Brian Tarble Discusses Data-Informed Decision-Making

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MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Welcome to The Power of Change, the podcast that delves into the intersection of leadership and technology in the finance world. I’m your host, Michael Praeger, the CEO and co-founder of AvidXchange. In each episode, I dive into the leadership topics and industry trends with business leaders, partners, and customers who embrace the power of change. 

So welcome to the power of change with Michael Prager and super excited. Our guest in this episode is Brian Tarble, Vice President of Product at AvidXchange. And Brian is has just a phenomenal background, super accomplished results, orientated leader and technology leader with almost two decades of experience in product strategy, product management, team building, go-to-market revenue growth and innovation in the SAS or software as a service space, as we call it.  

But very specific domain knowledge also in data and analytics, Brian spent a significant amount of his career at SAP and SAP Concur. He had various positions range from senior director of business intelligence and consulting the vice president of product management. 

Graduate from the esteemed University of Arizona, the Wildcats. You’ve had all kinds of variety of different roles throughout your career, but it seems like there’s a theme around the product in each of your roles. I can tell you’re super passionate about the product aspect of it, but what about product management that really excites you? 

1:26  
BRAIN TARBLE 

Yeah. So first, thanks for having me. It’s exciting to be a part of this. I think product management early in my career when I came maybe from the buyer side to the other side of the table, I had some roles that led implementations and customer support and some of those things. And what clicked to me there is that everybody has needs. How do you make somebody want something? Right.  

And that’s what really stuck in my head is that implementations and different parts of my career, people would come and they’d be like, “Hey, help me implement this because my boss said, I need this. My boss said, we need this reporting. We need this insights.” 

And I was like, “Okay, well, how do I make you want this?” Right. “How do I make you want,” – we all have a need. You have a need for that shirt. What made you want that shirt, right? So that’s really why I want to jump into product management, you know, starting into the Concur days was like, I want to get people to be excited about what we’re putting on the table for them. Not just because, “Hey, I need something to automate my systems. I need something to see data and analytics.” But like, “I want to use that because it makes it better for me,” which in turn makes it better for their customers, whoever they are, internal, external, what have you.  

2:33  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

So maybe let’s, uh, you know, stick with that theme and dive a little bit into, you know, you hit on product, but – data analytics. I know that’s another passion of yours. Tell me a little bit more about both your kind of experience and expertise in the analytics area.  

2:48  
BRIAN TARBLE 

Yeah, so I started basically in like the travel expense reporting space. So a company I started early on with was an industry leader in providing insights around their global travel program, basically. It was a unique change because early, early years of managed corporate travel, you know, it was really about getting a person to A to B safely, but they really weren’t optimizing the way that they made decisions, you know – supplier management, supplier footprint, policy compliance, adherence to contracts. So it was really, how do we get better visibility to make decisions versus what was retroactively what happened last month, right? 

I think early on, even when I was a buyer in the travel and expense space, like we would have our suppliers come in, we’d have a conversation, they’d hold up a piece of paper with some bar chart to say, here’s what your spend was, and it was like, “Great, let’s go to dinner.” Right? But now really trying to bring that visibility to make improved decisions, forecasting, predictive analysis, what if scenario modeling. Like being able to bring people data to make decisions is – it’s necessary. It’s to help make better decisions that drive savings to the bottom line.  

3:58  
MICHAEL PRAEGER  

What trends are you seeing across kind of the finance professionals that you’re interacting with?  

4:01  
BRIAN TARBLE 

Yeah, so one of the things in AvidXchange’s 2025 trends survey showed that nearly half of finance leaders are being asked to own data and analytics, which is a new domain for these leaders that they haven’t had before. It’s not just managing commodities anymore. It’s not just “Hey, tell me how many expense reports, how many invoices I process, how many payments I made with these suppliers.” It’s really, “What can I do to maximize the value of my supplier footprint? How can I get engaged with more suppliers that provide similar items, similar things, maybe in different ways. “Can I take advantage of different payment modalities? Can I infuse some of that data with AI and smart insights to the workflow to, you know, improve my operational efficiency, to help make folks more efficient to work towards more strategic initiatives.” Now, they’re looking for guidance on how to do that in a lot of ways. 

And I think they’re looking for folks, like AvidXchange, who has a vast understanding of the industry and the data to help guide them on their journey, to make sure that their use of data is as impactful as possible.  

5:07  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Yeah, that was super well articulated. I’m going to take the data theme probably in a different direction now. And that’s like, let’s think about data in terms of leadership. Maybe talk about your leadership approach and how you look at data and analytics to help you be a better leader.  

5:24 
BRIAN TARBLE  

It’s a good question. To me, it comes down to facts. You know, there’s a lot of people in our day jobs that have a lot of emotions. We have a lot of feelings. We have a lot of experiences and those things help us make good decisions. That’s an input piece. I like to have the facts on the table, right? So whether that’s where we’re deciding trade-offs in the roadmap. Whether we’re trying to figure out what backlog item goes first, whether we’re trying to figure out what company initiative we want to support. 

If you lay out the facts on the table, it’s really easy to have open, honest, unemotional conversations about what’s the right thing to do versus, you know, being very heavily emotion driven. So I try to use that in the decision making. I try to help my teams get better visibility to data so that they can make informed decisions versus the squeaky wheel kind of getting the grease kind of thing. 

6:16  
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

I love the whole product discussion when somebody says, “Well, customers will love it.” And you’re like, “Okay, well, what’s the data that supports love.” Right? And so it’s always an interesting decision. All effective leaders have rhythms about what they do either daily, weekly, monthly, in terms of how you execute your role, how you manage your teams, how you just, you know, lead your teams. What are some of those rhythms that you use that you’ve developed over the years?  

6:42  
BRIAN TARBLE  

Yeah. So I’ve been working remote as a leader since 2010. So even here, most, most of my team is, is here in Charlotte. I’m on the West coast in California. So I try to adapt my routine to maximize the value with the team. So my days typically start at 5 AM West coast time. So I can meet folks where they’re at. I want to be a part of the right meetings. I want to make sure they’re getting supported in the time that they need versus asking people to adjust to my time. I also think it’s important to really get FaceTime with them as well. So I come out as much as I can. And I really try to understand the team as people first and then as employees second, right? 

If you can have empathy about where people are coming from, if I can check in with how they’re feeling, how their families are, how they’re doing, I think it just creates more of that relationship to really understand how do you work together? How do you support them in the right ways they need to be supported?  

7:36 
MICHAEL PRAEGER  

Besides being an Arizona Wildcat, one of the things I’ve learned about you is your passion for coaching, specifically youth coaching – football, baseball. Maybe share how, you know, kind of coaching at a youth sport level has also helped you become a better leader. 

7:50 
BRIAN TARBLE 

Yeah. So I’ve been coaching youth sports since my sophomore year in college. So even before I had kids and I’ve coached all my kids, I’d say the one word that stands out is patience. Yeah. You know, I have the pleasure now of coaching high level, uh, competitive travel teams, but coaching rec, coaching youth at different ages, you got to realize that you have different people in different spots. You’ve got the great athletes, you’ve got the ones that are working really hard, but don’t have the skillsets.  

You have those that are only there because their, their parents don’t have anything else to do with them during that time period. Right? So you, you get to have patience and you get to understand what’s the motivation for each of these kids being here. How do you help them enjoy what they’re doing every day? 

And, you know, my main goal in youth sports was making sure that the kids came back the next season, right? If you could have a positive experience, if you could, if you could support them in what they needed to be successful, some of those are going to be top performers. Some of those are going to be, you know, high school varsity players. 

Some of those might play in college. And I think it’s the same way. You know, when you, when you’re building a team or you’re inheriting team or working with the team, you’re going to have different levels of performers. And how do you work with those to try to get them all to be a successful team, you know, and win the championship if you will? 

9:01  
MICHAEL PRAEGER  
 
Well, just a funny story on that regard. So, I grew up in Wisconsin. In my senior year, we won the Wisconsin state basketball championship. And there was an article, one of the sports writers wrote in the Milwaukee Sentinel at the time saying, “This may be the least talented championship team the state of Wisconsin has ever seen.” And the moral is our coach had a saying, you know, you’re born with the talent level that you’re at so you can’t control your talent. But the one thing you can control is how hard you work. So we were just known as the least talented team that just outworked everybody. 

9:37  
BRIAN TARBLE  

I make stickers for our helmets every year for every level. The only two words we put on our helmets are football, we put family, but attitude and effort. Those are the only things you can control. You can control your attitude. You can control your effort. The rest is going to play out as it does. 

9:51 
MICHAEL PRAEGER  

Bingo. Well, uh, it’s been awesome having you on today’s episode. Uh, the Power of Change with Brian Tarble. Brian, thanks for being part of the episode today.  

9:59 
BRIAN TARBLE 

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It’s been fun.  

10:05 
MICHAEL PRAEGER 

Thanks for listening to The Power of Change presented by AvidXchange. If you like what you’ve heard, subscribe to our channel and leave a five-star review. While you’re waiting for the next episode, head on over to avidxchange.com for our latest research reports and business insights. And if you’re interested in learning more about accounts payable automation from AvidXchange, click the link in our show notes to connect with our experts. Thanks again for listening to The Power of Change. We’ll see you next time.