Episode - 014: - Where we learn from Dante, the building blocks of a great finance transformation project, project best practises, XP&A vs FP&A, the concept of technical debt, the evolving AI landscape, productivity & planning tools, and much much more.

After starting his career as a management accountant, and then financial controller, Dante went on to become an Accounting Manager at the Ford Motor Company, and then a Project Manager for the Accounting Centre of Excellence at Ford Credit.

Show Notes

Where to find Dante

• Dante Healy's website here
• LinkedIn page of Dante here
• Business Breaks podcast here

Tech Mentioned

• Notion: 
• Zapier: 
• Chat GPT: 
• Rize: 
• Blue: 
• Jira: 

People Mentioned

• Eleanor Roosevelt: 

Books Mentioned

• “Loonshots” by Safi Bahcall: 
• "Atomic Habits" by James Clear: 
• "High Performance Habits" by Brendon Burchard: 

Other Mentions

• CEOWorld Magazine: 
• Lunchclub: 
• Robotic process automation: 
• Technical debt: 
• Low-code tools: 
• VBA: 

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Contents

[00:02:19] Dante's motivation for upskilling and move to finance transformation project management.

[00:08:30] The blocks of a financial transformation and aligning with business operations.

[00:13:10] Why you should build a business case before automating poor processes.

[00:18:05] Why benchmarking against industry leaders is important

[00:24:02] XP&A vs FP&A

[00:24:52] The importance of accurate data before implementing AI

[00:26:47] Robotic process automation: replacing people with desktops

[00:29:59] Technical debt: replacing legacy systems to avoid obsolescence

[00:32:35] Exciting emerging technologies: AI, data visualization, low-code tools

[00:43:06] Writing for CEO World, maximizing productivity and finance transformations

[00:45:40] Getting executive buy-in for finance transformations

[00:48:22] The apps and gadgets Dante can’t live without

[00:50:07] Personal productivity apps (Notion, Blue)

[00:53:33] The benefits of connecting with new and interesting people on LunchClub