FinOps in Action16 Okt 2025

How to Drive FinOps Awareness Without Slowing Teams Down ft. Tom Cross, Aer Lingus | Ep 39

What does good FinOps look like inside a large engineering organization?

In this episode of FinOps in Action, I sat down with Tom Cross, FinOps Lead at Aer Lingus and a member of the FinOps Foundation Technical Advisory Council, to talk about building FinOps culture, engaging engineers, and shaping the global FinOps framework.

Tom shared how he transitioned from software engineering to FinOps leadership, why optimization became his passion, and how he balances governance with empathy to drive adoption without slowing delivery.

We also discussed what’s next for the FinOps Framework, how usage-based anomaly detection is changing cost management, and why the future of FinOps is as much about relationships as it is about data.

Here’s what we talked about:

How Tom went from engineering to FinOps leadership
Why FinOps is really about helping engineers make better decisions
Lightweight enforcement and governance that actually work
Usage-based anomaly detection and root cause tracking
What’s new at the FinOps Foundation Technical Advisory Council
How the FinOps Framework continues to evolve for practitioners

If you’re leading a FinOps practice or trying to make engineering collaboration part of your culture, this episode is full of practical, hard-won insights.

🎧 Subscribe for more FinOps leadership conversations → https://www.finopsinaction.com/

Quote of the Show:

"Engineers want to do the right thing. We don't want to do a bad job. If you give them the right incentives and they're prioritized to optimize things, then things will shine." - Tom Cross

Connect with Tom:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomcross/
Website: http://www.aerlingus.com

Ways to Tune In:

Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f25a9d18-c12f-4ee4-93f5-2aa96e509b55
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finops-in-action/id1790497808
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IpjMc3qxDXZAjic5Zq21t
Substack: https://finopsinaction.substack.com/
Transistor: finopsinaction.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PointFiveCloudCostEfficiency

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