accounting) to leverage these insights and data analysis to help inform every area of the business. I tell my teams that finance is not a “back-office” operation. Rather, we are a “front-office” operation that needs to collaborate closely with every department in the organization.
I like to start early so I have time to review the news, key financial reports, and market trends before my first meetings. Prioritization is key—I tackle high-impact tasks first. I try to maintain very close collaboration with my operations department and my CEO. I believe it is incumbent on me to demonstrate the value that finance brings to the organization. I also carve out time to connect with my team and mentor emerging talent. I believe every member of my team comes to work each day with the intention to do great work and I take my role in that effort seriously by ensuring that they have access to me and the proper resources to do their jobs. To stay productive, I structure my day around decision-making and problem-solving rather than getting lost in emails and reactive tasks.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I take a data-driven approach to problem-solving. Whether it’s identifying a new financial strategy or streamlining processes, I start by gathering insights and pressure-testing ideas with colleagues. As mentioned above, the finance department has data that nobody else in the organization has. It is the job of the finance department to compile and analyze this data and present the analysis cross-departmentally to show where the company can improve a process or emulate a best practice in other areas.
Using this organizational data, I map out execution steps with clear metrics (KPIs) for success. I also believe in rapid iteration—small pilots, quick feedback, and adjusting before full implementation. As noted above, it is imperative that finance proactively collaborate closely with all departments of the organization, take the data and the analysis to other departments, show your value, and help lead these other departments.
What’s one trend that excites you?
I am really excited about the intersection of AI and finance, which I believe is still only the infancy of the contribution it will make to the discipline. From predictive analytics to automating repetitive tasks, AI is transforming financial decision-making and risk management. I see a future where finance teams will shift from a lot of the manual tasks we do now to more meaningful analysis and strategic advising, adding deeper business insights and improving operations.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
As mentioned above, the one habit that helps me be productive is my morning workout routine. It gives me a chance to clear my mind, focus on myself, and organize my thoughts for the day ahead (or wind down, in the infrequent event that my morning workout gets pushed to the evening hours). Plus, it’s fun. I enjoy the camaraderie I have with others at the gym and have developed good friendships with several of them.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t underestimate the importance of organization design and organizational behavior. When studying these disciplines in school, it is easy for accounting and finance majors to dismiss the value of these other disciplines. However, the longer you are out of school and the higher up an organization you climb, the more you will realize how important understanding organizational design and behavior are to your career. Learning how to most effectively navigate an organization will make your accounting and finance remit even more effective. Also, learn how to build relationships, not just because networking can help you advance your career, but because there is so much to learn from others. Spend time learning how others have managed their careers, what went well, and what they could have done better. Spend time thinking about how you in your role can help this person in his or her role. Networking isn’t about transactional exchanges—it’s about cultivating genuine connections over time. I’d also helped me learn to take more calculated risks earlier in my career.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
Financial literacy should be taught at the same level as many of the subjects that schools require for graduation. Even today, my two kids have to have a P.E. requirement and an art requirement to graduate high school, yet they don’t have to take any courses on basic financial literacy, which is critical and will have a more practical impact on their futures. This isn’t to suggest that physical education and art aren’t important, they certainly are. However, literally everyone needs to understand the basics of financial literacy and schools today provide limited (at best) opportunities to develop in this area and almost never are courses on basic financial literacy required to graduate. I believe this is a disservice to our children.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
I block out time to focus on core projects. Meetings and emails can consume a day if you let them. I block 90-minute chunks for strategic thinking and analysis, which makes me exponentially more effective. I prioritize those projects that collaborate the most with other departments as they are usually the highest value projects for the organization.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
When I feel overwhelmed or unfocused, I remind myself of the saying: ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’ I break tasks into smaller, manageable steps and tackle them one at a time. It makes things feel more manageable and ensures I make progress. Breaking down a big project into smaller, actionable and measurable steps makes it feel much more manageable and easier to recognize your progress.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Understanding that finance is more than just back-office numbers—it is front-office analysis and storytelling. I’ve been able to influence key business decisions by translating financial data into a compelling analysis and narrative that informs decision making and helps us achieve better results. Also, demonstrating that the finance department is a partner to all other departments and a team that everyone can rely on for analysis and thoughtful insights.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
I’m not sure I would call it a “failure” but one missed opportunity in my career was when I was a Senior Manager in Deloitte’s audit practice. It was after the “Great Recession” and each of the Big 4 accounting firms were reevaluating their partner pipelines. Partner was to be my next promotion with the firm. Though, whereas when I started with the firm the average time to be promoted to partner was 12 years, following the Great Recession the timing to make partner was uncertain with the most likely timing looking more like 15 years. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed working for Deloitte and I thrived in the external audit environment, I got impatient and short-sighted and felt that, given the uncertainty in timing to make partner, it was time to leave the firm to further my career.
The lesson I learned was to remind myself that your career is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be periods where you will feel like your growth and development is rapidly expanding but also times where it might feel slower than you would like. Use those slower times to refocus on your career and how you can best excel when the pace picks up again. Fortunately for me, I recognized this mistake early after I left Deloitte and recognized that in my new role outside the firm, I needed to remember the traits that made me successful at the firm and use them to make me successful in my new role. Thanks to this mindset, I was able to play a key leadership role at eBay in the spinoff of PayPal, which to this day remains the single largest successful transaction I have worked on.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
While not a product or service, I believe finance and accounting professionals need to recognize how to strategically lead organizations. Too often finance and accounting professionals think too narrowly about their role in an organization, thinking that their roles are limited to back-office recording, processing, and reporting transactions. The role of finance and accounting professionals is much bigger than this. Take those insights and use them to inform all areas of the business. Work collaboratively cross-departmentally to help drive success.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
While still new tools to me, the new AI tools are significant boosts to my productivity. I would suggest all finance (and accounting) professionals spend time learning these new AI tools and become as proficient as possible in using them. The big three tools I use are ChapGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude AI. I have used these tools to help build Excel workbooks, prepare draft documents, and review legal agreements. While you certainly cannot rely solely on these tools they can often be used as a good starting point, performing a lot of the low-level work to build upon.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
We recently bought tickets to attend a spring training game with my wife’s alumni association. It was a great day out with my family, and we met a lot of interesting people from all over the country who now live and work in the Phoenix area. Plus, the Cubs beat the White Sox. Go Cubs, go!
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
One book that has provided immense value is The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner. I first read this book during my undergrad studies. It explores the lives and ideas of history’s greatest economic thinkers, from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter. It brings their ideas to life by exploring the social and historical contexts that shaped their ideas and makes complex economic concepts accessible and engaging.
It highlights that economic thought evolves in response to the needs and crises of the time. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, which was written in 1776, laid the foundation for capitalism by emphasizing the power of self-interest and free markets. But as the industrial revolution led to worker exploitation, Karl Marx responded with The Communist Manifesto. Later, John Maynard Keynes revolutionized economic policy by advocating government intervention to stabilize economies during downturns, an idea that still shapes modern fiscal policies.
It demonstrates that no single economic theory is perfect or universally applicable, which is especially useful today as we navigate debates over inflation, inequality, globalization, and automation.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
I’m still a fan of Seinfeld and re-watch old episodes. It’s often called a “show about nothing,” but in reality, it’s a show about everything—everyday life, relationships, work, and the small absurdities we all experience. I’m a big fan of observational humor and try to apply it to my own life as well.
Seinfeld even offers some relevant business lessons, including the importance of good communication and negotiation. It’s a reminder that relationships—whether personal or professional—are full of quirks, and learning how to handle them with humor can make life a little easier.
Key learnings:
- Time management drives success. Prioritizing deep work and reflection ensures continuous improvement and focus
- Data-driven storytelling matters. Translating numbers into compelling narratives makes financial professionals more influential.
- Relationships are key. Long-term career growth depends on building genuine connections and aligning with organizations that match your values.
- AI and automation are reshaping finance. Embracing these tools allows professionals to shift from number crunching to strategic decision-making.