ServiceNow CFO Gina Mastantuono Challenges Overwork Culture

Corporate leaders routinely borrow sports metaphors to drive workplace performance, yet they largely ignore the physiological principle that makes elite athletic achievement possible: recovery. ServiceNow President and Chief Financial Officer Gina Mastantuono is pushing executives to dismantle a long-standing culture that rewards sleep deprivation as a badge of dedication.

Speaking Tuesday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Santa Barbara, California, Mastantuono told Deloitte U.S. Sports chief commercial officer Alicia Hatch that senior employees frequently model destructive behavior by normalizing 14-hour workdays sustained on four hours of sleep. She described the practice as a “terrible example” for surrounding teams, directly challenging the corporate mythology that equates exhaustion with commitment.

The financial technology sector has historically been among the most demanding environments for executive stamina. Software companies navigating rapid cloud migrations, artificial intelligence integrations, and constant shareholder scrutiny often cultivate intense operational tempos. ServiceNow, which provides enterprise cloud computing platforms for digital workflow management, operates precisely within this high-pressure landscape. Mastantuono’s public stance against chronic overwork carries particular weight given her dual role overseeing both financial strategy and broader presidential operations at the Santa Clara-based company.

Decades of organizational psychology research support her position. A University of Florida meta-analysis examining nearly 200 studies established that structured recovery from work correlates directly with improved sleep architecture, better mental health outcomes, and higher long-term life satisfaction. Despite this evidence, the translation from academic consensus to actual corporate behavior remains incomplete. Many organizations continue to implicitly reward presenteeism — the practice of remaining visible at work regardless of productivity or health consequences — through promotion cycles and compensation structures.

Mastantuono drew a direct parallel to exercise physiology to illustrate the gap in executive thinking. Skeletal muscle tissue does not hypertrophy during physical exertion; the mechanical stress of resistance training creates micro-tears, while the actual growth and strengthening occur exclusively during rest periods when the body synthesizes new proteins. Treating cognitive recovery as secondary to output fundamentally misunderstands how human neurobiology sustains complex problem-solving, emotional regulation, and strategic foresight over multi-year tenures.

For Mastantuono, prioritizing personal boundaries yielded measurable shifts in leadership execution. She credited improved work-life balance with sharpening her capacity to listen rather than react impulsively, maintaining composure under pressure, and ultimately enabling her teams to operate more effectively. The downstream impact extends beyond quarterly deliverables. Executives who regulate their own nervous systems tend to foster psychological safety within their departments, reducing turnover and preventing the cascading burnout that frequently destabilizes enterprise projects.

The friction between competitive drive and necessary downtime extends well beyond the technology sector. Janet Evans, a four-time Olympic swimming medalist now serving as chief athlete officer for LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games, acknowledged needing external intervention to step back despite decades of elite athletic conditioning. Evans recounted how LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover, a retired three-star U.S. Army Lieutenant General, regularly deploys military framing to de-escalate organizational panic. His reminder to Evans that “no one’s guns are drawn” serves as a tactical reset, forcing leaders to recognize when immediate action is unnecessary and deferred judgment produces superior results.

Hoover’s approach reflects broader shifts in institutional leadership doctrine. Modern military command structures have increasingly integrated human performance optimization programs that treat cognitive fatigue as a critical vulnerability rather than an acceptable cost of operations, a framework slowly migrating into civilian boardrooms.

Mastantuono continues to lead ServiceNow’s financial operations as the company navigates expanding enterprise AI deployments across its global client base.