Ep. 159: Jamie Gregory - Strategic Initiative for Cost Saving and Revenue Growth

Contact Jamie Gregory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-gregory-7030455/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Mitch Roshong, and you are now listening to episode 159 of our series. Today's featured guest speaker is chief financial officer at Synovus, Jamie Gregory. In this episode, Jamie talks about strategic initiatives and leading through change during a tough economic environment. As an example, he is a part of Synovus Forward. Synovus Forward is a revenue generating and expense saving initiative that began in late 2019 with the goal of achieving top quartile performance and an annual 175 million pre-tax run rate benefit by 2022, as well as best in class experience for clients, employees, and shareholders. Keep listening to hear more about this initiative, the role of innovation and adapting to change.

Adam: (01:05)
Jamie, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. We're so glad we could have you on, and we all know that the last 18 months have been really hard for many, many businesses. Some shut down other ones, you know, have struggled going forward and companies have to be strategic. And something I was reading about is Synovus Forward, an initiative that your company, has put forth recently. And can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Jamie: (01:29)
Yeah, absolutely. Adam first, thanks for having me today. I look forward to this discussion. Synovus Forward has been transformational for us. It all started back in 2019 when we looked at our long term plan our multiyear forecast and thought about how does that relate to our objectives to be a top quartile performer. And so we looked at that, we looked at where we expected the industry to be and our peers to be. And we realized we had a little bit of a gap there. And so we took a step back and looked internally and we realized that we had opportunities to be better. We had ways we could improve, we could, improve our delivery, to our customers through enhanced processes. We could look and then ensure that we have the right physical infrastructure. We realized that we had opportunities to improve, some of our third party, including, the partners we choose to help us deliver Synovus to our clients. But then, you know, as we progressed, the world changed on us. We started Synovus Forward in late 2019, and the first quarter of 2020, the whole world looked different. And so we had to reassess. And so it changed our outlook of what was required, to be top quartile. And we pivoted from there, but Synovus Forward started off as an initiative. It became a bigger initiative and now it's becoming just a cultural mindset of continuous improvement.

Adam: (02:58)
So I think that's a great example of, you know, seeing the economic environment, seeing the environment around you and adapting, you know, not just, taking, taking the initiative as you first saw it, but adapting as you went along, are there some major lessons that you can share since implementing.

Jamie: (03:14)
Well, you hit the nail on the head. The first thing is being willing to adapt. So you have to always be stepping back, looking at, you know, the impact in your vision and how does, what your outlook for the company, what that outlook is, how does that relate to your objectives? And so we're really clear on what our objectives are. And so as the outlook evolves, our tactics to achieve our objectives have to evolve. And so that was a piece of it. And that's what we were assessing in early 2020. But other lessons we learned is that there are win-win scenarios. If you're willing to really dig in and look for them, there are ways that everybody can be a winner. When you think about our key stakeholders, we have, you know, our shareholders, our team members, and our clients, and all of these can benefit through improvement. And so, you know, that was a big lesson that we've learned. And the last thing I would say is you do have to be persistent. Change can be tough, but you have to be there to support your team members and monitor the progress. And to see the initiatives through, to the finish line

Adam: (04:21)
Change is definitely tough, especially when you're looking to kind of be agile and move and adapt with the environment and financial and accounting industries. They're highly regulated, whether it's it's banking or taxing, all that stuff, everything's highly regulated. How do you continue to be agile in those types of environments?

Jamie: (04:42)
Yeah. First and foremost, you have to have a strong control environment, just to ensure that as you evolve, you're evolving from a place of strength, you know, but agile is, you know, bringing that up is a great point. When you break larger initiatives into smaller components, it can actually help enhance your control environment because you're able to test as you go along rather than wait to the end of a large initiative, to look and ensure that you're maintaining, sufficient control environment. So to me, agile is an important framework, as you think about, you know, maintaining and potentially enhancing your control environment as you go through these initiatives.

Adam: (05:26)
So control environment, internal controls, how important having internal controls been, especially as most of the workforce went to, working from home. And then now back in the office or hybrid environments.

Jamie: (05:39)
It's absolutely critical. And you look at ways to enhance the internal controls, both through your processes, but also through automation. and we believe that, you know, one of the major benefits, of automation is enhancing the control environment, reducing operational risk and trying to take human error out of the equation.

Adam: (06:02)
That's very important. So taking human error out a lot of times involves things like innovation. We've talked about agile, but now let's talk about being innovative. Change is not far behind and how can leaders, how can leaders guide their teams effectively through an innovative process?

Jamie: (06:19)
Well, first the first priority is ensuring you began with the end in mind that you had a long term vision, no matter what. So that way, no matter what short term changes or what tactical changes happen during the course of an initiative or a project that everybody's aligned on long term vision, so that, you know, your tactics may change and your strategies may change and the project may evolve, but it's all driving you to the same endpoint and that's what's critical. So that the team and anybody involved internally, externally, they can see that the progress towards the end, it remains the same, even if, how you're getting there may have changed from when you began the project.

Adam: (07:02)
Yeah. So do you have any examples maybe, of a time where you've led a team through that innovative change that you can share with us?

Jamie: (07:11)
Sure, sure. You know, I want to kind of go back to the Synovus Forward as you look at how that evolved. And so I mentioned that when we started this, we had a hundred million objective. This was to get us to top quartile and then the world changed. And the world changed, you know, when you have, interest rates declining, growth slowing uncertainty on capital liquidity, our outlook evolved with that. Now one thing that's interesting about our income statement is, that we are heavier on interest income, as a percentage of total revenue, than some of our peers. And so when you have that declining rate environment, it can impact us, a little bit more than others. And so when you look at what it takes to achieve top quartile performance, it changed. And that's what, resul...