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Contact Will: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williampeng/ Full Episode Transcript:Neha: (00:05) Welcome back for another episode of Count Me In. I'm your host Neha Lagoo Ratnakar. And this is IMA's podcast talking about all things that affect the accounting and finance world. Our featured guest for today is the CEO and co-founder at Northstar, Will Peng. Will co-founded Northstar, a financial wellness and benefits platform because of his inspiration by the positive change FinTech can have on people's lives. He set out to solve the inequality of our financial guidance and shares his insights with us as he discusses the inclusive and equitable support employees can receive from FinTech related apps and products. To hear more about how FinTech can improve financial stability, keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.   Mitch: (01:02) So Will, I know your history, right? That kind of led you into this FinTech space and a lot of what you do is about financial guidance. So what I would like to first start off our conversation with is asking you how will emerging FinTech really help solve some of these financial problems that a lot of individuals are facing today?   Will: (01:23) Yeah, this, this is a really interesting question because of my background. I started my career as a product designer. So thinking about the ways that behavioral psychology influences or limits people from making change with their finances, but also my time as a venture capitalist, investing in startups, a lot of FinTech startups seeing the new technology that enables us to solve a lot of these classic problems I've been around for, for a long time. And first and foremost, I think what's most exciting that technology can actually influence personal finances is the idea of financial accessibility. So who has access to financial advisors, financial best practices and for the longest time, financial advice has been mostly limited to people who already have money, people who are wealthy already. And if you look at this from first principles, the underlying reason is that the ways in which we deliver financial advice, and this is pretty broad definition, right?   Will: (02:29) Financial advice can be financial planning. It can be tax advice. It could be investment advice. The ways that we have delivered this advice have primarily been a hundred percent human driven. And when advice is human driven, you're limited kind of by the number of hours in the day, you can do the math pretty simply you have maybe a 40 hour work week. And if you're a financial planner, you have 60 to 90 minute sessions, and pretty quickly you realize that you need to charge a certain floor for your hourly rate. If you're a fee only financial advisor, and then you also see new business models around non fee only advisors who take commissions who referral fees and asset management fees. And that's a set for topic that we can talk about.   Will: (03:24) But I'm generally a proponent of fee only models because it most closely aligns the advisor with the client. But so, so if you think about financial accessibility from that perspective it's really exciting to think about the ways that technology can more scalably deliver advice both in the creation of the plans, as well as the delivery of the plans. And once you do that, you actually lower the floor of what you need to charge in order to stay in business. And so you kind of see this in, for example, the robo advisor world low cost index funds have been around for a while. But the emergence of robo advisors has been a really interesting development because now anybody can connect, get access to low cost index funds with a great user experience and, and invest with, with low minimums and this all came about because of technology. And so that market is relatively mature now I dunno if you saw recently that UBS acquired wealth front so really interesting thing about not only that specific vertical, but across all different verticals, what are the ways in which technology is making personal finances more accessible?   Mitch: (04:43) Yeah, it's really interesting because, you know, as we talk about making things more accessible and, you know, you mentioned a lot of the opportunities presented by technology for private finance and, you know, obviously many of our listeners, more the corporate finance, but still technology enabling a little bit more foresight and, and, you know, more data available, another theme in line with technology and kind of the profession. And also what you're doing here is making some of these resources essentially more inclusive and equitable, right? So you talked a little bit about kind of lowering that floor, but far as employees, you know, specifically in the workforce, how is this you know, equitable and inclusive relate to technology?   Will: (05:31) Yeah. So well, this is I'm glad you asked this question because this is a big part of what we do here at NorthStar. And we have this saying that financial wellness starts at work, and it's this fundamental idea that especially in the US, so much of our not only financial lives, but also our whole lives center around work. And what I mean by that is that work is the primary source of wealth creation for the majority of people. You get your salary, your retirement accounts, but you also get your health insurance plans through work. This whole idea of employer sponsored plans and a whole set of perks. If you work at a tech company, for example, you get equity compensation, and that's oftentimes really difficult to understand. So there's an education gap not only for equity, but just for personal finances in general.   Will: (06:18) And if you look at it from a macro perspective, we've really shifted away from defined benefit pension plans where my father still has a pension plan and so hopefully he can retire soon and he'll get a kind of predefined payout, but we you've moved into a world of defined contribution plans like 401k plans and HSAs and FSAs and the variety of things that you'd get from your employer have increased. Whereas your total compensation package was relatively simple in the past. Now it's really complicated. And our education system around finances and the support systems through to help people make the best decisions, best financial decisions have not caught up. And it's an unreasonable expectation that employees individuals know how to choose the right retirement plan or figure out how much you should put into your retirement plan each month, or how to use an HSA or how what's the best health insurance plan for me.   Will: (07:27) I think the what's been really interesting to see the rhetoric around policy has been around the idea of choice where if you remember from the healthcare reform debates there is this idea of choice and it's true that the HSAs are incredibly powerful. They have what's called triple tax savings that most people don't know about. But it requires back to the point I made earlier about behavioral psychology, because it is so complex. Most people don't utilize them. And so even though it's a powerful option, most people don't use it, which means that the choice is a double-edged sword. So you need to, you need to pair choice with education and advice on how to best utilize these new tools. So I think there's a really interesting responsibility that employers have today to not only give people the tools, but also the advice to make those best decisions for themselves.   Mitch: (08:34) And let's, you know, continue on this topic and the conversation...

Connect with Dr. Lewis Full Transcript:Mitch: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In. IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Mitch Roshong, and you are listening to episode number 177 of our series. Today's conversation features Dr. Anton Lewis, an associate professor of accounting at Valparaiso University, whose research investigates the experience of black accountants in the profession and promotes equitable racial representation. In his conversation with my co-host Adam, Dr. Lewis talks about DE&I in accounting, common flaws relating to diversity equity and inclusion in the workplace, as well as what can be done and what he is already doing to advance and improve equitable representation across the industry. Keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.   Adam: (00:59) So Anton, historically conversation about race and the workplace, particularly within accounting simply have not happened. Now, there have been great achievements in DE&I, but there's still much room for improvement in our industry. Why do you think that is?   Anton: (01:16) Adam, If I had to really give you an answer to that, I actually think it is because we in society and in particular US society have a great deal of problems talking about the subject of race and racial representation. It's almost a taboo subject in many ways. So the problem is we know we have poor representation currently. We know we've historically had poor representation, but nobody really wants to talk about why that is because race and racism are sticky, unpleasant subjects to talk about. And part of what seems to be my life's cause now is a core trying to provoke a conversation around this area, which is not polarizing, which is almost impossible to do by definition. But to my mind, if we can't have a conversation about race, racism, why we have poor black representation in our accounting profession and have had historically, and, you know, if we can't have this conversation and it be at two polar opposite ends to this, but yet still respect each other, each one another's views, we will not actually significantly change the situation. We will not deal with this problem effectively. And to my mind, that has kind of been the status quo for quite some time.   Adam: (02:58) Yeah, that makes sense. I think I've seen that as well, but as we specifically like focus in on accounting, as you kind of did there at the end, you are often the only person of color in a predominantly white workplace day in and day out, you know, how have you handled that and what have you done to advance the way that is perceived or how you feel about it?   Anton: (03:18) It's tricky, isn't it? There are those critical theorists, critical race theorists among others who talk about this environmental microaggression that occurs being the only black person in an accounting organization or any other organization that when you step foot in the building of which you work and you are one of the three people out of 500 that work there without anybody saying anything without anybody saying you don't belong, you feel it in the very walls of the institution you're in, and it can be a quite effective way of pushing those of difference out of the doors in terms of how one deals with that. It's difficult. the entire reason why I look at the area of race and racism and where I'm originally from, from Britain as you may hear in my accent when I was a jobing accountant, so to speak, that would happen to me all the time.   Anton: (04:25) And it's the reason that I began to look at this subject topic, cause I always wanted to know, well, why am I the only one there? And as I was experiencing this, I really wanted to have other people of color, other black people, other black professionals, ironically, to talk about this, to say, I'm not going mad. Am I, are you having this feeling as well? And the truth of the matter if they just weren't there and it becomes a circular problem, right? What am I doing to try to change this? Because I'm an accounting professor. One of the things I try to do is encourage now I'm here in the United States, as many African Americans as many black accountants as I can into profession with more numbers, it kind of gets rid of that feeling of being alone. But unfortunately it's still a very difficult process.   Anton: (05:17) Another thing that I've tried to do is write more publicly in things like the CPA journal. I've tried to increase my social media presence. I've tried to reach out with my own podcast, Counting Black and White Beans as an idea to be able to be used as a resource to allow those black accountants who feel isolated, who are feeling a little bit lost, let them know that this is not unusual, that this is actually quite common, whether it's in the United Kingdom or the United States, and for them to have a feeling of kinship, of a kindred kind of effect for one of a better word kind of saying you're in, we're in this together. And so I'm afraid to say, Adam, if you're looking for an absolute definite answer as to how does one deal with the isolation often of being one of the few black people within an accounting environment, I can't give you any firm answers to that. I suspect it's as difficult to deal with today. As I found it decades ago,   Adam: (06:27) I'd imagine it is, it's not easy being underrepresented in any profession. But for the black accountant, there has to be various stereotypes that are there tales. Can you explain how or why these stereotypes exist and what impact that misinformation has?   Anton: (06:42) Yeah. And again, these stereotypes exist in our profession and other professions as well. Because we, in my opinion, and many others live in a racialized environment, you know, we, our racialized views of those who are different from ourselves, don't stop at the doors of the organizations that we work in. Some of the traditional stereotypes that black accountants often have to deal with that I've found in my research and many other's is one would be of being angry. If you are a black male accountant, and I should be clear here, there are different stereotypes often for black women accountants and black male accountants. So for black male accountants, anger is often an issue. So, you know, if one is out on an audit and you find something has come up and you're in the middle of a meeting with your team to try to address this issue and tempers become a little bit frayed.   Anton: (07:54) If you are the black accountant, you understand clearly that you cannot be passionate like your white colleagues, because that is seen as being angry and unprofessional and unbecoming, that latitude is not afforded to you. And of course it makes it difficult in terms of impression management. Once we come around and look at performance evaluations and it may come up that you are unprofessional, angry, you scare inverted clients. On the polar opposite, perhaps would be the experience that many black women professionals have of being seen as the Sapphire, this steely hard unemotional unempathetic professional that is cold sometimes also can be angry in that negative way. But the idea here is that she is not a team player. She is overbearing she's quintessentially, anti feminine or unfeminine, if you like in this setting and be it with just these two examples of stereotypes that you mentioned that are often prevalent to the black accounting or black professional experience, whether it's being too angry, if you are a black male accountant or being positioned as Sapphire as a black woman accountant, both positionalities for wont of bette...

Contact Paul Ruppert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulruppertintl/ Full Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Hey everyone. Thank you for coming back to listen to another episode of Count Me In, I am your host Adam Larson, and this is episode 176 of our series. As we hold conversations about various topics impacting the accounting and finance world, one of the underlying themes across most is strategy. In this episode, you'll hear from Paul Ruppert, an ambidextrous executive with deep experience in startups, as well as global fortune 100 enterprises who shares as knowledge and expertise on strategic partnerships. Keep listening to hear more about how the finance team can best support large strategic initiatives for the organization.  Mitch: (00:50) So as we get through today's conversation, we're gonna look at some concepts around strategy, strategic partnerships, but I think it's first important to kick off what are some of the biggest considerations or are challenges that many are facing in today's business landscape?  Paul: (01:06) I think, you know, many people get into business thinking that there's some linearity from a plus B plus C equals D equation, but in reality, it's all about adaptability and change. And change is not only the change that you experience when you start facing various types of problems and challenges and friction points, but also your ability to manifest change, create that change and live through that change. I've been involved in businesses on a global basis and how I approach the business in the US was very different than I was approaching the business when I was in Hong Kong or in Europe. And that adaptability, that agility as it's often described, you know, in technology is really the the watch word more than anything else, in my view. You know, there's, as I mentioned earlier, earlier before our call, I don't believe in a silver bullet solution.  Mitch: (02:13) And as we talk about adaptability, agility, you know, the bottom line is we are looking to advance the business, right, advance the function and adapt to modern advancements. And I think you just kind of mentioned briefly technology here, but without having a crystal ball and being able to see into the future perfectly, what does the future of business really look like? And, you know, as we continue to adapt and be agile, what are we really preparing for? What is the future of the business landscape look like?  Paul: (02:45) Well, you know, that's a big, big question in the context of where is everything going. If you just look at our immediate past in past history, you know, three years ago, I'm involved in the text messaging business and it's been around, it's how, you know, enterprises communicate and connect with end consumers. And we live through it on a day to day basis. When you get tested for what's called a one time password, you know, you just proving that you are who you are. And the business let's say three plus years ago was moving steadily along. And let's say let's call grocery store rates, meaning about three to 5% growth rate. This is a fairly established industry. You know, it's roughly about $200 billion of business globally. It's quite large, but people don't really experience on a day to day basis relative to cost and effect if you will, but they still utilize it.  Paul: (03:47) And since the pandemic, because of the dynamics of how we behave as human beings and being working from home environments and the fact that we are now utilizing zoom and video, et cetera, the reality is that the messaging business has grown to about 30% CAGR for the next three years is what the expectation is. And I am of the belief that once human beings experience something much more convenient for them, they usually don't turn backwards and want to do something less convenient. Okay. So in all of that context, that's kind of the dynamics of where we are going, what it looks like and the over the horizon perspective, the crystal ball, as you characterized it is that your expectations often may be unexpected. Things may not go as you think they are going. And there's lots of converging factors, you know, digitalization prior to COVID, the growth of it, the speed of it, the means in which many business were able to quickly and with great agility pivot to new types of initiatives, you know, I can talk about call centers that were stripped down from being on premise in the course of four to five days and redistributed to the the call center rep's homes, because everybody shifted, you know, we couldn't be in large groups any longer, it was just too unsafe.  Mitch: (05:22) Now a lot of our listeners are in, you know, the business of opportunity recognition. And I know it's very difficult and maybe unexpected as some of these you know, evolutions arise. You know, we first spoke, I know you mentioned something along the lines of you know, the business landscape reaching 6G. So with some of this uncertainty but so much opportunity, what can our listeners really take away you know, from the idea or what should they be doing really to maybe open their eyes a little bit and see what this opportunity means for their individual businesses,  Paul: (06:03) Right. Yeah. You know, we all watch well, many of us watch professional football, the NFL on weekends, and, you know, the number of mobile phone companies like principally T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon all talking about 5G. And then if you were to turn to your spouse or friend that you're watching the game with and ask the question, so why is 5G better than 4G outside of the reach? You know the reality there is that what we're doing right now is probably gonna be the, one of the big manifestations of 5G value, which is video and speed and processing. And so as we then move to 6G, then it becomes much more engaged on such things as what's called sentiment and intent. So you might be reaching out to, you know, let's say your mobile phone provider, because you've got an issue with your iPhone or something along those lines and that inbound call or inbound message or whatever it might be that platform that you're utilizing to connect with your provider, they already have a sense of what your intent is.  Paul: (07:17) Why are you calling, you know, and that's, you know, consumer data products and platforms that are looking at combining your personal behavior, as well as the fact that you might have an iPhone eight. And, you know, the lifespan of that iPhone eight is probably five years past it's optimal performance. And so soon as they start talking to you, whether or human being, or not, whether it's a chatbot that may come into the dialogue as to, would you like to upgrade your phone? We see that it's six, seven years old, something along those lines, that's the kind of stuff that'll be playing out, which is a little spooky.  Mitch: (07:59) It is, it definitely is, but everybody's looking for the answers as fast as possible. Right. So if that means getting them to the solution sooner, I think we're just going to adapt and take that luxury eventually. So with that in mind, you know, I think, like I said, going back to opportunity recognition, this is an opportunity for individuals to really expand their horizon, right. And it's an opportunity to possibly, you know, take their business or their function and look to build some strategic partnerships with others who are able to bring those opportunities to us. So when it comes to strategic partnerships, what are some of the things that individuals should really pursue or make sure that they have you know, for both sides, I suppose to make sure that this endeavor is worthwhile, you know, with technology, there i...

Contact Greg Hoggard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-hoggard-cma-9a201b9/Counting Eggs With AI: https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/february-2022-counting-eggs-with-ai/Full Transcript:Adam: (00:04) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Kicking things off for you again is your host Adam Larson and I'm excited to introduce our featured guest for today's episode, Greg Hoggard. Greg is CFO and VP of finance and IT at Rembrandt Foods where he is responsible for all aspects of finance and accounting, IT, and grain purchasing. Greg co-authored an article in Strategic Finance to show how computerized vision and AI adoption can create significant value for an organization. In this episode, he discusses the value of aligning IT and OT and getting everyone in the company speaking the same language. Keep listening to hear how the intersection of AI and technology with finance leads to improved strategic performance.   Mitch: (00:57) So Greg, in your opinion, what is the value of, or really maybe even the need for information technology or IT and operational technology or OT to report into the same group.   Greg: (01:11) So for those that may not work in manufacturing, operational technology, so operations and technology, which are usually called a controls group, for those who work in manufacturing, they're the ones who deal with the hardware that collects the data. They have a little bit of a different talent than the IT group. They're data. They're not data miners necessarily, but they they're the ones who collect the data from the machines. They're a little bit of electrician, a little bit of, I hate saying maintenance. They're not maintenance, but they understand all those things. They understand how the operation is supposed to work and where the data's coming from. Think of those screens that you see in those old buttons and the really big, old manufacturing steel mill or just old manufacturing. When you see it on a television show, something, all of those buttons, all those controls, that's all done by operational technology groups.   Greg: (02:14) Whereas on the IT side, they really are the ones that control the data and the servers and the data bases, they make that data consumable for end users, and govern that data so that it's trustworthy and reliable. I think what we're seeing, these days in the last few years, especially, is that this whole internet of things push where everything is communicating with everything, those lines are starting to cross much more often than they used to, between like the operational technology groups and the information technology groups and what I've seen especially here at Rembrandt is that when those two teams work together, it becomes an unstoppable force. when those two teams are working separately and disparately, it can become a little confusing and unmanageable. So the need to have them report together, I think really it just drives change a lot faster and it gets you to the right answer much quicker.   Mitch: (03:26) So it sounds like, I would assume you mentioned this, you know, really being in manufacturing, but majority of businesses, they most likely require some additional change, right? Some new alignment to really implement this kind of strategy. So as far as change management goes, what are some of the key considerations for making this shift with the technology that we're talking about? The reporting. And really, I think it comes down to getting everybody from maybe two different sides to speak the same language. So, you know, what kind of steps would you recommend for that?   Greg: (04:01) So on the change management side, it's crucial that everybody understands their KPIs and their OKRs. So objectives, key results, and key performance indicators, really the goals that they're operating under, or goal posts, I guess you could say, I like to be a little more open-ended sometimes, but I think if you don't have that, then good luck with change. You gotta have that good starting point where everybody's working towards the same goal. I think that clear communication cross-functionally and just within the singular departments is necessary. And then I think that once you establish those clear metrics, you have, well at first you have to have something that, that can be measured, right? I mean, you can't have a metric that's not measurable. So having something that's accurate and objective to measure that goal is needed. And then really, I think these data visualizations, are much better tools to report feedback and then to measure against these goals than traditional scorecards and numbers.   Greg: (05:19) Most people don't like to look at numbers, I don't know if I should quote a book here, but I'm actually reading a book right now called Making Numbers Count, which, is a really good book by Chip Heath. And he's talking a lot about how most people really aren't wired to speak the numbers language. And I think as a accountants, we are wired to speak that way. At least we've learned that language and we wanna share the numbers down to the 10th decimal point to show that, to prove that we did the work and to prove that this is a real number, but other people get lost. so these visualizations that we're showing now with these tools like Tableau and power BI, those speak so much louder than the numbers that we wanna share. So I think this leads to accountability and acceptance of change. I don't think you can have change without that accountability and that doesn't come without that clear feedback. And then the objective measurements of clear objectives and key results and KPIs,   Mitch: (06:25) You know, with these metrics and, you know, the communication, everything you just mentioned with change management. I think, you know, the underlying theme here for both sides, you know, both languages, if you will, is the technology itself. I think that's causing the need for change and where people need to potentially, you know, learn a bit more or improve a bit more in their, you know, speaking capabilities, I guess you could say. So if we could just kind of shift from the human side of things and focus on the technological side of things and those resources for a moment, when adapting or implementing technology and, you know, increasing the need for this change management, what should our listeners really be most aware of when it comes to technology implementation?   Greg: (07:14) So I'm reminded of an experience during this, that I've been on with the company Rembrandt that I work for now and the team that we're working with. We, so I'll take a little bit dive into the story that was published as well at this point, but we have these analog counters. It's just an example. And these analog counters are just old technology. I mean, analog counting has been around since what the probably thirties, forties, maybe even before that, but anytime anything passes under this analog counter, it's counted as an egg in our case. So we have these counters on every single row of every single column of every single barn in our facility. And these counters, like I said, count anything that passes under that, their measure, their scope there and what we found, at the very beginning of this journey, we wanted to know if the measurement was accurate.   Greg: (08:18) So we performed an audit of the counters and we lined a hundred eggs up behind each of these counters before the start of the day. And then we turned them on and then afte...

Contact Pedro Barros: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedromonteirobarros/Remote: https://remote.com/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Adam: (00:04) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Adam Larson and today you are listening to episode 174 of our series. In this episode, you'll hear from Pedro Barros, VP of Finance at Remote. At Remote, Pedro was responsible for analyzing financial performance for budgeting and forecasting, managing all accounting operations and providing strategic guidance to accelerate business expansion. Over the last five years, he has been focusing on high growth tech companies and was previously Head of Finance at Codacy. He joined Count Me In to share his knowledge on building, scaling, and managing a successful global finance team. So keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.  Mitch: (00:57) So I understand Remote, your company is growing very rapidly. And, I'm just curious to kind of kick off our conversation here. How are you thinking about structuring the finance team during this growth phase and what are some of the key positions or key areas within the finance team you're really focusing on?  Pedro: (01:13) Thanks Mitchell. I joined the team as the first finance hire around two years ago, and it's a team of over 50 people today. I started the team top down, so we really went for, expertise and individuals with, subject matter expertise. But, it was a hard combination because we also wanted folks that could settle in, in well, in a very fast and growing, entity company. And, we found them like I've hired, two or three directors that really accelerated all the finance functions, a Group Controller and a Treasurer. And, a bit later than that, Director of Tax and all of these individuals really, really accelerated how the finance function was structured, how we were delivering to the business and how the finance was partnering across the organization.  Mitch: (02:17) And now I know we will talk a little bit, you know, as far as, scaling everything and how all this ultimately plays out, you know, for the finance function, but as far as the individuals go and as you're going through this hiring process, you know, for our listeners who maybe are looking to jump into new finance roles and things that are evolving across the profession in various industries, what are some of the qualities that you're really looking for in a finance hire and, you know, as everything is growing so rapidly, you know, a fast growing company like Remote, what are some of the skills that you're really, you know, targeting?  Pedro: (02:50) I touched, on my previous question around the deep subject matter expertise, it's folks, that can have a lot of ownership in their role. So someone that can compliment what I'm doing and, not necessarily build redundancy. So having folks that have done it in the past and can come very quickly, has done and have a high impact is critical. Someone that can nurture teams, because we knew at the place that we were going, that we would have to grow, teams very rapidly. And at the same time, we had to hire individuals that were very, tech savvy on the aspect of automation and how to make systems work for them and not just grow the team to address the growing pains and the growing needs of the organization as we're scaling very, very fast.  Mitch: (03:50) And you, you kind of just alluded to it a little bit. but you know, we were talking about individuals, the finance team, how does that really fit into the overall organization? Right? So what we're really trying to figure out here is, you know, how does Remote manage the company culture and make sure that everybody, you know, plays their part and, fits in, in a cohesive team?  Pedro: (04:11) Yeah. On your first point, the finance team at Remote is a bit different from many other organizations, as we are core to a lot of the product development that we do, a lot of the services that we provide. So we tend to, it's a subject like global employment is a subject is very close historically with, finance teams. And we have a lot of expertise in the team to help enable the overall company in terms of how Remote culture is managed in terms of fast growing and how we can sustain it. It was something that was designed even before the company was created, which were our values. Both the Auburn, Marcel, our founders, are very committed to the culture of the company through values alignment. We have a lot of cultural diversity, as you can imagine, by having folks in 60 plus countries across the globe working for us. So our expectation is we'll have a lot of cultural diversity, but an ambition is that folks will always work, at Remote with deep values alignment. And this goes with excellence ownership, kindness. It's one of the, I think it's the glue of the company. It is the value of kindness and something I have to in terms of automation and the scalability of the business.  Mitch: (05:41) That's great. I know you, oftentimes historically I think accounting, finance teams, at least the perception is they've kind of been siloed, right. Kind of the smaller group, you know, very focused on the numbers and getting the job done, but, you know, that has evolved so much. And, companies like yours, the finance function is really more or less the backbone for everything. And kind of, you know, what I've seen through various conversations here, you know, the team that's really driving those core values and just the cross-functional collaboration, the finance team, and those are the individuals who can really, you know, portray those values and gain support, and really partner to bring the business forward. So, I think, you know, aligning core values like that is certainly key. With that sentiment, you know, the idea that, global diversity and following these values, what else is it that your company is doing, that we can share with our listeners that would help other accounting, finance functions, finance teams, you know, grow and manage successfully like you are, you know, on this global basis, getting back to the topic here, how can we help other accounting and finance teams scale globally?  Pedro: (06:58) I think there are some fundamental things that the Remote is doing well, and it's working well, for us, in term one is, the working asynchronously. Means that you do your job and you work whenever it fits you, it fits your schedule. It fits your motivation when you are stronger. And it's not from not from nine to five, or maybe it is, it's not, it's independent from that. It's much more focused on objectives and not on the achievements more than on activity per se. And, if you are on, certain hours, and, the way we are doing it, based a lot on, documentation has managed Remote to grow very, very fast. Our finance team has grown massively and, very successfully continues supporting the business and delivering to our objectives. And I have folks from Korea to San Francisco, and, we are very much independent, from where, anyone is because they, they do their thing.  Pedro: (08:06) They understand what they need to do. Their individual has a very clear objectives and drive for excellence. They take ownership on their projects and, the work they need to do. And all these documented when someone is asleep, there's a document for me to act upon. And next day, that person is live at whatever time and they can pick up on that. So there's always this sense of follow continuous work. What Remote has also enabled in terms of, global distributes companies is, hiring the best individuals anyw...

Mardi McBrien, Managing Director of the IFRS Foundation, and Brigitte de Graaff, CMA, CSCA, Chair of IMA’s Sustainable Business Management Global Task Force and PhD candidate at the department of Accounting of the Vrije Universiteit Amstedam, join Count Me In to talk about the role of women in sustainability. IMA's Manager of Brand Content and Storytelling, Margaret Michaels, hosts this mini-panel discussion in celebration of International Women's Day. International Women's Day is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8th to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women. The special guests for this panel were specifically chosen for their work in the area of sustainability and to talk about the pipeline of future female finance leaders as well as their own thoughts on what unique impacts women are making in the work of sustainability. In this commemorative mini-panel conversation, Margaret leads the discussion by addressing various pieces of research to substantiate the value of women in sustainability. Download and listen now!Contact Mardi McBrien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mardimcbrien/Contact Brigitte de Graaff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigitte-de-graaff-134b408/Contact Margaret Michaels: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-michaels/IMA's Website: https://www.imanet.org/Sustainability CFO: The CFO of the Future?: https://www.imanet.org/insights-and-trends/external-reporting-and-disclosure-management/sustainability-cfo-the-cfo-of-the-futureResearch cited:2021 Weinreb Group Study McKinsey’s 2021 “Women in the Workplace” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10997-021-09604-7Deloitte: Understanding Generation Z in the workplaceFull Episode Transcript:Mitch: (00:05)Welcome back to Count Me In IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Today, we have a special conversation for you as we hosted a mini panel of speakers in honor, of International Women's Day. International Women's Day is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8th to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women for IMA and our management, accounting listeners, Margaret Michaels, IMA's Manager of Brand Content and Storytelling speaks with two women about their work in the area of sustainability. Marty McBrien and, and Bridget Degraph join Margaret here on, Count Me In to talk about the unique role women are playing in sustainability and the pipeline of future female finance leaders in this space. To celebrate this important day and valuable topic, keep listening as we head over to the panel conversation nowMargaret: (01:05)It is such an honor to be facilitating this discussion today. I have a strong interest in sustainability, and I know other Count Me In listeners do as well. I want to structure this discussion around proof points about women in sustainability, which have been substantiated by research. And I want to hear each of your reactions to the statements and their implications for women's work in sustainability. So the first proof point women are playing an outsized role in sustainability work. According to a 2021 wine group study, women went from holding 28% of chief sustainability officer positions in 2011 to 54% in 2021, which is a 94% increase. So let's start with you, Marty, in your role, you've connected with so many professionals in this space. Would you share your observations on working with women leaders in this area? Does it surprise you that women are playing this outsized role and what might be responsible for the dramatic increase in their participation and in the work of sustainability?Marty: (02:26)Thanks Margaret. And, thank you, IMA it's a real pleasure to be here on what is, you know, such an important day to celebrate, you know, the, really amazing community of women that have played such important roles in leadership both now and in the future and sustainability across the world. You know, I'm really, privileged to be , part of such an amazing space. And, and I guess if it doesn't surprise me the statistics that you have, I've, been lucky enough actually, to emulate the success of a series of amazing female leaders before me. I always say I'm so privileged that I've just had really fabulous female boss, female leader, female mentor in this space across my 20 plus year career, that I've just been able to, you know, grow and thrive and build off them. And so, you know, I'm going to be forever grateful for that.Marty: (03:15)but also if you think more broadly beyond me, you have, you know, sustainability women are the ones out there that are taking active steps to educate them themselves on issues linked to sustainability, whether that be within the home, in their broader community, in their lifestyles. And so as they learn more and more, they're actually looking for roles that reflect their, and I think that's what we're starting to see today. I is women taking on roles and wanting to jump into roles that you are increasing. You know, there's never been a bigger demand for roles in sustainability ever, and, and women more and more aligning their values. We can cut onto more of that later and stepping into that space. And if we think about my voluntary career, so not my professional career, but what would I do in my free time.Marty: (04:05)And, I do a lot of work with, you know, small charities that focus on livelihoods and empowerment work for women. And, and it's those women in these developing countries that are being affected by climate and sustainability issues the most. And they're the ones that are then taking action and wanting to do more. And so, you know, that's the space, I think, where we can all do a bit more maybe to help, help give those, those ladies that are really trying to take action, which will have, you know, significant impacts on our future. You know, I think there's, various different ways to take these statistics, but I think, you know, it's all encouraging and it's all the right to action of travel.Margaret: (04:39)Bridget, do you have any thoughts on, women's outside role in sustainability?Bridget: (04:47)Well, I think I mostly agree with what Marty just said and, it's, it's quite funny. I hadn't heard about these numbers before, but, when I started thinking now about the research I've done within companies on sustainability and integrated, and also about the taskers actually, a sustainable business management task forces. And if I'm thinking about that, I think we are really very much, I think either about 50, 50% male female, or even with the leaders, the sustainability officers and the leaders I spoke within those companies. I think we, a majority were us indeed female, andI never really realized that actually until now. And I start thinking about it. and I, agree that there's probably not ne...

Contact Dan Toma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/Outcome: https://weareoutcome.co/Dan's other podcasts:https://theinnovationshow.io/episode/ep-230-the-corporate-startup-how-established-companies-can-create-successful-innovation-ecosystems-with-dan-toma/https://thinkers50.com/blog/thinkers-50-podcast-dan-toma-and-innovation/https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HeJjCHvNvCrD6vydCPsG4?si=u3kBTT3yR4W1D1Z_ie3Fxg&dl_branch=1FULL 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 I'm here to introduce our featured guest for episode 172 of our series. This conversation features Dan Toma, an innovation thought leader and the co-author of the award-winning book, The Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting. He joined Count Me In to talk about elements of the book, specifically the importance of the people in the organization and further defining innovation, accounting, Dan shares practical examples from his own experience as a product owner, entrepreneur, corporate transformation leader. So keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.  Adam: (00:55) So Dan, as you know, some something that companies have always done is look at their employees as assets and many times when there's a financial crisis, the first step is let's cut half the staff and move forward. But with the ever changing times of business and acceptability, that's not acceptable anymore. And so as businesses grow, they're encouraged to grow the value of their assets and the same approach probably should be taken toward people. What benefit do you see that in the workplace?  Dan: (01:22) Right. What should I say? I mean, you know, you walk in those corporate buildings, you work into various offices and you see slogans on the wall. Employees are our biggest asset on all that stuff. Right. But when you go and look in the financial records, you actually end up seeing the fact that employees are listed as cost as liability because they have obviously a salary attached to them. Right. So, yes, it would be great to have more companies, think of their employees as real assets, beyond the slogan, beyond the mottos, if you want, and start investing in them, if they will start treating people as assets, they will obviously start investing and nurturing their skills, care about their mental wellbeing. Do all these things that you would normally do to an asset.  Dan: (02:19) Like if you have a truck you are going to wash it and, you know, change your oil and put the best parts in it. But if you have a UX designer where if you have, a great HR person, how do you make sure that you actually treat that, that particular individual as an asset? But there are actually companies that do that. And, these companies are, you know, football clubs and in general sports franchises, they have their players list as assets. I'm not saying now that we should go in that direction and trade my accounting person from my bank, with your accounting person, from the whatever automotive company. But it would be fun, right? So yeah, in general, the, the benefits will, obviously go towards the employees themselves. Like they will have the most to benefit from. And obviously by them being treated as assets, the company will, obviously benefit. But I think, short term, the benefit will be with the employees later, the benefit will come to the company as a result of the employees being, regarded as assets, however, financial accounting considers them as liabilities. Hmm.  Adam: (03:32) That makes sense. So I want to kind of bring the conversation, back to your book. My co-host mentioned has mentioned your book in our intro and in your book, you cover nine myths, about measuring innovation. And I found them very fascinating. And I was wondering if you could walk us through a couple of those on how they relate to accounting.  Dan: (03:51) Yeah. So, we've uncovered those myths as we were working with our clients and, we decided to put them in the book because we fought and we, know there is a lot of people out there that still unfortunately live by those myth. So one of the first ones, and we actually wrote about this in the first book in the corporate startup as well, is that people tend to view R&D expenditure as a synonym for innovation prowess. And, this is very far from the reality, if you go, and, I encourage you actually, the audience to go and research two tops. one top is the BCG most innovative companies, of this year, I think is 50 companies they put in the top and the other one is the, top that comes from the European commission, if I'm not mistaken.  Dan: (04:46) And it tracks the biggest R&D spenders off that year. And if you put the top side by side, you're going to realize that the company that is number one R&D spender of the year is probably where near the top three or five is, in the innovation top. Take, for example, pharma industry. In the pharma industry, they're about three to four companies on the most innovative company list. And then there's probably 12 or 15 of them on the, on the R&D spenders, same for automotive and other industries aerospace. Again, it's a good example. So this is one of the biggest myths that we uncovered, while working with, while working with the companies. The other one was that innovation can't be measured because innovation is about creativity and creativity can't be measured.  Dan: (05:42) Anybody that worked in innovation, either being, employed in a large organization, part of the innovation department, or, had their own startup know that, creativity is probably 1% of, what it means to be successful in the innovation world, the rest 99%. And again, don't quote me on the percentages here, are, the 99% refers to discipline refers to, being methodical in, in your work, being very diligent in your actions and in the follow up to your actions. So again, obviously since we're talking now about a process, processes can be measured so you can measure innovation very well. Another myth is that the success of innovation venture can only be measured once it's in the market. Actually you can measure success or the potential success of innovation ventures very early on. This is how investors live.  Dan: (06:45) This is how VCs companies, exist. The fact that you wait until something is in the market to return a certain dollar amount, it's another form of success. And, some people could see already that success happening early on. Therefore they invest in early stage in that particular startup or in that particular idea, another myth that we found, and this was well, we were researching indicators. People tend to fit that everything is a KPI, right? Everything is a key performance indicator actually. We need to make a distinction between, and everybody that's in business needs to make a distinction between KPIs and the KRIs, key results indicators. The KPI, the ones with the P referring to the performance of the process, the KRI is referred to the outcome of that particular process. So, usually if we want to improve something, we need to understand the process behind it.  Dan: (07:53) Otherwise we won...

Follow Larysa Melnychuk on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/larysamelnychuk/ International FP&A Board: https://fpa-trends.com/fpa-boardFollow FP&A Trends Group on social media to stay on top of the latest trends and developments in the field: Receive regular insights directly to your inbox (subscribe to FP&A Trends Digest here https://fpa-trends.com/newsletters)​Take part in weekly discussions facilitated by a team of FP&A professionals (join the FP&A Club LinkedIn group here https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4855471/)​Learn from experts in the field (you can watch our webinars and videos on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC03uGOGUAZTvcqR0PU3R0kg)​FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host Adam Larson, and I'm here with you again to preview another insightful conversation about financial planning and analysis. Here in episode, 171, Mitch spoke with Larysa Melnychuk about trends in modern FP&A. Larysa is a leading FP&A professional and influencer. She held senior roles at top organizations before establishing the international FP&A board in 2013, which has since expanded to 27 chapters in 16 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and North America. In this episode, she discusses how FP&A has evolved and explained some trends, including XP&A and digital FP&A. Keep listening to learn more as we head over to the conversation now.  Mitch: (00:57) Larysa with your international FP&A board project and speaking with you previously, I understand you've traveled through many countries, 16 countries. There are 27 chapters for this project, across Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, North America. You know, this is a wide covering project when it comes to the topic of FP&A. So you've obviously seen a lot. You've heard a lot. To start things off. I would like to first get your definition of modern FP&A, and how does it kind of vary across these different regions?  Larysa: (01:33) Thank you, Mitchell. first of all, thank you for inviting me, to this podcast. It's especially pleasant, to talk about, trends and FP&A at the beginning of the year, when we all look ahead, in order to understand what is happening, with our environment and with our profession. So, there are really a lot of definitions, of FP&A from, different account and boards from, different practices, practitioners. The one that I really love, it came from one of our meetings and, it was the definition, very practical definition from my former CFO at Swiss Re in Zurich in Switzerland. This definition he shared at our meeting and, actually he shared that his company really adhere to this definition in terms of their FP&A, so he said that, FP&A helps to manage the value of the company by five different ways.  Larysa: (02:38) First one is, helping to understand the value of the company, describing extraction steering, and reporting it to the key stakeholders. So fantastic definition that, really described, the strategic value of FP&A and how it helps to sustain the value of the company. Our FP&A trends definition that we checked at, 26, 27 different chapters in 16 countries around the globe. It's, that FP&A is a proactive force that helps to manage, the understanding of the business, the understanding of the value of the business. It supports a decision making process at different levels of organization, and also it integrate, organizational processes of strategic financial, and operational planning. It provides a critical, insights for the decision making. So this is my answer, what FP&A is.  Mitch: (03:41) That's excellent. And thank you for sharing, you know, I think in today's business environment, as we really try to focus on our management accountants, right, the finance and accounting professionals, you know, that definition must be top of mind because as everything that they're doing, today on the job, it really needs to be adjusted, you know, if not totally transformed because of the direction the profession is going. So to follow up on your definition and what you've shared from your experience, what are some of the trends and potentially some of the challenges really that go along with modern FP&A, as you define and supporting the transition in the evolution of the management accountants role.  Larysa: (04:24) First of all, the trends I defined, but this incredible business environment that we all experience. So, at the moment we are talking about applying and forecasting, in the environment of high uncertainty and what it means, it means that, our traditional management accounting methods, they're working only within this span of predictability, span where we can really, apply our, variance analysis method, one plan, one forecast. But, the problem, with a current environment is that the span of projectability is decreasing. So we really have to look at different methods, how we can plan and forecast, and make decisions under, uncertainty from this point of view, the first obvious, and very important trend that we observe, especially for the last two years, it's moving, not only to scenario planning, I would call this scenario management.  Larysa: (05:32) So everything at the moment, it's, about looking at, futures and deciding what is going to work. And of course, organizations that are able, to play, scenarios very quickly, practically in real time at different levels of the organization, really, with analytical insights, those organizations are at the leading stage and they really are at a good place. We looked at many different case studies and interesting to see that, practically every organization at the moment are trying to be there. But though, in order for us to be, at this, stage when, scenario management works in agile manner, we really have to look at, the way how to achieve it and, those stages, those next trends that I would like to outline here. They definitely, those important trends that are needed in order to be at this scenario management stage.  Larysa: (06:36) I would say that the second one and very important one, is driver based planning many would say, oh, we are talking about driver based planning. For many years, it's not the latest strength, but I would say that, at this particular environment we are talking about not traditional driver based planning, where you have all your defined and well known, drivers, but actually it's trying to look at those drivers, that, you never realize exist. And now we have to acknowledge that, they are helping us to define those drivers. So with help of predictive analytics, for example, we can define even behavioral factors, you know, how, behavior or expectations let's say of our customers will change the way how we do our business. So let's put it this way. A driver based planning that is at the next generation driver based planning that is based on identifying those key driver, 20% of drivers that can explain 80% of the results.  Larysa: (07:43) And also those drivers that, we never knew they existed, and, a lot of things h...

Alissa Vickery, Chief Accounting Officer and Senior Vice President of Accounting and Controls for FLEETCOR, joins Count Me In to talk about purpose driven leaders. Alissa has oversight of external reporting, technical accounting, and internal audit, and her leadership has helped FLEETCOR join the Fortune 1000 list and the S&P 500 Index. In this episode, she defines purpose driven leadership, the benefits and outcomes of developing purpose driven leaders, and why purpose is so valuable to the accounting and finance team. Download and listen now!Contact Alissa Vickery: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alissa-vickery-67b3986/References and Resources for Alissa Vickery and Leadership:https://accounting.cfotechoutlook.com/cxoinsights/how-being-a-purposedriven-leader-inspires-accounting-teams-nid-1672.htmlhttps://womenworthwatching.com/alissa-vickery/https://alumni.uga.edu/2018/09/24/meet-alissa-vickery/ https://alumni.uga.edu/40u40/2017-class/ https://alumni.uga.edu/networks/women-of-uga/ https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/07/12/see-who-made-the-university-of-georgias-40-under.html https://tenthousandreasons.org/ https://www.relayexchange.org/ https://www.fleetcor.com/company/leadership/ FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host, Adam Larson, and we are now starting episode 170 of our series. The guest speaker you will hear from today is Alissa Vickery. Alissa is the Chief Accounting Officer for FLEETCOR, a leading global provider of global business payment solutions, headquartered in Atlanta. Alissa also serves as senior vice president of accounting and controls where she has oversight over external reporting, technical accounting and internal audit. Her leadership has helped FLEETCOR join the fortune 1000 list and the S&P 500 index. In this episode, she talks about purpose driven leaders, Alissa shares, many of her personal experiences and growth and development opportunities for aspiring leaders. So to hear more, let's head over to the conversation now.  Mitch: (01:03) So we were talking very briefly before we started recording here a little bit about leadership and there's, you know, a particular topic that we're going to focus on in today's conversation. I first want to start off by asking you who are purpose driven leaders?  Alissa: (01:17) Well, I mean, I think perhaps everybody has a different opinion here, but for me, purpose driven leaders are leaders who are really interested in powering productivity, both for the company as well as the growth of the employee. So, you know, everybody has a benefit from it, but I think if you can execute as a purpose driven leader, then you can ultimately transform some competent employees into super high performing stars of your management team and perhaps warrant their, their next progression into leadership, whether it it's at your company or into their next role.  Mitch: (01:56) So as far as what those individuals need, you know, I think a lot of people are always as working on their own leadership development, those who obviously want to climb the ladder, but as far as skills or key activities, that purpose driven leaders really partake in, what are some of the things that you recommend or you often see?  Alissa: (02:14) So, I mean, for me personally, I think it's been a bit of a journey, purpose driven leadership isn't on accident. It, you have to be the very conscientious of how the words that you use and the behaviors that you exhibit then drive behavior of your team. And I don't just mean sending an email, you know, 10 o'clock at night. I mean truly taking an interest in those individuals and their career progression as well as what's happening with them personally, because it is the whole person and remembering that these individuals, they are human beings, they have lives. And I think if the current environment has taught us anything, it's that it's not a one sided story, right? I think in the time of the great resignation, we, as leaders have been pushed harder than we probably have, in the history of our careers to try and make sure we engage at a level that's meaningful, that's personal, while not forgetting that individuals still want the progression, regardless of whether we're sitting in the office together, or we're still sitting, in our home offices trying to muddle through and get it done.  Mitch: (03:28) You know, that's a great point because leadership, and I've had a few of these conversations over the last, going on two years now, but leadership itself has changed right? Based on the work environment, everything else that we've experienced. You know, my next question, it could be a little bit more historical as far as traditional purpose driven leadership, as you've said, getting to know people face to face maybe a little bit more from the virtual component now, depending on your experiences over the last couple years, but when people are conscious and they are purpose driven leaders and they're in these efforts, what are some of the outcomes, you know, tangible or intangible, that, you know, the organizations that they're working for can really expect to see as more leaders are empowered?  Alissa: (04:12) Yeah, I mean, I think from, from my experience, it drives a culture where you have excellence, intentionality and discipline, and ultimately...

Contact Michael Teape: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teapetraining/Teape Training International (TTI): https://www.teapetraininginternational.comGet my FREE eGuide 7 Best Facilitation Tips to Ensure Engagement & Learning to ensure your Online Training Success -> https://tti-signup.ck.page/eguideFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Adam: (00:04) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is your host, Adam Larson, and you're now listening to episode 169 of our series. Today's featured guest is Michael Teape. Michael is the owner and lead training consultant for Teape Training International. He is a thought leader in people development who brings over 25 years of corporate learning and development experience across multiple industries. He enjoys running the trainer events for facilitators globally, and works with senior leadership teams to improve their working relationships and outward facing impact in the organization. In this episode, Michael focuses on time management and building a culture around working smarter and focusing on productive work. To kick things off Michael addresses, how you can win back one whole day of your time per week. So keep listening to hear more as we head over to the conversation now.  Mitch: (01:07) So one of the things that, I know you really talk about is how to win back one day of your team's time every single week. And when I read that at first, I thought that was pretty ambitious. If you break it down, we have accounting listeners, 20% of the week is free.  Michael: (01:25) You know, I knew you'd be talking about figures, Mitchell since we got started.  Mitch: (01:27) That's right. So, you know, I just want to know your perspective on this. How do you go about achieving such kind of time management?  Michael: (01:36) Well, there's multiple streams of how you do that. And yeah, people are like 20%. They always raise their eyebrows when I say that, but truly there's a couple of things you can do. And you know, we work on, first of all, are you actually efficiently working the time you're in the office or the time you're working at home, you know, working on a strategy or, you know, a piece of technical work. In an hour, you know, how effective are you? So I ask everybody, including your listeners. The one question is, how effective are you in that hour? Are you really being productive? And I've got it down to under, I can do in 20 minutes to 30 minutes what you could do in an hour. You can get that down to half that time. If you focus, you know exactly what you're working on and you're in the zone, you're just thinking about this research.  Michael: (02:34) You're just looking up the strategy. You're just crafting it. If you're not interrupted by the noise of the world, emails, iPhones, Androids, there's just so much going on. People interrupting you all the time. If you create a bubble, it's amazing what you can write in 30 to 45 minutes. So that's one of the biggest parts of it is can I get more out of an hour? And I guarantee you can. So focus, good planning, prioritizing, knowing what you are doing for that 20 minutes. And then the other part of it is brain chemistry. So is understanding how you work. You've heard the thing you've probably heard before. What's your best time of the day, or people often say, oh, I'm best mid morning, evening. They'll offer that quite freely. So they know they're thinking about it. And it's using those times to do your more difficult work.  Michael: (03:35) Your more heavy thinking, research work. And then using the times, you know, you're not sufficient actually doing something that activates your body, something either physical or the boring, easy work, replying to emails. We'll talk, I'm sure we'll talk about emails. Everyone's always got a question about, that's a whole subject on, how do you look at emails? How do you deal with them? You've got a think of it as a strategy. So there's so much you can do even. So if you're working with others as well. So that was individual. If you're working with a team, is how effective are your meetings? Most of the startups that I work with, they never hold a meeting more than 30 minutes. Yeah. So you can imagine, even with their clients, they've got their clients in tune. We get into the conversation. We're 10, 15 minutes in people start getting really serious, real quick.  Michael: (04:27) They get to the point. And if we need to book some more time, what's it about we're going to do that. So rather than letting a meeting roll on and on and on, I don't recommend that if your first meeting a client, you know, from this strategic point of view, but once you've got to know a client, they will appreciate the fact. You can get things done in half an hour instead of an hour. So you you're shaving time by getting more done in the time. And where does your team spend the time together? You don't need to attend an update meeting. It's just a waste of time An update meeting is just somebody else reading out what you could have read on a document and in an email. It's what are we going to do with it? Let's cut that. Did you all get the update?  Michael: (05:10) Yes. Great. What are your thoughts on it? Boom. I've just shaved 15 minutes of time off your meeting, right? So there are so many different aspects to it. And I, you know, the overarching piece, I would say there's three things to consider. One is your mindset. So knowing what's going on here, how you approach work, you've heard growth mindset and fixed mindset. So that working on that piece. So you're connected as quickly as possible to your work. Secondly, is choosing goals, productivity tools, organization, tools that work for you for your work. And you personally, there is no point using tools that you is hard work for you, or you don't get, feel excited to be using. I know I used, excited and organizational tools in the same sentence, but without that, you've got to pick tools that gonna work for the work you do and suit you personally.  Michael: (06:09) And, and lastly, get good about your time and your rituals is rituals and routines are fantastic. If you can set them up to you rather than let them happen. So if you finish a piece of work today, all of your listeners, next piece of work, you finish, focus on what you're doing afterwards. What are you doing? Do you just sit back? Do you look at the phone or are you actually okay. I'm physically taking a couple of minutes, then I'm going to get into my next piece. I am going to get up, walk around the desk, grab a coffee, change my mood, get some energy going and boom, straight back into it. Cause I guarantee once you finish one piece of work, oh, yeah. You're like, oh good. That's over. And then you waste a good amount of time, relaxing, pat yourself on the back, subconsciously looking at your emails before you get into to the next piece. And before you know it, you've lost time as well. So do you see from that, just that alone, you're able to save 20% of your time and your team's time. Yeah. Just in those areas there.  Mitch: (07:12) That's, it's very interesting. And you mentioned a lot of things that I did want to bring up, through this conversation, but it kind of all ...