About this episode
A lot of manufacturing companies can build insanely complex and intricate things, but far fewer are set up to handle what happens once customers start buying. So, what happens when those products start selling at scale, contracts get longer, and customers get bigger?In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Hale, CEO and Founder at Klear, to uncover a side of manufacturing that often gets overlooked: how money moves through industrial businesses.The conversation explores how money flows when deal cycles are long, customers are global, and planning starts to feel less like spreadsheets and more like a 3D chessboard. Trade finance sits underneath a lot of this activity, shaping how physical infrastructure gets built and how manufacturers grow.We also hear about Chris' experience touring in a band, and how this shaped the way he thinks about coordination, timing, and handoffs, ideas that show up repeatedly in how he approaches financial systems for manufacturers today.In this episode, find out:How Chris Hale moved from touring in a band to working in finance and building fintech tools for industrial companiesWhy trade finance underpins everything from shipping containers to large-scale infrastructure projectsWhat orchestration means in a manufacturing context, and why clean handoffs matterWhy managing money often becomes harder as companies grow and demand increasesHow global volatility, customer behaviour, and innovation shape financial decision-makingWhere financial visibility tends to break down inside fast-growing manufacturersWhy tying money directly to physical execution changes how companies scaleEnjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!Tweetable Quotes:“Trade finance as an asset class is fascinating because it’s how the world gets built through money. If you see a boat full of shipping containers, that boat is trade finance. If you see a data center being built, everything going into it is trade finance.”“The board keeps moving. You’ve got government customers, supply chain
