ServiceNow CFO Gina Mastantuono: 14-Hour Days Don't Make Better Leaders

ServiceNow President and CFO Gina Mastantuono has attacked the corporate culture that rewards 14-hour days and four hours of sleep, calling it a damaging example for the people leaders manage.

"There's always been this idea that if you have to work 14-hour days and get four hours of sleep, that shows you're working the hardest and deserve the most," Mastantuono said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. "That is such a terrible example for the people around us."

Mastantuono leads finance at ServiceNow, a Fortune 500 company. She spoke on a panel alongside Olympic champion Janet Evans, now chief athlete officer for the LA28 organizing committee, and Alicia Hatch, Deloitte's U.S. sports chief commercial officer and women's sports leader.

Her core argument is simple: recovery is not a distraction from high performance; it is a prerequisite for it. Just as the body needs rest after exercise, professionals need time to recharge to stay effective over the long term. The claim is easy to make from a summit stage. What is harder to verify is whether companies will act on it.

What does recovery actually change?

Mastantuono said prioritizing recovery has improved her work-life balance, helped her listen more thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively, and kept her composed under pressure. She framed the benefits as extending past the individual to the teams she leads.

"When we do focus on taking care of ourselves, then we are much better bosses, much better colleagues, much better parents," she said.

Notably, she offered no structural proposals — no policy changes at ServiceNow, no targets for reduced hours. The testimony is personal, not corporate. That gap between personal practice and organizational change is where most wellness rhetoric stalls.

Why do athletes make better executives?

Hatch pressed the audience on a familiar executive experience: making high-stakes calls with incomplete information and people watching. "We face this every single day," she said.

She cited a striking statistic: "94% of female C-suite executives played sports growing up. And there's a reason for that." Sports, Hatch argued, builds confidence, teamwork and resilience. "But it's also an amazing simulator for making decisions under pressure, performing continuously, even with changing circumstances," she said.

Evans supplied a concrete case. When LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman approached her in 2015 about joining the bid to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles, the city faced a formidable rival in Paris for the 2024 Games. Rather than abandon the effort when Paris emerged as the likely winner, the team pivoted and secured the 2028 Games instead.

That episode, Evans said, reflected what athletes bring to leadership: persistence, faith in a goal, and the ability to pivot when circumstances change. Pursuing ambitious goals requires a willingness to take risks, work through setbacks and adapt.

How big is the money behind women's sports?

The panel's themes land as women's sports gain commercial traction. Deloitte projected earlier this year that global revenues from women's sports will reach at least $3 billion in 2026 — a 340% increase over four years. Soccer and basketball are expected to lead, each accounting for 35% of global women's sports revenue.

A $3 billion market in 2026 means women's sports revenue has more than quadrupled in four years. That growth is the commercial backdrop against which athletic leadership models are being marketed to executives.

The bottom line

For executives, the panel's message cuts two ways: build the resilience to perform under pressure, and recognize when to step back and recover. Whether boards treat recovery as seriously as revenue remains the unanswered question.