GrowCFO Show

Gary Cokins is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in performance improvement systems and advanced cost management. He believes that many organizations are far from where they want and need to be to improve performance, and they apply intuition, rather than hard data, when making decisions. Gary explains why Enterprise performance management (EPM) provides a portfolio of managerial methods that can make a real difference. These include: strategy execution with a strategy map and its companion balanced scorecard (KPIs) and operational dashboards (PIs); enterprise risk management (ERM); capacity-sensitive driver-based budgets and rolling financial forecasts; product/service/channel / customer profitability analysis (using activity-based costing [ABC] principles); customer lifetime value (CLV); lean and Six Sigma quality management for operational improvement; and resource capacity spending planning. In this episode, we take a brief look at the tools and explore why many companies are slow to adopt them. Links Gary Cokins Website Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn CFO Competency Framework Business Strategy Boot Camp Timestamps 0:12 Gary’s background. 4:37 If your competitors are adopting and integrating all of these methods, they will have a competitive advantage -. 9:43 How do you solve the problem of a company that hasn’t adopted these methods? 13:52 The importance of understanding what people spend their time doing. 15:43 What is customer profitability? 19:21 How to make your customer more profitable. 23:02 Process improvement people get the benefit of the balanced scorecard. 26:27 Gary’s frustration with the slow adoption rate of ABC. 30:11 What might a CFO do in the next 100 days to start going down that journey?

Chris Roling is the CFO at Coinme. He has 25 years of commercial and private equity experience having served in board, CEO, COO, and CFO positions with a number of global public and private companies. His previous experience is deeply rooted in venture capital, making him an expert on the current state of investor funding and how to acquire it in a bear market. Chris provides some great insights into the following: What best practices and insights on critical strategies can assist companies in improving and sustaining their valuation/operations to attract investors What alternative fundraising strategies work in a disruptive market How to seek out and determine which investors best fit a company’s business model Chris Roling has also been a partner at Ernst and Young. We know from GowCFO research into routes to CFO that it’s very unusual for a resume to contain both CFO and Big 4 partner roles. We find out from Chris how that came about. Links Chris Roling on Linkedin Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Routes to CFO Research Report GrowCFO Fundraising Transaction Simulator GrowCFO Future CFO programme Timestamps 00:12 Welcome and introduction to Chris Roling. 02:38 How Chris became a CFO at a very senior level. 04:40 What does it mean to be a direct admit partner? 06:54 What is the current state of investor funding? 11:15 If you do not have enough cash runway you can get yourself into a predicament. 14:00 What is the difference between B2B and B2C companies? 16:19 How to separate the wheat from the chaff in the fintech space. 20:24 The importance of having a shortlist of investors to approach. 22:14 What you need to do to become investor friendly. 24:48 The importance of having a cash flow forecast.

They tell you never to meet your heroes. So did Kevin Appleby make a mistake inviting Laura Vanderkam on to the GrowCFO Show? You will have to listen to the episode and make up your own mind about that! Kevin recommends Laura’s book “168 Hours” every time he runs a module 3 workshop on GrowCFO’s Future CFO Programme. It’s essential reading if you need to find a few extra hours every week to sort out your own personal development and career progression. Laura tells us more about 168 hours in this week’s episode. Laura Vanderkam is a keynote speaker and author of multiple books. She is about to release her latest work “Tranquility By Tuesday” based on a time diary study of over 150 people. In the book, you’ll learn nine tried-and-true “rules” to easily build opportunities for joy, nourishment, and fulfilment into your schedule. These strategies will help you make what you want to happen, actually happen, instead of letting the minutiae of everyday life get in the way. Better still, listen to the podcast episode as Laura reveals to Kevin what all 9 rules are. These rules of course are of limited use to Kevin. He might get to have tranquillity next Tuesday, but his problem is he still can’t get the hang of Thursdays! Links Laura Vanderkam website Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Laura Vanderkam on Amazon UK and Amazon US GrowCFO Future CFO programme Timestamps 00:43 Why is Laura Vanderkam Kevin’s heroine? 01:35 Laura explains 168 Hours 03:40 How do you make time? 5:22 Doing a time audit 7:55 168 hours is a recommendation in Module 3 of the Future CFO Programme 09:15 The importance of a morning routine 12:31 Tranquility by Tuesday 14:10 The 9 different strategies or rules 15:20 Rule 1 – Give yourself a bedtime 15:50 Rule 2 – Plan on Fridays 18:44 Rule 3 – Move by 3pm 20:35 Rule 4 – Three times a week habit 23:00 Rule 5 – Create a backup slot 24:55 Rule 6 – One big adventure, one little adventure 27:27 Rule 7 – Take one night for you 29:37 Rule 8 – Batch the little things 31:20 Rule 9 – Effort full before effort less

Do you want to be a great finance business partner? If so, you’re in luck! In this episode, Oliver Deacon joins Kevin Appleby and gives us some great tips that will help improve your relationship with your colleagues in the rest of the business. Oliver Deacon is a member of the GrowCFO Mentoring team. He runs the GrowCFO Business Partnering Boot Camps and is a former FD at Microsoft. One of the most important things to remember when trying to become a great finance business partner is that communication is key. You need to be able to effectively communicate with your colleagues in order to build strong relationships. Make sure you are always clear and concise when conveying information, and take the time to listen to what others have to say. It is also important to be responsive to questions and concerns that your colleagues may have. It is also essential that you are able to build trust with your colleagues. This can be done by being honest and transparent in your dealings with them. Make sure you keep your promises and always follow through on what you say you will do. If there are ever any issues, make sure you deal with them in a timely and professional manner. Remember that it is important to show your colleagues that you are invested in the success of the organisation. This can be done by offering help and support when needed and being proactive in finding solutions to problems. Your job is to sell ideas and provide options. If you can do these things, you will be well on your way to becoming a great finance business partner. Building a strong relationship between finance and the rest of the business is essential for the success of your organisation. Listen in for some great information on how to make things work well between you and your fellow business managers! Links Oliver Deacon on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Business Partnering for Finance Teams Boot Camps Timestamps 00:43 What is a finance business partner? 02:11 About Oliver Deacon 03:26 How to become a great business partner? Where do you start? 03:59 Relationships and selling ideas 05:38 How do you start forming great relationships? 06:15 Asking questions, showing people you are interested in them 09:43 Can you figure out what your business partners’ biggest problems are? 10:39 Stop; Start; Continue 12:16 Turning data into insights 15:40 What are we going to do differently as a business? 16:38 Finance business partnering boot camp 18:48 How is the boot camp structured? 21:17 What’s covered in each workshop? 23:32 How do you attend a bootcamp? 24:41 What surprises people most on the boot camp?

100 Episodes of the GrowCFO Show, that’s 2 years’ worth of podcast episodes. Dan Wells, founder and CEO of GrowCFO joins regular podcast host Kevin Appleby to celebrate the milestone, reflect back on the last two years and talk about some new exciting developments in GrowCFO. Dan and Kevin both choose their favourite episodes of the GrowCFO Show. Dan decided on episode 95 where Catherine Clark, head of mentoring at GrowCFO, talked about making the best decision for both you and your business. Kevin selected episode 102, yes an episode that is yet to be published, where he managed to get a guest from his own bucket list on the show. We’ll leave you to wait another two weeks to find out who it is. The clue is Kevin talks about her book every time he delivers module 3 of the Future CFO Programme. Three significant milestones arrive all at the same time. As well as the 100th episode of the GrowCFO Show we’ve published two great new resources. The first is a 100-page book that describes the CFO Competency Framework. The second is a white paper examining the career paths of 500 CFOs and exploring the many different career routes available to get to the top job in finance. Both have just been made available to download on the GrowCFO website Links Dan Wells on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Become a free member of GrowCFO Dan’s Favourite episode (episode 95) CFO Competency Framework New free resources: The GrowCFO CFO Competency Framework eBook and Career Routes to CFO report Future CFO programme Timestamps 01:40 Two years ago, what was the original vision for GrowCFO? 03:17 How did Dan and Kevin end up working together? 06:02 Working with interesting people who simply want to give something back 07:23 Our favourite episodes of the GrowCFO Show 11:38 Whats GrowCFO all about? 16:19 plans for the next 2 years 17:19 The CFO Competency Framework 21:57 New research: What’s the optimum size for your finance function 24:56 Virtual Boardroom and Fundraising Simulator 25:34 Boot Camps for both Strategy and Finance Business Partnering

Alex Budak joins the GrowCFO show on the same day that his new book “Becoming a Changemaker” is published. Quite a coup for the podcast! The book is an excellent read for anyone wanting to become a changemaker, in particular for finance leaders wanting to enhance their ability to be a catalyst for change. As a faculty member at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Alex created and teaches the wildly popular course “Becoming a Changemaker,” which has quickly grown into one of the most highly-rated courses anywhere on campus. The course is regularly heralded by students as “transformative” and “life-changing” but has only been accessible to students attending UC Berkeley. That all changes from today as the course is condensed into a book accessible by anyone. The Becoming a Changemaker playbook is a guide for anyone looking to lead positive change. It covers the mindsets and leadership skills needed to navigate, shape, and lead change, as well as how to thrive in uncertain times. The book is tailored to millennials and Gen Zers who are leaving school and entering the workforce. It is based on the popular UC Berkeley course by the same name, which students have praised as transformative and life-changing. Links Alex Budak on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Competency Framework Becoming a Changemaker on Amazon UK and Amazon USA Timestamps 00:51 Alex explains his background 02:26 Book being published on 13 September 2022 04:05 Change and the CFO 06:17 Technology and change 10:02 Can the changemaker skill be learned? 10:36 The Changemaker index 12:33 Dealing with resistance to change 15:06 Involving people in the change 18:28 Champions, fence-sitters and cynics 23:03 Impact = (mindset+leadership) x action 25:24 Who is the book aimed at? 28:06 How did you get involved in teaching “Changemaker”?

Jeremy Foster is an unusual CFO, he isn’t an accountant and doesn’t have a finance background. His origins are in sales and marketing. He changed course following an MBA at Notre Dame and has subsequently become a highly successful finance leader with strong strategic capabilities and significant M&A experience. Jeremy has been instrumental in multiple equity rounds, debt recaps, and a 9-digit platform sale to PE. Jeremy’s main interest is working with an organisation that wants to drive massive growth. He will typically be brought on board by a CEO who wants a co-pilot to go on that journey. In this episode, we talk about how Jeremy is currently doing that at Talroo and how that differs from his approach at previous companies Homeward and Kasasa. He explains how he operates as a strategic partner to the CEO and gives us some great insights to the thought process a CFO needs in helping build and drive strategy. We explore some of the key KPIs you need to understand when investing in customer acquisition, and we talk about the theory of constraints. Jeremy shows how the skills he learned as a marketing director are extremely valuable to a CFO too. Links Jeremy Foster on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Talroo.com GrowCFO Strategy Programme Timestamps 00:53 A background in marketing for a bank 01:29 Did you miss out by not having an accounting background? 02:13 What role do you play as a non-accounting CFO? 04:01 Blitz scaling 05:26 The three big KPIs you need to know 07:53 Profit per customer 10:25 Jeremy Foster’s experience growing the business at Kasasa 12:39 What issues do such rapid growth bring? 15:53 Thinking about communication channels 18:38 The theory of constraints 19:50 The importance of good relationships 21:50 The role of a finance business partner 23:03 What advice would you give to a CFO coming through a more traditional route than yourself? 24:55 What’s the role of the CFO in driving a high-growth business strategy?

Danielle Keeven has had quite a journey to get to her current role as VP of Finance at paddle.com. She has crossed the globe and changed industry sectors. She has gone from roles in large multinationals to working in high-growth startups. Danielle shares her experiences with Kevin Appleby on this week’s GrowCFO Show. Originally working in the Caribbean for large US multinationals such as Marriott and Hyatt, Danielle swapped to working in Europe for booking.com, then moved out of hospitality completely to work in fintech. This was a huge change and she tells us all about the challenges she faced in the episode. Danielle Keeven is currently VP of finance at paddle.com. Paddle offers SaaS companies a completely different way to sell. Instead of assembling and maintaining a complex stack of payments-related apps and services, Paddle provides an all-in-one solution. Danielle explains how her finance expertise is applied to the design of the product as well as to running the finance team. We discuss in detail the problems that products like Paddle solve for SaaS founders, and some of the mistakes Danielle has seen these companies make. Links Danielle Keeven on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Paddle.com GrowCFO Future CFO Programme GrowCFO Strategy Programme CFO Competency Framework Free Course: First 100 Days in your new finance role Timestamps 01:00 Born in the Netherlands, growing up in the Caribbean 01:42 The accidental accountant 02:59 Hospitality: Hyatt and Marriott 03:45 Move to Europe and the tech side of Hospitality 05:00 Accounts receivable in a SaaS business 06:41 moving from Booking.com to Messagebird 09:23 Why did you join paddle.com? 11:47 What does Paddle do? 13:18 The complexities of online business and global tax rules 16:13 Will you move on from VP Finance to a full CFO role? 17:19 Roald Dahl’s Matilda 19:13 What sort of mistakes do you see fast-growing SaaS companies making? 22:06 Building a strategy for internationalisation 23:15 Giving SaaS businesses the right data insights 25:26 What advice would you give other finance people looking to move to CFO roles 26:41 GrowCFO Competency framework 27:15 The art of delegation 30:33 The finance leader and fraud

The role of a finance transformation leader is a complex one. It requires someone with great technical skills, as well as strong people skills. A successful finance transformation leader must be able to manage and motivate their team, while also being able to communicate effectively with other members of the organization. Toni Betts, group finance director at The Travel Chapter is one of those successful transformation leaders and she shares her journey with Kevin Appleby on this episode of The GrowCFO Show. One of the most important qualities of a successful finance transformation leader is the ability to manage and motivate their team. A finance transformation is a complex undertaking that requires the efforts of many individuals. A great leader will be able to keep their team on track and focused on the goal. They will also be able to motivate their team when things get tough. In addition to being a great manager, a finance transformation leader must also be an effective communicator. This is important because they will need to communicate with other members of the organization, such as the CEO and CFO. They will also need to communicate with vendors and other outside parties. Effective communication is essential for ensuring that everyone is on the same page and that the transformation goes smoothly. Great people skills are essential for anyone looking to lead a finance transformation. A successful leader will be able to manage and motivate their team, while also being an effective communicator. If you have these qualities, then you may be well suited for this important role. Links Toni Betts on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Future CFO Programme Free Course: First 100 Days in your new finance role Susan Jeffers – Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action on Amazon UK and Amazon US Timestamps 01:39 Toni’s new group FD role 02:04 When did you decide to become an accountant? 04:50 Qualifying in an audit practice 06:52 Toni’s first role outside practice and moving on to join American Express 08:10 Being part of a great leadership programme 09:46 Stepping out of your comfort zone: You need to get comfortable with leadership skills and push yourself to use them 11:32 Susan Jeffers – Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway 12:03 Moving on from American Express 15:09 Becoming a finance transformation expert 16:43 Learning from experience 20:24 Some of the practical challenges of transforming finance teams 24:14 Technology is forcing finance to change 25:03 What advice would you give other finance leaders? 27:42 Personal Awareness and feedback from others 29:01 The importance of how you present over what you are presenting 30:45 What does Toni Betts do to avoid stress and burnout? 32:37 What’s the biggest challenge in your new group FD role?

Are you in control of your own life, or are the demands of all the other things around you taking over? Too much pressure at work to have a personal life? Perhaps you aren’t feeling fulfilled? If any of that describes you then it’s time to take control back and make decisions that benefit you and not just your organisation. In this episode, Catherine Clark joins us to talk about the importance of making the right decisions for your own wellbeing. She draws on both her own personal experience as a CFO and the situations she comes across every week when she is mentoring other finance leaders. If you aren’t happy with where you are right now it’s time to do something about it and take action. Catherine has some great advice to offer about how to find out what you really want and then take the right steps to get there. We talk about the importance of having the right mindset, and the importance of stepping forward even when there might be fear and uncertainty. This is the third episode in a mini-series looking at your well-being. In the previous two episodes, we’ve looked at resilience with Leanne Spencer and self-awareness with Susana Serrano-Davey. Links Mentoring at GrowCFO with Catherine Clark Catherine Clark on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Susan Jeffers – Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action on Amazon UK and Amazon US Timestamps 01:50 Are you feeling dissatisfied? 03:14 Getting in touch with your feelings 04:00 Go with your gut and your subconscious mind 06:03 Having the right people around you to support you 08:40 Some examples of situations people find themselves in 10:17 The decision isn’t about moving on and changing job 12:01 The mindset shift that’s needed 14:52 The fear of change, doing things differently, making a mistake 15:50 What do you need to stop doing? start doing? continue doing? 16:15 What do you want? 17:16 Overwhelm 18:12 Feel the fear and do it anyway 20:33 Where do you want to be in 3 years’ time? 23:15 Do you stay? Do you move on? 24:50 You can’t lose, just make a decision! 27:06 What do you do after you make a decision? 29:32 Some practical exercises you can do right now

Self-awareness is key for well-being. When you know yourself well, you can make better decisions and thrive in all areas of your life – including your career. As a finance leader, it’s important to be self-aware so that you can set realistic goals and healthily manage stress. In this episode, Susana Serrano-Davey, our very own Executive Coach & Mentor at GrowCFO joins Kevin Appleby once again to discuss the importance of self-awareness as a cornerstone for wellbeing. We discuss the importance of self-awareness and how it can help you achieve success both professionally and personally. Susana gives some great advice on some practical things you can do to be more self-aware Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly and understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. It’s an important part of well-being because it allows you to make healthy choices, set realistic goals, and healthily manage stress. When you’re self-aware, you’re more likely to achieve your goals and be successful in all areas of your life. There are many benefits of self-awareness, but here are a few key ones: When you’re self-aware, you can make better decisions. You know your strengths and weaknesses, so you can make choices that are in line with your values and goals. When you’re self-aware, you’re more resilient. You know your triggers and how to manage them, so you’re less likely to be derailed by setbacks. When you’re self-aware, you have a better understanding of other people. You can see things from their perspective and build relationships that are based on trust and mutual respect. Self-awareness is an important part of well-being, and it’s something that you can work on every day. Susana gives us some practical strategies: Get feedback, how do people perceive you? Understand your feelings, and why you feel a certain way Learn more about your personality Make sure you meet your own needs before others Listen to the full episode to find out more. Links Mentoring at GrowCFO with Susana Serrano-Davey Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Episode 93 with Leanne Spencer on Well-being Episode 74 Personality types with Merrick Rosenberg Episode 71 Strengthsfinder with Jim Brophy 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam on Amazon UK and Amazon US Timestamps 00:41 The previous episode with Leanne Spencer about well-being and beating burnout 01:15 No point in achieving your goals and being unhappy 03:37 You really need to know more about yourself 05:22 How others perceive us 10:03 Getting feedback from others 13:45 Becoming aware of your personality type 16:47 Using personality profiling tests (we referenced DISC and Strengthsfinder tests covered in previous episodes with Merrick Rosenberg and Jim Brophy) 19:16 Connect with your feelings 21:43 The link between a crisis and becoming depressed 23:04 Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) 24:34 Understand your needs 28:04 Dealing with recurring issues and problems 30:33 Making time and space for yourself 34:01 Susana’s book

CFOs and finance leaders are under more pressure than ever before. They are responsible for ensuring the financial stability of their company, and often have to make tough decisions that can impact the bottom line. This high level of responsibility can take a toll, and many CFOs and finance leaders find themselves struggling with burnout. In this episode, Leanne Spencer, an award-winning entrepreneur and a key-note wellbeing speaker and burnout prevention expert joins Kevin Appleby to discuss how to better manage stress, prioritize recovery and ultimately reduce the risk of burnout. Burnout can have a significant impact on CFOs and finance leaders. When individuals are burned out, they may feel exhausted, both physically and emotionally. They may also feel cynical or negative about their work and may have difficulty concentrating or making decisions. Burnout can lead to absenteeism, staff turnover, and a decrease in productivity. It can also adversely affect an individual’s health. But what action can you take to protect yourself? Leanne has plenty of answers! You need to increase your resilience. But what does that actually mean in practice? Lots of people talk about being more resilient, but few people have their own practical strategies to make it happen. Leanne talks about giving yourself slivers of recovery. Time for yourself every single day. A small part of your overall bandwidth. These slivers can have a very significant impact on your overall wellbeing Links Leanne Spencer on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Cadence: the secret to beating burnout and performing in life and work on Amazon UK and Amazon US Rise and Shine: Recover from burnout and get back to your best on Amazon UK and Amazon US Mentoring at GrowCFO Timestamps 00:39 About Leanne Spencer and Bear Grylls 01:24 Remember what is first for you 02:34 How does this apply to finance leaders? 05:20 Slivers of recovery 07:20 Learning from elite athletes 10:28 How do you recover when there’s always something else to do? 11:30 The golden hour before sleep 16:30 Turn off notifications 18:41 Simple things done every day 23:00 Decompress at the end of the day 24:17 Alchohol, good or bad? 25:26 Cadence, the overall message in the book 27:44 A business book needs to be short and easily digestible 29:24 Cadence: the secret to beating burnout and performing in life and work

As a CFO in a fast-growing business, you have a lot on your plate. You are responsible for ensuring that the company is making money and growing at a healthy rate. But what if you could take your career to the next level by having a mentor? A mentor can help you learn new skills, make important connections, and give you guidance when it comes to difficult decisions. Ian Simpkin specialises in mentoring CFOs who find themselves in that exact situation. Ian Simpkin is one of GrowCFO’s experienced CFO mentors. In this episode, he joins Kevin Appleby to discuss how he mentors CFOs in fast-growing businesses. We talk about his career and experiences and how this impacts his approach to mentoring. Ian, a Chartered Accountant (FCA), qualified with KPMG and trained at Insead in their International Executive Program. He has over 25 years of finance director experience and was European CFO of a Nasdaq 100 multinational during rapid growth from $20 to $450m. Ian has a great practical understanding of driving business growth, fundraising, acquisitions and exit planning. Besides mentoring new CFOs, he advises SMEs on financial strategies to help grow their businesses. He is passionate about helping his mentees develop their skills and expertise to realise their potential and provide Board level strategic advice. Links Mentoring at GrowCFO  Meet the GrowCFO mentors The CFO Competency framework Ian Simpkin on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:57 Introducing Ian Simpkin 02:00 Growing a company from $20m to $400m 03:11 Making acquisitions to grow 04:20 What challenges do you deal with day to day as a mentor and portfolio CFO? 05:28 How do you approach mentoring? 06:52 What are the biggest issues you find with CFOs in their first role? 07:57 The CFO competency framework 10:00 The CFO as a strategic business partner 11:48 Ian Simpkin outside the office 13:16 Why choose Ian as a mentor?

One of the biggest challenges of financial modelling is creating models that are accurate and realistic. Financial modellers need to have a good understanding of all of the different formulas and functions in order to create an accurate model. Many people, even experienced modellers, use less than 5% of the functions available. Excel models need to be properly structured too so that others can easily validate them, and they can be checked for errors. There are lots to learn about, and many tips and tricks that can make your life much easier. That’s why Myles Arnott and Giles Male set up Full Stack Modeller. In this episode, Kevin Appleby chats to Miles and Giles to discover more about the challenges of building great financial models in Excel and how the Full Stack Modeller training and community of members can help you. We teach financial modelling basics in GrowCFO’s finance team training, but if you want to develop really deep specialist modelling skills Full Stack is the place to go. If you want to join Full Stack Modeller’s next cohort this coupon code will give you 15% off: GROWCFO15AUG. Registration opens on 8th August. Full Stack Modeller will give you: Excel Mastery. From core function knowledge and confident use of Excel Tables and Pivot Tables, to a truly unique way to develop your shortcut and navigation skill mastery. the major modelling standards, setting you up for more advanced modelling exercises to come further on in your journey. Advanced Financial Modelling. Covering the fundamentals of three statement modelling, valuations, scenarios & sensitivities, and more. Data Visualisation & Analytics. How to use Power BI to analyse data, and we help you understand how best to share your insights with others. These are skills that are rare to find, even amongst very talented and experienced modellers. Listen to the full episode to find out more. Links Giles Male on LinkedIn Myles Arnott on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO for Finance Teams Find out more about Full Stack Modeller (use coupon code GROWCFO15AUG to get 15% off at checkout) Timestamps 01:04 About Full Stack Modeller 03:37 What are financial models used for? 04:50 Don’t most people teach themselves how to use Excel? 07:30 Power Query 09:48 What about apps that replace Excel? 11:40 What bad habits do self-taught experienced modellers generally have? 13:12 The problem of too much data 15:05 Data visualisation 18:55 How do you teach modelling when there are so many different applications of models? 20:40 Trapping errors in models 26:34 What are the 5 or 6 key things we really need to know? 29:11 The danger of a single Excel guru in a company

It’s no secret that boardroom experience is important for aspiring CFOs. But what happens when you don’t have access to boardrooms? How can you overcome this obstacle and get the experience you need? In this episode Dan Wells, founder and CEO of GrowCFO, joins Kevin Appleby to discuss the launch of GrowCFO’s Virtual Boardroom. Over 80% of aspiring and first-time finance leaders have little or no boardroom experience. Very few have conquered the most common challenges regularly faced by CFOs during board meetings. This lack of exposure can easily prevent you from landing your dream CFO role, or negatively affect your performance during difficult boardroom situations within your existing finance role. GrowCFO’s Virtual Boardroom provides you with essential first-hand experience of dealing with real-life boardroom challenges that most CFOs encounter early on in their finance leader career. If you’re serious about becoming a CFO, don’t let a lack of boardroom experience hold you back. There are plenty of ways to gain the experience you need, even if you don’t have direct access to boardrooms. The GrowCFO Virtual Boardroom can help you get the confidence you need in the boardroom. In addition you should seek out opportunities to present to boards. Get involved with organizations that focus on board governance, and network with experienced board members. With some effort and perseverance, you can overcome this obstacle and take your career to the next level. Links Dan Wells on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Virtual Boardroom Find out more about becoming a CFO Timestamps 00:52 What is the Virtual Boardroom? 03:20 The CFO wears 2 hats in the boardroom 04:49 How does the Virtual Boardroom work? 06:08 Does it involve a lot of prep like a real board meeting? 08:52 Dealing with the different perspectives of individual board members 11:56 What time commitment do you need in order to participate? 14:04 The Virtual Boardroom is supported by online learning 16:16 The role of professional mentors in the Virtual Boardroom 17:39 How to find out more

As finance leaders, we are always looking for ways to help our businesses grow. But in order to grow, we need to have a clear strategy in place. Without a strategy, it’s difficult to set goals and measure progress. And without communication, it’s impossible to get everyone on the same page. That’s where strategy software comes in. Strategy software helps you document your strategy and communicate it effectively to everyone involved. In this episode Tom Ricca-McCarthy, Co-Founder at Lucidity joins Kevin Appleby. We talk about how to build an effective strategy and how the Lucidity software app can support you in documenting and communicating the strategy. There are many benefits of using strategy software. Perhaps the most important benefit is that it helps you document your strategy. This is crucial because a documented strategy gives you a roadmap to follow as you execute your growth plans. It also allows you to track your progress and make changes as needed. Another important benefit of strategy software is that it helps you communicate your strategy effectively. This is essential because, without communication, it’s impossible to get everyone on the same page. Strategy software makes it easy to share your strategy with your team or stakeholders and get their feedback. This way, you can ensure that everyone is on board with your growth plans. Tom relates the story of needing to present the strategy for his own business and everything he needed was scattered across a whole collection of slide decks, spreadsheets and word documents. Lucidity was born out of the need to have a single place to document and then communicate everything to do with the strategic plan. GrowCFO is running quarterly strategy bootcamps. In a series of workshops over the course of a week we help you get to grips with building a strategy for your business and documenting it using Lucidity. There’s a link below if you want to find out more. Links Tom Ricca-McCarthy on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Find out more about Lucidity strategy software The GrowCFO Strategy Programme Join a GrowCFO Strategy Bootcamp Timestamps 01:23 About Tom Ricca-McCarthy 02:50 Putting a turnaround strategy in place in one of his former companies 04:12 The idea for Lucidity 05:44 Strategy is a broad activity using lots of different tools 08:30 Why you need everything in one place 10:18 SWOT, PESTLE, 5 Forces scattered across multiple documents 14:07 Its not just the analysis, it’s about executing the plan too 14:31 Tracking the KPIs and milestones 16:30 Scenario planning 17:45 GrowCFO strategy bootcamp 23:17 The CFO strategy survey 25:30 The communication challenge 28:23 Stop Start Continue 30:06 A single source of the truth 34:21 What’s next for Tom and Lucidity? 38:30 A balanced set of objectives and OKRs 44:48 The strategy execution gap

How Can CFOs Use the P = Potential – Interference Formula to Boost Team Performance? CFO Julian O’Neill uses the principle of Performance = Potential – Interference (P = P – I) to unlock greater productivity and mindset shifts in his finance team. By identifying and reducing internal and external interference — from negative thoughts to environmental distractions — finance leaders can help teams perform at their highest potential. This episode explores how to apply the formula in real-world leadership and personal development. In order to achieve success, you must remove any interference that stands in the way of your potential. This is the principle of performance = potential – interference, or P=P-I for short. This equation is a simple but powerful way to think about success and how to achieve it. In this episode, Kevin Appleby is joined by Julian O’Neill and we look at how Julian uses P=P-I every day to get the best out of his finance team and others that work with him. We discuss the factors that contribute to interference and how you can eliminate them to reach your full potential. Interference can come from many sources. It can be external, such as the people and environment around you, or it can be internal, such as your own thoughts and emotions. Both types of interference can prevent you from reaching your potential and achieving success. External interference is often beyond your control. You may not be able to change the people or circumstances around you, but you can control how you react to them. Internal interference is entirely within your control. Your thoughts and emotions are yours to choose from, so make sure they are positive and supportive of your goals. Whenever you find yourself facing interference, remember the P=P-I equation. Performance = Potential – Interference. Eliminate the interference and reach your full potential. You are capable of great things. Go out and achieve them. Julian O’Neill is CFO of Ardent Hire Solutions and previously appeared on episode 81 of The GrowCFO Show where he described his career path to his current CFO role. Links Julian O’Neill on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Episode 81 My journey to CFO with Julian O’Neill 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam on Amazon UK and Amazon USA Timestamps 01:02 What is P=P-I 04:35 Examples of things that cause interference 08:45 Start Stop Continue 10:10 The importance of “Stop” and making space for new things 11:12 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam – Do an audit of how you use your time 11:40 Getting rid of unnecessary tasks and meetings 16:00 Long hours at work are counterproductive 19:11 The need to be flexible with time 22:12 Finding space to think 26:00 What defines potential? 28:41 Most people dont show up to do a poor job 30:30 Sensing when somebody isn’t quite right 32:28 The complication of working remotely

Do you have a strategy? If so, congratulations – you’re ahead of the curve. Many businesses don’t take the time to develop a strategy, and as a result, they struggle to achieve their goals. But having a strategy is only half the battle; the other half is making sure that your strategy is executed properly. In this blog post, we’ll talk about how to close the strategy execution gap and turn your plans into results! Benjamin Wann is an expert at closing the strategy execution gap. He is a CPA and has written several books, including Getting Shit Done: The No-Nonsense Framework for Closing the Strategy Execution Gap which is the subject of this episode of The GrowCFO Show. The strategy execution gap is the difference between where a company wants to be and where it actually is. This gap can be caused by a number of factors, including unclear goals, inadequate resources, and poor communication. But regardless of the cause, the result is always the same: Your company isn’t achieving its full potential. So how can you close the strategy execution gap? Here are a few tips: Define your goals clearly. If your employees don’t know what they’re supposed to be working towards, they can’t possibly achieve it. Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Allocate the necessary resources. Your strategy won’t get very far if you don’t have the people, money, and time to make it happen. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Make sure everyone involved in your strategy knows what their role is and what they’re supposed to be doing. regular check-ins will help keep everyone on track. Be flexible. Things will inevitably change as you’re trying to execute your strategy. Be prepared to make adjustments along the way. Closing the strategy execution gap can be a challenge, but it’s worth it. By taking the time to implement a solid strategy, you’ll ensure that your business is able to achieve its full potential. Listen to the full episode. We dive deep into these points and many more. Links How GrowCFO can help you build and execute your strategy Getting Shit Done: The No-Nonsense Framework for Closing the Strategy Execution Gap on Amazon UK and Amazon US Benjamin Wann’s other books on Amazon UK and Amazon US 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam on Amazon UK and Amazon USA Benjamin Wann on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 01:02 Introducing Benjamin Wann 02:46 Everything in life is a project! 03:15 Ben’s books 06:22 Getting Shit Done 08:15 You have designed the strategy. What comes next? 08:42 Many organisations don’t actually have a strategy 10:57 In its most basic form, what is a business strategy? 12:09 The strategy execution gap 13:57 Who does what and by when? 16:39 Time is limited. How do you prioritise? 17:16 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam 19:47 Mindset for achieving the milestones you need to reach 23:10 Napoleon’s army and empowerment 23:47 Strategy lessons from the US Civil War 24:54 The need for flexibility in the plan 26:48 What gets measured gets done 28:00 Rats in Hanoi: Why linking measurement to reward can be very dangerous 31:44 It’s all about communicating effectively 35:00 Use e-mail properly 36:19 Create the right culture 40:00 The role of the CFO in strategy execution

Strategy is the backbone of any successful business. Without a strategy in place, it can be difficult to make decisions and achieve your goals. Many CEOs try to implement the strategy on their own, but this can be difficult if you don’t have the right tools and resources. In this episode, we will discuss how to embed strategy in your business and make sure that it is a part of everything that you do! The strategy should be embedded in every facet of your business, from the way you set goals to the way you communicate with customers. By embedding strategy into your business, you will be able to make better decisions, achieve your goals, and improve your overall performance. There are a few key steps that you can take to embed strategy in your business: Define what strategy means for your business Without a clear understanding of what strategy is, it can be difficult to implement it effectively. Take some time to sit down and define what strategy means for your company. What are your goals? What are the most important things that you want to achieve? Once you have a good understanding of what strategy is and what it means for your business, you will be able to start embedding it into your operations. Make strategy a part of your decision-making process One of the most important ways to embed strategy in your business is to make it a part of your decision-making process. Whenever you are faced with a decision, big or small, take some time to think about how it will impact your strategy. What are the risks and opportunities associated with this decision? By taking the time to consider these things, you will be able to make better decisions that align with your strategy. Communicate your strategy to everyone in your company It is important that everyone in your company is aware of your strategy and knows how it affects their day-to-day work. Hold strategy meetings, send out regular emails or memos, and post your strategy on your company’s intranet. The more people that are aware of your strategy, the more likely they are to help you achieve it. These are just a few of the ways that you can embed strategy in your business. We talk about much more in the episode, so listen in and find out more. Susana Serrano-Davey is an experienced CFO and a member of the GrowCFO professional mentoring team. If you are interested in having Susana as a mentor then please get in touch using the link below. Kevin Appleby is GrowCFO’s business strategy mentor and runs the GrowCFO Strategy Programme. Links How GrowCFO can help you build and execute your strategy Mentoring at GrowCFO with Susana Serrano-Davey Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 01:30 What is strategy? 03:55 How do you go about building and deploying a strategy? 04:01 Three typical scenarios 05:28 What about the business that’s in trouble and needs a turnaround strategy? 08:04 What does the CFO need from the strategy? 08:59 The objectives are clear, but how do we achieve them? 09:50 The power of a simple SWOT analysis 12:32 Achieving a balance between growing revenue and cutting cost 13:42 The role of the Zero-Based Budget 17:24 The need to be constantly aware of new challenges and adapt the strategy 19:34 The danger of not implementing change in the good times 21:53 The difficulty of restructuring when the business is losing money 24:34 Strategy and the high growth business 26:38 The CFO as the challenger of strategy 28:07 Measuring the right things and understanding cause and effect 30:02 What are the 3 or 4 most useful tools to use?

How Did Jimmy Vassilas Go from Big 4 Auditor to CFO of SantéVet? Jimmy Vassilas’ journey from audit to CFO is anything but linear. In this episode of The GrowCFO Show, he shares how strategic horizontal moves, international assignments, and a deep focus on tech shaped his career. From qualifying as a Canadian Chartered Accountant at Deloitte to rising through Autodesk into CFO roles at Receipt Bank, Zappi, and now SantéVet — Jimmy’s story shows that agility, openness to change, and strong FP&A skills are essential ingredients for modern CFO leadership. Jimmy Vassilas started his career in Montreal, Canada. He qualified as a Canadian Chartered Accountant with Deloitte majoring in high tech and telecoms. High tech has remained the focus of his career ever since. Jimmy’s CFO roles include Receipt Bank; Zappi; and most recently SantéVet. Jimmy joined Autodesk and then moved to Europe temporarily to cover maternity leave. The person on maternity leave never returned to work and Jimmy never returned to Canada. In the episode, we reflect on how unexpected things like this often have the biggest impact on your career path. His journey takes him from external audit to internal audit. Subsequent job changes take him into FP&A and several senior management roles. Jimmy achieved many of these by moving horizontally rather than vertically within Autodesk, eventually becoming Autodesk’s finance director. Links Jimmy Vassilas on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO CFO Competency Framework Find out more about becoming a CFO Timestamps 01:21 Jimmy’s early career in audit 05:35 Internal audit to FP&A and 17 years in Autodesk 07:35 Are horizontal moves worth taking? 08:49 The 9 competencies of a CFO 09:29 The number one complaint CEOs have about CFOs 11:26 Is 17 years too long in a single organisation? 14:00 So why leave after 17 years? 16:07 Becoming CFO in an organisation funded by venture capital. 19:04 SantéVet and a move to France 20:46 The challenges of being CFO in a high growth tech company 21:49 The importance of shared values within the business 23:11 The importance of being a business partner 25:00 What’s the best advice you would give somebody at the start of their journey? 29:00 The importance of networking and maintaining connections

Richard Haywood left school at 18 and started work as a trainee accountant in a manufacturing business. He studied for the ACCA qualification on day-release. His route to qualification took 5 years and he moved to become a financial controller in the record industry at a time of huge change from vinyl to CD. His challenge, keep his manufacturing unit viable and one of the last vinyl production facilities operating. Polydor Records gave way to the Mecca Organisation. Richard became responsible for the finances of nightclubs; bingo halls and restaurants. It introduced him to the world of mergers and acquisitions. A move to CFO soon followed. Richard took a job in the Bahamas at a leisure park and Zoo. Not many people can say they have been CFO of a Zoo. Richard Haywood can! Back in London, Richard continued his career as a divisional CFO in several business units in BT Global Services before moving on to become CFO in a much smaller communications company. In the episode, we talk about the skills you need to deal with people. Those people range from trade unions to investors and board members. We talk about managing change and the advice Richard would give to a mentee or to a younger version of himself. Links Richard Haywood on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Find out more about becoming a CFO Timestamps 00:57 Starting accountancy training at 18, straight from school 01:57 The first job change 05:18 Changing the business model to survive; learning to manage conflict and deal with trade unions 08:42 Richard’s goal to become a CFO 10:00 Bingo Halls, Nightclubs and Restaurants; learning about M&A 12:48 How to move from manufacturing to entertainment 14:52 What makes a good CFO? 16:49 The skills needed to deal with investors and board members 20:31 Richard’s first CFO role. A Zoo in the Bahamas 27:05 Moving back to a Telco in London 26:17 Cost review of a Zoo 29:36 What advice would you give a mentee about managing change? 34:05 What’s in it for me? 37:07 What advice would you give a younger version of yourself?

Many people gain experience by changing jobs and moving between organisations. Tony Fossey took the opposite approach and forged his early career rising through the ranks in a single company. He joined Halliburton, part of civil engineering giant KBR when he left school in 1976 and remained in KBR for the next 29 years. Tony took advantage of the size of the organisation he joined to get a wide range of experience in both finance and commercial roles. He worked internationally in several different roles with increasing seniority. Tony is highly experienced and has operated at the CFO level for well over 20 years. He shares some great insights into what makes a good CFO and the type of experience a prospective CFO should seek out as their career progresses. Listen to the full episode to find out more Links Tony Fossey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Find out more about becoming a CFO Timestamps 01:08 Leaving school and joining a finance team 03:02 Tony’s first commercial role 06:30 FD, CFO, and VP of Finance. Is there a difference? 07:56 The importance of a professional qualification 10:08 Length of time between qualifying and taking on a number one finance role 13:10 What makes a good CFO? 16:48 Working with the board and non-executive directors 19:30 Get away from your desk and out into the organisation 21:33 Developing a reliable number two 22:18 How often should you change jobs? 25:35 Where does Tony Fossey work these days? 28:54 The importance of having fun and enjoying what you do

Manu Gupta has acted as CFO of several high growth businesses including MyDrive Solutions, GridDuck, and Brisk. He shares his unusual journey to his first CFO role and becoming a board advisor. Manu isn’t from a traditional accountancy background. He started his career in sales. A finance-based MBA then took Manu into a career in management consulting. He chose to leave consulting and move to a startup. The startup needed a finance team ahead of a Series A investment. Manu’s job was to create that team. Manu regards himself as a generalist and really enjoys the variety of challenges the CFO role offers him. We talk about how to become sufficiently rounded to do all the things a generalist CFO needs to do well. We also examine Manu’s skills as a management consultant and understand how he applied those to be a dynamic finance leader. Manu talks about the attitudes and skills a modern CFO needs to bring to the role. He has much to share. Listen to the full episode to find out more, including passions and lessons learned that come straight from the cricket field!  Links Manu Gupta on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Find out more about becoming a CFO The CFO as co-pilot to the CEO Timestamps 00:59 How did you become a CFO? 02:35 From sales to finance 03:35 Manu’s mantra: “I find myself in places I’ve not been before” 04:36 Becoming a well-rounded generalist 05:00 An MBA in finance leads to a career in consultancy 06:10 Opportunity to work in a startup and create a finance team ahead of a Series A fundraise 07:16 Advantages & disadvantages of an accountancy qualification and background 09:22 Leveraging skills learned as a consultant 11:06 What attitudes and skills do modern CFOs need? 11:45 Being a business partner and helping others make decisions 13:36 How to engage with others 16:04 Managing your energy 17:13 Managing situations with customers 20:40 Working with the SLT beyond just finance 22:21 Acting as a non-exec alongside being an operational CFO 25:27 Having an impact 25:51 Ben Stokes – lessons from the cricket field 28:45 What are you passionate about? 31:31 The Godfather and the CFO

What Can You Learn from Julian O’Neill’s Journey from IT Director to CFO? Julian O’Neill’s unconventional route to CFO — via IT leadership and a brief stint as CEO — offers a powerful reminder that finance careers aren’t always linear. In this episode of The GrowCFO Show, Julian shares the pivotal decisions, career shifts, and lessons that shaped his path to CFO at Ardent Hire Solutions. His story shows how commercial experience outside of finance can set you apart and prepare you for executive leadership. It’s a very small world. As guest Julian O’Neill and host, Kevin Appleby discovered in the first few minutes of the episode. 20 years ago they both worked for PwC Consulting and were on the same client project in the Ministry of Defence. Before that, they were both accountants in manufacturing businesses. But since that brief spell working together their careers have been very different. Julian has operated at the board level for a number of big-name brands before taking up the role of CFO at a high growth start-up. Julian qualified as an accountant in industry. He then briefly worked as a management consultant. Next, his journey took him to IT Director and a number of CFO roles in divisions of large corporations. Julian joined Arcadia Group and ended up doing a commercial role. He stepped away from big brands and joined a startup as CFO, taking over as CEO when the original founder was forced to step down. After the sale of that business, he took on his current CFO role, preferring that to another challenge as CEO. Julian O’Neill reflects on his experience, sharing lessons he learned at each stage of his career. He adds that his time outside finance, in commercial roles has been invaluable. Listen to the full episode and hear Julian’s full, and extremely fascinating, story. Links Julian O’Neill on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Find out more about becoming a CFO The CFO as co-pilot to the CEO Timestamps 01:48 Accountancy and finance open a lot of doors 03:40 Early career in telecoms; qualifying as an accountant in Cable & Wireless 06:18 Spicing things up at General Motors 11:30 Doing an MBA at Warwick Business School 12:10 First role outside finance at Siemens 13:25 Joining PwC Consulting 15:42 The decision to leave the big 4 17:00 Pizza Hut 17:30 First director role 18:20 The challenge of being an IT director 26:25 Arcadia, as a divisional CFO 30:50 CFO of an airline 32:20 Moving from a big brand to CFO at a £2m turnover high growth business 34:50 Taking over from the CEO 37:30 Finding a new job while selling the business 38:28 Back to a CFO role in a small business 39:00 Small startup vs big corporate 40:54 The importance of getting experience in commercial roles outside the finance function

Conflict is a natural and unavoidable part of life. It can arise in our personal lives, with friends and family, or in our professional lives, with co-workers. No matter where it happens, it’s important to learn how to manage conflict effectively. If not handled properly, conflict can lead to hurt feelings, damaged relationships, and even lawsuits. In this podcast, Susana Serrano-Davey and Kevin Appleby discuss some tips for managing conflict in both your personal and professional life. One of the most important things to remember when managing conflict is to stay calm. This can be difficult, especially if you feel like you’re being attacked or accused of something. It’s important to remember that getting defensive will only make the situation worse. Take a deep breath and try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective. Only then can you start to find a resolution. Beyond this though, Susana has four great lessons for us, and she goes through each of these in turn. Listen to the podcast to find out more. Susana Serrano-Davey is an experienced CFO and a member of the GrowCFO professional mentoring team. If you are interested in having Susana as a mentor then please get in touch using the link below. Links Mentoring at GrowCFO with Susana Serrano-Davey Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:57 What is conflict? 03:15 The danger of unresolved conflict 05:34 Step 1: Take precautions, don’t respond in the heat of the moment 06:50 Write the reply email but delete it before sending 09:02 Don’t feel pressured into an immediate reply 12:16 Step 2: Some basic assumptions – nobody comes to work to intentionally create conflict 14:22 Don’t jump to conclusions 14:37 Step 3: Take some time to think 18:09 It’s rarely a case of one person is right and the other is wrong 18:30 Step 4: Listen to the other person 22:30 Choose a relaxing, neutral environment for a conversation 28:30 What do you do about a historic conflict that still gets in the way? 31:00 Make the other person feel it’s their solution, not yours

As a finance professional, you are often required to provide financial information to people who are not finance professionals. This can be a challenge. It is important to communicate the information in a way that is easy for non-finance leaders to understand. In this podcast, Asif Ahmed, author of The Finance Playbook for Entrepreneurs joins host Kevin Appleby. We discuss the issues involved in providing financial information to the entrepreneur and the rest of the business leadership team One of the challenges of providing financial information to non-finance leaders is that they may not have the same level of understanding of finance concepts as you do. This can make it difficult to communicate the information in a way that is easy for them to understand. One way to overcome this challenge is to use simple, clear language when explaining finance concepts. Another challenge is making sure the rest of the team understands what financial information is important and what isn’t. Asif and Kevin spend time talking about cash vs profit, and the need to understand some financial numbers that aren’t immediately obvious from the profit and loss account. This includes customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and that often 20% of customers generate 80% of the profit. Asif Ahmed is the founder and managing director of Acclivity Advisors and co-founder of The Finance Department. He is also group CFO at Labrys Group and an advisory board member at HM Revenue & Customs. Links The Finance Playbook for Entrepeneurs on Amazon UK and Amazon USA The GrowCFO Competency Framework Asif Ahmed on Linkedin Kevin Appleby on Linkedin Timestamps 00:43 What does The Finance Department do? 03:27 Communicating financial information to early-stage entrepreneurs 06:23 What information does an early-stage entrepreneur need? 08:47 Information needed for raising funds 10:08 Covid-19: Bootcamp for learning the financial basics 12:15 You can’t manage the business using historic data 13:47 Financial vs non-financial data 16:56 Understanding lead generation and the cost of customer acquisition 21:13 Customer lifetime value 24:00 What else do entrepreneurs need to understand? 27:53 Cost of retaining an existing customer vs cost of acquiring a new customer 29:21 Understanding product costs and the tendency to over cost the simple and under cost the complex. 31:40 What’s the right time for a startup business to employ its first CFO? 37:05 The importance of instilling the right financial culture and practices 41:06 If 20% of your customers produce 80% of the profit, do you know which customers make up this 20%?

Chris Fry has the best CFO job in the world. He’s group CFO at SISTER. SISTER is the organisation behind recent TV blockbusters “The Split”; “This Is Going To Hurt”; and “Chernobyl”. So why is the CFO of a TV production company the best job in the world? First of all, it’s a very demanding position that comes with a lot of responsibility. But if you’re up for the challenge, it can be extremely rewarding. You’ll have a hand in the creative process and you’ll be able to help shape the future of the company. Chris has certainly been up for that challenge. He’s an accomplished CFO but he also recognises that there’s always something new to learn. Chris was one of the founder members of the CFO Programme within GrowCFO, having previously been involved in something similar during his time working in Australia. He talks about the programme in the podcast and why it has been so useful for him. He tells us why he has found the support from Catherine Clark, the programme leader, and from his fellow CFO participants, invaluable.  Links Find out more about SISTER The CFO Programme at GrowCFO CFO Mentoring Chris Fry on Linkedin Kevin Appleby on Linkedin Timestamps 00:42 Who is SISTER? 02:18 What exactly is your role as Group CFO of SISTER? 03:22 What are your biggest challenges? 05:50 What was your career path before SISTER? 08:50 How did you get the experience to break through to the CFO level? 10:10 Using your influence 11:12 Why did you join the CFO programme at GrowCFO? 13:39 The role of mentors in the CFO programme 15:22 Why do you want to extend the CFO programme beyond the initial 6 months? 16:41 Where does Chris Fry aspire to be in 10 years’ time? 19:07 The importance of enjoying what you do 20:16 Advice to a new CFO coming to grips with the first CFO role 21:34 Would you advise a CFO to have a mentor?

Who is your boss? Do you have more than one boss? Perhaps you are number 2 to the CFO and you report indirectly to other people too. Maybe you are the CFO and you need to be mindful of the needs of both CEO and investors in the business. Getting the relationship right with all those people is important. Finding the right balance between your needs from the relationship and their needs is key. It’s no secret that the relationship between you and your bosses, whoever they might be, can be a tricky one. It’s often difficult to find the right balance between being respectful and assertive, humble and ambitious, compliant and determined. When you report to more than one person you get the added complication of competing needs and being pulled in several different directions at the same time. In this podcast, Susana Serrano-Davey and Kevin Appleby explore some of the challenges that come with trying to maintain a healthy relationship with your boss. We’ll offer some tips on how to handle common situations, as well as how to stay sane while working under someone else’s control! Susana breaks the problem down into 4 areas: Mutual responsibilities Separate the job from the person Finding your Voice Professional to professional relationships We explore each of these in turn and provide some practical examples to illustrate the key points. Links The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by  Don Miguel Ruizon on Amazon UK and Amazon USA GrowCFO Show episode 74 discussing personality types as birds with Merrick Rosenberg GrowCFO for Finance Teams The communications module within GrowCFO for Finance Teams Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 01:04 Everyone has a boss unless you are the CEO 03:18 Building or balancing relationships 04:48 Susana’s personal experiences 06:08 Introducing the 4 areas for balancing relationships 06:49 Mutual responsibilities 13:37 Separating the job from the person 15:10 The four agreements book 21:55 DISC and the 4 personality types 25:02 GrowCFO for Finance Teams – communications course 25:42 Finding your voice 30:37 Tackling conflict 35:44 Professional to professional relationships

As a finance leader, you are constantly juggling responsibilities between financial and non-financial analysis. On one hand, you need to make sure the company is meeting its financial goals and obligations. On the other hand, you may be called upon to provide insights into non-financial areas such as operations, marketing, or human resources. This can be a daunting task, but with the right tools and strategies in place, you can successfully balance both worlds. Paul Barnhurst, The FP&A guy specialises in planning and reporting. In this episode of the GrowCFO Show Paul provides Kevin Appleby with a great overview of business planning and analytics; how to integrate financial and non-financial data; and the tools that are available to help you. Links GrowCFO for Finance Teams Paul Barnhurst on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Timestamps 00:52 Day one of a brand new business 02:10 What exactly is FP&A? 03:26 Which areas will Paul be working in? 04:31 Excel: are spreadsheets the best way of doing things? 05:14 What are the planning tools available? 09:51 Selecting the tool that’s right for you 12:59 Should non-financial measurement sit in finance? 15:52 The importance of a single version of the truth 20:16 What does day 100 look like for the FP&A guy? 21:13 What are the biggest things on the horizon for FP&A in general 22:47 The problem of too much data

As a finance leader or CFO, you have a lot of responsibilities on your plate. From ensuring that the company is making money to managing the budget, there are a lot of tasks you must complete on a daily basis. On top of this you will be involved in change projects. Then there is your role as a trusted advisor to the rest of the management team. You need to manage your workload. You need to make sure that the important tasks are given sufficient emphasis while making sure the urgent and routine things don’t swallow up your whole agenda. Managing your workload doesn’t have to be difficult. With a little bit of planning and organization, you can stay on top of everything. Helene Brichet Herbinet, part of the GrowCFO mentoring team joins Kevin Appleby on this episode of the GrowCFO show. Together they give some great tips for both increasing your personal efficiency and maximising your personal effectiveness. By following these tips, you can make the workload more manageable and get back on track. If you’re finding that your workload is unmanageable, it may be time to seek out professional help. There are many CFOs who specialize in helping others manage their workloads effectively. By hiring someone to help manage your workload, you can free up your time to focus on more important tasks. If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of resources available online. With a little bit of research, you can find the help you need to get your workload under control. Within GrowCFO we have a team of professional mentors ready to help. Premium and corporate members have an entire course on personal effectiveness they can access in the GrowCFO training library. Links Find a GrowCFO mentor GrowCFO for Finance Teams Helene Brichet Herbinet on LinkedIn Subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Timestamps 00:40 Personal effectiveness or personal efficiency? 01:51 How do you manage your workload? 02:43 Being intentional about how you allocate your time 05:46 Keeping your to do list under control 07:20 Separating work life and personal life 11:59 When other people take over your agenda 14:20 Setting expectations 16:51 Reviewing the quality of your own work 20:27 The art of challenging plans budgets and forecasts 23:53 What should you do yourself and what should you delegate 25:53 Developing your finance team 27:19 The RACI model 30:28 Multitasking 33:29 Social networks and the danger of always being switched on 36:08 Managing deadlines What tips do you have for managing your workload? Why not share the things that work for you in the forum?

It’s no secret that communication is hard. We’ve all been in a situation where we just can’t seem to get our point across. And it’s even harder when the person on the other end of the conversation has a different personality type than us. When you’re trying to communicate with someone who has a different personality type than you, it can be easy to get wrapped up in your own perspective. It’s important to remember that everyone experiences the world differently, and what makes sense to you might not make sense to them. You must try to see things from their point of view and adjust your communication accordingly. But adapting your style isn’t easy. In this podcast, we take a look at the common problems with communicating with different personality types. DISC is a personality assessment tool that can help you understand yourself and others better, and Merrick Rosenberg, CEO of Take Flight Learning, has adapted the DISC model into 4 birds: eagles, parrots, doves, and owls. The behaviour of each bird is easy to grasp and remember. Merrick has found the majority of finance people are owls. The owl needs to adapt to work with the other three birds. He shares some great strategies that will really help you understand how to do this, so make sure to check this episode out! Links GrowCFO for Finance Teams The communications module within GrowCFO for Finance Teams “What got you here wont get you there” by Marshall Goldsmith on Amazon UK and Amazon US Merrick Rosenberg on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:46 Why use birds instead of the DISC letters? 01:20 The eagle 02:05 The parrot 02:20 The dove 02:35 The owl 02:45 Which style are you? 04:15 Finance are predominantly owls 05:23 Finance working with sales; owls and parrots 06:47 How does an owl get the parrots and eagles to provide the detail that’s needed? 08:50 Owls dealing with doves 10:15 The history of DISC 11:25 75% of your organisation has a different style to you, you need to communicate in all 4 styles 13:12 How each style manages change 15:20 Owls need detail so can be perceived as barriers to change until they have the information 15:40 Owls can actually be incredible champions of change 16:50 How do you communicate change? 20:09 Adapting your style as your career progresses 21:17 “What got you here wont get you there” by Marshall Goldsmith 22:43 How easy is it to develop the other 3 styles? 24:15 Bill Gates the owl 26:17 Working with organisations 30:19 Alternatives to DISC 35:31 Relationship building 38:09 What about children? When do the 4 birds start to emerge? 40:23 The danger of imposing your own style on someone else

As the finance lead, you probably present the business profit and loss account at many of the business meetings you attend. You place huge value on the financial results of the business each month or each quarter. But is that correct? Does the P&L account tell you what you need to know? Does it paint an accurate picture of business performance? Sometimes it does, but quite often it doesn’t accurately reflect the economics within the business. The P&L account tells you what you spent money on, your cost centre structure likely tells you who spent it, but neither tell you why you spent it. Is an adverse variance really bad? Is a positive variance good? The answer is not always. Unless you know the why, and also understand the economic engine of the business you don’t know. You probably grappled with the two fundamental accounting concepts of prudence and accruals when you passed your accountancy exams. Accruals are all about matching costs with revenues, while prudence is about taking account of liabilities as soon as they arise. But we are in strange times where we seem to like capitalising our empty office blocks and hardly used company cars while we write off our investment in digital sales-generating assets as soon as we spend the money. In the podcast, Kevin Appleby and Susana Serrano-Davey discuss these and other issues and conclude you need many more metrics than those in the P&L account and a much deeper understanding of your business through an economic rather than an accounting model. We didn’t mention it in the show, but Doug Hicks has written an excellent book about what’s wrong with the P&L account and why you need an economic model of the business. It makes excellent further reading on this topic. Links Mentoring at GrowCFO with Susana Serrano-Davey I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It: How Accounting Information Undermines Profitability by Doug Hicks on Amazon UK or Amazon USA Evergreen Assets by John Lamerton on Amazon UK or Amazon USA 24 assets by Daniel Priestley on Amazon UK or Amazon USA Listen to Next 100 Days Podcast with John Lamerton talking about Evergreen Assets Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:59 The P&L account is a key tool 01:53 A history lesson; one set of accounts for investors and for the taxman 03:53 Modern systems and the ability to cut the data in different ways 04:28 Accounting standards and the 4 core accounting concepts 06:23 Are your fixed assets really the assets that drive business performance or are they just hidden future costs? 07:40 Evergreen digital assets 10:46 Depreciation 11:38 The pressure to report a better picture in the P&L 15:51 Unrealistic budgets 20:39 No surprises; don’t hide the truth 23:30 The P&L account doesn’t tell you why you spent the money 26:21 An economic rather than an accounting model of your business 29:41 Assigning costs to activities gives you a better understanding of customer and product costs 31:07 The tendency to over cost the simple and under cost the complex 31:39 An activity-based costing example

Are you ready to be a CFO? To step into your first CFO role. How do you know if you are ready to make the transition to that number one role in finance? That’s the question Kevin Appleby posed to Dan Wells on this episode of the GrowCFO Show. Kevin asked Dan if there is any such thing as a CFO readiness indicator or CFO readiness index. Dan doesn’t believe there is one single measure of CFO readiness. He goes on to explain the various skills and levels of experience you need to be a successful CFO. These vary according to the type of CFO you want to become and the nature of the organisation you plan to work for. Are you ready to be a CFO? Some questions to ask yourself If you feel you are ready to be a CFO then as a minimum you should be saying yes to the following five questions: Do you have a strategic mind? As a CFO, you will need to think beyond the numbers and see the big picture. You need to be able to develop strategies that will help your company achieve its goals. Are you are a good communicator? As CFO, you will need to communicate with different stakeholders within your company. You need to be able to explain financial concepts in a way that non-financial people can understand. Are you comfortable with change? Change is inevitable in business. As CFO, you need to be comfortable with change and be able to adapt quickly to new situations. Are you a good problem solver? As CFO, you will be faced with many challenges. You need to be able to identify problems and find solutions quickly. You have leadership potential? As CFO, you will need to lead your team and inspire them to achieve great things. You need to be able to motivate and mentor your team members. But feeling ready is just a start. Listen to the show and hear Dan explain the other dimensions of CFO readiness, why one size doesn’t fit all, and why there is no easy way to measure CFO readiness or have a CFO readiness index. Links Landing Your First CFO Role: CFO Readiness Guide Join a taster session for the Future CFO Programme Take the CFO competency framework assessment Find out more about the GrowCFO mentoring team and how they can support you in your CFO role Dan Wells on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 00:41 How do you know you are ready to be a CFO? 03:06 The skills every CFO needs 04:00 The three types of CFO 04:10 The financier CFO 05:37 The strategist CFO 06:52 The operator CFO 08:02 The GrowCFO competency framework 09:13 Which competencies are most relevant to you as an individual; Module 3 of the Future CFO Programme 11:29 Which type of CFO do you want to be? 13:30 3 Different scenarios for your first CFO role 17:56 The relationship with the CEO, and the cultural fit 19:54 A proper action plan, not a CFO readiness index 22:18 The things we cover in the future CFO programme 25:30 What are your next steps?

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Chances are, you don’t. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. We devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths. So, Do you play to your strengths? Do you even know what your strengths are? Or how to best use them? The good news is that Strengthsfinder 2.0 from Gallup can give you a real insight and help you leverage the talents you have. Jim Brophy has worked as a CFO and is both a mentor and a Strengthsfinder 2.0 (or CliftonStrengths) accredited coach. He joins us on the GrowCFO Show to explain how he uses Strengthsfinder as an integral part of his mentoring. On the podcast Jim tells us about his career as a CFO, how he discovered Strengthsfinder and gives us an overview of what it is and how you can use it to best advantage in your day to day. Links Buy Strengthsfinder 2.0 on Amazon UK or Amazon USA Find out more about mentoring at GrowCFO Find out more about CliftonStrengths at Gallup Jim Brophy on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 00:46 Jim Brophy’s career as a CFO 03:49 FD & CFO roles in Asia 05:26 Becoming a portfolio CFO 07:24 Becoming accredited by Gallup 09:31 Mentoring 11:30 The stresses of a new CFO role in a new organisation 15:25 Where does Strengthsfinder fit in? 16:55 Linking values and strengths 20:02 What exactly is Strengthsfinder 22:22 Myers Briggs and DISC 24:47 How do you take the test? 25:49 The 34 talents 28:00 Our top 5 talents 32:24 Your top 10 talents, and the extended assessment 34:27 Developing talents instead of fixing weaknesses 35:31 The “Analytical” talent in more depth 40:59 Matching your talents to the immediate situation 41:30 Talents vs skills and experience 46:11 Maximising talents across teams

When did you last get your whole finance team together in person outside the office for a team event? Probably a long while ago. Your team has been working remotely for extended periods in the last two years. They may have started coming back to the office, but are rarely all together on the same day. Training and team development are some of the things that have suffered. You have struggled to invest the right amount of time and energy into your people’s future. 2022 is the year you have to do something about it. How about a special event for your finance team? Maybe now is time for a team away day? But where do you start? What do you cover? What exactly is the purpose? Moreover, how do you make it enjoyable, memorable and get a great outcome? On this week’s podcast, Kevin Appleby poses that question to a professional trainer and facilitator, Paul Maltby. Paul is the professional development leader for IBM Global Business Services in Europe and is responsible for running development programmes for many of the most senior people in IBM. He is also branching out with his own independent business that specialises in designing and delivering personal and team development activities. Paul has taken his many years of experience in facilitating events and put them into a book, “The Fearless Facilitator: A proven plan for leading successful meetings, dynamic workshops, and effective training events”. He gives you some great advice about what to think about as you plan your finance team event. Paul talks about what to do and what not to do when you want to create a memorable experience. We also talk about handling a number of tricky situations. Links Find out more about GrowCFO finance team development Enquire about GrowCFO supporting your next finance team event Find Paul Maltby on Linkedin Kevin Appleby on Linkedin Get the book “The Fearless Facilitator” on amazon in UK and in USA Timestamp 00:39 What does Paul Maltby do? 01:40 The Fearless Facilitator 03:32 The three sections of “The Fearless Facilitator” book 06:54 Facilitating in challenging situations 10:38 The deficit in finance team development 12:04 The importance of purpose 14:36 The “So What?” question 15:50 How do you create energy? 19:50 The answer is always 42 23:15 Forget the PowerPoint slides 24:42 Handling difficult questions 27:27 The finance leader developing facilitation skills 31:01 How much time does it take to plan a great event? 34:38 How GrowCFO and Paul Maltby can help you deliver your next event

Things are changing fast in finance. You are more than likely struggling to keep pace with the latest technology. You might be in a fast growing business and your team is struggling to keep pace. There’s pressure to get better management information sooner. These are all challenges for the finance team leader. In GrowCFO, the Future of Finance Functions regular events are designed to help you with all these challenges. Future of Finance Functions is a live Zoom webinar that takes place to discuss all things concerning the modern finance function. These range from systems to processes to people issues. Automation, integration, faster close, and the latest cloud accounting are all subjects we cover. Chris Tredwell is the regular host of the events and he joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO show to tell us what to expect in the 2022 series. Meetings taking place on the second Tuesday of each month and the 10 topics we will cover in 2022 are: Is now the right time to change? (8/3/2022) Why Strong Foundations are key to your departments’ success (5/4/2022) What is True Cloud Accounting? (10/5/2022) Ensure you are able to scale alongside your growth ambitions (14/6/2022) Automation in Finance (12/7/2022) The value of Integration (9/8/2022) What should I expect from Reporting (13/9/2022) Improve your Month-end close (11/10/2022) Get it right – Do’s and Don’ts / Procurement Checklist (8/11/2022) How to review the software market (13/12/2022) The series of events looking at change management will continue on the last Tuesday of each month. Links You can book a place on these sessions by RSVP at www.growcfo.net/events/ Find out more about Chris Tredwell Find out more about Kevin Appleby Timestamps 00:56 The reason we started Future of Finance Functions 04:13 The topics we’ve covered in the last 2 years 09:35 The 10 themes for 2022 12:08 Is it the right time to make the change? 12:30 Cloud accounting 13:00 Scaling the team in line with business growth 14:34 The difference between automation and integration 17:02 Reporting and KPIs 17:42 The do’s and dont’s: learning from others experience 20:01 Selecting and procuring software 21:35 How to book your place at any of the future of finance functions events 22:00 The change management series of future of finance functions events 26:25 Accessing recordings of past events 28:19 What else does GrowCFO do?

Do you struggle to write compelling reports that get the right response from the rest of your business team? Business Writing doesn’t come naturally to many finance leaders. You are probably much more comfortable with an excel spreadsheet than drafting a report that needs to be persuasive and encourages others to back your arguments or take the right actions. When you produce a finance report you aren’t just articulating the numbers, you need to tell a story. You need to make the numbers come alive and turn them into something meaningful that your audience will understand. It’s often not an easy task. Martin Booth is an experienced copywriter and is the ideal person to help you improve your business writing. Martin is featured in the communications course within GrowCFO’s new finance team training package. The course examines all forms of communication including sections on both powerful presentations and writing persuasive reports. Martin spent more than 20 years on the sports desks of various national newspaper titles including The Times, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Express. More recently, he worked in the betting industry. Martin’s focus now is on creating, refining and delivering written content of the highest quality for business owners and leaders. In the podcast, Martin tells you about the things you should avoid when you draft your next finance report. He goes on to explain to you how to create better business reports that are properly targeted to the audience that will read them. He explains that even in finance it’s all about telling engaging stories to real people. Links Enquire about finance team training and development for your team Find out more about LeBoo Media Martin Booth on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 00:43 Martin’s background in sports journalism 02:18 The biggest challenge in moving from sports journalism to business copywriting 03:01 What do finance folk tend to get wrong when they write reports? 07:12 The importance of creating a persona or an avatar from your intended audience 09:38 Getting behind the numbers and saying what they really mean 10:39 Storytelling brings things to life 14:01 The importance of a good headline and first paragraph 16:23 The power of the executive summary 18:27 People don’t read reports start to finish they dip in and out 19:44 Have a call to action, tell people what to do next 20:20 The importance of a good structure 22:18 Audience research 27:11 Remember that while the report is about the business you are talking to people think about “what’s in it for me?” 30:15 Paul Gascoigne…..If you want to know what Gazza has to do with writing better finance reports you have to listen to the audio!

You have just landed your dream job. Now your challenge is how to make an impact in that new finance role. You need to hit the ground running. What you do in your first hundred days in your new role is critical. If you get the first 100 days right then you will get the first year right. Get the first year right and you will set yourself up well to excel in years two and three. The first 100 days are vitally important. There are multiple challenges you will need to address. You have a new team, you need to get to know them as individuals, assess their abilities, and understand their strengths and weaknesses. You also have new business colleagues, you need to get to know them, understand their issues and begin to build a successful working relationship. On top of all this, you will need to find out how the business actually works, and understand its processes and systems. Particularly those you own or are directly responsible for. Where are the issues? what do you need to fix? You will need a clear plan for those first 100 days, and you will need to execute the plan effectively. In this episode, Kevin Appleby and Dan Wells go deeper into all of these issues and discuss how to approach the first 100 days in your new finance role; how to plan for those 100 days; what you can do even before your first day; and some of the things you can do to help execute your plan effectively. Links Enrol in our free course: “New Role: Your First 100 Days” covers all the things that Kevin and Dan discuss and goes into much more detail. If you are about to move into a new role then this course is ideal for you Enquire about finance team training and development for your new team Find out more about the GrowCFO mentoring team and how they can support you in your new role Listen to the podcast: “Build a Heatmap for Change” with Susana Serrano-Davey, which focusses on a key activity in your first 100 days Dan Wells on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamp 01:16 People move roles on average every 3 years 01:57 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the origin of the first 100 days 04:15 The different challenges of an external appointment and an internal promotion 05:46 Think carefully about your No.2 08:00 Why were you appointed to the role? What are you expected to fix? 09:49 Getting up to speed with business as usual 10:34 The first 10 days in your new finance role. The settling in period 11:33 How to plan the next 90 days 14:40 The first 30 days: Fix 17:03 The middle 30 days: Blueprint 18:00 The final 30 days: Transform 19:05 Involve your team. Build a heatmap for change 22:00 The importance of mentoring

Many finance leaders have approached GrowCFO asking for help with training their finance teams: what sort of training and development does my team need? What should it cover? And how should it be delivered? In this episode, Dan Wells and Kevin Appleby discuss the requirements and options for effective finance team training and development. We draw valuable insights from our 2021 survey of over 200 finance leaders. There is a clear need for a broad range of skills training, ranging from financial topics such as cost control to soft skills such as communications. Self-paced online finance team training is popular, but many leaders still favour in-person training and where possible, have this bespoke to their organisation’s requirements. We talk you through GrowCFO’s team training online courses, mentoring and coaching, workshops, and team-building events and their benefits. Our team training resources are designed to cover the topics that will have the most impact on your team and organisation, free up your own time by delegating more, and improve your ability to retain your best staff. Links Enquire about finance team training and development for your team Dan Wells on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Timestamps 00:59 Finance leader training survey results 02:16 The training deficit caused by the pandemic 03:43 The four most sought-out areas of development 05:15 Bespoke workshops available to you 07:13 Online training (courses, mentoring and coaching, workshops, and team-building) 08:09 The 10 most popular topics for training 10:53 The typical time needed to complete an online course 13:16 Cost-effectiveness of online training 15:11 Saving your time by enabling you to delegate additional tasks 16:01 Why investment in training and development helps you retain your best staff 18:11 Taxation and local regulations 20:35 How to find out more

In this episode, Kevin Appleby interviews Felix Velarde, author of best selling business book Scale at Speed: How to Triple the Size of Your Business and Build a Superstar Team. Felix is also the founder of 2y3x.com, a growth acceleration program. Felix has distilled some of the best strategies he’s learnt over twenty-five years of leading businesses of varying sizes into an easy-to-read framework. He expertly lays out the journey a business needs to undertake to scale. He breaks it down into digestible steps, allowing you to achieve your goals through well-structured frameworks and engaging stories along the way. It’s a great guide to achieving 3x growth in 2 years (2Y3X). We use this framework to examine the role of the CFO. The CFO’s role within the team charged with setting strategy and delivering growth is vital. The CFO is key to the entire process. We also consider businesses that are in trouble and need to transform quickly in order to survive. Felix strongly believes that the same framework that allows you to scale at speed works just as well in a short-term crisis. He backs this up with evidence from his own clients who lost significant revenue at the start of the pandemic. Links Felix Velarde on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn Buy scale at speed on Amazon UK or on amazon.com Listen to Felix on The Next 100 Days Podcast Timestamps 00:53 Felix’s background as a serial founder 03:02 2Y3X: triple your revenue in two years 08:29 Scale at Speed: The role of the CFO 14:24 The CFO is in a unique position on the Growth Lab team 17:08 The Growth Lab team and its purpose 18:43 Scale at Speed, the book 19:30 Jim Collins and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) 20:27 Edwin Locke and Goal Setting Theory 23:17 The Scale at Speed framework in a crisis 31:14 Team’s holding each other to account 37:34 Motivating the growth team: Do you need incentives such as EMI? 40:01 The importance of shared values for your team 46:37 The financial goal, the quality goal, and the people goal 47:40 Summarising the role of the CFO in the growth process

Mike Henebery has been involved in private equity transactions for most of his career. He’s recently co-founded Titan Partners. Titan has just completed its first 8 figure fundraising deal helping fast-growing technology business Wise secure minority funding from Inflexion. Mike’s Career in Fundraising and Private Equity Mike is a qualified accountant, starting his career in Arthur Andersen. He quickly moved away from audit and into the world of deals and fundraising transactions. His 30-year career in deals started in Montagu Private Equity and then Gresham LLC. He moved on to found several businesses of which Titan is the latest. You can find out more about Mike in his Linkedin profile. What does Titan Partners do? In 2019 Mike launched a new consultancy: Titan Partners. The mission was about accelerating success for SME owners. Titan Partners offers DISRUPTIVE start-ups and scale-ups access to a diverse range of EQUITY and CREDIT CAPITAL solutions ranging from high net worth to institutional investors leveraging our own startup/scale-up fundraising. Titan Partners facilitates fast growth, disruptive and profitable SMEs with unfulfilled Big Hairy Audacious Goals and executes a clear exit strategy.  The steps: assess value objectively; access to capital on the best terms;  boost innovation (along with sales and profit); close out the transaction. Mike explains to us how leveraging Dr Dave Richards experience is key to step 3. These steps help owners fulfil their ambitions faster while still maximising value The GrowCFO Fundraising Simulator While Mike has a wealth of experience in fundraising, this isn’t something that is common for accountants and CFOs. Over two-thirds of aspiring and first-time finance leaders have little or no fundraising experience. This can easily derail your career progression and leave you feeling unprepared when leading your first ever fundraise. If that’s you then GrowCFO can help. GrowCFO’s Fundraising Virtual Simulator provides you with essential first-hand CFO experience of leading and delivering an entire fundraising process from initial brainstorming through to deal completion. Our simulator is based on a real-life $12 million fundraise comprising equity and convertible debt for a high growth company with a pre-money valuation of $60 million. We have designed our simulator to help prepare you to confidently lead a range of fundraising deals so that you can thrive throughout the process. You will feel empowered to obtain the best available deal for your company. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

On this episode of the GrowCFO Show Susana Serrano-Davey and Kevin Appleby discuss how to Build Consensus so that your proposal is accepted without challenge. Have you ever wondered why some people can turn up to a meeting, present their proposals, and have them accepted without question? Yet at the same time, you bring your proposal forward and you get a hard time and no decision. Why? What are you doing wrong? The answer is you probably aren’t doing enough outside the meeting room to build consensus. If you put in the hard work before the meeting, it’s likely you will have a far easier ride in the meeting itself. There are three steps to build consensus Susana defines three steps to building consensus: Identify who you need to persuade. Who are the key stakeholders? These might not just be the meeting attendees. Some board members may take advice in some instances from their no.2 or other members of their own function. If that’s the case, you need the advisor on your side and saying the right things when they advise their boss. Engage with each of your stakeholders in an appropriate way. Find out what their issues are and talk about them before the meeting. It might require a formal meeting. It might just be a chat at the coffee machine. Adapt your proposal to take account of their feedback. The consultation process is bound to give you some new information that will make the proposal better. Make sure you recognise this information and make the updates to your initial proposal. Listen to the whole episode to find out more. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Pinky Jangra teaches resilience to individuals and teams. She joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to explain how to create a resilient finance team. About Pinky Jangra Pinky has delved into many branches of human development and behaviour, enabling her to build a rich understanding of the human experience – mind, emotions, body, behaviour and soul. Pinky has been teaching her own courses since 2015. She delivers her proprietary Resilience Training to a variety of audiences online, in person, in business and personal environments. She combines her human development knowledge with 10+ years of corporate and consulting experience to help organisations with other people related areas including wellbeing, culture, change management and leadership development. Following this path enables Pinky to do what she loves – “leading people towards their greatness, growth and transformation. I love seeing people blossom. I love seeing them step into their own power and unlock their inner genius. We are not here to play small, to be bystanders, to be at the whim of our circumstances, beliefs and other people’s expectations. We are powerful creators, each bearing gifts and talents, we are able to overcome even the toughest challenges. We’re here to make our lives, our teams, our companies and our world better together.” How to create a resilient finance team Pinky says it depends on what your focus is for the training. If you’re doing resilience training for individuals, or for the team as a whole. Whichever it is, the first thing she starts with in all her training is self awareness skills. The first thing you have to understand is what’s going on in any person’s mind, emotions, body behaviour, any given time. So that’s really what you do to set the foundation. And then if you are doing something for a team you can start looking at a vision of what you actually want to create, collectively, or you can do it for an individual. Visioning is only the start. Pinky teaches five or six different elements of resilience. Some people just say, oh, to build your resilience, you need to just work on your mindset, or you need to do some exercise. But you are a holistic being, everything about you is a system, everything is working together. Pinky does look at mental resilience, looking at your own mindset. But theres much more. She then considers emotional resilience, what do you do when you’re stressed? And how are you handling difficult emotions and anxiety? And so on? Are you processing them? Are you regulating them? Pinky has a whole toolkit to help you. Then there’s also behavioural resilience. So what are you doing? Are you one of those people who just says yes to everybody? And then you wonder why you’re so overwhelmed as a simple example. Using these techniques together, you end up creating a resilient finance team Listen in to the full recording as Pinky tells us much much more about each element of resilience. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Helene Brichet Herbinet is the newest member of GrowCFO’s mentoring team. She joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO show to talk about her background and what she believes makes a good mentor. Helene tells us about 5 types of mentor and the situations in which each type works best. About Helene Helene describes herself as “an inclusive and dependable leader and team player with cultural sensitivity, openness and integrity”. Her focus is on delivering value to organisations, their people, customers and stakeholders. She leads change with a clear vision and close stakeholders engagement. Helene is passionate about building and leading high-performing teams. She says “I invest in supporting individuals’ growth and development. Bringing commercial acumen, critical and strategic thinking in diagnosis, problem-solving and decision making”. Helene’s background is in financial services. Her experience includes Barclays, Visa, and Capital One. She describes her career as non-linear, meaning she has changed roles often, and not necessarily for promotion to broaden her experience. Helene tells us more about the benefits of a non-linear career path in the audio recording. Besides GrowCFO, Helene also mentors for the ICAEW. You can find out more in her LinkedIn profile The 5 Types of Mentor Helene believes everyone needs five types of mentors. The first type is the Jedi Master. They have the experience and the Wisdom. They can provide insight into the industry, the function, or the role you work in. The second type of mentor will champion your cause, they will have your back. They will be connecting you to people, influencing how people see you, and introducing you to the key people. The third type of mentor is the co-pilot, the peers, committed to your success as much as you commit to this in collaboration. The fourth one is your confident or your anchor. They don’t need to be in a professional environment, or at least they don’t need to be in your industry or functional role. They are a coaching type of mentor, a sounding board for you. This mentor knows that you’re going to hit speed bumps and that you’re going to go through challenges as you develop as a leader. They can give you a lift, a psychological lift, and help you see light at the end of the tunnel. And the fifth one is the reverse mentor. That’s someone you learn from. Because they bring a new perspective, because they, they have a skill that you don’t have. And generally, this is more intergenerational. You can learn more about each of the 5 types of mentor by listening to the show. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Tom Berry joins us on the GrowCFO Show to talk about communications. Tom is passionate about building businesses, creating brilliant places to work, teaching kids and making people happy. His background is in journalism and communications. These days he teaches business in a secondary school and has several non-executive directorships. We discuss communicating in a crisis. Communicating in a crisis isn’t easy Tom’s main advice is “Don’t Panic”. Communicating in a crisis needs to be calm and clear. Honesty is important, and it can be a mistake to hide bad news. The CFO needs to assess their skills. Just because the CFO has all the information doesn’t make the CFO the right person to communicate it. If communication isn’t your strength then get somebody else to deliver the message. Tom has much more to say than just this. Listen to the recording to get Tom’s full advice on communicating in a crisis. Tom Berry as a Non Executive Director Tom moved from being a financial journalist to running a communications agency. He went on from there to become a Non-Executive Director. Tom tells us how that journey came about and his passion for working with mental health charities. Why a CFO should also be a NED Tom advises CFOs to consider taking on a Non-Executive role too. It gives an insight into a different organisation, allows you to see first-hand how other companies work. A good NED listens and is constructively critical. The CFO can enhance their skills by learning to do this. The transfer of ideas across organisational boundaries can be invaluable. CFOs can bring ideas back to their own business. What makes a good CFO? Tom has worked with quite a few CFOs. He believes a good CFO is somebody who will look very closely at the underlying truth and tell the board the truth. A good CFO doesn’t talk to the board that often, but when the CFO needs to communicate he will do so and you know it will be important. There’s no point in repeatedly talking about the status quo. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

One of the first tasks you have as a new finance leader is creating a blueprint for your finance function, and the other parts of the business you have responsibility for. Susana Serrano-Davey tells us how she uses a heat map for change to determine what needs to be done and in what order. Susana outlines a five step process to create a heat map for change. You have just arrived in your new finance leader role. Chances are you have been hired to fix stuff. Besides the things you know you have to fix there will be other things to change. You may well have your own opinions on what the solutions are and what needs to be done. Susana councils us to proceed with caution and follow a process. Step 1: Dont start too quickly You need to be mindful of your new situation. You need to get to know the organisation. How does your leadership style work within the culture of your new employer? The first few weeks are all about discovery, building relationships and finding out how things work around here. Until you understand these it’s too early to implement change. Step 2: Beware of the pitfalls Change will fail if you haven’t taken the time to build relationships. Take time to meet with the key stakeholders, and to really understand the nature of the problem. Make sure you ask the right questions. Why are things not working? Why those particular things? There may be a variety of issues to explore. Why is it so difficult to report? Why are we getting the wrong numbers? Or, why are suppliers not being paid? Why aren’t we closing on time? Whatever the question there are reasons behind it you need to know about. Make sure you involve the people at the coal face in the solution. They will know more about the problems than you do. They will buy into the solution and the business change if they think they created it. Don’t be a know-it-all super CFO. Be humble. Even if you think you have seen it all before. Then you can build from that. Step 3: Draw a Heat Map for Change The heat map is simple. It’s a 2×2 matrix. Take your team off-site to populate the heat map. This way you get consensus about the problems, their importance and their ease to fix. First look at the problems and agree on your level of concern about each. Rank them red amber or green. Park the greens, and then map the reds and ambers on the matrix according to ease of fixing. Heat Map for Change Step 4: Build a plan The heat map will help you identify what needs to be done. It helps you prioritise what comes first. You need to turn this into a plan that identifies specific tasks, assigns responsibilities, and sets a timeline. Plan in detail for the first 90 days and an outline for the quarters that follow. Stop the bleeding first. This will create some quick wins with a big impact. Then think about the big projects. You may want to take in some low hanging fruit. This will give you some further successes to celebrate while the longer-term changes are being worked on. Step 5: Implement Implement the 90-day plan. At the end of 90 days take time to celebrate success. Review what went well, what could have been better and plan the next 90 days. Before you plan again you need to update the Heat Map for Change and make sure that any new or changed priorities are reflected in the plan Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Kevin Appleby is joined by, VP of professional services at Board International, Karlo Bustos to discuss the resurgent CFO and how the CFO can be the strategic adviser. What is the resurgent CFO about? The resurgent CFO is a white paper that looks at empowering finance leaders for change.  The research was undertaken to examine a hypothesis. To understand how finance leaders globally work through data and how they use this data to empower decision making.  How do they transform their organisation and become more of a leader, In short can better information make the CFO a superhero?  The research survey was compiled from 600 finance leaders with 20 questions around 5 key areas. These were around: strategy in the role of finance in a time of change; performance management and reporting; organisation and change management; people and talent and data. This is saying the CFO is moving away from the more operational side of the role and focus more on the strategic area. What is driving that?  In everyone’s journey map there is a maturity curve. In finance (and operations, IT, HR, marketing), at the start, there is a focus on standardising processes. You can then be an efficiency driver of identifying those standardised processes and knowing how many you need to do and which is viable for the business.  Then you look at how you are taking some of these efficiencies and gaining more insights into the information you’re gathering. Ultimately reaching being a leader and being adaptable and agile.  Over the last 18 months, there has been a lot of change in strategy and business model. Did the person with the numbers get more involved than normal? This would have been the ideal situation. The office of finance should have true seat at the table. This should not just be as a scorekeeper, but as an enabler of more insightful decisions. Organisations doing well were the ones who listened to that person. The ones who were pro-active willingly transformed which enabled the business to set a true strategy. Those individuals had a seat at the table but their voices were also heard, and better decisions were made due to the data they represented. Should the CFO look after non-financial data as well as financial? Finance leaders are looking to expand their capability. This is the capability to draw out insights, and use data as a driver. That ethos can expand into HR, operations… Some finance leaders are there just to draw a dashboard and not to provide any guidance. The finance leader who is willing to come out and be a catalyst is being successful in personal and organisational perspectives. This is a resurgent CFO. The change starts with you, be transformative. Be more of a decision-maker across your organisation. Is there anything stopping the CFO from being a strategic adviser? The acceleration of change will vary. Some will find it drastic because of its reactive nature. Some will have a more proactive nature and will make the right type of changes that are needed in the process and in the people. People, process and technology are the three pillars. You want to be looking at reducing inefficient processes with this transformation. You don’t have to do something big and drastic to transform. This could simply be a method of delivery our monthly reports. Use data to support and drive insights. Asking the right questions is important as you want to clearly know what you are trying to solve, this gives you a direction which is important. Technology is an important catalyst to that transformation and you have to be able to manipulate that data. In the survey, 89% of finance leaders know they need to make a specific choice on whether to automate that process or move on. If you stay on the sidelines for too long, someone else will stand up and be that resurgent CFO. You should be that leader. Use the data access tools to manage and improve over time. Almost 90% of finance leaders believe they need to automate their finance function but only a third feel like they need transformation to do so. This shows us that people are aware of the problem but don’t want to acknowledge it. Correlation between the tech side and the people side Finance leaders want and need more time to become part of the strategic side. Many from the survey shared that they still spend time fixing the basics. Do the introspective look and see where you can take the low-hanging fruit and be that winner no matter the size of the success. You want to find a way to automate the process and make reporting more forward-looking so the focus is more on goals. This gives you an opportunity to start doing multi-functional analysis. Have these conversations about growth and how this will be beneficial for the whole organisation. Should CFOs push for bigger finance function budget? It’s an important investment. 47% of people in the survey are confident their team can take on the demand of capturing valuable insights

Kevin Appleby is joined by GrowCFO’s Founder and CEO Dan Wells to discuss CFO training and how GrowCFO tries to cater for everyone’s needs in their training programmes. Why was there not a good place to go to to get all of your CFO training together?  This links to why GrowCFO was set up. A lot of finance leaders asked Dan where they could go for CFO training and he had a look to see if there was anything on google etc. It was really hard to find anywhere. There were random courses and videos but nothing that pulled it all together. No businesses were dedicated to training CFOs. There is no CFO qualification, but GrowCFO has built a syllabus so that this doesn’t have to be the case. Lots of training programmes for accountants at the start of their career can be found. These can be helpful but people have different needs and require a different skillset to become a finance leader. As a head of finance or financial controller, you are the inward face of finance. Whereas, when you become CFO you are the outward face of finance. This is a very different set of skills. You are trained for the inward-facing roles but never the outward-facing ones. Most people who are delivering a proper CFO role spend at least 60% of their time on delivering strategy and change. We expect this to accelerate because over time a lot of the operational tasks will become automated. In 2 or 3 decades time, it is expected, this will look more like 95% of people’s time. Being a good right-hand to the CEO and being a valued member of the board requires strategy, confidence and the right skills to influence people and act as a leader.  Why is GrowCFO’s CFO training so helpful?  Often you are facing problems for the first time once you are already in the role which is why the way GrowCFO is laid out is so helpful. You can search for the topics you need to help you through the challenge. This will then show you relevant events, workshops and podcasts that will help you with this topic.  Some people like the structure of a programme and going through it at a steady pace. Others prefer having quick access for when they need it and it gives them a safety net to know they have everything at their fingertips. CFO roles are often very different. Kevin describes the three types of CFOs he has identified; the operational CFO, the strategic CFO and the Wall Street CFO. People are increasingly coming to the CFO role from different backgrounds. Depending on what routes they come from, people will be very strong at certain aspects of the role, however, there will always be gaps. The GrowCFO Competency Framework allows you to scan across all of the skills you need to be a successful CFO and identify where your gaps are. The GrowCFO Competency Framework is something that GrowCFO has built in the past couple of years. It takes the perspective of people across the entire ecosystem. It consists of 9 competencies with 5 skills within each competency. People use our rating guidance pdf to determine whether they are at a beginner, intermediate or advanced level against each of the 45 skills. They are then provided with a benchmarking report to see where they rank for each skill against their peer group. There will then be links to multiple of the activities for each skill. You can take the competency assessment at https://www.growcfo.net/the-growcfo-competency-framework/ How would you define a peer group?  There are many different types of CFOs and people are also at different stages in their careers. We split the peer groups in two ways. It is easy to benchmark depending on what stage they are at in their career. This could be aspiring CFOs who are 3-5 years out from landing their first role. It could also be first-time CFOs who have been in the role for less than 3-5 years. Or, more experienced CFOs who may develop gaps as the role evolves. We look at the ownership structures of businesses, the sizes of the companies and the industry boots. This benchmark can very clearly show you where you are above and below the average of someone at your level at each of the skills. It also very clearly shows where your biggest gaps are. People could alternatively look to strengthen their strongest areas further. The skills you focus most on will depend on the direction you want to take your career. Focus on being very good at the things that are relevant to your role and not trying to be good at everything as it is unrealistic. Some people are happy to work within the platform, which they can do within their GrowCFO premium subscription. Others may want to go a step further and get involved in a programme that is very structured and easy to work through. People could also benefit more from one-to-one professional mentoring. Everyone is in control of their CFO training. The CFO qualification certificate was requested early on into GrowCFO. Anyone who does the Future CFO Programme or the CFO Programme will get a certificate at the end. This c

Kevin Appleby is joined by Clarity First Founder, Davina Stanley, to discuss the 5 biggest communication traps. Davina goes into these in detail and how we can avoid falling into them. 1. Assume that shorter is always better Shorter text is not always faster to read. It is important to recognise that a shorter piece of writing may actually be more complicated to understand. It can take the audience longer to grasp the meaning and join the dots. Laying something out in clear steps may involve using more words. However, this approach will be quicker to digest. Delivering a logical clear message that is well-structured may double the length of the text, but it can be read in a quarter of the time. Avoid fixating on the length of the document. Instead, consider how fast somebody would be able to read and understand it. Executive summaries are a good way to give your audience a choice of how much detail they would like to receive. Users can either read the summary and grasp the concept from that, or refer to the main document to obtain more detail. This works well if you use the same structure within both your executive summary and main document. 2. Putting the conclusion at the end Bring the conclusion to the front. Structuring it by the way you did it forces your audience to go on the problem solving journey with you. Bring the finding to the front and then your audience will want to read on and you can include reasons why that’s true. Your audience does not have to go through the same process as you did to get to the conclusion so you don’t have to structure it that way. 3. Forgetting how our brains work We need to be aware of how our and our audience’s brains work. We know in our head all the analysis and thinking we did, our audience doesn’t know this so they only have only got the words that we have written or speak. You have to try and bridge the gap and this can take a lot of energy. If we don’t understand what someone is saying or you are finding it hard you have to fight to be able to pay attention. If this person is someone important you will fight hard to pay attention but if it is someone who you value less you may not make the same effort. Forgetting how our brains work mean our audience have to do the work to make sense of what you are trying to communicate.  4. Track changes is your friend When discussing track changes in a group, the focus can end up being on the minute parts of the document that need to be changed, not the substantial changes. Think about getting the structure really right rather than trying to get into the substance of it. When you now share this structured way of doing it and get feedback on it you should then nail that down. Then create the document so you won’t need track changes. You will save a lot of time writing and reviewing your document and you will end up with a clear and compelling message. Track changes can create it a mish-mash. You can spend so much time making track changes that don’t add much value to your document.  5. Thinking good structure equals a thorough list of topics The human brain can only deal with 3 focuses at once. You should have a big idea and then 2-5 supporting ideas and these should be messages not topics. Using templates can be useful to make sure you look through the topic thoroughly, however, it doesn’t give the message of why. The finance update can also be a challenge. In this update there will be topics but it is useful to give a message with these topics that would give more of an understanding of why this has been the result.   Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

In this episode of The GrowCFO Show Dan Wells and Kevin Appleby discuss the 9 biggest challenges faced by finance leaders and what you can do to address some of the underlying issues. We hear about the biggest finance leader challenges all the time from our GrowCFO members, and its given us a great insight into the issues you need help with. What are the 9 biggest finance leader challenges? The challenges fall into 3 broad areas. The first one concerns making more impact. The issues that you raised with us include: Contribute more towards strategy Make more impact during Board meetings Grow your confidence and overcome Imposter Syndrome We covered those 3 topics in the first GrowCFO finance leader challenge in September, and a large number of you participated in the 3 30 minute events and then followed up with the tasks we gave you in the sessions. The second is all about interacting with others, and you tell us the main issues are: Build stronger relationships Enhance your communication Improve your gravitas and perception We are planning a series of finance leader challenges that cover these running from 1st to 3rd November and you can register here to be part of that event. https://www.growcfo.net/finance-leader-challenge/ The final three challenges relate to delivering your responsibilities and include: Avoid feeling overwhelmed with tasks Maximise your team’s performance Influence and obtain people’s buy-in There’s a further series of events coming up in January to help you with these. The top 3 finance leader challenges 1. Imposter Syndrome This is the biggest issue raised by our GrowCFO community towards becoming the best version of yourself. Around 80% of finance leaders suffer from this and 56% of our GrowCFO community identified this as being one of their top three biggest challenges towards delivering their full potential.Here are the typical challenges highlighted to us: Stepping up into the top role Getting more exposure to the Board Youngest person in the Board room Least industry knowledge in the management team Representing the firm externally Working outside of comfort zone Doing lots of things you have never done before Not always a right or wrong answer 2. Avoid feeling overwhelmed with tasks The second biggest issue, and one that has a strong bearing on all the other issuesHere are the typical challenges highlighted to us: You simply have too many things to do Finance leader picks up many tasks outside of finance that nobody else is doing You are still too involved in the detail and unable to extract yourself for more value added tasks Lack of the right skills in the rest of the team to properly support you Company is growing but the finance team isn’t, more work falls to the same people Putting processes and systems in place to deal with new business 3. Contributing more towards strategy This is the third biggest issue raised by our GrowCFO community towards becoming the best version of yourself. 29% of our GrowCFO community identified this as being one of their top three biggest challenges towards delivering their full potential.Here are the typical challenges highlighted to us: Struggling to free up time to think strategically Unsure how to contribute towards strategic objectives Not being consulted on key decisions Never been involved in strategy before Lack of toolkits to help you document and deliver the strategic plan Events If you want to find out more then you can register for the following upcoming events. https://www.growcfo.net/finance-leader-challenge/ Finance leader challenge: Interacting with others – November 2021 Building relationships – Monday 1st November from 1pm to 1.30pm. Communication – Tuesday 2nd November from 1pm to 1.30pm. Gravitas, perception and being seen as a barrier – Wednesday 3rd November from 1pm to 1.30pm. Finance leader challenge: Getting things done – January 2022 Feeling overwhelmed with tasks – Monday 24th January from 1pm to 1.30pm. Maximising your team’s performance – Tuesday 25th January from 1pm to 1.30pm. Influencing and obtaining people’s buy-in – Wednesday 26th January from 1pm to 1.30pm. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net