Strategic Finance is really hand in hand with AI because the AI tools are just going to help us do a better job and tell us where the gaps are.

– Kerry Butler, CFO of Woolnorth Renewables

Kerry Butler, CFO of Woolnorth Renewables in Tasmania, shares her bold NetSuite rollout, revealing strategic insights on tech, budgeting, AI, and scaling clean energy operations.

In this episode, we talk about . . .

• Insights from attending SuiteWorld 2025 in Las Vegas
• Strategic NetSuite rollout, starting with Planning & Budgeting (NSPB)
• Overcoming implementation challenges with a lean finance team
• Use of implementation partners: Pivot Two & Netgain
• Multilingual board reporting (Chinese & English) and real-time forecasting
• Integrations with SharePoint, virtual cards, and maintenance systems
• Leveraging AI and Ask Oracle for smarter decision-making
• Community involvement and commitment to renewable energy
• Advice for scaling businesses and choosing the right tech stack

🧰 Apps & Tools Mentioned:

NetSuite, NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB), Netgain, Pivot Two, SharePoint, Smart View, Camtasia

📺 Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome & Guest Intro: Kerry Butler, CFO of Woolnorth Renewables
01:45 – Why Kerry Chose NetSuite: Flexibility and ecosystem advantages
04:12 – Board-Ready Reporting in Two Languages: How NSPB enabled it
06:57 – Implementing NSPB First: Breaking ERP rollout conventions
09:43 – Smart Budgeting Tools: Using Smart View for real-time inputs
12:21 – Leveraging Implementation Partners: Pivot Two & Netgain’s role
15:02 – Complex Accounting Made Simple: Wind farms, loans & derivatives
17:35 – AI & Strategic Finance: What’s coming next in NetSuite
20:14 – Clean Data = Better AI: System integration & SharePoint sync
22:41 – Ask Oracle: AI-powered reporting for CFOs and CEOs
25:33 – SweetWorld Learnings: Building a global CFO network

Scroll down for a full transcript (This transcript has been generated and transcribed by AI)

Today, I’m joined by Kerry Butler, CFO at Woolnorth Renewables, a Tasmanian company that harnesses world-cast wind resources to generate nearly 9% of the state’s electricity needs. 

Kerry is an experienced CFO with a background spanning non-for-profits, automotive and finance, and she’s known for her strategic leadership, process improvement and passion for building stronger teams. Alongside her corporate role, she also serves as the chair of the Yemaya Women’s Support Services, supporting women and children impacted by domestic violence. She brings a wealth of insight into how accountants can help drive both financial performance and meaningful impact. Kerry, thank you so much for joining us. 

How have your two days at SuiteWorld been so far? 

Kerry Butler  

Oh, it’s been awesome. 

It’s so good to actually connect with all the accountants, all the IT professionals, and just hear what’s coming in the NetSuite world. It’s surrounded by all sorts of partners. And, you know, it’s the key reason that we selected NetSuite. Because it, you know, it’s such a dynamic tool, it gives you a good foundation and a really good, solid way to manage your finances. But then you’ve got so many add ons, so many business partners so that you can tailor exactly what you need for a business.

Heather Smith  

That’s fantastic. 

So you originally trained as a chartered accountant in Scotland, and you’re now CFO at Woolnorth Renewables in Tasmania. 

Can you share a bit about your journey and what drew you to finance leadership in renewables? 

Kerry Butler  

Oh, that’s a tricky one. 

So yes, I did start in Scotland as a chartered accountant. I was an auditor for many years, and then I joined an American company, and went travelling the world, and then I ended up in Australia, and went back into audit. Then once I got out, I really continued that journey into system implementation. 

My journey has been moving from company to company, implementing systems, getting it working, and then going, ‘My job’s done. Time to move on’.

Well done.

Heather Smith  

Woolnorth Renewables has been part of the Tasmanian energy landscape for more than 20 years. Now, as I said before, is generating 9% of state’s electricity. 

For those listeners who don’t know about this company, can you paint a picture of the business for us?

Kerry Butler  

We’re based in Tasmania. We’ve got three large wind farms that, obviously, you know, are generating electricity. We’ve been operating, you know, some of them for, you know, just over 20 years. And you know, it really is a nice, clean way of generating, you know, generating electricity. 

We really partner well with the community. So, you know, we do a lot of local sponsorship of clubs and societies. And you know, it always makes us laugh. We do sponsor a dental bus that goes around Northern Tasmania to the school kids providing free dental care. We do laugh. I’m sure the kids kind of look at us and go, renewable energy, don’t that’s toothache, but the parents really do like that.

But we’re also developing in Mount Fyans, Victoria, and that would double our capacity. So, you know, in Victoria, it’s a long road in the renewable space to get approvals. We just had the Victorian government approval, and we’re just waiting for the Federal Environmental approval. But you know, I think for us, you know, cheaper, greener electricity is the way to go for the future. I want to make sure there’s a future for my kids.

Heather Smith  

Fabulous.

I’m interested in Woolnorth’s transition to NetSuite. Why did you implement NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (NSPB) before NetSuite ERP to meet the requirement for budget reports in English and Chinese? Share your experience.

Kerry Butler  

Oh, well, I like to be a bit of a rule breaker, but we had a good reason.

The finance roles were provided by our joint venture partners, so I was hired to set up a new recruit and set up a new team, pick some software and then get it to go live. So obviously, the challenges of that is that we had no operational experience of doing finance for Woolnorth. You know, we also needed to make sure that we had a budget for the new year in the new system.

By going live with NSPB in that, you know, two-month window meant that when we actually went live first of January in NetSuite, we already had the board paper pack ready. We already had the budget approved, signed off and in the system. And it meant when we hit our first January month-end, we had a draft result, working day four, working day five, and we had the full budget pack: Board report, budgets versus actuals, everything there working day 10.

Heather Smith  

Sounds like your board would have been very happy with that. 

Kerry Butler  

They were really happy. 

It’s always an interesting one with boards, because they looked at it and kind of went, Oh, we like that chart. Can we have a few more of those? So we’ve given them a waterfall, and then they wanted another waterfall, and they actually asked us to start doing a rolling forecast going forward.

Luckily, we’d future proofed NSPB and set up a 10-year window in NSPB, and we’d already started doing a rolling forecast. We went live in January and for the March month-end, so within three months, we had budget versus actual versus forecast showing in our lovely board pack in two languages, which is, you know, they were really impressed with that. And it’s just really helped us. 

Key thing for us is we partnered with a really good implementation team. So Pivot2 actually helped us set up NSPB, and, you know, it was through their advice and their guidance that helped us put in some of that future proofing. So it was really nice to kind of go, Ah, this is one we’ve already pre-prepared. And the board was really impressed that we’d actually had some extra vision and that strategic lens to plan ahead.

Heather Smith  

Fantastic, fantastic. 

What advice would you offer to finance teams considering an unconventional tech rollout, similar to the one you adopted? Reflecting on it, would you have done it that way again?

Kerry Butler  

Definitely. 

I think for me, one of the reasons we chose NetSuite was that they’re very much about no two businesses are the same. And you know, when we looked at other softwares, some of the other softwares were a bit more rigid, and you weren’t able to tailor it. Whereas with NetSuite and with NSPB, we went live, I say we jumped off the cliff because, you know, we put an NSPB in then we went live with NetSuite. But we also went live with a payroll system, with an AP OCR system, and we also went live with four products to actually do some advanced accounting with a company called Netgain. 

That allowed us to do some fancy asset accounting, lease accounting or loan accounting. Wind farms are really expensive, so we have some big loans. We have some derivative account, derivatives, you know, we needed to cope with interest rate swaps. We needed to have leases and right of use assets and all the fancy stuff. 

That’s the benefit of NetSuite. They’ve got a whole ecosystem out there of all these partners that you know, if you’ve got the right team, you can actually go, these are our pain points. This is how we can tailor it. And you can go live with a really good package.

Heather Smith  

Fantastic. 

I think I interviewed the founder of Netgain, Adam Riches. And he’s a lovely guy.

Kerry Butler  

He’s lovely guy. And, you know, I was, you know, coming from Australia, I was a bit nervous. They’ve got a presence in Australia now, but when we went live, they didn’t have an Australian office. So I was a bit nervous of implementing four of their products when the team was wholly based in the US. 

But they were fabulous, and we had standing meetings, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, during the Go Live and during the build, and they never missed one. And they came prepared. And they are very much. They’re accountants. So accountants talking to accountants. Sometimes our calls were only 15 minutes, because we could talk accounting speak and resolve the questions and the issues really fast. And you know, it really it goes for a really good go live.

Heather Smith  

And my recollection of Adam was that he had a real interest in the history of accounting. So he really loved accounting and how it constructed, which is something that I resonated with him.

Kerry Butler  

Definitely. 

And he’s also got a real passion for being really open minded. And, you know, instead of saying his products the best, he’s continually looking at the market and seeing what others are doing and going, Oh, that’s interesting. Can ours also do that? And I really like that, because it means you’ve got an evolving, adaptive product, and they’re constantly looking to see, what are the pain points for accountants? 

They’re very, you know, I’ve just implemented two more of their…so we now have six of their products. I’ve only got three to go. 

Heather Smith  

I wonder if he took you out for lunch?

Kerry Butler  

I’ve only got three more to go, which they’re keen for us. And I’m like, no, no, we’re in our second year of just kind of, this is our year of optimising to go actually, we’ve got these products. Let’s really, you know, get them quicker, better, smarter, and also, you know, when you’ve had a year of implementation, your team is a little bit fatigued, and they just want a bit of business as usual.

Heather Smith  

I totally get that as well. I’m kind of like, you need that up time and then that downtime, and then the uptime, and then the downtime, to build capacity, mental capacity, emotional capacity.

Kerry Butler  

Exactly. Because, you know, I mean, I’ve done quite a few implementations, and they’re hard work. Yeah, they are hard work. They’re very rewarding, but they’re hard work. And I think everyone has that stage where you go, Never again, then you do it again. 

Heather Smith  

Very good. 

You use Pivot2 as an implementation partner. How important was utilising the services of an implementation partner in making the transition a success for you?

Kerry Butler  

Oh, vital. Really vital. So we implemented NetSuite by NetSuite. So they were really great, and they did the project management and helped manage all of those different business partners. Pivot2 helped us on the NSPB, and they were fantastic because, you know. They’ve got a wealth of experience, and they could really help us understand how to build our chart of account, how to future proof it, how to make sure you can slice and dice it. 

They describe NSPB, almost like a Rubik’s Cube. You need to actually be able to turn the colours and see all the different sides. 

Heather Smith  

Yeah, yeah.  

Kerry Butler  

I really liked that explanation to go, Yeah, we, you know, we wanted to see the financial data. We wanted to see the other the non-financial data. And yeah, they were really important to help us deliver our vision as what we wanted to see. 

Then for the others, you know, Netgain were really great, because accountants are accountants when you’re looking at technical products. And for us, in particular, because we were a new team, we’d never seen some of this source information before, and we were trying to set up things. They were really good with the just holding our hands, because they’d ask us the questions, and we’d go, I don’t know, because we’ve never seen that. And we’d run off to our joint venture partner and say, Can you give us a loan schedule that kind of says ABC, and yeah. So yeah, the partners were really good, because it’s an unusual situation for a finance team to put in a system when you’ve never operationally been doing the accounts.

Heather Smith  

Yeah, no, absolutely. 

What were the pain points you were trying to solve by moving to NetSuite?

Kerry Butler  

So our joint venture it’s got two really big companies involved. And unfortunately, you know, we were always the little one, we were always the third one on the priority. So in terms of waiting for our monthly reports, they were a little bit later in the month than we would like. And the really, all the budget owners, they weren’t getting detailed reports. No one was sitting down with them and looking at the budget versus actual reports. 

So now they actually have that. They actually seeing the data. And you know, now that we’ve just done a budget cycle, we’ve saved, we’ve shaved off. We’re three months earlier than we did last year, and we’ve actually had a lot more business input into the budget. 

Using NSPB, they use a tool called Smart View. It looks like Excel, but Excel on steroids, and it’s got a live link through to an NSPB, but it looks like Excel, so no one’s afraid of it, because it’s very familiar. The budget owners are able to fill in the detail, provide information for the budget. Then we’re able to sit with them and ask them, seriously, do you want it, you know that line, you want it going up 50%, no. 

You’re able to have those really good business conversations, you’re updating it. As soon as everyone’s happy, you hit refresh, and it sends it back into NSPB. And so, you know, we’re just getting a lot, a lot more timely information. But as I say to the budget owners, we’re helping you help us help you.

Heather Smith  

This sounds like a song, doesn’t it?

Kerry Butler  

But I think that, to me, you know, the exciting thing that’s coming with all the AI in NetSuite, they’re going to embed a lot more AI into. We’re seeing that in some of the other business partners, that there’s more AI coming in the NSPB space to help you better budget and forecast and go, You sure that budgets right, because the trends a bit different to reality. 

There’s more and more AI stuff coming. And, you know, I just see that it’s just, we’ve got a really good foundation now, and now we can just use it as those building blocks to get better and better and really partner with the rest of the business to add those strategic insights. AI, some people are scared of that, you know, people are scared that it’s going to take jobs. I see it as actually a really good way of getting rid of the boring work. And then it’s really for accountants and finance officers and all of us to be adding value to actually make the business better. 

I know, for me, I don’t like boring work.

Heather Smith  

It doesn’t sound like it.

Kerry Butler  

No. But to me, I think that’s, the human part of the creativity and the scent checking and the what if, and that doesn’t sound right, that doesn’t feel right, you know? And actually working with the business, we’re having a lot more business conversations of going this is what the finance story is. Tell us the operation story. Were you expecting it to be good or bad or ugly? And then we’re starting to understand more about the business. They’re starting to understand more about the finance. We’re all starting to understand the drivers to be able to go, well, let’s drive a better result. Everyone’s winning. 

Heather Smith  

You’re surfacing insights to help influence decisions which is where the accountant should be.

Kerry Butler  

Exactly. 

For me, Strategic Finance is really hand in hand with AI. Because the AI tools are just going to help us do a better job and tell us where the gaps are. You know, some of the stuff that NetSuite rolled out this, you know, this conference has been they’re going to be able to say, Hey, you’re missing figures over here. You’ve got gaps over there. It’s really hard to when you don’t know what you don’t know. If the system is going to start flagging of that looks odd. And you normally have a figure there for month end, and you don’t have one. I like that because, you know any like CFOs, we’d like to have eyes on the back of our heads, but I haven’t grown them yet.

Heather Smith  

I understand you took eight weeks to go live.

Kerry Butler  

For NSPB, and a little bit longer for the others.

Heather Smith  

Okay, okay. 

How did you manage that sort of pressure with such a lean finance team?

Kerry Butler  

A lot of planning, and, you know, a lot of planning and a lot of scheduling in the work. But also we made sure that we sat down and had a really good strategic look as to what are all the things that we need to have. And we had a very good project plan to go, This is what we need to get done with, you know, with all the timelines, you know.

We had a really good, strong team. And we’ve got some really good, strong partners. So, you know, I think because I’ve done implementations before, some of the partners were saying, Oh no, we want it here. And I’d go, no, no, we’re not doing it there. We’re doing it two weeks before, because I’ve done that before, and we need time up our sleeve for if it falls over. 

Heather Smith  

Yeah. 

Kerry Butler  

I think I’m a cautious accountant, and I like to have a little extra time up my sleeve. I know for us, you know, when you’re when you’re doing some parallel running of certain things, or you’re doing some testing we had, or when you’re just doing, you know, just doing sense checks of the system, where the partner said one week? I said, No, no, we need three weeks because we’re testing those other four programmes at the same time. 

Heather Smith  

Yeah, absolutely. 

Kerry Butler  

So I understand that you’ve integrated NetSuite with a number of other solutions. You’ve mentioned Netgain, but I believe you’ve integrated with SharePoint, advanced approvals and even virtual credit cards. Can you just talk briefly to that? 

Yeah, so obviously, we’ve got, you know, through our bank we, you know, we’ve implemented some virtual credit cards and that, you know that’s just extra little added value, things that we had along the way. We’ve got an existing system that we use to manage our inventory and our maintenance work. 

It takes a bit of work to actually keep the wind farms running and each turbine. We’ve got an existing system. And because we were implementing so many other things, we said, No, that’s working, you know, don’t touch it. But we did build, and we did have an API connecting the two. Now, you know, we have a purchase request start off in one system, and it interfaces and integrates into NetSuite to then become a purchase order, and then follow the normal purchase order approval process.

We’ve gone live with a refined approvals process, and that’s only in the last couple of months because it allowed us to give to have a few more bells and whistles to the NetSuite one. So with the new net gain approval system, as you drag and drop any supporting information for purchase order, so like a contract or an email, it actually pushes it back and saves it in SharePoint. 

We’re all about that one source of truth. You don’t want things in multiple places. You know, confusion raining so, you know, really, it’s trying to drive that data in one place, and really good clean data. Clean data means the AI tools will work better. So, you know, for us, it’s really about protecting that one source of truth.

Heather Smith  

Yeah, absolutely. 

We’re at SuiteWorld 2025. Why did you make the long trip from Tasmania to come to Las Vegas? 

Kerry Butler  

It’s just great to be around other accountants, understand how they’re using the tools, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, you know? And it’s, it’s finding contacts that you can kind of go 50-50, phone a friend. 

Heather Smith  

Yes.

Kerry Butler  

I think, you know, CFOs, we can have a challenging job. And it’s nice to find peers that we can actually phone up and trade stories or go, Okay, I think you were using assist another system, how you’re doing it. And likewise, it’s really great here to actually get the demos in, you know, like there’s so many exhibitors here. 

Last year, I managed 16 demonstrations in three days. This year I’ve gone to more sessions. You know, last year I was a kid in a candy shop. I had a look at a lot of things this year. It’s more about the sessions and forming, you know, better, relationships with with colleagues.

Heather Smith  

Yeah. I do find everyone’s quite open to starting a chat with you, telling you what they’re doing. And it’s remarkable. It’s like, that’s your business, like, and it’s a billion dollar business. And, yeah, that’s quite remarkable. 

Kerry Butler  

And it’s so diverse. There are so many interesting businesses.

Heather Smith  

Yeah. 

Kerry Butler  

You know, it really is good.

Heather Smith  

And I think it’s good to build a community abroad, as well as, you know, being in Tasmania, I’m sure there’s probably a select few of CFOs there. So have the extended knowledge.

Kerry Butler  

Definitely. And I think it’s interesting that, you know, like so many exhibitors this year have said, how many ANZ representatives are here, and you know, it really is. Because, you know, there’s certain NetSuite products that aren’t quite live in Australia and New Zealand yet. 

I think it almost feels like we’ve all come out and forced to kind of go, come on, bring SuitePeople, which is the payroll tool there. I think NetSuite is a bit scared of all the Australian award structure, but it’s a great tool. So, you know, likewise, the the AI stuff, I think US and Canada are going to be the guinea pigs for the AI rollout.

Heather Smith  

Yes. 

Kerry Butler  

We’ll be very keen to, and we know in the Australian community, the people who are coming to SuiteWorld. We’re saying Yep, because we’ll be a pilot.

Heather Smith  

Yes.

Kerry Butler  

Because we, you know, we want to. If there’s a good tool, it’s going to save time and effort and money and make our teams actually quicker, better, smarter, then we want it. We want it.

Heather Smith  

I did speak with Evan Goldberg, the founder of NetSuite earlier, and did suggest that Australia, New Zealand, should be the guinea pigs, and he should just forget about North America.

Kerry Butler  

Well, I mean, I think that the key thing is, you know, as Aussies, I keep saying we’re really resilient, and we’re really good at testing, and we love NetSuite. So, you know, maybe you know, Vegas is great, but, you know, Sydney or Melbourne is really good.

Heather Smith  

We’re at the conference, and there have been numerous product announcements.

What was one of the product announcements that caught your attention from a CFO’s perspective?

Kerry Butler  

Oh, I really like the simplicity of Ask Oracle. I know I’m with everybody else of playing with A. I’ve just been in Hawaii for a holiday, and I asked AI to build me an itinerary, and I was surprised and shocked at how good it was. And, you know, I think the AskOracle. Of, you know, we’ve all been there where, oh, what’s the menu path, where’s that again? With any great tool comes a bit of complexity, and sometimes you’re like, oh, there was that really good, that report. What’s it called again?

Heather Smith  

Yeah. 

Kerry Butler  

So AskOracle. And, like, the what we saw for AskOracle was just amazing, because it kind of went from a little question into all of a sudden, you’re seeing graphs and charts, and suddenly plain English interpretations of what the trends were showing. And I was there going, Wow, this would be great for so many GMs or CEOs I’ve worked with to explain it in some plain English. 

I think we’ve all used those AI prompts to go, here’s the question. Well, Can you now tell it as if I’m five?

Heather Smith  

Yeah, yeah. 

Kerry Butler  

And I think it looks like Ask Oracle is going to be like that that you go, you’ve used all these acronyms. Can you tell me what they all ROI means, or, you know.

Heather Smith  

It can integrate with ChatGPT or Claude. So I imagine you could do exactly that with it in that integration.

Kerry Butler  

Exactly

Heather Smith  

 And into different languages as well.

Kerry Butler  

Exactly. And that’s, I mean, that’s the good thing of NetSuite. You can flick the switch and change it into Mandarin, if you want. 

Heather Smith  

Yes, absolutely.

So many accountants who are listening into the show are working with clients that are also scaling up. 

What’s one piece of advice you would give to them as the accountants working with clients who are scaling up?

Kerry Butler  

I think the main thing is get a good business partner to actually sit down and strategically have a good look as to what’s your pain points, what do you really need, and what do you need now, and what do you need in the future? Because I think you know that I’ve seen a lot of I’ve I’ve been a part of a lot of businesses that have really grown fast, and you want to actually make sure you’ve got enough bandwidth from the start. 

You don’t want to be trying to grow at the same time as trying to build it’s just too hard. So finding the right business partners. And in SuiteWorld and in NetSuite, there’s so many business partners, you can be spoilt for choice. And that’s where the the phone-a-friend referral system really works. 

Heather Smith  

Yeah, absolutely.

Kerry Butler  

To talk to other accountants. Because, you know, we can be cynical and we can be brutally honest. And I think, you know, accountants trust other accountants.

Heather Smith  

Yeah, yes, absolutely. 

And that can make the journey a lot quicker. And I find accountants very generous in their knowledge, just as you’re being on the show.

Kerry Butler  

Last year, I spoke at the conference on NetSuite Planning and Budgeting, and I taught myself a programme called Camtasia to record, yes to record how we budgeted in NSPB. And I know that I’ve shared that video multiple times. Because, you know, having an accountant talk through the programme and seeing how we actually used it has really helped others. 

I know other people have been generous with their time showing me how they’ve used it. So I like SuiteWorld for that. Because, I don’t know. I’ve just come from Hawaii, and they say, Ohana. Like family.

Heather Smith  

Yeah.

Kerry Butler  

NetSuite is starting to feel like that family, that we’re supporting each other because we’ve got tough jobs. Everything’s changing fast. Accountants, we’re a cost centre, not, you know, we don’t, actually, we’re not an income generating part of the business. We’ve got to fight sometimes for the resources. 

Heather Smith  

Yeah. 

Kerry Butler  

So quicker, better, smarter, and AI is going to help us. Have exciting, interesting, but really business partnerships, strategic partnerships, in the business to help tell the stories to do better.

Heather Smith  

Yeah, fantastic.

So on a bit of a lighter note, tonight, we are going to a party featuring Mr. Worldwide himself, Pitbull. 

Time of Our Lives, Give Me Everything, Fireball, Feel the Moment, Timber. Do you have a favourite Pitbull song?

Kerry Butler  

Tequila? Is that him? 

Heather Smith  

Yes, yes, well done knowing a song that wasn’t on my list.

Kerry Butler  

I think at SuiteWorld my Apple Watch has been dying at about eight o’clock every night. Up till eight o’clock at night I’ve been averaging 17,000 steps a day. The earliest I’ve been to bed this week has been 1am so it was 3am and 2am so who knows? Mr. Worldwide, I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t go to bed tonight. I don’t know.

Heather Smith  

Maybe you go, what’s it? Go, go to the concert and then go to Fremont Street.

Kerry Butler  

It’s funny, Australians all like Harrah’s Piano Bar.

Heather Smith  

Oh, and does Donnie come down? Because Donnie Osmond is playing there at the moment.

Kerry Butler  

Oh, no. 

Heather Smith  

Tuesday night. He came back from his residency. You can get $60 tickets to see Donnie. 

Kerry Butler  

Well, on an afternoon Elvis plays, but I think it’s open pretty late, and after a lot of the functions, we end up all there singing some lovely Australian songs that we were doing last night. 

Heather Smith  

Thank you so much, Kerry, for joining me on the Accounting Apps Podcast. Thank you for all the insight that you have shared with our audience. I’m very appreciative of it. 

Kerry Butler  

Thank you for the invite.

Heather Smith  

That’s a wrap on my series of interviews from NetSuite, SuiteWorld 2025 in Las Vegas. 

I was extremely excited when I found out Pitbull would be the final act playing at SuiteWorld 2025. His concert was held in the same sort of giant tent that all the keynotes were held in. The venue was stunning. They just they had all these alien themed characters and fluorescent aliens and giant cupcakes I seem to recall. They had outfits for us to actually, apparently, it’s fashionable to go to a Pitbull concert and actually dress up like him. So you might see a photo lurking around of me wearing a bald cap.

The concert was really good. He had a full band, and he had goodness, 8 to 10 dances with him. I think, Latino Cuban performance. I knew so many of his songs, which I was actually surprised about, to his credit. And the thing that I really want to mention is he was so gracious. He thanked Oracle NetSuite for inviting him there. He referred to himself as Mr. SuiteWorldwide. On multiple occasions, he said that he was really grateful to be here, and he was really appreciative of the audience, and he talked with us quite a lot about a lot of different things.

One of the things he said, I don’t drive fast cars. I don’t wear gold necklaces. My money goes to educate children. And towards the end, he explained that he puts a lot of money into…He founded and put a lot of money into slam charter schools, which are all over the US and beyond, maybe beyond, I’m not sure. He pays for the buildings and the education, the tuition, the lunches of all the children, and he has put 10,000 children through education, which is, who knew?

Like, I had no idea. I don’t read a lot about Pitbull, admittedly, but really impressed that he has taken something, he provides a really, he’s very, very entertaining, and he does such great work on the side. So I thought I was going to enjoy the concert, but I enjoyed it so much more than I anticipated. So thank you again to the media and to Oracle NetSuite for inviting me. And the chance to see Pitbull in concert in Las Vegas is kind of crazy, unreal, especially at an accounting conference.