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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Adam: (00:00) Welcome back to Count Me In IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson and today I have another bonus episode for you. This special conversation features my co-host, Rouba Zeidan and Alia Moubayed, an experienced economist, General Manager, and Global CFO. In this episode that discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and Alia shares her perspective on how the world has changed because of it. She also shares how finance and accounting profession can better arm itself for the next chapter of business. Stay tuned as we begin listening to their conversation now. Rouba: (00:47) Good afternoon, Adia, and thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I'm really looking forward to getting your input. You are one of the top economists in this region, and your view on the current situation and going forward, you know, as we begin, 2021 is of great importance, and so thank you. Alia: (01:07) Thank you very much for hosting me. Rouba: (01:09) How has the pandemic changed your role as an economist? Alia: (01:15) Well, I mean, the, pandemic changed the way we do our work as economists, particularly in the middle East and North Africa region at two levels. The first is, our own understanding of the economies in the light of the COVID. It requires from economists a non-traditional approach to analyzing the impact of the pandemic. So fundamentally it is hitting, people's health and therefore a key resource. So fundamentally the pandemic is affecting our work as economists at two levels. First in our approach in, analyzing, the developments in the economy, notably, understanding the impact of the pandemic, both at the macro, but also more importantly at the micro level, because, particularly that, that the pandemic is hitting, the lives and livelihoods of people, but also supply chains and therefore industries, and at the same time global economic factors like oil, and, capital flows, and trade. So our understanding of, and our approach to analyzing, economic development has been transformed. But I think also the second level is, how go about doing our work. The East and North Africa region, is a region that you cannot analyze by staying behind your desk and looking at numbers, first, because, there's less data transparency in the region, and our work as economists requires us being, in the country, traveling, talking to policymakers and to decision makers in both the public and the private sector. And obviously our, ability to travel has been challenged by the pandemic and that significantly impacted our work, but thanks to digital technology. We have, moved our work and our connectivity with people in the region, to all these platforms, Zoom and others, and they have also transformed the way we interact with decision makers in the region. Rouba: (03:52) Every quarter IMA and ACCA collaborate and we publish an economic conditions report, which details global developments, and in the most recent global economic conditions survey, which covered Q4 2020 and the middle East region recorded a huge jump in confidence. In your view, what is driving this kind of progress? Is it the easing of geopolitical tensions? is it the continued recovery in oil prices and demand? I mean, when you look at oil prices, they've jumped around 25% to $50 per barrel between September and December.,and also, what are the challenges that remain ahead for the region? Alia: (04:34) Sure, I think all the factors that you have listed have been important in shoring up, sentiment in the region, and I think, the four are essentially, first one is a sign that we have seen in Q4 that there are signs that the vaccine is at a reach and that a rollout is imminent. So that has, given hope of the resumption of economic activity, particularly in the hard hit sector, service sector, which constitute a large part of the services economy in the region, but also globally. I think certainty from that sort of, this, expectation that a, economic rebound is slowly on their way has transpired into the demand for oil, even though there are still pressures and uncertainty on the outlook for demand for oil as has been estimated recently by the IMF, but also by the International Energy Agency, however, I think the response from, all exporters, particularly in the context of the OPEC plus meeting to, to curb and continue to curb supply, has also helped, bring oil prices, to levels that, that affects sentiment in the region, I E 50 plus, level. And I think as long as, as oil prices remain in that, in that bound, the pressure, particularly on the, fiscal, and external, wind oil windfalls to the region, will be much less than what we have seen in 2020. And that takes me to the third factor, which is really, in Q4. We have seen, most with Eastern country countries, particularly in the gulf put out budgets for 2021, that confirmed their commitment to supporting, their local economies whether in Saudi Arabia or in the UAE, in Qatar. These are budgets that have maintained, some form of minimum fiscal stimulus, but also there have been a rollout of many of the liquidity packages that have been provided by the central banks or, delaying, the periods of, further exemptions from paying taxes and fees. So alleviating the pressure on, on businesses across the economies. So the kind of fiscal and policy framework, that has been maintained for 2021 also has contributed to the sentiment. And, finally I think, what we have seen is also the reduction in geopolitical tension on the back of the U S election, and this is a perception, at least so far, that, a diplomacy and not confrontation, will be the theme, when it comes to, to dealing with the, many, complicated, tensions, that has marked the region for a long time. Rouba: (08:19) Undoubtedly, the global economy is in a very fragile state at. Its worst state since 1930. COVID infection rates are increasing, was the virus continues to mutate. And what lies ahead will definitely include further lockdowns, compromise, consumer trust, and respect of spending a lot of strain on cashflow and rising, private, and public debt that to name, but a few, but the progress made on vaccine approval. And what is being dubbed the most ambitious global vaccination campaigns humanity has ever seen. It kind of raises hopes for a permanent economic improvement. How do you see its successful implementation impacting the regional and the global economy? And can we hope for an economic bounce back? Alia: (09:09) I think, bounce back is a bit, too optimistic. I mean, there certainly there are based effects we quote because we are going to go to go from a deep recession, as you rightly said, I mean, let's, let's just put some numbers here. I mean, the word economy and the world output, is estimated to have been, to have contracted by, by 4.4%, in 2020, with advanced economies  contracting by around 5.8% while emerging markets, by, a 3.3%. These are by far, a very deep recession, and obviously they will leave deep scars in, in many of the economies, therefore, why there will be a rebound from this recession, however, there is a great uncertainty first on the, extent and strengths of this, of this recovery, but also on its durability, because, first we are, we are seeing, unfortunately second waves of hitting in many countries leading to second waves of severe lockdown, particularly in Europe, and in some emerging economies, but also, the rollout of the vaccine will be a long drawn, and it will take time. It needs resources, it needs the right infrastructure. That's why maybe in the developed world, they will be able to, they are relatively well prepared, although, I mean, not all of, all of them, but in much greater part of the emerging world, that w...

Contact Mitch Perry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-perry-6111b61/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Mitch: (00:00)Thanks for coming back and listening to another episode of Count Me In, I'm your host Mitch Roshong, and this is the 110th episode of IMA's podcast series. Today you will hear from Mitch Perry, CFO for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Mitch is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of leading effectively across multiple industries, including healthcare, energy, and insurance. In this episode, he talks about business transformation in the context of accounting and finance. Keep listening to hear about some keys, best practices and strategies, for overcoming challenges associated with business transformation.  Adam: (00:47)Mitch, what is the current nature of business transformations and what do businesses hope to accomplish by going through a business transformation?  Mitch P.: (00:56)Yeah. Well, thanks, Adam,  for that question, it's, it was really timely. For us, we're seeing, you know, a lot of change in healthcare and trying to lead transformation in healthcare, you know, it's at its most basic form, I look at it as a need to be responsive to really what's going on in the marketplace, how rapidly business conditions are changing. What you need to do to, as a company is not only to stay current, but hopefully stay in, stay in the lead. I think about healthcare, maybe even business in general, what we're living through right now with COVID-19, has really underscored, how, how important it is to be ready, to adapt and change and transform to the external market. And what we've seen, to some extent, even gives a little bit of an opportunity to accelerate some of that transformation. I view us as an industry that is transforming right before our eyes, and I see us as Blue Cross, North Carolina as playing a role on helping to transform leading the transformation of health healthcare for the better, in our state. And the way we look at it is largely from an affordability lens that, we got to drive transform ourselves and help transform the system in a way that, is, provides for more affordable healthcare for our customers, and a major way we're doing that is through how we transform our, our payment approach with our provider partners, and you're paying them for, quality and outcomes as opposed to a fee for service. And even though we're a leader, maybe especially because we're a leader, you know, we're doing it from a position of strength, we're making certain that we're focusing on, what we should be doing for the long-term,and it kind of allows us to play offense as opposed to maybe having to react and try to transform from a position of defense later r. You know, the final point I would make on, on this question, Adam is, we have, had really strong momentum with our provider partners and transforming, the payment system before the pandemic, and it really, because of that has allowed us to maintain momentum and even accelerated, some things that weren't initially on the roadmap is, have now allowed us to even go faster. So think in terms of how we're able to add telehealth, into what we're, in, into what we're really, completing as part of our transformation, structure, and then, you know, how we're working and bringing our primary care along as well. So it really, put us in a position to not only be strong coming into it, but to maybe even go faster through it.  Adam: (04:13)So I think you've given us some great examples of how you've been able to have a successful transformation. What are some of the keys that you've been able to apply to make it a successful transformation?  Mitch P.: (04:23)Yeah, and Adam, I will acknowledge, that, you know, we are, in the middle of this and maybe all businesses are at some stage in the middle of transformation, but, you know, the good news is I think I've got some really timely, feedback, but there's also the reality that we learn and learning every day. You know, one of the things I think about is, innovation is important. I think sometimes when you talk about transformation, people think about innovation and clearly there is an aspect of that, but I think about it as, as being more than about innovation, I think about it as execution the really the most critical part. I don't know if you've had exposure to John Doerr, a very successful investor with Kleiner Perkins. He was late investor, Google, Amazon recently, Door Dash, and, I've heard him say before, that ideas are easy execution is everything. And it really hits home for me that, yeah, it's, it's great to have all these great ideas, but there are a lot of great ideas, you know, really the key to success is can you execute on those ideas? And so with that, you know, I've done a little thinking around what are some successful events and, you know, almost think about it like a little bit of a recipe. This recipe happens to have six items. I will say I'm a pretty simplistic baker. Six items is quite, quite a bit, but transformation has some complexity to it, and I think six probably makes sense and they all happen to begin with the letter C. So hopefully they're easy to remember, but not the six c's. The first one is courage. I think it takes courage to make changes to the status quo. You have to have energy to continue to be curious. You have to find ways to take measured risks so that you move forward without putting too much of your existing model at risk. The second is, communication. You know, I'd say it starts at the executive level, but it has to go all the way through the organization. Being clear about what you're driving towards, you know, what we're trying to achieve, why it's better, you know, why, you know, not just trying to make a change for change sake, but why it makes sense for what we're doing. The third is collaboration, and I think what we're doing with our provider partners provides, or will a good example of that. transformation requires partnerships. I don't think there's really any way to do it effectively unless you deal with partnerships, whether they be internal partnerships or external. And I think it's important that you invest the time is early. She can, and your transformation process there to build those partnerships so that you can get some early wins and you can withstand the challenges later, and where in, you're able to pick up momentum as you, as you move. The fourth, is change management and, you know, I think about change management as being  almost a process to itself. You have to be purposeful. We all understand that, as an organization and as individuals, we embrace change differently. We have different risk tolerances, but important, that you're able to, bring everyone along. And there's no way to do that, I think, but to be purposeful around kind of how you, how you work through the organization and when you're doing it outside the organization, how you work outside the organization to make certain, everyone has a common understanding. The fifth, and this one may become a little more obvious given the, for the fact that the four score probably has some complexity to them, but it is commitment. I'd like to say that you have to be patient, but you also have to be persistent. You can't change momentum overnight. There will be setbacks. There will be opportunities for people to say this doesn't work, but you have to make certain that you've got the commitment and fortitude to continue to move forward even during the challenges. And the final one, which I really think underpins them all is culture. And, you know, the culture of blue cross North Carolina is going to be different say than ...

Alan Johnson, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), joins Count Me In to talk with Loreal Jiles, IMA Director of Research, about the importance of taking action to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the accounting profession. On the heels of an IMA and CalCPA-sponsored research study supported by IFAC and 13 other organizations, Loreal shares relevant findings from the research study and Alan recounts personal experiences and offers actionable insights on steps accounting and finance professionals can take to play leading roles in DE&I improvement. Download and listen in for inspiration to act now!Contact Alan Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-johnson-a96601a8/Contact Loreal Jiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loreal-jiles-804648a1/IMA's Diversity and Inclusion Commitment and Resources: https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/diversity-and-inclusionFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch: (00:00) 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 today I am previewing another special bonus episode. You will hear from IFAC President, Alan Johnson, as he speaks with IMA's Loreal Jiles about diversity, equity and inclusion. In their conversation, to the two discuss what accountants can do to promote and support diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, and ultimately do a better job as a profession to attract, retain, and promote diverse talent. Keep listening as we tune into their insightful dialogue now.   Loreal: (00:40) Hello everyone. I am Loreal Jiles and I am Director of Research for Digital Technology and Finance Transformation at the Institute of Management Accountants. Today, I am joined by an accomplished executive in the accounting and finance profession, Alan Johnson, who is currently President of IFAC, the International Federation of Accountants. Throughout his career spending about four decades. Alan has worked in Africa, Europe, and Latin America in a host of finance roles, including chief financial officer, chief audit executive, and several other board roles and executive roles. We joined today in discussion of the important topic of diversity equity and inclusion in the accounting profession. And for the purposes of this discussion, when we refer to the accounting profession or the accounting and finance profession, we are collectively speaking of the public accounting segment as may be familiar to those in the US those typically working in CPA firms and audit tax or advisory capacity, or the management accounting segment, accounting and finance professionals working within business or other organizations. And so for the last few months or so, the Institute of Management Accountants and the California society of CPAs to gather with global research partner IFAC, and a host of other research partners and contributors have just concluded a look into DE&I in our profession. We discussed, and focused on three aspects of diversity, race and ethnicity, gender and persons who identify as LGBTQIA. We began with the US and this is part of the larger multi-part series that will ultimately be global, and what we found in the US was the presence of something we've termed the diversity gap. Much greater diversity across the profession, but considerable under-representation of diverse talent among senior leadership levels. For every 10 of our professions, most senior leaders, eight of them are men., nine are white and few identify as LGBTQ. We surveyed over about 3000 US accounting professionals and found that diverse talent believes aren't advancing because of inequity and exclusion that still persists and it's diverse talent, unfortunately, is leaving companies, and in some instances, the profession because of a lack of D&I. So not like to invite you, Alan, if you could help us shed a bit of light when the importance of this topic, please tell us why is DE&I an issue that should matter to the accounting profession.   Alan: (03:24) So, good afternoon, everyone and good afternoon Loreal and thank you very much for inviting me to this podcast. First of all, I just to let your listeners know that, the accountancy profession is a profession. It's a global profession of 3 million professional accountants around the world, and we support businesses. We support, which are both large and small. We support the public sector and we support indeed many organizations across the world. And, you know, at the core of what we do, we act in the public interest. Therefore, we must operate clearly with integrity and we should operate to the highest standards of ethics in line with our professional code of ethics, which I hope you're all familiar with. I think we would all agree that decisions, the best decisions that are made are those that are rigorous on analysis, robust in debate, and that the decisions are made putting the public interest or the interest of all stakeholders ahead of the personal interests. And it's also, I hope we recognize that our profession clearly is a people-centered profession, that is people at the heart of organizations. So it is obvious that we need to ensure that we have a diverse, inclusive, profession that clearly respects everyone's views. And that is why it matters to our profession. It actually also matters to all other professions, but, you know, in our case, we are purely a people centered profession and therefore ethics, which ethics equality. And, and I would actually say that, diversity equality and inclusivity or inclusiveness is actually also, you could argue is an ethical issue. And as ethics is at the heart of what we do and how we operate it is of course, pretty obvious. I hope that DE&I is so important to our profession.   Loreal: (05:26) Absolutely. Thanks so much for that, Alan. If we shift gears a bit more building on the importance of this for our profession, what can, and should individual accountants do to promote and support diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces?   Alan: (05:45) Well, as I've said, you know, all professions should, in fact, all aspects of society should be promoting inclusivity, diversity and equity, that goes saying. But I would love to start by saying one thing, which pleased me, what, on Wednesday morning, when I read the press, the president Biden had signed for executive actions on Tuesday, aiming to increase racial equality across the nation. I was very pleased to read that, but on the other hand, I was also saddened that it needs a presidential executive action to address the issue of racial inequality. Honestly, in societies today, it should not need a presidential act of that kind, but if it needs it it's been done and I applaud your new president, and I hope that everybody takes note of the importance of this. But let's go back to our profession in terms of promoting D&I. First of all, I would say it starts with leadership. Leaders have to demand that their organizations embrace diversity, equality and inclusivity everywhere. But just by saying it doesn't mean it gets done. So it's about leading by example, our professional leaders need also to make appointments that reflect society, which means more diverse, more inclusive and more equitable. Cause these are the basic principles of humanity. They then need to hold their own teams accountable to ensure that they live up to those values. They need to set targets, they need to set objectives, and they need to measure that the organizations are moving in the right direction ...

Contact Brian Suthoff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suthoff/Visit Tally Street: https://tallystreet.com/Get a Free Retention Report! https://tallystreet.com/retention/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Once again, this is your host Adam Larson, and I'm pleased to bring you another engaging episode of our series as Iintroduced to you episode 109, and our featured guest, Brian Suthoff. Brian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tally Street, a company that helps small to mid-sized businesses keep and grow customers through actionable insights automatically generated from various sales data. In his conversation with Mitch, Brian discusses, how big data translates to great opportunities and explains why management accountants are best fit for driving this growth in these businesses. We'll hear more as we transition over to the rest of the episode now. Mitch: (00:52) So Brian, before we kick things off, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and give us some background on Tally Street and exactly what you do. Brian: (01:00) Yeah, great. Thanks, and thanks for having me. So Tally Street is focused on helping small and mid-sized businesses who want to grow and get paid, generate more value from the financial data or the accounting data that the businesses are already managing. The inspiration for Tally Street really came from a couple prior experiences of my own. Most of my background has been in big data and analytics, but then about four years ago, I started a liquor distributorship in Boston. Very traditional small business, just me and a couple other people. And, you know, we were successful in growing that business across Massachusetts, but very quickly ran to the point where we had, you know, a couple hundred customers and couldn't keep them all in our heads, and we're basically missing having access to the kinds of customer analytics and insights that I was used to having and more tech focused businesses. So as we looked at ways to try to solve that problem, what we found is that accounting and finance teams are really sitting on a wealth of customer data inside that accounting system. That's really being untapped in most small and mid-sized businesses. So that's really, our goal is to help managerial accountants generate the insights, the customer insights and information that large businesses have had for a long time, but to do that at kind of a scale and a cost that's appropriate for small businesses, so they can make better decisions and be more profitable and successful. Mitch: (02:32) So I know for us, you know, our accounting and finance listeners, our members, a big focus for us is using this data and making some kind of actionable insight, you know, something where we can make more strategic business decisions, but again, we're targeting accounting and finance professionals. Now you don't necessarily have that background in accounting. You come from the big data side of things. So, you know, how have you been able to kind of adapt with that target audience and then, you know, what kind of opportunities do you recognize with this diverse background? Brian: (03:04) Yeah, learned a lot over the last couple of years, as I've been speaking to more accountants and financial professionals and just catching up always on the industry and changes on the industry, and one thing I noticed in the recent issue of the Strategic Finance magazine is they had a great article on data visualization. And, you know, I think the reason that article is published is plenty of people have said, you know, everybody's an analyst these days, right? And roles are changing, and managerial accounts role is also changing from being mostly a record keeper or compliance cop to now also providing those insights and helping the businesses make better decisions. But the problem that a lot of these businesses have, and what I've seen is that they don't have the kind of the data lakes, the big data sets, the pristine sets of data that large enterprises tend to spend a lot of money managing, but they do have, or the best set of data they do have is their accounting system. And that's where we think that managerial accountants can, can really win, right. Is they're sitting on the best data set, that typically exists in most small and mid-sized businesses. So it's an area where they can start to apply those, analytic skills, presentation skills, using the data they already have, and they're already familiar with and generate a lot of additional value for the organization. If you just think about what's in that accounting system, the sales transactions, payment transactions, it has  what every customer bought the price they paid when they bought how often they purchased, how much money they've spent, just a wealth of information that can be shared across the organization and in a number of visualizations, but also putting it into other systems like CRMs that sales and marketing teams use. Mitch: (04:58) And then ultimately, what is the opportunity that would come out of this once they start tapping into this data? What are some of the examples or some of the outcomes that you've seen typically? Brian: (05:09) Yeah, great question. There are, there are examples across the entire organization. I tend to think of things, you know, they start with generating revenue, of course, but move on to managing costs, forecasting, customer behavior, forecasting, cashflow, understanding customer profitability, you know, just to take an example on the revenue side, again, that, you know, the accounting platform, whatever it is, has records of every sales transaction, which is connected to a customer and exactly what they bought and the kind of smart software that exists today, and what we're building at Tally Street can analyze all that data and start to group those customers based on, on those patterns, those buying patterns. So for example, you could look at customers who they've been around for a long time. They buy quite frequently and they spend a lot of money. So they have high lifetime value, which is a key metric that you often hear. Those are kind of your champions, and then on the other end of the spectrum you might have the ones who were just never a good fit to start with. maybe they only bought once. They didn't spend that much. They didn't, you...

Contact Gary Piscatelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-piscatelli-5a64766/Hunter Douglas: https://www.hunterdouglas.com/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00) Welcome back to Count Me In IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and this is episode 108 of our series. Today’s conversation features Gary Piscatelli, Senior Vice President and CFO of Hunter Douglas North America. Hunter Douglas is the worldwide leader in custom window treatments as well as a major manufacturer of architectural products. Gary joins us to talk about business transformation and what kind of leadership is necessary to successfully complete a business transformation. Now let's jump into the conversation. Mitch: (00:44) What does business transformation really mean for today's business leaders? Gary: (00:49) You know, it's an interesting one. You probably ask, you know, 10 people, you get 10 different answers, but for me, it's pretty simple. It's getting better at delivering on your strategic objectives, you know, or whatever they may be. You know, in some companies they're, you know, financially focused, it could be sales, it could be profit, it could be market share. It could be market position. It could be long term  stability, customer acquisition, quality, product innovation, et cetera. Whatever those goals are, it's finding ways to accelerate, achieving those goals. It's as simple as that. Mitch: (01:28) That's a very clean cut definition and something much simpler than I've heard in the past, but definitely makes sense, and definitely the goal of a whole business transformation is improvement and acceleration. So, you know, when business leaders look to make these improvements and they hope to improve the organization, is there a  type of culture that is really needed for a successful business transformation, and in that culture, in implementing this, are there certain challenges that a business leader needs to be aware of as they're going through the process? Gary: (01:58) Yeah. I mean, certainly some cultures are, you know, more conducive to accepting change than others, but you can't control the culture.. Certainly, you know, when you're starting to make a change and culture change takes a long, long time. So you have to really work within that culture, but there, there is something even more important than culture when it comes to change and that's leadership, and you know, without, you know, buy-in from leadership, even if it's just a CEO, but you need someone with decision-making authority, but then it, you know, has the ability to control that change to buy in, and if you don't have that, it doesn't really matter what culture you have. And, you know, I find leadership to be 100% accountable for results, including change. And it doesn't really matter what that culture is. You know, and there's some common things, to driving change, regardless of the culture. And the first thing is, Hey, no one wants to be changed. You know, if I asked you, you know, Hey Mitch, do you want me to change you? You know, you would say no, and you know, I would answer it the same way. So you have to go into it knowing that no one wants to be changed. Everyone thinks everyone else needs to change typically as well. So what you have to do is you have to find a way to talk to people at a level that they want to be talked to, and everyone would like their problem solved. Everyone wants their life to get better, right? So the first thing you have to identify is what are the things that are really wrong in an organization that you can get some alignment around.  The people would generally agree that yeah, you know what, that's a problem. We need to make that better. You don't even have to have, have a solution. You just have to identify a problem, right, and try and get alignment that people would say, yeah, I want that to be changed at that point in time, everyone's probably pointing the finger at everyone else. I think it's someone else's fault. It doesn't matter. That's okay. Even first step is get recognition of a problem. The second thing is to try and get people to fundamentally it without pointing fingers too much as to what do we think the root cause of that problem is? Right? So we can actually start to develop solutions around, change around how we fix it. And the third piece is, you know, even if you get people to say, Hey, we have a problem and we have a problem. You know, we definitely want to get better at X, Y, and Z, and we even know how to do that. You know what I've found? And I was kinda shocked. you know, I think it was probably that my third big change, I had a room of people, all finance leaders, and I spent 20 minutes talking about what needed to be different. Everyone in the room nodded their head, complete alignment. So then I said, who's with me and no one was with me and I just didn't get it. I'm like, why, why won't these guys? Why don't these guys have just told me, they'll have a problem. They're all senior leaders in a company. You know, they they're responsible as far as I'm concerned for driving improvement, but they're not interested. And that's when I figured, well, gee, I've got to have in advance figured out what's in it for them. Right, So I've also had to figure out how can I talk to them so they're going to get on board. Right. And, you know, everyone is motivated by different things, right? Some people are motivated by money. You know, some people are motivated by job security. Some people are motivated, motivated by, you know, career progression. Right, so, and you can't just come up with one solution, right, because everyone's got different factors, they're going to drive their ability to get on board because change comes with risks and they're in risk and work. Right. You know, it's not easy to change, right. So people are like, why should I, you know, spend a lot of time working on this when I'm, I'm happy, you know, doing my job as it is today and getting paid as I am today and what's in it for me? So you really have to think through those things, at least with, you know, a handful of leaders so they understand, you know, why it's going to be good for them. At the same time, what you can do is, you know, outside of that change, you can start to change your incentive program because you know, pay does motivate people. So, you know, even ahead of that change, you may want to restructure whether it's short-term incentives, long-term incentives, even your annual review process. So that, to the extent people get on board, they're going to get rewarded and that's something I've, I've done in the last two places I've worked, you know, ahead of the change was to change the incentive program. So at least the compensation elements somewhat addressed, you know, getting on board and compensating people for delivering. And that's why I go back to transformation is about accelerating achievement of business results, right? So you should be doing it because it's going to make the company better. From there, there's more, you know, the other mistake people make is, you know, especially a lot of, a lot of financially driven changes there's associated cost reduction and people make too big a deal out of cost reduction, especially around people. And if you try and sell a change that says, Hey, it's going to result in 25 or 30% of the people losing their jobs, and you then want people to work really hard to make changes so that they won't have a job that's hard to do. So, you know, as I've kind of moved through changes in my career, especially the last one that I worked on at the company, right now, we didn't even address that beca...

Contact Neil Baier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilbeerbaier/IMA Launches Global Ad Campaign to Highlight How CMAs Make a Difference in Business:https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/news-and-media-relations/press-releases/2020/9/14/ima-launches-global-ad-campaign-to-highlight-how-cmas-make-a-difference-in-businessWatch IMA’s “The CMA makes all the difference” television commercials on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9TUx2zNJuk&list=PL_PvlGddtOgFQUwJV7pWyXJoBox5f33Or&index=1

Contact Clive Webb: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clive-webb/ACCA and IMA "The CFO of the Future": https://www.imanet.org/insights-and-trends/business-leadership-and-ethics/the-changing-role-of-the-cfoFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Mitch: (00:00) Welcome to Count Me In IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch Roshong and I'm here to kick off episode 107 of our series. The role of the CFO has evolved and in turn  the skills required of aspiring CFOs have changed too. In this episode, Clive Webb Senior Insights Manager at ACCA shares his perspective on what today's CFO is responsible for, what skills are needed, how the pandemic impacted the role and the best ways to prepare for becoming a CFO. Keep listening as we transition over to the conversation now. Adam: (00:46) So Clive, how was the role of the CFO changing.? Clive: (00:49) Well,Adam. I think that's actually quite an interesting question its is, right. I think for a lot of CFOs, the role it is broadening, perhaps you could even say dramatically broadening, and its focus and how it is perceived are changing quite substantially. And what I mean by that is that certainly from the research work that IMA and ACCA did together, we felt that the role of the CFO was either increasing or significantly increasing. And in our survey about 72% of the respondents felt that the role was broadening out, and I'll talk about that in a second. But actually quite crucially, and one of the things that was quite strong in the report, we also asked a small selection of CEO's their perception. And if you asked the same question to them, you've got about 82%. So one of the things that we repeatedly saw through the report was if you're going to demand and supply side difference between the CEOs, who really expected the CFO's to go even further than perhaps they thought that they were going, and I think that broadening of the role is characterized by a broader set of stakeholders, a broader set of capitals, a broader set of responsibilities that all fall within the CFO's domain. Adam: (02:30) That makes sense, so then what do you consider to be included in the role CFO? Clive: (02:36) So I think the heart of the role remains the traditional financial acumen and financial skill. And as one of the interviewees put it, if the CFO doesn't get that right, then that's the end of that CFO, you know. So that stewardship, guardianship, asset safeguarding, traditional finance, recording, acumen, all those sorts of things, risk management, internal control, they are at the heart of the role.and very much still at the heart of the role. However, the CFO, I think you can counter itin two ways. Now the first of which is thou the, the right hand, the conscience of the CEO. So where the CEO particularly is looking more towards, sales, towards business growth, towards strategic opportunities, the CFO, yes is looking towards those, but also is the voice of dare I say, sanity. The voice of check the constructive right hand in that process. So not only do you need a view of the financial capital, the liquidity, the organization, which we've seen through the pandemic, it is absolutely vitally important. But if we think broader, it is a role that now embraces  strategy. It still has that risk and control side, but that risk and control side itself is changing. And technology and data are playing fundamental parts. A lot of CFOs increasingly talk about scenario modeling and growth optimization as the future, and to do that, you need good technology and that good technology has to be embedded in data and that data has to align to the business strategy. They are therefore leaders in the organization, and as we've seen supply chains become increasingly challenge due to the pandemic they need to be on top of that agenda and also the customer centric agenda as well. And any of these broaden out into broader sense of what your stakeholders may be, how you think about the different capitals if you use the Integrated Reporting Councils Framework of six capitals. A lot of our interviewees thought the CFO increasingly needs to take view and manage stakeholder relationships at senior level across all of those capitals. So your investors are different. You are the ultimate consultant in business sense, and you've got to have a mind of transactions, M&A,  growth or divestiture, which, you know, the pandemic is going to place, an increasing focus on as well. So that's what I mean, it's a very much a broader role. Adam: (05:52) Yeah, it's definitely a lot broader and you've briefly mentioned the pandemic and we're still in this pandemic and for the foreseeable future and the vaccines and all those things put aside, how has the pandemic impacted the role of the CFO? Clive: (06:06) I'll go back to a couple of comments, I think from some of our interviewees, and one of them who actually was a CEO, but a former CFO of a finance institution said, yeah, the role of the CFO has been tested by the pandemic, and it's the reliance on the CFO. That's going to become more important to give those perspectives, to give that ability to see further, and it's becoming an agile role is another one put it that there's no place for perfectionism, but there is a place for being able to be agile and to drive the business forward with a sense of confidence and, and therefore understanding the various leavers that are pulled. So in those two contexts, I think what we're seeing and back to my point about the right hand of the CEO is the CFO increases become a very important role in helping organizations understand what the art of the possible is, what the various scenarios that may play out will lead to, and therefore how basically the organization can survive. And I think the pandemic has reinforced the role of the CFO in very much making that happen. Adam: (07:33) In the report, there's a six hypotheses and do these six hypotheses, illustrate the changes happening now for many CFOs? Clive: (07:43) Yeah. But that's ri...

Contact Loreal Jiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loreal-jiles-804648a1/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:00) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and today I'll be kicking off episode 106 for you. As our series continues to grow and evolve, we try to target new topics and areas of interest for our listeners. In this episode, Loreal Jiles, IMA's Director of Research for Digital Technology and Finance Transformation joins us to talk about the popular topic of agile. In our conversation with Mitch, she talks about how management accountants can take an agile approach to finance transformation. To learn more about agile, scrum and project management, keep listening as we head over to their conversation now. Mitch: (00:50) So it seems like one of the trending things people are talking about these days is agile. Can you tell us a little bit exactly about what is agile and where did it originate? Loreal: (01:00) Sure, sure. So, while I'd say agile approaches to delivery date as far back as the 1950s. In the 1950s Toyota, kind of undertook this transformational introduction of lean manufacturing, and it hadn't really been done in that manner before. And so I'd say way as far back as the 1950s, it had been in use in general, but I'd say agile didn't really pick up speed for software development until maybe the nineties or so the 1990s. And so prior to the nineties software development was, was delivered largely in alignment with something they call the Waterfall Model. And so we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but, what agile is specifically agile methodology as a software development life cycle, and it focuses on iterative incremental delivery, and that delivery happens by self-organizing and usually cross-functional teams. So it's a people centric, results oriented approach to software development. And again, it's become recently popular and has been, I'd say proven adaptable for business teams, delivering products and projects as well. So it started to kind of broadly from a manufacturing perspective, it grew in popularity from a software development perspective, and now what people are seeing is that the same attributes and values that, that agile have, are applicable widely in a host of project management settings. And that can be for any type of project or any type of product as it's typically characterized. And I'd say the only other thing I'd call out as we talk about what agile really is, is there's this concept of being agile and demonstrating agility. And then there's another specific agile methodology, which is used for software development or project management. So, so we could talk through through both of those as we keep going here, but I'm just really excited to be talking through what agile is and then start kind of breaking down some of those barriers. Mitch: (03:12) Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about applicability to our listeners now. So accounting and finance professionals, what does an agile finance function look like and what role, or what role is really, does add agility play for finance transformation? Loreal: (03:29) Yes. So everyone's aware of finances going through probably the largest transformation in its history, and that's not limited to just the digital technology aspects that we've traditionally focused on, but it's also about how the finance function delivers value more efficiently supports strategic decisions of the businesses that they operate in. And so, as we think about agile finance functions, they're creating value by, I'd say employing scalable, efficient operations. They usually have transparent and accessible data and metrics. There's frequent inspection of, of the work product that's being produced and that's to ensure fit for purpose insights. The agile finance functions are also quick and, and responsible. They demonstrate quick and responsible adaptation to change, and so this concept of failing fast is really prevalent and agile finance functions, and I think lastly, I'd say they're empowered, and capable multidisciplinary teams. And so often we see teams operating in silos and that's not customary of an agile finance function. So there's much more collaborative environment where multiple people may weigh in on, on a certain decision, but it's structured such that there is increased transparency and, and everyone is working together for the same objectives. And so when you pair kind of those attributes with advancing technologies, position, finances, kind of position to streamline their day-to-day tasks, and then accelerate project delivery, and so when we think about agile functions, they're typically well-versed in, in one or more branches of agile methodology as well,and that can be anything from Kanban, all the way to the most increasingly popular scrum. Mitch: (05:27) Well, you just read my mind because I know I've done a little bit of research on agile and anytime you look at agile methodologies, often you come across scrum. So what exactly is scrum? Loreal: (05:38) Yeah, so scrum is a process framework, and that framework has been used to manage work on complex products easily since the early 1990s and probably a bit before that. So scrum is not a process. It's not a technique or, or a method. The way that it's characterized by its founders is scrum is a framework, and it's a framework within which you can employ various processes and techniques to, to get the outcome that's needed. So scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. and so when we think about what the scrum framework consists of, there are scrum teams and their associated roles. there are scrum events. And so those are different, meetings or sessions that you'd need to have or ceremonies, they call them, in some instances, scrum artifacts are the, there could be things like a backlog where you've got a list of all the things that needs to be delivered for a product, and then there are some rules that, that kind of govern each of those aspects of scrum. Each component within the framework serves a specific purpose and it's essential to scrums success and usage. And so the one other thing that I'll call out is when, when agile became popular back in the nineties, there a group I'd say maybe a decade later of 17 people wrote something called the agile manifesto and that agile manifesto kind of outlined the p...

Contact Roland Abi Najem: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rolandabinajem/Roland Abi Najem's Website: https://www.rolandabinajem.com/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Mitch: (00:00) Welcome back for episode 105 of Count Me In, IMA’s  podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch Roshong, and today's episode features cybersecurity and digital transformation expert Roland Abi Najem. Roland is founder and CEO of Revotips, Expert Tech Consultants, and Solutions. In this episode, my co-host Rouba dives into better understand the evolution of cybersecurity, including the risk areas and how finance and accounting professionals can better enhance digital safety measures across their organizations. Keep listening as we head over to the conversation now. Rouba: (00:46) You’re a cyber security expert in the region, you have been one for many years. What does the work that you do entail? Roland: (00:57) Well, basically it's the most important thing to me on a personal level I should work on is, being up to date on daily basis. And I really mean it on daily basis because sometimes if you, for me, on a personal level, I have at least for example, a minimum three to four hours readings per day. And, I have to stay up to date with all technology related issues about, all type of, technology, the less the news and cyber attack happened, worldwide and so on. So because we always learn from case study happened worldwide. Moreover, I have to say after this was all a governance issue about new laws, new regulations, because also those, rules and regulation of, being up to date, also kind of on daily basis. And, we have, let's say GDPR in Europe, perhaps a hundred rules and regulation here in the region. So we must follow those guidance as there'll be, for example, in GDPR, if you don't follow the guidance and regulation, you'll have fin, 10 million euros and so on. Moreover when it comes to cybersecurity, it's not only about the technical know-how of each person, what, what any company will look for when they are working with a certain cybersecurity company or consult them, they will look first for personal know-how. They will look first for, as a company reputation and a brand name and the look for the person or the petition of each individual who's going to work in cybersecurity because, you know, when you are working on cybersecurity, sometimes when I'm doing, let's say a penetration testing and so on. So, you might have access to very confidential data and so on. So for other companies, they will need to make sure that they have full trust in the company and each individual working on the project. Plus we all know that, working in the GCC region, is really challenging because you are working like, with, a different type of culture and society. Within in one company was in one country is so working with a different culture, different society, different mentality, you are working in different industries like, government, all I'm guys, banking, staffed up everything. So, you need to be, aligned with all types of cultures and societies in order to understand the needs and the requirements and how they think and how they perceive things. So actually it's kind of hectic to be combined and I'll combine all those together and to stay up to date with them. But actually this is what makes, let's say the thing different, and, this is what gives me added value, in this industry. Rouba: (03:43) No, that's quite a task that you have on hand. When we look at the, the Middle East and Africa cybersecurity market, I mean, it's witnessed some tremendous growth over the last, few years, more than a decade even, and it's projected to grow even further from an estimated 15.6 billion in 2020 to 29.9 billion in 2025. And the compound annual growth rate is 13.8, which is exponential. And this is based on the post COVID scenario forecast. Now, the lion's share really goes to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and some parts of Africa when you look at these figures, but what are some of the most notable initiatives that are taking place in the region? Roland: (04:24) Well, this is a very important question based on what you said on the growth of, everything regarding to, cyber security in terms of spending, nowadays, lots of, government issues and rules and regulations. They are forcing by law each company, especially when I talk about big companies that have billions of dollars, to have at least three cyber security providers, because we all know that when it comes to security, is that is no, let's say a one plus one equals two. It's not that simple. So you need to have the different providers see different companies that are working in cybersecurity for you, because we all know there is nothing called 100% security and no company can be 100% secure of the time. If you are currently secured, you are secured, let's say up to 70, 80% maximum and so on. So there are still gaps. That's why I asked to have multiple companies under 10 providers. And this is what makes the industry, let's say, growing up so fast because for each company needs at least three companies for cybersecurity. This is number one. Number two, a few days back in the UAE is a consult ministers form, a concept for cybersecurity, which is, which shows clearly important nowadays for everything we got in cybersecurity, because let's say sometimes now we're on, we're talking about what, what we're talking about, the Cyber War, not the normal wars, is that like a World War One and World War Two. So I'll talk about the Cyber War and we all know that everything is happening between, uh, let's say, North Korea and Iran and Saudi Arabia and USA and so on, and we're not talking about a cyber war. It doesn't come with only with what you call it say about, only a just hacking and cyber attacks and so on. It's all sometimes about data. And we all know, for example, what's happened between Donald Trump and the big fight. And most of the big parts of it was political and part of it was economic, but the biggest part is about the data. Where am I going to store  the data and how we are going to, to store it somewhere. So I'm not sure the initiative is, in Saudi Arabia, they have what we call the National Security Authorities, where you can, for example, if you are under attack or do you have, now you can claim directly online and they will support you, and in many ways. Here in Kuwait, since I'm based in Kuwait, we have, two laws, you have the Image alone, and we have a Cyber law, every since cyber crime law, and so on. So, the biggest challenge, and, here, I think is, how we can join all those laws with international laws in order to, to be aware of all the laws and regulations worldwide in order to try to make for everyone. Because let me give you an example, let's say in the UAE or the Kuwait or whatever, they have lots of Eu...

Contact Ed Lam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-lam-9b97258/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and this is episode 104 of our series. Today's conversation features Ed Lam, the Chief Accounting Officer at Exeter Finance. Ed is an accounting and finance professional who has seen many changes to the profession over the years. In this episode, he talks with Mitch about his thoughts on the future of work and how he envisions the role of the finance leader, evolving even more. From change management and continuous improvement to leadership and organizational culture development, Ed offers great perspective on what is needed to gain buy-in and succeed. Keep listening as we head over to the conversation now. Mitch: (00:55) So Ed to the kick off this conversation, can you tell us a little bit about how your job has changed in the last three to five years and then taking it a step further? You know, what do you anticipate kind of happening even more in the next three to five years for the future of work? Ed: (01:09) Yeah. you know, I'll basically, define the last three to five years in three phases. It's basically a stabilized standardized and optimized. So when I first came in, I think we had a, basically an under-resourced accounting group, without the right technology and, you know, basically, inconsistent processing. So the first two years was just looking under rocks and finding and identifying and addressing any risks and any, any errors in our process. So it took a little while, a lot of hard work, but I think we were always looking to kind of develop a stable and repeatable process and that just has to be built, over, over time. And, as a transition from fighting fires into having more reliable processes. So that was basically about year three heading into year four. But then starting, back in early 2019, we started to look for the opportunities to start optimizing processes and bringing on new technologies. So, you know, I think the optimized stage has been the most fun, just because you start seeing a lot more buy-in from the organization now that we built the trust and credibility, we need to basically, stack on, improvements in how we do things. So that's the, you know, for the last five years, just an evolution, it's been ongoing. We still have a ways to go, but we can definitely see the opportunities from there. So when we talk about the future, the next three to five years, I'd say over the coming years, my role, in directly managing my operations is going to continue to diminish actually. And that's the due to the strength of my staff and having efficient processes in place. So, you know, the focus then she has really a way from day to do day to day doing and managing, and just really a lot more on those continuous coaching and development. I've had to learn to embrace that a little bit, because it's a different aspect of being a hands-on manager. But it's actually a little more meaningful than, what I started doing, which was basically, giving bad news to my CFO whenever we found a mistake. Mitch: (03:32) That's really interesting. you know, you talked about optimizing and some of the changes to your role, obviously expectations of you the organization in general, but how have you been able to kind of change your management skills? Like you were just kind of talking about, but in a way so that everybody you're working with understands what the necessary changes are for the organization to truly optimize its processes and move forward? Ed: (03:56) Yeah, I think changing the management skills comes down to, you know, you go from, individual contributor skills, you know, and just being a subject matter expert in areas and basically telling people, you know, what the right answer is to basically focusing more on, encouraging communication and collaboration, and specifically outside of the department, because that's been a shift, you start off early on just looking inward and saying like, how can we, ensure that we put out a good product for our customers? But once you've done that, then basically the collaboration is a means of allowing you to influence the larger organization. So it does take a lot of time to build, those strong relationships with other groups, and that has to be encouraged. It's not just me talking to my counterparts and other divisions, but it's encouraging, all of the staff that part of the role is to not just give output to other groups, but to also communicate and understand, you know, why they need the things that they asked for. So, you know, again, taking the time to increase collaboration, encouraging that within, my org, and then supporting it and staying engaged with any change management initiatives. I mean, it's a way of basically, you know, evangelizing for transformation, right? So, you know, we're actually lucky to have a change governance committee at Exeter and that's something we can engage in where, anytime there's a change that impacts more than one division, it does need to get brought up through an intake process with change governance. So we stayed very engaged in that group, and it does involve executives and that's pretty important as well. So, you know, a lot of, how, I changed my management skills is just taking, any of those intake forms that has the potential for impacting my group or other groups that are aligned or adjacent to mine, and basically sharing that information in a meaningful way. Mitch: (06:02) That's great. I know any, conversation that we've had around the future of work and the changing profession, the word influence always comes up. So for you to bring that up again, you know, it's, it's right on target with what we're hearing, but I really liked the encouraging communication collaboration. That's something that I think will really stick, and truly shows the shift right, in the roles of the profession, the individual, is no longer just that contributor, like you said. So I think, some people who are maybe not as familiar with some of these changes, you know, they might have a little difficulty straying from the traditional, you know, finance and accounting work. And then the day to day that you were talking about the management style, how do you go about getting the buy-in from these different stakeholders in your department or these cross-functional teams across the organization that you're working with? What role do you get the team, you know, how do you get your team to really buy into this kind of new initiative? Ed: (06:59) Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And, you know, one thing that you hear a lot of success begets more success, right? So, I think part of this is just attacking incremental improvements early on, and they can be very, very incremental. They could be small improvements, but you celebrate those accomplishments, and then also behind that consistently discussing what's next on our roadmap. We're gonna discuss roadmap from a little bit, but just the possibilities, and then periodically visioning kind of like the optimal state. So, let me give you an example. when I first started with Exter, our close process took more than seven days, and sometimes just to address like an issue or, you know, something that was broken, it could be up to 10 days to close the books. So, you know, with some of the technology that we've introduced, including a new general ledger and an account, sorry, loan sub-ledger, with a lot of the process improvements we put in place, including a close checklist and some management workflow, and the, obviously a lot of staff development we've been able to bring the accounting close down to...