CFO Dive Trendline on Modern accounting and the CFO

When actor Ryan Reynolds of Deadpool films fame and retired Costco CFO Richard Galanti took the conference stage in Las Vegas Monday, it might have seemed like an odd matchup. 

The fast-talking Hollywood A-lister is prone to profanity-laced quips, at one point graphically describing his fear of throwing up in the mask that his Deadpool character wears. Meanwhile Galanti, nicknamed Costco’s “voice” because of the deft approach to earnings calls he developed over his four decades as finance chief, is known for his ability to bring data to life with wholesome and sometimes kooky tales about customer trends and return sagas. 

But the two have a history of bridging those differences. Galanti appeared last summer as an “anti-inflation” officer in a commercial for Mint Mobile, the wireless company that Reynolds sold to T-Mobile in a $1.3 billion deal. In it, he touts his role in keeping Costco’s hot dog and soda combo’s price at $1.50. 

This week they took that chemistry — call it a hot dog-fueled bromance or marketing genius — to one of the accounting industry’s biggest conferences. The two headlined a keynote address kicking off The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ conference taking place this week: Engage 2026 Las Vegas. 

Reynolds wasted little time before playing to the audience, while also insisting he wasn’t pandering. The Canadian actor, whose father was a cop, maintained he came from a working-class family and wished there were more accountants involved in movies to keep budgets in line. 

“I just happen to be in a room with a few thousand very intimidating accountants but I’ve always wished that accountants ran show business, because I often say that too much time and too much money will hurt creativity and that’s very true,” Reynolds said. “They’re just firing money out of a T-shirt cannon at every problem.” 

For example, he recalled when he first got Deadpool approved or greenlit, he had little money to make it so he had to think creatively about financing it. Knowing he needed some Chevrolet Suburban trucks that would be totalled during film making, he reached out to the automaker to see if he could strike a deal with them. 

“So the next day I’m on the phone with Chevy, saying, “hey, what if we destroy your vehicles and at the end of the movie I say something about how ‘no Suburbans were harmed in the making of this movie?’” he recalled. “Whatever it is...you just do something to make it happen, find a way and then suddenly you’re making a movie on $50 million that should have been shot for $150 million.” 

Separately, Galanti was called upon to talk about the genesis of the famed hot dog soda combo, and some hard decisions he had to make in shifting from serving a smaller kosher hot dog to a non-kosher, larger private label version that the company manufactures in two plants it opened. 

The two also talked about Galanti’s appearance in the commercial, which Galanti joined the Screen Actors Guild for a day to make. Galanti’s 25-year-old daughter came during the making of the commercial in New York to meet Reynolds. 

“He was very nice and all my wife and my friends asked, ‘is he as nice and handsome in person?’ And I said ‘absolutely not,’” Galanti said, deadpanning. “No, he’s shorter than me.” 

The two also talked about the power of humor and story telling. Galanti recalled that he was a CFO of a big company handling tax, audits, accounting, payroll and audits. But having a sense of humor helped him raise his CFO grade. 

“Over my 40 years, I went from a D to a solid B…But what made me an A, in my mother's view, was my humor ability and because I got to do all the earnings calls I added a little humor to it,” Galanti said. “It goes a long way.”