GrowCFO Show

You are a newly appointed CFO. You need to take a view of whether your finance function and the finances systems you use are appropriate. Matt Benaron joins the GrowCFO Show to show you how to create a finance function blueprint during your first 100 days in post. About Matt Benaron As Director and Co-founder, Matt Benaron leads the VantagePoint consulting team by drawing upon his extensive experience implementing finance solutions across multiple sectors. He is a CIMA-qualified chartered accountant with comprehensive experience across varying finance systems as a solutions architect. How do you start to create a finance function blueprint? Once you have secured your first CFO role you will need to act quickly. The first 100 days in your new role are critical. During that time you will need to assess your finance function and determine what needs to change. You need to have a finance function blueprint that you can use with your team and the rest of the business to signpost the way forward. Its likely you will need to implement change, and the finance function blueprint will set out the vision, the indicative solution, the roadmap, and the funds needed to change. You will need to go through several steps in those first 100 days. Matt takes us through those one by one. We cover two key modules from GrowCFO’s Future CFO programme: Module 8 Take over the finance function, and create a blueprint for your own team Module 9 Create your identity, The first 100 days Be clear on business strategy Your finance vision must align to the overall strategic objective of the business. So start with CEO, the rest of the c-suite and the board, There may be a written strategy and objectives for the business. But its not unusual for that not to exist. Even where a strategy exists then the interpretation of it may not be universal across the whole top team. Find out what the real objectives are, and make sure you have alignment. Often the objectives aren’t clear, or incomplete, so work with the board to understand what the objectives really are. You need everyone bought in from the start. Translate business strategy into a vision for finance Take a view on what the strategy means for finance. What do growth targets or geographic expansion targets mean for finance? How big is the company going to be? Will transaction volumes change significantly? How many currencies will you deal with? Is there a move to different channels? Will finance need to integrate with new things? Get your team on board with the finance function objectives Engaging with your team early on is extremely important. You need them to be bought into the solution. Communicate often. Think about catch phrases and themes, make sure they start using the language you do. They need to understand their role in the change. Listen and engage with your entire finance team. Ideally one on one. Surveys and interviews work well. Find out what works well and what doesn’t. They will be able to give you a lot of the detail that will help you formulate the finance function blueprint. There will be other key pieces of information easily to hand. Look at past audit reports and similar documents, they will give you clues about some of the issues you will need to address. Engage with the rest of the business Ask the rest of the business about finance. These people are your customers and will give you a great perspective of how well you serve them. A significant part of your job is raising the perception of finance in the business, so understanding what they need from you will start this process. The customer of finance will tell you about issues your own team won’t. lots of issues for finance start in other departments, and finance causes issues for the rest of the business. You will need the whole of the business bought into your finance function blueprint, not just your own finance team. But remember to put the customer first. The customer of finance is the rest of the business Get the right support for your finance function blueprint The CFO doesn’t need to be an expert in finance processes and systems. There are so many aspects to your role as CFO these days that you can’t possibly master all of them. Its likely that there are other people in the business better placed to own the detail in your blueprint than you. Don’t be afraid to use them, they might be in finance or in the wider business, for example in the IT function. If you can’t find the right people internally, don’t be afraid to look externally. Keep it simple and look for quick wins You don’t turn every challenge into a massive transformation project, look for some simple changes and for quick wins. Quick wins will help get people on side. Break things down into incremental changes. Don’t have one change, look for 10 or 20 smaller ones. Some will naturally go together and you will start to build a route map with a staged approach to change. You need to take a holistic view of people; processes; and systems. Technology isn’t the answer by itself and won’t solve the problem without the right business processes and organisation design. How do you get the funding for your finance function blueprint? Once you have identified 10-20 change initiatives, you can establish a mini business case for each. The business case will explain why the change is needed, what it will deliver and when, the costs involved and how it will be done. Changes are bundled into stages, and you end up with a roadmap. You will have multiple changes in a stage but the overall blueprint is broken down into bite size chunks None of this should come as a surprise to the board. You have been building trust and expanding on your story right across your first 100 days. If you’ve managed those 100 days properly you will have taken your board on a journey. First listening to their concerns and issues, and their view on strategy and objectives. You will have helped the board clarify a common vision, and you will have demonstrated clearly how finance needs to embrace the vision and supply the right service to the future business model. how do you find the right external support? There are many consultancies to choose from, ranging from the big 4 to boutique firms. Generally there is no single right choice. You need to find advisors that you feel comfortable with, and you are happy to work with. It often ends up being a very personal choice. it comes down to people….you need to work out who you will work with day to day. are they the right ones, will they engage and learn about your business, must bring right empathy and connection. don’t want someone that just brings a methodology that they force on you. You won’t necessarily know all the firms that might be right for you. Reach out to peer CFOs and ask their advice and recommendations. The GrowCFO community is a great place to ask your peers for recommendations. Remember also to check out the future of the finance function topic, and maybe attend some of the regular Zoom sessions hosted by Chris Tredwell.

Hannah Munro is managing director of Itassolutions and host of CFO 4.0 Podcast. Hannah has over 10 years experience helping CFOs drive finance transformation and reshape finance functions. We look at what you need to do as a CFO to lead a successful finance transformation There are three elements to finance transformation: People, Process & Systems Hannah Munro has a background in analytics and process design and not in technology She believes that the key to a successful transformation is to make sure you don’t concentrate solely on the technology. You can have the best technology in world, but if you don’t have good processes and motivated people then your project won’t get anywhere. Finance transformation is driven with a good change process If you want to deliver a successful finance transformation then you need to understand how to lead change. John P Kotter outlines an 8 step process in his book leading change. The 8-Step Process for Leading Change was cultivated from over four decades of Dr. Kotter’s observations of countless leaders and organizations as they were trying to transform or execute their strategies. He identified and extracted the success factors and combined them into a methodology, the award-winning 8-Step Process for Leading Change. Create a sense of urgency Build a guiding coalition Form a strategic vision Enlist a volunteer army Enable action by removing barriers Generate short term wins Sustain wins Institute change If you want to find out more about Kotter here’s a great article Create a sense of urgency for finance transformation A sense of urgency or a burning platform needs to underpin all change. If you don’t have a burning platform for making your finance transformation then its unlikely to happen. Recently we’ve seen remote working mean on premise accounting solutions are no longer viable. This has given an urgency to adopt cloud based systems. If you want to transform then something needs to motivate change. Ask yourself whats driving the urgency? If you have no urgency you will have no motivation. Sometimes that lack of urgency means necessary change doesn’t happen. In the podcast Kevin recalls his employer growing by acquisition but failing to consolidate the back office. Once the need to consolidate became urgent it was too late to do it. The business was already losing too much money and collapsing fast. Build a Guiding Coalition that extends beyond finance You might be transforming finance, but you need to look further. The problem often sits outside finance. Make sure there is representation from across the business, not just from the finance team. You will likely have to change processes that significantly impact on the way your finance team operates. Many of those processes won’t be owned by finance and will be driven by the rest of the business. You can start by identifying capable, influential, and critical allies from across your business. These people are your change oversight team. Make sure finance transformation aligns with a strategic vision Build a picture of what the future looks like after the finance transformation is implemented. Your picture of what the organisation can become is both a future that looks appealing and sensible. If it isn’t, then it will be hard for the leaders to sustain commitment to the change effort. In this step, you must maintain a balance between setting organisational direction independently and collaborating with the guiding coalition. A strategic case for change is a key element of any business case. Poor finance solutions can hinder the wider business strategy. The system you choose for finance needs to enable wider business processes so you need to ensure the technology is a strategic fit with other business systems. Enlist a volunteer army Can you communicate your vision effectively? You must capture the hearts and minds of the employees and managers who are necessary to implement this change. With simple messaging that is repeated effectively in different formats, you can help the rest of the organisation to understand and accept the need for change and become part of it. You will need to involve as many people as possible. Can you give your people the freedom to build the solution? They will understand the issues better than you do, they deal with them every day. They will also accept a solution they designed themselves much better than one in which they had no say. You can’t expect your finance team to have all the skills to come up with the best solution. They will need guidance and help. Make sure you give them all the support they need. If you seek external help then make sure your people aren’t excluded from the solution design. Enable action by removing barriers to finance transformation This is a series of actions to remove obstacles that do not support your change vision. At this point of the change journey, you are squarely in the implementation phase. You are actively working with the rest of the organization to make changes to the existing processes, procedures, and organisational structures. People often assume there are barriers where there are none. Quite often things get done in a certain way, or certain processes exist when there is no real reason for it. Things often happen in a certain way because of history, not because of need. Keep asking why? Why do you do that? Give people an incentive to do things differently, a reason to change. If you want a system that relies on electronic invoices give your suppliers a strong reason not to send paper. You have many tools art your disposal. You could offer better payment terms for electronic invoices. Generate short term wins Complex goals are difficult to achieve and take time. The change will often stall if it takes too long to generate benefit. Some quick wins can generate a lot of goodwill. Are there any actions you can prioritise that might give short term payback? You should try to make changes to processes ahead of technology. Better processes will make it easier for you to go forward. if you cut out unnecessary processes and simplify then you can often generate instant benefits. Eliminating unnecessary process steps will make peoples lives easier, save time and reduce cost. When your people see immediate benefits they will be motivated to go further. Sustain wins look beyond the low-hanging fruit of the short-term wins to tackle other more difficult initiatives. This step serves two purposes. First, it prevents the organisation from going back to its old way of doing things and second it combats continuing resistance to change. Most finance transformations fail to achieve the benefits they promised. Most ERP implementations don’t pay back the investment made in them. Beyond the quick wins you must remember why you initiated the finance transformation in the first place. The big wins are harder and are easier to lose sight of. When you are in the midst of putting a system in with a very short time window then delivering the project becomes more important than delivering the savings. Focus often moves from realising benefits to making the tech work properly. Deadlines are deadlines! Institute change You need to embed the business change. If you don’t embed change people revert to the old ways of doing things. You must make sure your people are comfortable with the new ways of working. Equally you must make sure you can’t revert to the old ways of doing things. Once you make a process simpler and easier it will be very hard to revert to your old ways. People are genetically engineered to hate change. You must link change to people’s motivation. You need to give them a really powerful reason to change. As the CFO leading the finance transformation, you must communicate the urgency to change. You must communicate a compelling vision. You need to demonstrate that the new world is much better for everyone. People do things by habit. Your habits become subconscious. You do them automatically. habits are done subconsciously, and feel natural because a pattern has been imprinted. The new is done consciously as it hasn’t been learned yet, it feels uncomfortable, and people want to revert to the comfortable. Do you need to know more about Finance Transformation? GrowCFO has lots of information in the learning centre to help you get to grips with the 10 Core Competencies that every CFO needs to know. You can join GrowCFO and find out much more.

Today I explore the CFO mindset with Tony Shafar. Tony is an executive coach. He coaches business leaders and in particular people in senior finance roles. Tony believes that for most the technical abilities needed to do the job are taken for granted, but these only account for a small part of what makes a successful leader. The rest is mindset. We explore how the wrong mindset can undermine you, and how to address the problem. About Tony Shafar After studying Accountancy and Business at Strathyclyde University, Tony qualified as a Chartered Accountant working for Grant Thornton in Glasgow. Upon qualification, he moved to the London office specialising in Corporate Finance. Tony’s career progressed through senior finance roles at Morrisons and Virgin Media. He then spent 10 years working as a Finance Director for Ogilvy where he was a key member of the senior management team, managing the P&L, negotiating with clients, and working alongside the CEO managing staff and other key stakeholders. Tony realised being a finance director with a large corporate was no longer fuelling his passion, and he changed direction to become a coach alongside a role as a portfolio CFO for a number of smaller organisations including owner managed businesses and technology start ups. He enjoyed taking on a broader role, not only including managing the finances and helping with fund raising but also having operational responsibilities in helping manage the business. Whats the issue with CFO mindset? The technical aspects of the job are taken for granted, you have a good no2 producing numbers for you. The mechanics are 15% of the job. The rest is mindset. Its such a big part of the role you have to get it right. Most of the time Tony’s role is to help people get clarity on what’s holding them back. Discover what this is and you have the key to creating the right mindset for success. Mentoring and coaching can really help you. An experienced mentor can help you navigate the diverse challenges your role gives you. If mentoring interests you then GrowCFO can help, and you can find out more here. Uncertainty is the biggest problem Do you ever say to yourself: “ I’m not experienced enough to get that promotion” “I can’t let people know that I’m struggling with this as they will see me as incapable and not up to the job” “ I would like to take on that assignment but I’m worried that I might fail” These negative, fearful thoughts are not uncommon and come from limiting beliefs, embedded in your mind. They have been built up throughout your life. They are determined by many factors including experiences of the past and what people said you could or couldn’t do. Is this common amongst finance leaders? Lots of Tony’s clients talk about uncertainty and fearful thoughts when making key decisions. This uncertainty stops them taking the next step, even when that step is something they really want. You might be a financial controller wanting to progress to CFO. You don’t know whether you can do the role. This is because you have never done it before. Uncertainty leads to doubt about whether to apply for role and inaction or procrastination. Procrastination leads to unhappiness as you aren’t getting fulfilment.The more senior the role the bigger the problem, so CFO mindset is vital. how do you encourage someone to push through? You must identify the real underlying fear thats holding you back. What’s stopping you taking the next step or making the key decision? Its usually uncertainty and your natural tendency to avoid risk. By accepting a limiting belief, it will become your reality, so once you hear the negative critic in your head, call it out, and ask yourself something which may question your limiting belief and help move you towards your solution as opposed to focusing on the problem. Good questions to ask yourself include: “Do I really know this to be the case or am I assuming it?” “If my friend had the same problem what would I advise them to do?” “How else could I look at this?” “What could be a more helpful, empowering belief?” By starting to ask yourself different questions when encountering limiting beliefs, you will change your reality and move it more towards a future that you really want. CFO Mindset and imposter syndrome Most first time CFOs suffer from imposter syndrome. You might not admit to imposter syndrome openly, but its likely that you will doubt some part of your ability to do your job. Imposter syndrome is usually regarded as a problem. Tony actually believes it might not be a bad thing. Imposter syndrome actually shows you are making progress. You have left your comfort zone and are addressing the unknown and uncertain. Gravitas and the CFO Mindset Gravitas is important. If you start emulating a role model CFO you will soon adopt the right habits. Who is your role model? Ask yourself “what gives them authority & stature?”. How does your role model respond to particular situations? When confronted with a situation you can ask yourself “how would they respond?” This technique can depersonalise the situation and give you an objective view. Find out more about Tony Shafar Tony is part of the GrowCFO community and is often found posting thought provoking articles. Why don’t you drop over to the community and start a conversation with him? Tony runs his own coaching business, Shafar Coaching

Your first CFO role will involve a big step change in responsibility and take you right to the edge of your comfort zone and beyond. You need to stay resilient in order to survive. Dr Russell Thackeray is a psychologist and psychotherapist who specialises in resilience and frequently coaches c-suite executives. He shares his expertise on the GrowCFO Show Dr Russell Thackeray started his career as a professional musician before a career in sales and marketing. he has been CEO of a law firm and founded a major training business. These days he operates an organisational development consultancy and coaching business. He has worked with a diverse range of organisations including Central and Local Government, the National Health Service, Mercedes Benz, GKN, The Guardian, Hyundai, QinetiQ and Asda as well as for Private Equity and Venture Capitalists. As an entrepreneur, he has grown a number of organisations and has worked in the investment space with a number of UK Private Equity companies, including some major UK universities, to help them build the best people to ‘ramp up’ their investments. He is also a non-executive director of a number of digital businesses including lifestyle transformation and cruise travel companies. Is it difficult to stay resilient in your first CFO role? Russell believes there are many challenges faced by the first time CFO that will call upon the new CFO’s resilience. As a new CFO you have been working hard to land your first chance to do the top job. You have aspired to the role for a long time, but its a massive step up. The fight to win the job was tough, but it’s only the start. Now the really hard work starts, so yes its going to take all the resilience you have in order to survive and then thrive. Russell identifies two possible scenarios Scenario 1: You rise to the new challenge, and perform well. but find it really stretches you and overwhelm comes from the volume and variety of work you need to undertake and the need to operate at a whole new level Scenario 2: You perform poorly, you struggle with the huge range of new skills needed to do the top job. You were comfortable as head of the finance function, but the new role is a million miles from your comfort zone. You struggle to deal with your new senior colleagues, and overwhelm gets the better of you. How do you stay resilient in Scenario 1? A major issue in scenario 1 is that your personal time gets squeezed. You have little time to do personal development and your own training goes out the window. Your wellbeing is at risk from the overwhelm of your new responsibilities. To stay resilient you must: Learn to leave behind the job you did before, you can’t afford to hang on to the safety security & comfort of the finance function If your new job is in the same company then make sure you have replaced yourself with a great number 2 If your new job is in a different company then make sure the team around you is strong and capable to support you You can’t be the outward face of the company while still looking inward, so you must be ruthless and jettison what you brought with you. Avoid the familiar, throw yourself into the stuff you aren’t good at. You will become good at it in time. You need a good mentor. We discussed mentoring in episode 5 of the GrowCFO Show Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness Find the natural rhythm of your job. The regular requirements of the job won’t be apparent at first, you need time to settle in. Let your team do the technical stuff, you don’t need to be the expert in everything How do you stay resilient in Scenario 2? The issue is you have bitten off way more than you can chew. You are drowning. You don’t have all the skills to do the CFO role. Maybe you have been over promoted and shouldn’t be doing the job. There’s actually no harm in admitting this if it is the case. Not admitting it can be more dangerous, as the stresses and strains won’t get better over time they will get worse. Over promotion is rarely the issue. The step up to CFO is a big one. Its rare for the CFO to arrive with all the skills needed on day 1. There are things you need to put in place: A dedicated personal development plan. We look closely at building a development plan in module 3 of the future CFO programme Avoid burning yourself out.risk off burning out. Sometimes you imagine the expectations on you are greater than they really are Nobody expects you to be brilliant right at the beginning. The first 100 days are a critical honeymoon period. Use them well. Module 9 of future CFO programme looks at how to best use first 100 days Managing change is a huge challenge Or is it? Don’t let the need to champion change overwhelm you. Just coming in, being new and fresh is big part of change. You bring something different to your predecessor, so don’t be afraid to be yourself and make your own mark: You need to start with yourself. Lead it, live it, and influence other people. The CFO needs to be the pivotal person changing the perception of finance in the organisation. Finance needs to become vital rather than functional. Functional can be automated and outsourced. You must have your head around digital technology Start by changing finance not the rest of the organisation.

There are many different ways to become a CFO. In this episode of the GrowCFO Show Kevin Appleby explores the seven main routes to that top job with GrowCFO founder Dan Wells. We discuss which route is best. We look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. Then we conclude by looking at what help and support you might need depending on which route you take. The road to becoming a CFO isn’t a straightforward one. Generally when recruitment agencies are engaged to find a CFO they are looking for experience. Most of the time their ideal candidate will already be a CFO. So if that is the case then how do you get that elusive first CFO opportunity? Fortunately using a recruitment agency isn’t the only way to secure a CFO role. You have  a few other options. Dan Wells talks us through 7 different routes to the top job. We look at the pros and cons of each. 1) Become a CFO through internal promotion In our survey earlier the year 52% of GrowCFO members who replied felt that an internal promotion is the best route to securing your first CFO role. This allows you to build your knowledge of the company’s industry and products. You can develop your relationships with key internal stakeholders and grow into the role. There are downsides to this route. You may be typecast into your previous role and some people may not truly recognise you as the CFO. Its also possible to get held back by still having to perform your old role. If you choose this route its vital that you recruit a good number 2 to support you and backfill your old job. 2) Take a role as CFO in a start up Joining an early stage company as their new CFO is one of the most effective routes for landing your first CFO role.  24% of our survey responses suggested this was the best way. This involves leveraging your experience of working in a more complex scaled up business in order to become an attractive CFO candidate at a smaller company. The fast growing start up will certainly challenge you. It will stretch you right to the edge of your comfort zone and beyond. You may feel very lonely with little support as you are likely to be the only qualified accountant in the business. If you find yourself as a first time CFO in a startup then some of the best advice is to find a good support network. A mentor who is an older much more experienced CFO might be essential to your success. 3) A startup financial controller will often grow into a CFO A good number of people suggest joining a start-up company as their Financial Controller. The FC will lead the finance team and can grow into the CFO role as the business scales.  Many finance leaders have taken this approach. It provides you with the opportunity to take on more responsibility, learn new skills and impress your employers. However you take a risk. The company may fail to achieve its growth target and your role doesn’t evolve.  You might not be first choice for CFO. The business recruits another candidate into a future CFO role ahead of you. 4) Become a CFO via a divisional FD role A divisional FD role can carry a huge amount of responsibility and expose you to many of the skills a future CFO will need to demonstrate. It’s likely that this role can give you board experience, and you will be required to support the overall CFO of the organisation. The divisional FD role at a larger company to be a good progression towards a future entrepreneurial business CFO role.  Divisional FDs typically develop a range of relevant skills. These might include data analysis, operational activities and strategic initiatives. Chances are you will need to change employer to progress to CFO, so the downside is you will be up against some very experienced candidates in the job market. 5) Be a part time of portfolio CFO You might consider becoming a part-time FD for smaller companies. This way you can gain the necessary skills and experience to progress into a future CFO role.  Historically the portfolio role has been the preserve of CFOs winding down at the end of their career. This is changing, and it is becoming a much more mainstream career path. Typically you will provide strategic financial input whilst working on day rates. You will gain good exposure to CFO-related tasks and potentially being recruited as a full-time CFO by one of your clients. One downside of the portfolio role is you might be the only finance person in the organisation. As well as being the CFO you might be the book keeper too! 6) Move to a finance role at a client You might currently work in professional practice, so one route to CFO is to join a client. Professional advisors often help companies through major transactions and can be very involved in the business. Consultants can work on transformation projects and become very familiar with the way the client’s business operates. Its a small step from leading change as an external consultant to leading change as the CFO. Transitioning to a CFO role at a client can be tricky. Its likely you have deep experience in a few specialist areas. While these will be useful to your new employer you may lack some of the broader skills a CFO needs. 7) Get Head Hunted Not many CFO roles are advertised. Your search of the job market will only reveal a small percentage of roles. Companies engage headhunters to seek out and approach potential CFO candidates. Many are approached even when they aren’t actively seeking a new role. You need to stand out to attract the attentions of the head hunter. You are likely to be well connected and good at networking and you will need a strong personal brand. How can you improve your chances? You can do a number of things. Find a mentor. You should look for a mentor who has already done what you are aiming to do. Lots of experienced CFOs are prepared to mentor the next generation of leaders. If you don’t have someone you can ask then GrowCFO provides a great mentoring service. Join the Grow CFO future CFO programme. The future CFO programme covers all the skills and competencies you will need as a CFO You should have a clear personal development plan. Understand what you need to do in the next 12-18 months to secure your dream job. The GrowCFO learning centre has tools to help you build your plan. Take an active role in a community. The GrowCFO community. You should join in events and make sure you are visible.

David B Horne is a CFO who has written a best selling business book, “Add then Multiply”. The book describes his FACE methodology for growing and exiting a business, and is great reading for CEOs and CFOs alike. He trained as a chartered accountant with PWC in Canada. Because he can speak fluent German, he wanted to work in a German-speaking office and so he went to Switzerland. From there, he got offered a job by his biggest clients and then transferred with them to London. These days he works as a portfolio CFO advising clients undertaking major transactions. Add then Multiply David B Horne is a CFO who has written a best selling business book. His book “Add then Multiply” was published in July 2019 and went to no. 1 on Amazon. In March 2020 Add then Multiply won the business self development category at the  business book awards. You can buy Add then Multiply on Amazon Who is Add then Multiply for? CEO’s and CFO’s who want to fundraise and grow quickly through acquisition. Are you frustrated by the challenges of growing your business organically? Have you ever wondered if there was a way to grow exponentially? Fast? There is a better way but you’ll need to break a few rules in your thinking about business. This book shows you how. What Add then Multiply all about? Add then Multiply describes David’s FACE methodology: Fund Acquire Consolidate Exit The FACE methodology is about getting step-by-step exponential growth in your business. It’s about selling and buying businesses for growth and development. F is for Fund This is all about the process by which you raise money. How do you go about doing that? What do you have to prepare and what are the different types of investors (family and friends for early stage, angels, and then more institutional means like venture capital). A is for Acquire Acquire within David’s framework is for more established businesses who want to scale up. The fastest way is through acquisition. David wrote many case studies for this in his book. The key point is that, if you’ve never done this before, don’t try do it on your own. There are minefields out there. You need professional people who know what they’re talking about there with you. C is for Consolidate Putting two businesses together. The key challenges are values and culture. The value destruction that comes after a small company and big company are acquired and merged is almost like night follows day for some. But, David does have some examples where it worked. E is for Exit Realising your dreams. Begin with the end in mind. A lot of entrepreneurs start off because they’ve never really though about their ‘why’ and the drive that pushes you in your endeavours. David shares his advice for first time CFOs David’s first CFO role was in a very acquisitive PR group. He learned a huge amount about fast growth through acquisition in. a cash rich company. He learned many other lessons in a big step up from a no2 role Listen to advice from peers or coaches and mentors. We explored the importance of this on a previous episode of the GrowCFO Show The need to form strong relationships with the rest of the c-suite. David found he needed to change his attitude to many people. He learned to say sorry and apologise for behaving badly. This leads to gaining trust and the ability to work collaboratively. Some of these relationships can last through an entire career, and usually they are the relationships you might thin are the least important at the time. The importance of networking. People can introduce you to people. Relationships are really important. David & Kevin first met via LinkedIn to record an episode of “The Next 100 Days Podcast“ Fundraising during Covid-19 David is fundraising right now. There’s money still there, but it’s a little harder to access. Funders are looking closely at valuations, and looking at risks of recession. Some funds couldn’t invest early in 2020, so to some extent deals that weren’t done are now being caught up. Investors have money, they are just being cautious. The fight for fairer funding David is thrilled to be the opening speaker at TEDxPCL on 9 October 2020. His talk “The Fight for Fairer Funding” is all about the challenges that female and diverse entrepreneurs face when raising capital to grow their businesses. In 2017 for every £1 funded, only 1p went to all female teams David ran Funding-focus.com last year and will repeat this year as an online event. This told some great stories about female entrepreneurs, bur revealed the inequality isn’t just in the UK, its global. Ethnic minorities of both genders face these inequalities too. “The Fight for Fairer Funding” is set to be the title of Davids second book, where he explores the reasons behind the inequality. All female and mixed gender founders win a disproportionately low percentage of pitches. We highlighted cognitive bias from white male dominated equity houses as a major reason, but it isn’t the only one. It promises to be a great read. Do you want to reach out fo David? You can find him on LinkedIn or in the GrowCFO community

Justin Leigh from focus4growth joins the GrowCFO Show to discuss the CFO’s role in supporting profitable business growth. We look at the Psychology, skills and systems needed to drive that growth and why the CFO is well placed to drive the business change that is needed. About Justin Leigh Justin’s background is working in large corporations including 3M. He has worked in sales, sales leadership and business leadership. He set up his own company 3 years ago, specialising in providing training coaching & consultancy to unlock growth potential in businesses Over his career Justin has worked alongside a number of CFOs. He sees the CFO role as vital to delivering profitable business growth. The key role of the CFO in this context is to help map out strategies for growth programmes, and provide resources from the finance team to undertake more detailed business modelling. Why is profitable business growth so important? Thats actually quite simple. Delivering extra profitable revenue can make a huge Impact on the p&l. It can be a game changer, and is the easiest way to remove other obstacles & issues in the business. Growth unlocks all sorts of opportunities. Executing profitable business growth isn’t quite that simple though. It takes planning and focussed execution. Lots of analysis of plans and seeking out opportunities is where it always starts, with one key question. How do I over deliver revenue growth? role of CFO in this analysis is key, but the role of the CFO is so broad that focus on programmes that drive the top line can be overlooked. How does the CFO support profitable business growth? Revenue comes from a portfolio of products, but not all products are equal. Some will be more profitable than others. Growth by itself is not sufficient. First there’s a need to identify the most profitable parts of the portfolio. Then address product & portfolio mix, developing the most profitable parts of portfolio. The CFO helps with high level strategy, his team supporting with the detailed analysis. Understanding product and customer profitability isn’t always straightforward. The CFO has a big change role during implementation. The budget is a very effective way of driving the change. ZBB can be used to make sure the right areas are emphasised, and budget is taken away from less profitable bits of the business. The budget drives a change management approach. What stops the CFO getting involved? Volume of work is often the biggest obstacle. The CFO gets involved in a broad range of initiatives and is often overloaded. Big tech projects don’t help, the CFO is increasingly getting involved in these. Aside from this, Justin believes the biggest issue to overcome is restrictive beliefs. “We tried that before” is a common thing that needs to be overcome. You need psychology to be right. To break through and unlock the opportunities. You need to change the perspective of what is possible. The 3 Step process to profitable business growth Justin teaches a 3 stage process. Psychology Skills Systems A growth mindset is vitally important. The business team rarely meets just to discuss growth and how each function contributes to it. In workshops Justin will challenge each member of the business team with the same question. How does your role contribute to growth in the organisation? Once psychology and mindset are sorted only then can you move on to step 2 and consider what skills are lacking. Usually its about relationship building and becoming provider of choice. Its rarely about pitching. CFO and finance has a role here. Finance need to build models to support deals. The CFO might be involved in meetings with clients. The clients finance people might work with his own team to help structure deals and consider how to make it affordable. Finance needs more customer facing skills. Moving from functional head to business leader Justin’s experience is that outstanding individual contributors get promoted. But there’s a big step between delivering by yourself to delivering through a team. The challenge is learning to lead, and get more out of the team. He has a book recommendation: 1 Daniel Goldman’s book “The New Leaders” talks about foundations of emotional intelligence & 6 styles of leadership. Mastering all 6 is tricky but 2 or 3 can make a big difference. Justin has his personal favourite 3. visionary style – set the vision for the organisation and cascades this down through the organisation democratic style – talk to individuals about how they fit into the vision. This style often brings out insights what will work & what won’t. coaching style – encouraging others to step up. Knowing when to use which style is crucial. The need for mentoring and coaching Justin believes it is important to have a mentor, and recognises the need for leadership coaching. Mentor should ideally be a CFO outside the business. We discussed mentoring in a previous episode of the GrowCFO Show You should give yourself more exposure to other functions in order to learn more about the world outside finance. To make the leap to CFO you must really understand other areas of the business. Technical and engineering, supply chain, manufacturing & production. The leap from head of finance to CFO is a huge challenge. The GrowCFO future CFO programme and cohorts are a big help for you if you are aiming to make that leap. Justin Leigh published author Justin has been writing a book and its in the final stages of being published. “Inspire Influence Sell” is expected to be released in early November 2020. The subtitle,”mastering the psychology, skills & systems of the worlds best sales teams” says it all. Justin lifts material from his own experiences and those he has coached to provide a very practical guide to driving profitable revenue growth. Justin’s Contact details If you want to know more about Justin Leigh you can find him on Linkedin or check out his business at www.focus4growth.co.uk  

Andrew Waters has been involved in finance search and recruitment for the last 15 years. He’s recruited quite a number of CFO roles. So when it comes to securing that elusive first CFO role then Andrew knows a thing or two. On this episode of the GrowCFO Show we chat about the qualities that a first time CFO needs to have. We also take a look at the state of the recruitment market. we conclude by talking about how the future CFO programme at GrowCFO can help you secure that first CFO role About Andrew Waters Andrew waters is co-founder of Zanda. The biggest challenge in securing your first CFO role CEOs look for experience, and the biggest challenge is to demonstrate you have this. Generally they want someone who has done it before, an experienced CFO, so getting the first role is a huge challenge. Its likely that the candidate will have to demonstrate an ability to: Be a true business partner to the CEO lead an investment role Prove commencial awareness must be able to influence board The last point is one of the most difficult if its a first CFO role. Its likely other board members will have years more experience and are better placed to understand the business and the sector it operates in. The new CFO has to hit the ground running with a helicopter view of the sector and how it works. So How do you leap from head of finance to first CFO role? within FTSE or large private equity can manage several in eternal promotions and eventually het to partner with divisional CFO. Then make jump externally In smaller business work way up to no 2 to CFO with controller & FP&A reporting to you, prove you are a strong no 2 and been across all the detail, had some exposure to transactions. Does a first time CFO need all the skills? Whether you need all the skills in your first CFO role really depends on the individual opportunity. It will hinge around the skills of the CFO and whether there is good finance support from a strong group controller. The balance of skills required by a CFO is also constantly evolving. 10 years ago it was important the CFO had an operations focus. In the next 5 years the CFO is more likely to need strong data skills and have an information officer as a direct report. Sometimes a roll can need strong tech skills, other times strong transactional skills. It all depends on the company and the other people already in the team. Whats the market like right now? The CFO recruitment market is very strong right now. From March – July there was virtually virtually no movement. Lots of roles were put on hold, many of these have come back and are now being actively recruited. This August has been better than previous years, September is on a par with a normal year. Zanda deals with a lot of tech firms, lots of venture capital needs to be deployed and for many of these pandemic has been an accelerator. GrowCFO Future CFO Cohort Programme GrowCFO are actively developing future CFOs through the Future CFO programme. This includes a Cohort Andrew started planning the programme with Dan Wells just before lockdown. Each cohort is formed from a group of peers all pursuing a CFO role in the next 12 – 24 months. It comprises a group of 10/12 people from diverse but complimentary backgrounds. The peers support each other through the development challenges. It takes people on a journey over 12 months with a 2-3 hours a month commitment. The first 6 months focusses on the CFO development toolkit. This looks at all the skills and experiences a CFO will need, and is broken down into 10 core competencies: Leadership Core qualities Technical strength Technology advocate Commercial awareness Strategic Business Partner Operational drivers Closing the books Transactions Financial Planning and Analysis This identifies strengths & development areas and gives a development plan and a route to grow into the CFO role over the next 12 months. The peer group is supported by existing CFO mentors and subject specialists to supplement the learning peers can give each other. Future CFO Online Programme supports getting the first CFO role There’s an online training programme that runs alongside the cohort. The training is available to premium members of GrowCFO. The programme is accredited for 40 hours of CPD and extends across 9 modules. The nine modules take you from senior finance professional than impactful CFO. Becoming C-Suite ready Beyond the first 6 months, where you have looked at core skills, there’s need to address other areas. You need to be c-suite ready. Before you apply for your first CFO role you will need to: Address your personal brand, including your linkedin profile and cv Develop the right connections to get noticed Improve your engagement with the top table Landing and owning your first CFO role The final 3 months cover the process of securing the role & making it a success, this might include: Help with the internal promotion How to approach the interview Your first 100 days plan in the new job Supporting you to learn about your board colleagues and how to deal with them Making sure you don’t forget your own personal development How do you find out more? Fill in the cohort application form, there’s a new group kicking off every week. Dan and the GrowCFO team will swiftly review the application and offer you a place on one of the cohort groups starting in the next few weeks.

Helen Cowan runs The Tall Wall, a coaching company that specialises in coaching ladies in senior leadership roles. Helen also leads the Women Finance Leaders group within the GrowCFO community. We chat about the issues that affect women finance leaders and the typical challenges she helps her lady clients overcome. About Helen Cowan Helen Cowan is an accountant and worked extensively on M&A projects within the big 4 before discovering her passion for coaching. She was fascinated by the way people performed. Helen was asked if she wanted to train to become a coach. She took that opportunity to re-skill and become part of KPMG’s team coaching directors and partners. Ultimately this has led to Helen setting up her own business, The Tall Wall, and pursuing her passion. The Tall Wall is an executive coaching business that specialises in working with female leaders and high potential women in professional services and large corporates. The business supports women, helping ladies go as far as they want to in their careers. Helen also leads the women finance leaders group in the GrowCFO community. If you want to take part in the monthly meetings of the women finance leaders group, they are open to all members of the free GrowCFO community. If you haven’t already done so, why not join the community today? What issues does the women finance leaders group address? So far the women finance leaders group have identified three big issues that they want to work with Helen to address. These are: Imposter syndrome Branding Having difficult conversations The group operates as a discussion and self help forum,. with help and guidance from Helen and her colleagues. Helen uses the collective wisdom of the group to find ways through the challenges. Members of the group are at all sorts of different stages in careers, but have tremendous talent. An impressive group of ladies! Imposter Syndrome We talked about imposter syndrome last week on the podcast with GrowCFO mentor Catherine Clark The group is really powerful and full of wisdom, but most members will admit to suffering imposter syndrome to some degree. Through the group though women can normalise their feelings and thats the start of the way through the problem. Its a surprise finding imposter syndrome to be a problem among such a high calibre group. Helen and Kevin reflect that its something they have both seen among newly appointed partners in the big 4 even though the individuals are more than capable. Helen believes that a good deal of the problem stems from comparing your inner to every one else’s outer. You see someone who is apparently performing well and full of confidence, but you never realise that the other person has all the same insecurities that you do. When people, men or women take on big roles, whether partner or CFO, it’s natural to have some self doubt. Remember that 8 out of 10 people have the same feelings as you. Personal branding for women finance leaders Harvey Coleman’s research in the 1990’s shows that excelling at your job is only 10% of getting ahead. 30% is about impact and the impression you create. The remaining 60% is about your exposure. Who of influence knows how good you are? Many women will take the view the if you keep your head down and do a good job someone will noice you. Trouble is Harvey’s research shows this is not true https://amzn.to/2GgOXBN Women are often conditioned not to brag and not veto blow their own trumpet. This is the crux of the matter and must be addressed, but in the right way. Stage one is an audit of your network: who has noticed the good work Who is missing from that list, What opportunities have you to shine in front of that person Stage 2 is what gets in the way of you shining, and in practice this is often back to imposter syndrome. Maternity leave What are the big issues and how do you address them? Helen believes that the best organisations invest heavily  in one to one coaching for both women concerned and line managers. Its important that both parties fully understand the best way to deal with maternity leave. Coaching covers before during and after leave. Its important that dialogue is happening between the new parent and employer at all stages. People need to keep in touch, communicate their wishes and expectations. Almost all the problems happen when communication doesn’t take place. Lack of communication leads to assumptions both by the woman involved and by the organisation. Lots of these assumptions remain unspoken and are often wrong. But what is assumed easily becomes reality. The Tall Wall do a lot of work with organisations so that they can help women exit well and return well. Group coaching for women finance leaders Helen is starting an initiative for paid group coaching to go deeper with a select groups of ladies.   These will be small groups (4-6 people) meeting every few weeks and getting together with Helen and colleague Claire Allan. The format will be taking topics the women bring to the group and help them find answers through hearing the wisdom of others. Small groups with committed members means that coaching participants will get to know and trust each other and this will allow the group as a whole to go deeper. Helen is looking to get several groups going. This will help ensure individuals in each group are at similar career levels which will in turn create a better environment for participants. If you are interested contact Helen: helencowan@thetallwall.com  

Catherine Clark is this week’s guest on the GrowCFO Show. Catherine provides mentoring for CFOs and is part of GrowCFO’s own mentoring team. We discuss the role of a mentor, the common issues that Catherine finds with her CFO clients, and how mentoring for CFOs can add value for both you the CFO and your organisation. About Catherine Clark Catherine Clark is a chartered accountant, she qualified with KPMG, and worked for several companies before taking on a role as CFO of a global consultancy, giving her 10 years of boardroom experience. During this time she became really keen on both developing herself and her team. The CFO mentoring her own finance team Catherine mentored her own team members. She found conversations with the team very honest. Because she saw people every day she knew their strength & weaknesses. Her people knew she was coming from a position of support, so this led to good quality trusting relationships. Mentoring CEOs in the not for profit sector Alongside her day job Catherine joined a scheme that matched women from the commercial sector to women CEOs in not for profit organisations. Supporting these CEOs made her realise she had a real liking for being a mentor and supporting other C-suite individuals. Catherine found she was addressing two common issues; self confidence; and self esteem. She discovered her real passion is to help people overcome these. These same problems are common across everyone. Catherine finds that its not just CEOs in the not for profit sector, but just about every leader she mentors. Imposter syndrome is a common problem At the core of these issues is something called Imposter syndrome. In short, people think they don’t deserve to be where they are. This, of course, isn’t true. Catherine finds people need to understand what holds them back before she can help them move on. She generally does lots of work on limiting beliefs. Catherine works with people on their strengths, this makes them affirm why they are so good. One of Catherine’s techniques is to take folk back to successes they have had in life, analyse the success, and appreciate the strengths that made it happen. What makes for a successful mentoring relationship? A successful mentoring relationship is all about developing trust. This starts with a chemistry call of about 30 minutes. Thats where trust first established, but builds over time. Mentoring is always confidential. The mentors job is to actively listen and be a sounding board. It’s as much about the mentee realising they can get to their own answer as it is supplying the answer. The mentor needs lots of energy, being present in the conversation is vitally important. Catherine finds she must be in right frame of mind for every mentoring call so can’t do lots back to back. She gets into right mindset by maintaining right balance in her life. Yoga, walking and some kind of personal mental or physical activity every day get her in the right place. This way she can turn up in every session as the best version of herself. Mentoring for CFOs. How does it work? What does mentoring for CFOs look like? How does it work? Catherine likes to have a flexible arrangement that can be tailored to the needs of the individual CFO. Mentoring for CFOs will usually happen across 6 or 12 sessions. These sessions usually take place monthly. Catherine has a structure, but prefers to work on what is affecting the CFO at the time. She works from current issues, but using a toolbox of things that can be adapted to the situation. Its a very practical hands on way of giving support. What key issues crop up? CFOs often believe they can’t ask for support, so turning to a mentor for help doesn’t feel natural. Often the CFO feels isolated, and therefore might need reassurance. The mentors job is might be to validate the CFOs thinking. For example the CFO checking a strategy process is being driven in the right way. One big challenge is the amount of new stuff the CFO needs to quickly develop expertise in. The development route of most CFOs doesn’t help. Its quite common for CFO to rise through financial controller and head of finance roles. The boardroom needs a whole different set of skills. The world changes at board level and a whole load of new stuff comes along. Stuff you never needed to know to pass professional exams, and nothing prepares you for the new role. Suddenly you need to be a boardroom leader, an influential leader, not just a functional team leader. There are people looking up to you wanting to be inspired. You need to look outwards customers supplier investors, not just the finance team. You will need gravitas to present new stuff to a new audience. This may need a huge change in style. Often its not what you say but how you say it and what your body language gives away. You need to give people faith that all is ok, or under control. Catherine loves seeing CFOs rise to these new challenges. People transform, and it can happen quickly once they see the light! GrowCFO’s Mentoring for CFOs Programme Catherine is working with both aspiring and first time CFOs in GrowCFO, as well as heading up women finance leaders group. The mentoring for CFOs programme provides support to help in the new role. Mentoring is geared to each individual, and is based around each person’s strengths and weaknesses The programme is mentee led. It starts with a chemistry call, one to one, to explore the outcomes required. We use this to make sure the right mentor is in place, the person that can support the mentee. The next step is to go into detail about where the mentee is now and what immediate support is needed. GrowCFO gives you more than just mentoring The mentoring programme is supplemented by the GrowCFO Learning centre. There are online programmes for both Future  and 1st Time CFOs. GrowCFO is fully CPD accredited, so you can use these to fulfil your professional body’s annual requirements. Alongside mentoring and online learning, GrowCFO runs cohort groups. These Cohort groups match you with a group of your own peers and you meet together to support each other. Together these 3 ways of learning make a great combination. Group sessions, mentoring, and online learning each play a different part in aiding your development. In the end though its all about putting stuff into action. This is far more than just an online learning programme. New stuff comes up all the time, thats the fun of being a CFO. We support CFOs in a practical hands on way. It doesn’t get boring! GrowCFO provides both coaching & mentoring. These are very different. A mentor will always be a CFO, been there and done it. Coaching is more question led, and not necessarily supplied by another CFO. Instead it comes from a subject matter expert. GrowCFO has a range of such experts that can be brought in when coaching is needed. How do you find out more about mentoring for CFOs You can find more on GrowCFO’s mentoring page, but the best thing is to talk directly to one of the team. Go book a free chemistry call. Take a look at testimonials from people we are already supporting.. Think about the time you waste by trying to do it all by yourself. Consider how a mentor can accelerate your progress and give you some time back. Why not drive value faster in your organisation. Do you always show up as your best self? Can someone else help you do that and enjoy the journey at the same time. You have to be yourself to be your best!