Count Me In®

Contact Ramesh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramesh-shettigar-9ba1243/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:00)
 Hey everyone and welcome to Episode 121 of Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Adam Larson, and I'm pleased to introduce you to today's featured guest, Ramesh Shettigar. Ramesh is Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer at Glatfelter, a leading global supplier of engineered materials. He joined my co-host Mitch to talk about ESG and its importance across the organization. Keep listening to hear about the finance team's role in ESG, prioritizing ESG over return objectives, and strategies to make ESG truly sustainable.

Mitch: (00:47)
So in your perspective, how have recent events increased the importance of ESG in business? And obviously for our listeners, we would like to get your perspective, particularly for the finance function.

Ramesh: (01:00)
Sure Mitch, I'm assuming by recent events you're referring to the pandemic, climate issues, social injustice, and corporate governance matters we've seen play out in 2020. If so I think companies play a very important role in representing to employees and their communities where they stand on these topics. The pandemic for example, has highlighted the importance of ensuring the health and safety of our employees and the communities where we operate. With regard to climate, corporations I think need to be responsible stewards of the environment in the geographies where they operate and need to abide by all local and federal environmental standards so that we can all preserve humanity's long-term health and sustainability for generations to come. We're seeing this play out in broader mega trends. For example, this move from fossil fuels and toward alternative energy sources or the plastics free movement. Working for an engineered materials company like Glatfelter, I feel incredibly proud that we have focused heavily on natural and bio-based feedstocks in our manufacturing process and our product innovation efforts are heavily focused on minimizing synthetic materials in the products we make. As it relates to social topics, employees need to know where their employers stand regarding racial, gender, and socioeconomic disparities in the workplace and if their companies are playing an active role in facilitating an environment that welcomes diversity, equity, and inclusion. Glatfelter for example, has made it very clear through an internal message from our CEO that treating people of all backgrounds fairly and consistent with our core values of mutual respect, integrity, and social responsibility is of utmost importance. We have committed to enhancing compliance training that focuses on diversity and eliminating unconscious biases. Also a meaningful portion of corporate giving will go towards causes that address social inequities and racial injustice. From a governance standpoint, I think ensuring that there is adequate board diversity in terms of experience, gender, and race is very important for investors seeking reassurance that company leadership exemplifies and values diversity. So bringing all this back to the finance question, which I think you're trying to get to, I think the long-term returns of these initiatives and the stand we take regarding ESG will ultimately be positive and rewarding for the company, its employees, and society. So I think that's how we think about what ESG does for us, particularly for the finance function.

Mitch: (03:56)
That really was beautifully said and thank you for taking us through step-by-step, I think it was a perfect response. Its great to hear those kinds of initiatives put in place and you know, your organization really taking a big step forward in making sure that everybody within the organization is on the same page. I think that clear communication is vital for making sure these ESG initiatives are effective, really is what it comes down to. And you talked about the finance function, the long-term returns. I think it's been a year now with this pandemic that you brought up and obviously there is a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. I think some people are starting to see it as businesses seek to return to their normal and that obviously has a different definition than it did a year from today. But how do you prioritize ESG in relation to these return objectives that you mentioned within finance?

Ramesh: (04:53)
Sure. So you know, the pandemic has clearly appended organizational priorities when it comes to ESG and I think you said it well, right? We've we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We've been through this pandemic now for a year, organizations have flexed and adapted to the marketplace and what the pandemic has brought about. But if anything, the pandemic I think has elevated the social aspect of ESG, which was already gaining momentum, keeping employees safe, facilities operational, and servicing customers are high on the priority list I think for companies and in a way represent the duty of care that businesses broadly commit to as part of their ESG focus. Therefore, I think ESG should not be seen purely from a return objective, because ESG initiatives are simply the right thing to do. Yes, companies of different sizes and complexity operate in different places along the ESG continuum depending on their resource allocation to this important endeavor. And as you know, the ESG evolution is a journey and some are further along than others, but that progress should not be driven solely by ratings outcomes or objectives. It should be guided by a company's core values and commitment to social responsibility. Businesses seek input from various constituents like investors, employees, customers, and suppliers to better understand expectations and what it means to be responsible stewards in the community and that feedback guides their actions and priorities.

Mitch: (06:36)
What exactly is your method for communicating these ESG objectives with stakeholders and ultimately how do you make sure they understand your efforts and get the buy-in from them?

Ramesh: (06:50)
Sure. So our primary method of communicating our ESG objectives with stakeholders is through our sustainability report. You know, in late 2019 we formed a cross-functional ESG steering committee within Glatfelter with a primary role of overseeing the sustainability and ESG strategy for the company and providing implementation support to Glatfelter’s businesses and facilities. We worked with a third-party consultant to conduct a materiality assessment to identify our ESG priorities. Particularly since we went through a meaningful strategic transformation as a company over the last couple of years and we wanted to make sure our latest priorities aligned with the new Glatfelter. Our materiality process included peer and industry research, internal stakeholder interviews, ESG team workshops, and application of best practices. We also took into consideration the expectations and recommendations of leading ESG ratings organizations and sustainability standards such as the SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board), the GRI (The Global Reporting Initiative), and UNSDGs (The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals). We evaluated topics based on their potential impact on Glatfelter, the company's ability to impact them, and our stakeholder’s interest in these topics. And we finally settled on seven priorities which are organized along the ESG pillars. Those seven areas are environmental management, innovation and environmentally responsible products, occupational health and safety, product safety and quality, community and employee engagement, corporate governance, and ethics...

Jeff Dailey: https://www.prometric.com/about-us/leadership/jeff-dailey

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)
Hey everyone, welcome back for episode 120 of Count Me In. I'm your host Mitch Roshong and this is IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Our featured speaker for today is Jeffrey Dailey. Jeff is Prometrics Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and he joined my co-host Adam to talk about data and technology. During their conversation, Jeff addresses the challenges associated with mass amounts of data, how to make decisions based on data and how the CFO's role has changed because of data and technology. Keep listening as we head over to their conversation now. 
 
Adam: (00:47)
So Jeff, data is becoming more and more important each day whether it's your latest smartwatch, a smartphone, your internet, things on your refrigerator, or your washing machine. It's getting thrown at us from every direction and even more so in business and for you at Prometric, how are you facing that challenge with all the data that we have in business and how have you adapted as an organization to meet those challenges? 
 
Jeff: (01:12)
Thanks Adam. Yeah look, I think the role that I play in Prometric as the CFO is really going to be leading to driving data-driven decision-making. And in order to do that, we really leverage analytic capabilities, not just within the finance function, but across the business. Our business relies heavily on understanding volume and capacity, of our clients and global candidate base for those taking tests in our test centers, as well as new modalities around remote assessment. So we're constantly looking at opportunities to gather and understand data, but also to use that to be quicker and more agile in our decision-making, it really becomes sort of foundational to us driving, data-driven decisions across the organization, it helps enhance forecasting, it helps us understand how we're allocating resources across the operations, as well as our technology investments. 
 
Adam: (02:11)
So if you look at your technology roadmap that you're looking into the future, what does that look like for you? 
 
Jeff: (02:18)
Well, right now we're in a unique disruption coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. And I say that it's created opportunity in some ways, given all the disruption to our clients and frankly to all of the candidates that we support. One of the areas from a global technologies we've gone from what was traditionally largely a brick and mortar business model, to enhancing our remote assessment capability, to offer assessments and opportunities for candidates to sit from any location has been key when you're going through national and regional restrictions around social distancing and access to traditionally facilities where we have tested candidates. So operationally or product, we have deep investments that we're making across the technology platform to enhance both functionality, as well as expand in those areas of key features. Within our finance organization, we've actually also taken this as an opportunity to really invest in more, I'll call it cloud native systems and financial reporting technologies that are going to enhance our ability to streamline our close that are helping us in terms of forecasting and helping drive, more data-driven insights across the business from the finance organization, so we've not only had product investment, but also investment in our core ERP platform during this time. 
 
Adam: (03:45)
So what were some of the drivers for the decision to enhance your ERP solution? 
 
Jeff: (03:51)
Yeah, so I think first off is we have for several years looked into opportunities to consolidate multiple platforms that we had that had evolved both over time in different regions as well as, you know, take advantage of what I think now is really, truly a much more secure, fundamentally sound and feature rich opportunity, in what you're seeing in the cloud native ERP platforms. We see this as an opportunity to not only attack technology as our focus for the investment, but also process improvement and there are a number of areas that are features that we're rolling out that will be further automating the closed process, automating the financial reporting and forecasting process, and also just really trying to drive process improvement in business intelligence deeper into the finance organization. 
 
Adam: (04:48)
How has it been trying to do an implementation while having, probably your workforce working from home? 
 
Jeff: (04:55)
Great question. I think we have certainly been working remote for the most part, since the onset of COVID-19 about a year ago, but that being said, I think we have a global team and we've always had deep resources in Asia, as well as here in the US. We're using new collaborative tools. Certainly we've done a lot with remote video conference, we've got consultants dialed in they were helping us with that implementation, but I think the key has been having really deep sense around understanding of our current operating model and really having developed sort of the objectives collectively, while we're working remote, but to see where we needed to have opportunity for better access, as well as enhance the security and performance overall of the system that we're investing into. 
 
Adam: (05:53)
Circling back to data across the business. Why is it important for the finance function? Cause usually the finance function looks at their data and all the numbers and make sure everything makes sense. Why does it make sense to have the data connect across the organization? 
 
Jeff: (06:07)
Sure, great question. I think for us it really starts with understanding our client programs and the candidates that we support on their behalf. Our business is relying on volume and managing capacity through a global network and I think as I mentioned, that includes both the brick and mortar global channels supporting our candidates in center testing, to anywhere else from pop-up events that we run short term and then ultimately, expansion of our remote assessment capability. When you're looking at managing that level of capacity and the different modalities that we serve, it really has become critical from an operational decision-making and performance management capability to have a deep understanding and a deep base around analytics for the business. We are, you know, obviously each day kind of managing into the changing capacity restraints for coming out of COVID. We have had analytics that have provided us more insight into candidate behavior in terms of return to test centers, in our case. We've had certainly a large increase in candidates who are opting to take large-scale global national certifications and licensure exams online through our remote assessment tool, and understanding what's driving those decisions for candidates is critical for us to both enhance the product and the modality for them to have access to our content. When I look from a pure finance perspective, it really has been about harnessing data to help us understand more quickly more accurately what the business is performing during what's been a really disruptive time. We have used this as an opportunity to enhance what we do on a week to week basis in terms of our flash reporting. We have invested heavily in terms of pivoting how we do forecasting for the business. We are deeply connected using data from across operations, IT and our technology and product teams to really help us understand and allocate resources appropriately so that we can manage wh...

Contact Mark Forsberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-forsberg/

Culligan Water: https://www.culliganwater.com/

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 here to bring you episode 119 of our series. Today's conversation is between my co-host Mitch and the CFO of Culligan Water, Mark Forsberg. Mark is a senior leader who oversees the finance, human resources, and risk management functions. He is a distinguished Toastmaster and considers himself a lifelong learner and volunteer. In this episode, Mark emphasizes the value of one-on-one leadership and the return on time invested for the manager, the employee, and the rest of the organization. Keep listening as we go to their conversation now.
 
 Mitch: (00:45)
 So the purpose of today's conversation, what I would like to start things off with is, how is one-on-one leadership and one-on-one management different than traditional leadership conversations that are typically had in the workplace?
 
 Mark: (01:05)
 Well thank you Mitch, for the opportunity to be on the program today. If we give some context to this, one year ago, when COVID hit the United States, we had millions of people that went from working in their offices to working at home. And this was a real stress test on communications and managers, we all went to our bookshelves and re-read things like it's important to communicate, communicate, communicate. And another word that came up was the word essential. What's essential to happen. And I think what we all discovered with what's essential is the fundamental employee to supervisor one-to-one meeting. And in general, these meetings are weekly, biweekly, monthly check-ins with the employee and their boss and their employee directed talking about projects and priorities. Before the pandemic I would guess that many times these meetings fell off the radar, but after the work from home initiative started, they became really important. And I hope that many of the members in the community are continuing to do those because this is really not so much about why, or I should say it's more about why than it is the how. You can look up a lot of info on the web about these, but I would say that from my experience, I recommend scheduling one hour every two to three weeks, you ask open-ended questions and you get the employee to open up about things and you're there as a guide to them. As accountants, we all justify ROI on technology, on equipment purchases, on process improvement, but the ROI on that time with employees can really pay off at times. So what value do you place on investing time to gain that mutual trust and confidence? The end message really is the employee's work matters and they matter.
 
 Mitch: (03:28)
 So as far as the work that matters in these conversations, I agree, there certainly was a period of time when everyone was trying to adjust and figure things out for themselves and now we have to touch base again and make sure that we are all moving in the same direction within the organization, particularly within our function. So, once these one-on-one conversations either continue or pick back up, what are the added benefits after the fact?
 
 Mark: (03:55)
 The manager/employee or the supervisor/employee relationship is a special relationship and I like to give pause and think about if you're a manager, is it possible for you to compile a list of all the people that you've hired and supervised? And it may be hard to do that if you've been a supervisor manager for a couple of decades. But for all of us, leaders included, going back to that first W2 job, could you make a list of all the people that have hired you? And my guess is you get pretty darn close. There's a book, Truth About Leadership, and it gave me an insight and the insight has stuck with me for a long time and the insight was when they interviewed surveyed high school students and they asked who they envisioned as a leader in their lives. Number one was a family member, typically a parent. Behind that it was a teacher or a coach. But when they interviewed or surveyed people in their thirties and forties and asked who's a leader in their life, they said a parent, grandparent, family member, but number two was a boss. And the trust and confidence that can come with that relationship and the power of these open honest two-way conversations is not to be understated. And I think from that you really springboard to a lot of other opportunities. And I would close that question out by saying, get to know your employees as people, they're people first and what they do second. You might think of Jodi as an accountant who's been with you for eight years and she handles the Western region so on and so forth, but Jodi's got a life before coming to work for you and is doing other things on the side. Perhaps she's a mentor in the big sister program. Maybe she played college tennis, whatever it might be, get to know them as people and they will feel that. And then that's where sometimes the magic happens on employees becoming more engaged with the job and the supervisors and managers being more enlightened and you're really developing people versus supervising and managing people. They are developing right in front of your eyes.
 
 Mitch: (06:36)
 And then how does this one-on-one leadership from the manager/supervisor perspective, ultimately result in what I guess we could assume is better employee growth and retention?
 
 Mark: (06:49)
 Yeah in my career, the fundamentals of employee retention haven't changed all that much. You know, there are really four (fundamentals), employees like the work, they like who they report to and they trust and respect, they like what the company does and sees that the company has a future, and then they see an interesting future with the company. And I think an important message that I would share and it came out of, as I prepared for this is, you will walk into or stumble into conversations and opportunities for people to develop in their own job. You know in sports, a lot of times people will earn a position due to injury or be granted an opportunity due to injury of a player. And in business, a lot of times it's an unexpected employee turnover or planned transitions. And in those transitions, then there's an opportunity for people to grow on the job and for them to find that more interesting and holds onto a retention. I think also another point I would make is if you're doing one to ones over a period of time, let's say you have someone that reports to you for three years, you're going to have 50 one-on-ones over that time frame. What you'll get then is you'll get the opportunity with a huge sample size to really see how that person performs, their personality traits, how they fit values, are they naturally curious or assuming, do they expect responsibility or do they sometimes dodge it? And I think those are things that factor into your coaching of the employee as well as their advancement.
 
 Mitch: (08:45)
 And how about the bigger picture? So obviously we have employee retention, employee growth, you know, they have an opportunity to develop this strong relationship, the supervisor is able to kind of mold the employee and really enhance their working relationship and the job that gets done. But beyond that, what other effects does a strong supervisor/employee relationship have on other aspects of the organization?
 
 Mark: (09:11)
 You have to think about what's going on throughout...

Contact Dr. Sean Stein Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sean-stein-smith-dba-cpa-63307444/

Institute for Blockchain & Cryptoasset Research: https://www.ibcr.info/

Bitcoin Is Hitting All Time Highs – How Are Organizations Accounting For It?: https://www.forbes.com/sites/seansteinsmith/2021/02/17/bitcoin-is-hitting-all-time-highs--how-are-organizations-accounting-for-it/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (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 this is episode 118 of our series. For today's episode, we welcome back Assistant Professor at Lehman College, Dr. Sean Stein Smith. Sean is also the founder of the Institute for Blockchain and Crypto Asset Research and is a forbes.com contributor in the area of crypto and blockchain. In previous episodes, Sean has joined us to talk about different types of blockchain and its uses. In the conversation you're about to hear now, he talks with Adam specifically about accounting for crypto assets. Let's head over and listen to their conversation now.

Adam: (00:51)
So Sean in your recent article for Forbes, you talk about how Bitcoin is hitting an all time high. What does this mean for an organization's accounting as not every organization is ready to move into cryptocurrency?

Sean: (01:02)
Yeah and so with the price of Bitcoin and all of the other altcoins, really at their all time highs or very close to them, all of this is having a huge impact on how companies are trying to adapt, navigate in trying to onboard Bitcoin and other crypto options as a form of doing payment. Right? Because it’s always important to always keep in mind that even though Bitcoin headline prices are obviously headline news, the original idea of Bitcoin and the whole blockchain crypto asset space, it was to develop basically a alternative way to conduct payments. And it hasn't really played out that way and a big part of that is that it's awfully hard for certain firms out there to actually take a Bitcoin and other crypto as a form of payment. And I mean, there are all kinds of IT issues on how the computer systems have to interoperate, but the real issue from sort of our angle here is that the current accounting treatment really makes no business sense from a tax point of view, from a gap point of view, from a IFRS point of view, there really is a issue and a headwind out there that I believe and in all of the anecdotal conversations that I have is honestly proving to be a big headwind that firms are having a hard time trying to figure out how to one, take in these agreements and then two, after they have them what to do with them.

Adam: (02:40)
So is it kind of like the Wild West out there since there are no crypto specific authoritative accounting standards?

Sean: (02:46)
Well, there are no crypto specific authoritative standards yet, either under gap or IFRS but there is this consensus that apparently has been reached, led by the top firms trying to sort of get something out there right. And I totally understand why they were trying to get some sort of consensus out there via the white papers conversations, all the rest to have something to answer external client questions with, but the current treatment of Bitcoin and other crypto as a indefinite lived intangible asset, which kind of sounds good on paper, right? Because Bitcoin and other crypto are intangible and they have no fixed economic life. But outside of that, it honestly makes no sense because it doesn't really reflect the economic realities on the ground. And I won't go into too too much depth here, but if I have an indefinite, intangible asset on the books like Goodwill, I have to do tests for possible impairment losses every time, a change in the business outlook really causes that to happen. Okay great, but if I have Bitcoin on the books, as we all know, Bitcoin and other crypto assets have a little bit of price volatility in there. And so if it drops by 20%, 10%, which it has done multiple times, I, as the firm holding these assets now on the books, I have to do the test for impairment, write down the asset books, the cost. Okay, so far so good. But on the other hand, if and when Bitcoin goes up by 10%, 20%, 200%, I can't do anything with that under the current rules. So it's not so much the Wild Wild West out there. It's almost artificially trying to fit a square peg into a round hole Adam, right because I can't mark up correctly the current market value of the assets that I hold, or in other words, under the current accounting, consensus that has been reached in the face of no crypto specific guidance, I'm basically forced to hold these assets on the books at an artificially lower level, no matter what happens outside in the marketplace.

Adam: (05:29)
Now you mentioned impairment in that last answer, how does that come into play with cryptocurrency? Could you go into a little more detail?

Sean: (05:36)
Sure. And so probably the most obvious case as to how it could come into play is if I received payment in Bitcoin at the end of 2020 or even early 2021, Bitcoin and the other altcoins out there were on an upswing, right. They had all increased in price quite a bit. During that back half of 2020, and into the first quarter of 2021, obviously there are some pullbacks and that's where the issue really does pop up. So there was one specific weekend early in the first quarter of 2021 where the price of Bitcoin dropped over 20%. And so if I, as a firm head chosen to take Bitcoin as a form of customer payment and then also chosen to hold those Bitcoin in a hot wallet, cold wallet, all the rest of us actually hold them at the firm. So I've been paid in crypto, got the back office and go to work, he was able to interoperate with my AR AP treasury all the rest. So now I'm holding Bitcoin on the books. Okay. Then if it drops by 20%, I think it was 24% over a four or five day period. I have to book that impairment loss. Because that's an obvious change in the asset itself, market conditions, business conditions that then triggers this whole test for impairment. And so if I am correctly trying to apply the current accounting consensus, again not tailored for crypto assets, I would go ahead and I would write down that asset. I would impair the asset on the balance sheet, lowering that asset value, and then also book the cost on the income statement as an expense in the current period. Okay. Fine. But, and then if the price of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency recovers or goes up, what you did, I can't do anything, I cannot under the current accounting consensus for Bitcoin and other crypto as an indefinite lived intangible asset, I cannot mark up or I cannot revalue that asset. So an impairment loss is a permanent entry. And so even though the market price might have recovered or even exceeded my cost or the old basis that I had in this asset, I cannot accurately reflect that on the balance sheet.

Adam: (08:29)
So what if an organization wanted to hold cryptocurrency as like a long-term asset, does that kind of change their outlook on it?

Sean: (08:36)
Well, I would say that really there have been some very interesting headlines out there of firms like Tesla, Microstrategy, Square, have been buying up Bitcoin, and I would assume other cryptocurrencies to some extent, but they have all come out publicly supporting Bitcoin and its use and as a store of value, currency, economic em...

Contact John Lemmex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlemmex/

Covestro: https://www.covestro.com

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Adam: (00:05)
 And we are back with episode 117 of Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. Once again, this is your host, Adam Larson, and today's featured guest is John Lemmex. John is Vice President, Chief Financial Officer at Covestro LLC. In that role, he is responsible for all aspects of financial management and controlling. So in this episode, he joined my co-host Mitch Roshong, to talk about digital transformation, John shares many personal experiences and great perspective on how finance leaders can play an integral role in transformation projects. So let's head over to the conversation and listen to what he has to say now.

Mitch: (00:51)
So John, from what you've seen, how do digital transformation projects typically get started?

John: (00:56)
Typically in our company, they get started in different parts of the business. It could be, you know, something happening within marketing or R&D or even finance. So it tends to be kind of individual and what our company has done is kind of putting together a digitalization group that's global, and they have kind of the skills and the ability to bring it all together. They are operating a data lake, and they have that kind of expertise, so when people put projects forward, sometimes they'll run as pilot so then you look at and see if they're scalable globally. And then we implement them, look at them and then move on from there. So anybody can kind of bring forward a digitalization project.

Mitch: (01:44)
Now let's focus mainly on our listeners here and we're talking about accounting and finance. So how important is digitalization for finance? Why should these finance leaders really get started on these projects as soon as possible if they haven't done so already?

John: (01:59)
Yeah, to me, with the digitalization projects it always comes with efficiency and cost savings and, you know, and there's a business case behind them. So generally, I found most of these cases, we've been able to find a business case, been able to save money, gain efficiencies, reduce complexity, and it helps drive the business forward and make finance more efficient. So it's been, you know, waiting doesn't help drive the business forward so you need to drive these projects to gain those efficiencies.

Mitch: (02:34)
Let's talk about that a little bit more, how does the finance team, or the finance leader go about building this business case, who is really the target or, the individuals who are most responsible for pushing this project forward? Who should the finance leader really focus on within these projects?

John: (02:57)
Well, I think that the finance leader for us is kind of internal, I'm kind of thinking of a project that we did. It was something internal in the finance area that was causing us pain. We stepped back, we took a look at it and the answer came using digitalization, using machine learning and robotics was the answer to try to solve the problem. And so then, the business case was put together, and again, it resulted in efficiency through FTE reductions, but it also ended up on a higher accuracy and more accuracy in the financial statements. Or one side, it was cost efficiency, the other side there was accuracy and when that case was put together, we piloted it and moved it forward.

Mitch: (03:51)
Now you talked about machine learning, obviously there's robotics, a lot that goes into these different projects and for some in finance, that might not be necessarily their first language per se. It might be something that's a little bit outside their comfort zone or they need to upskill in that area in order to drive the project forward. So how do you really engage all these stakeholders and really keep the momentum going for these digital transformation projects?

John: (04:15)
Yeah, the one thing that we've done to try to get people engaged is actually offer kind of a, you know, online training, in the machine learning in robotics, to get people to start to increase their skill levels so that they may not be become experts in it, or be able to run a project, but they understand what maybe the IT or the data people are going to be asking those kinds of questions and they learn through that, how to drive these projects forward or at least understand what goes into them and there's been quite an uptake rate in our people and trying to do that online learning and develop their skills.

Mitch: (05:01)
Are there any other obstacles that you've seen, anything else that may prohibit a digital transformation project from progressing how you anticipated?

John: (05:11)
I think sometimes we get into resource questions, you know, how much resources do we have, and if a project is simply kind of re-engineering a process and using the software, it's much easier maybe to get those projects forward when they maybe require, and I'm thinking of supply chain digital project, those require maybe capital investment using barcode readers, scanners, infrastructure upgrades, and then it becomes more difficult to find those resources and drive them forward. So less capital investment seems easier to drive the projects forward, more capital investment a little more difficult, but again, too is how many projects do you have going? I think sometimes, you get into project overload and there's just, you have to prioritize and get your biggest bang for your buck.

Mitch: (06:05)
That was actually going to be kind of my next question and obviously there are many areas of the business where you could look for digital improvements, and I'm sure, like you just said many different projects going on all at once. Have you ever come across a case where a project just didn't pan out, you know, the digital transformation just never happened, for one reason or another, can you speak to that a little bit and what the company did in order to respond?

John: (06:33)
We have one project that in our end to end supply chain, where we feel like we could really upgrade our ability to track materials, move materials and we try to compare ourselves say to an Amazon, we're very far behind. I kind of think of them as the leader when it comes to digitization and supply chain. We had a project we wanted to move it forward, but it stumbled on cap ex and some of it was a business downturn, other parts was then entering the pandemic, but I wouldn't say the projects are dead, but more shelved until the business environment changes. I think if there's a good business case, and then you get into a resource issue, it may not move as quickly as you might want it and get those returns, but you know, you shelve it and continue to push on at a later date.

Mitch: (07:32)
That's a good point. And, you know, prioritizing, like you said earlier, with so many different things going on and so many functions of the organization being involved in these projects, while it may enhance the efficiency, let's say in finance, obviously you're going to rely on IT and other departments. So, how important is the communication across the organization, with these different projects going on and really, what is that communication path? How do you typically, speak with and listen to other departments while these projects are going on?

John: (08:09)
Absolutely, the communication is key in all these projects and how to prioritize. And we have a, we call it a digital governance board. So all projects have to go through this digital governance board and be priorit...

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'm here to introduce you to the guest speaker of episode 116 of our series. My co-host Rouba Zeidan sat down with Dr. Ahmed Yamen, an Associate Professor of Accounting at the American University of the Middle East in Kuwait. During their conversation, they address whether digitalization is the beginning of the end for financial crime. With financial crimes in the rise, Dr. Yamen talks about how it is evolving and what the industry can do to limit the potential risks of becoming the next target. Let's listen to what he has to say now.

Rouba: (00:43)
Good afternoon Dr. Yamen and thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Count Me In.

Ahmed: (00:55)
Thank you for your invitation at the beginning, and thank you for IMA.

Rouba: (00:59)
So, a PwC survey published in March of last year found that fraud and financial crime are on the rise in the Middle East. The surveyed companies reported losses of sum $42 billion in the past 24 months alone       due to financial crimes. Can such crimes impact the economy and if so how?

Ahmed: (01:22)
The PwC survey actually mentioned a lot of important numbers that can highlight that the Middle East is facing a great challenge toward fighting the financial crime. For example, 42% of the respondents are suffering from procurement fraud. Actually, the problem is that this percentage is double the global percentage. Also, 47% of the respondents reported an incident for customer fraud, and also 45% of the respondents said that there are many uncovered cases of bribery and corruption. The problem is not the percentage itself, which is 45%, but the problem is that this percentage is 15% higher compared to the global percentage. So all of these percentages in the PwC survey indicates that there is a problem. From my perspective, is this the only report that is saying that? No. If we look for example from Basel Index, according to the Basel Index 2020, the risk levels in the Middle East and North Africa are higher than the global average. If we go to other things like the previous studies for example, it reveals that financial crimes have continued to increase despite the tough policy measures put in place in developed and in developing countries. The last estimate is about 1.5 trillion, which is about 2% of the GDP in both developing and developed countries, are paid only for bribes, and this is actually a huge amount. I think that all of this highlights that we are facing a big problem, especially in the Middle East, compared to the overall average. But we can go back to the question: can such crimes impact the economy? Of course, yes. We have different numbers also that can prove that it has negative consequences in the economy. For example, according to the World Bank, in 2017 they said that the poor people in developing countries pay about 6.4 to 12.6% of their income in bribes. And also, the tax evasion, if we look for another continuing of the financial crime like tax evasion for example, we will find that in Europe, for example, it was estimated in 2011 that 860 billion annually is evaded. If this has a negative consequence, it can appear in Greece. You can see what happened in Greece. We will find that there is a big economic problem in Greece and this is apparently because of the tax evasion because the tax evasion is estimated to be equal one third of the total tax revenues. And by the way this one third is equal to its budget deficit. Because as we know, tax evasion is a main source of revenue for the whole government. So, if there is a reduction in the tax revenue it means that the government will not be able to do the public service. Also, if we look for the Panama paper leaks, it's also documented that the tax evasion is likely widespread and significant everywhere. So, from all this, we can say that financial crime can affect negatively the economy and has negative consequences on the economic growth. And if we focus on tax evasion, we can see that it affects the income distribution and allocation of resources. This is a very important thing for the economy.

Rouba: (05:34)
When we look at regional global economies, positive anti-money laundering (AML) ratings have a significant impact on a nation’s credit ratings and their ability to attract foreign investment. This affirms the fundamental importance of initiatives that are taken on at a national level to create a business-friendly environment where strategies to fight money laundering and terrorist financing are in place. But, when we look at the numbers, particularly in a report published by the firm, Refinitiv, which found that ¾ of organizations have fallen victim to financial crime in the last year – accumulating losses of $1.45 trillion, we have to wonder: are governments actually able to deter financial crime? I mean, yes it does impact them and it is huge, but is it deterrable?

Ahmed: (06:26)
Of course yes, the governments are able to deter the financial crime, but they should work on this. From my perspective, there are different things that the government should do in order to be able to fight the financial crime. The first important thing is the public governance. In any country, they should care about the public governance inside the country and if we are following the World Bank, we will see that they identified 6 main indicators for public governance. So, I think that any government should work on these 6 indicators. For example, we should improve the rule of law. We should work on the control of corruption. We should work on the irregularity of quality. And also two important things are the voice and accountability in the political stability. And in addition, the government effectiveness, and I will give more attention to government effectiveness here because we can improve it through the digitalization. This is one thing, to improve the public governance. The second thing which I believe is very crucial and very important is education. I will quote something by Sir Kevan Collins, he said that “an educated population is wealthier, healthier and more law-abiding”. This is very important. Investing in education is not good only for children, but it’s also good for economies and societies. So why? Because actually when the people are well educated, they will understand the negative consequences of financial crimes on the individual level and on the aggregate level. From my perspective, the government should work on improving its public governance, and should work on investing in education, and also the third thing is culture. Of course, there is a problem in the perception of financial crime. If we look at what is financial crime we see that they are calling it white collar crime. When I see white, what is white in this? It should be black collar crime. Because actually when you're saying that it's a white collar crime, the people's feeling towards financial crime is not the same as street crimes. Their perspective is not the same especially when the people feel that the government is not dealing with them in a fair way. For example, when someone evades from tax or something like that, the people are happy that they are doing this. They are not understanding that the negative consequences is such financial crime and of course, we need to know that the financial crime can lead to street crime in the future. For example, if we look at Becker's economic theory of crime, we will find that the people resort to crime only if the cost of committing the crime are lower than the penitence gained from it and they found that poverty increases street crime. If, for example, we have financial crimes, they will increase the pov...

Contact David Wray: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-w-29627882/

David's Website: https://davidwray.com (*access David's book and/or blog here)
Want to join David's LinkedIn Group?! https://www.linkedin.com/company/37817090/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:00)
 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 welcome you to episode 115 of our series. Today you will once again hear from finance executive and a fortune 50 multinational and now new author David Wray. David is the author of the recently published, The Power of Potential: A Straightforward Method for Mastering Skills for Personal to Professional. In 2019, the Harvard business review investigated where learning and development goes wrong. In his book and during this podcast episode, David calls for a new mindset and approach towards acquiring new skills and achieving the level of mastery desired. Keep listening to hear about his learning approach and perspective on personal development.

Adam: (00:54)
The Harvard business review in October of 2019 investigated where learning and development goes wrong. They found that organizations spend about 360 billion US dollars on training and ask the provocative question whether or not it was worth it. So David, if we start with this Harvard business review article, can you share your thoughts on whether organizational spend on learning and development offers a good return on investment?

David: (01:27)
Yeah I can Adam, it's a great question to set the context for our discussion. So the typical organization spend on development is definitely not worth it. If we start thinking about the reoccurring themes that seem to come up, you know, survey after survey. So as you mentioned, the Harvard business review, they found that about three quarters of managers across about 50 companies give or take were quite dissatisfied with their company's learning and development function. Gardener on the other hand, found that about 7 out of 10 employees don't feel that they have the skill necessary to master their roles and the findings go on and on. So I started to undertake my own research and thought, well let me find out what's happening and most of the individuals I spoke to experienced real frustration and disappointment with what it took to learn new skills for them. So hence they tended to give up. I heard a lot of funny things and some of them were interesting things I heard with things like, “I feel like I'm faking it, hoping it just comes to me one day, perhaps I'll have an epiphany” or “I'm pressured to work harder pitches doesn't help, I can't seem to master the critical thinking skills I need”, or “I've been asked to speak at an upcoming medical conference and I'm truly petrified and end up sounding like a toddler”. And when I started hearing and seeing firsthand these stories of people really giving up while trying to acquire a new skill, I began to wonder why, why do some people struggle when others seem to manage it almost effortlessly? Why is this happening? And it was really this curiosity that motivated me to start researching, identifying, and then eventually understand the differences that make a difference between those individuals that see it through and those that give up. And from the research that I did, the model I share in the book really comes to life. It's basically a methodology that's used unconsciously by masters in their field, and it offers real value for time and effort invested to learn a new skill. And it's a really a new way of approaching learning, especially for accountants where so much of the learning happens on the job.

Adam: (03:29)
Okay, now you've really piqued my curiosity. We at this podcast with Count Me In, we're really trying to help accountants, whether it's through learning or seeing what's happening in the industry. Can you tell me a little bit more about your approach and about how your approach is different from everything that's already out there?

David: (03:47)
Yeah of course, I'm happy to give some insights into the model. If you really start to think about situations where you've undoubtedly seen a really talented individual in action and you've been sitting there secretly wishing, “gosh I wish I could do that and do it as easily and effortlessly as they do it”. Well, you can. Now you might be wondering how. Well to do so, we all simply need to just understand both the visible and the invisible workings that an expert utilizes when they're doing their thing. And basically the power of potential teaches readers about these real, but invisible internal processing mechanisms that we all go through when we receive information. And basically think of the receipt as information as something like an external event or an externality. And these externalities, they occur every single day and they can range from very benign things, something as simple as being, for example, cutoff in traffic, but they can also range to the other extreme, which is life-changing. And an example of that might be for example, hearing a terminal medical diagnosis. So clearly a life-changing and difficult thing to hear and individuals react very differently to the same information or the same events. So why is that? That's what I started to really wonder. And what I determined on, what I discovered is that the differences in how we process information, because when we process information we do so using our own view of the world. We relay each filter information as we process it. So for example, some individuals may choose to ignore information or they may generalize by associating it to some past experience. Let me give you an example of that. Imagine that you're an individual who's giving constructive feedback to a peer or to another team member. While there are one or two ways that constructive feedback can be received. It can either be seen as an opportunity by the individual receiving it, or it could be seen as a threat. Now how that's received will depend very much on the person's prior experiences and that's what I mean by the view of the world. So each of these information filters that we have is basically influenced by how we see ourselves. So things like what we believe, what we value, any kind of powerful memories, whether they're positive or negative, and also how we speak to ourselves. So for example, is our inner chatter self-critical, or is it self-respecting? And as if all of this rapid processing wasn't enough, our current state of mind also affects outcome. Let me give you another example of that, to help bring it to life. If we're cut off in traffic on a day where we've just heard some great news, the other drivers lack of consideration, will probably roll away like water off of a duck's back. But if we've just received news of a layoff that relatively minor traffic slight could become a trigger to an uncharacteristically angry outburst. And it's that, that I mean when I talk about state of mind. So these rapid information processing systems basically result in the behaviors we exhibit and in turn, how others perceive us. And it's by understanding these inner workings that basically the reader is empowered with the knowledge and tools needed to harness them to their own advantage. Which means that the learning solution that I provide is really personalized. Let me give you another, a simple example. Imagine that you dream of moving into a finance leadership role, but you're really held back by your inability to present effectively. You feel physically unwell at the idea of be...

Contact Raef Lawson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raef-lawson-2a27914/

Download the Full Report, "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Finance Function": https://www.imanet.org/insights-and-trends/the-future-of-management-accounting/the-impact-of-covid19-on-the-finance-function?ssopc=1&utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=EMAIL&utm_content=03%2D09%2D21%20Value%20Creation&utm_campaign=How%20is%20COVID%2D19%20affecting%20the%20finance%20function%3F

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Mitch: (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 this is episode 114 of our series. In this episode, IMA's Vice President of Research and Policy, Raef Lawson, joins our co-host Rouba Zeidan to talk about IMA’s recently released report, The Impact of COVID-19 on the Finance Function. Raef led the research and discusses his findings in regards to how this pandemic has disrupted the profession and what the perception is towards upscaling and rescaling. So, to hear more about the survey conducted and the key points from this report, we will listen in to their conversation now.

Rouba: (00:44)
So good morning Raef, and thank you so much for joining me.

Raef: (00:55)
Well, it's a pleasure to be here to talk about our study we recently completed.

Rouba: (01:00)
Absolutely and it's quite insightful so I'm happy to be sharing this with our listeners. So let's start from the beginning, IMA published a recent report. You were the lead researcher on this body of work, which evaluated the impact of COVID-19 on the finance function. So can you tell us a little bit about the scale of this research that you conducted, basically the countries, the sample size, demographics, and then the purpose behind it?

Raef: (01:31)
Sure. So it was quite a study from our perspective, it surveyed almost 1,500 people in countries from around the world and those included China, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the United States, and the survey study participants were about evenly divided among those five countries by design. Slightly more than a third of the respondents were women although that percentage varied by country, ranging from say 51% in China, to 18% in Saudi Arabia. And, you know, I think though that those percentages fairly well mirror the participation of women in the workforce in those countries in the accounting and finance field. So, the purpose of the study was to really understand the impact, not just on organizations as a whole, and you know, in the news we can hear plenty about that, but you know, in keeping with IMA's mission to help advance the accounting and finance function within organizations to look a little more specifically at the finance and accounting function within organization and see what the impact of COVID-19 pandemic had been on those.

Rouba: (03:05)
Amazing. And, so this is technically a global piece of research, as what are some of the most notable highlights that this report uncovered?

Raef: (03:15)
Sure. Yeah and that was true, we selected the countries in the study to really get this global overview of the impact of COVID-19 on organizations, and our study yielded quite a huge thing of results. One not surprisingly was that there was, an across the board decline in revenues among organizations of all sizes. With very large companies, and by that I mean those with revenues over $10 billion, most likely to report having experienced a considerable decline in revenue, you know, of course, subsequent to that, we hear how larger organizations bounce back also more rapidly from the effects of the pandemic and how smaller companies are now, suffering. The pandemic has impacted employment as we've heard as well. And surprisingly about half of the companies have led some of their staff go.

Rouba: (04:31)
That's substantial. 50%.

Raef: (04:33)
It is, it is, you would think it would be much less, but that is, you know, a tremendous percentage and a lot of, obviously suffering on the employee's part. It did vary by region. So companies in the US were the least likely to have let go of staff, followed by China and India, while those in the Middle East, which again include Saudi Arabia and the UAE were most likely to have let some of their staff go. And the impact on accounting financial professionals wasn't confined to be let go or not. There was also a considerable impact on the compensation of finance and accounting professionals. And most of the respondents to our survey, reported that they had a reduction in their compensation this year, this past year, whether it was salary, bonus, or both. And again, that varied by region with companies in the US least likely to have changed the compensation of their employees, companies in China were most likely to have left salaries unchanged, but to have reduced bonuses and that reflects the larger amount of incentive compensation that Chinese companies typically pay. And finally, companies in India and the Middle East were most likely to have actually cut salaries of their employees. And then finally, another key finding was that there was a change in the findings of the priorities of finance functions, which is understandable. There was an increase in the emphasis on risk management with nearly half the company spending more time in that area, followed by cashflow forecasting new management, you know, most when the pandemic hit, a lot of companies went into crisis mode just trying to survive and these two, competencies areas became, critical for their survival. And, you know, fortunately less time was spent on business partnering and decision-making, with about a third of the company spending less time in that area, though I will say we've completed another study recently that has found that the pandemic has changed most CFO's views of their role within the organization. And most CFO’s now are becoming a business partner with their organization. Their insights are considered being key to decision making at the senior level within their organization. And I think we'll see a much greater emphasis on the CFO as a strategic business partner going forward.

Rouba: (07:48)
So it does bear some good news to the profession, despite all of these, negative results. But there's also one notable point that I looked at, which was basically the tourism industry was one of the most severely impacted industries. But what other sectors also fair in terms of that kind of impact? And what do the findings tell us about them?

Raef: (08:11)
You're right. The tourism travel and hospitality industries were the hardest hit industries. There, 13% of the respondents were furloughed or let go. 58% had their pay cut and, you know, that's clearly a result of companies quarantining, locking down and so forth. But also relatively hard hit were professionals in the government, nonprofit and education areas where another 5% of those folks were furloughed and, 52% had a decrease in their salary. So that was a significant impact for those industries. On a positive note, relatively least effected were those working for companies in the accounting and finance industries. Sorry, so good times or bad, we need our accountants.

Rouba: (09:12)
Absolutely, you know, I liked that there's been quite a bit of that conv...

Contact Twyla Verhelst: https://www.linkedin.com/in/twylav/

Twyla's Links/Resources:

1. https://linktr.ee/twylav
2. http://www.freshbooks.com/accountants

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Adam: (00:00)
 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 I'm bringing you right up to the start of episode, 113 with our featured guest, Twyla Verhelst. As we listen to this conversation, we first need to acknowledge that many accountants got into the profession because they are really good at crunching the numbers. However, the role has changed, and accounting and finance professionals are now asked to be confident communicators and storytellers. Twyla will walk us through the evolution of the position and give us strategies for overcoming introversion to be confident business partners. Let's head over and listen now.

Mitch: (00:45)
The accounting profession is one that typically attracts rather introverted individuals. Now there are many stereotypes about accountants and their personality traits, but in speaking with you, I know some of these stereotypes have evolved or proven false, particularly in today's industry. So would you like to give us just a little bit of background from your perspective on today's conversation?

Twyla: (01:14)
Sure. So, you know, I don't necessarily think that the personality types have changed per se. I still think that the accounting profession does attract rather introverted individuals and I feel comfortable sharing that when I'm an accountant and an introvert myself. But what I do believe has happened is that we're no longer your dad's accountant, or we’re no longer your Uncle Joe that used to be an accountant. Accountants now have a very diversified skillset. We have social skills, we have relationship skills, and oftentimes these relationship skills are what are driving the service agreements. We have the clients, that's the value they're paying for. They're no longer paying for what you slide across the desk at them every year on an annual basis, coupled with their bill that you slide across, that's just different, it's changed now. And there's so much more inside of the personality of an accountant that's being shared with the client and the client is valuing. So, when I speak of this previous accountant that I'm thinking of, I actually think of my parents' accountant in my head. I think of the man that we saw on an annual basis, my parents were entrepreneurs, we went and saw him annually. They helped with their personal taxes and their corporate taxes. And I remember specifically when I told him I'm thinking of becoming an accountant, he really just had five words for me, which was, do you want a job? He didn't expand. He didn't elaborate. He was very much an introvert. So now I think we're still introverts at the profession probably still does draw in introverts, but the stereotype of the boring accountant that fits in a box and doesn't really talk and doesn't really converse has changed. And that's, what's evolved inside of the industry.

Mitch: (03:07)
So typically, you know, many accountants will get into the profession because they're skilled at diving into the numbers, right? They like to work at their desk and crunch these numbers rather than really work with people. But as you said, the job has evolved. And you know, these accountants are asked to embrace new identities. You know, we look to these individuals as really confident advisors. So as the job evolves and the individuals grow within this profession, again, from your perspective, what is the first step for accounting and finance professionals to take when looking to make this progression and gain a little bit of this confidence?

Twyla: (03:50)
Before I dive into the first step, I just want to make sure that we're clear on the type of advisors that we're looking to be, or that we're trying to strive to be. And why I want to start there is because sometimes that's the barrier to us getting there, is that we have now painted this picture of, I need to be this really professional, highly confident, so knowledgeable, and use these big words and this accounting jargon in this financial jargon in order to fit that new mold. That's not necessarily true either. And so I want to just lay that out there because sometimes that's a roadblock to thinking, how do I get started? Because you're trying to get somewhere that I would encourage you not to get too far down that road, because now you've become somebody who's no longer the introverted accountant, but now you're intimidating or now you're talking over your clients or now you're really not in relationship with your clients because they're almost too scared to bring up what's going on inside of their business because of potential shame or potential guilt or potential, you know, getting inside of a conversation that they no longer understand and that they don't even feel comfortable saying, “I don't know what you're talking about”. So I want to make sure that we start there and then once we know that, alright, let's be professional and let's be advisors and let's be inside of a relationship out there, clients, but not take that too far. Then it's a case of starting with do some personal reflection. Where do you currently have a skill gap and do that self audit. Do you have really personable skills already and, that you've evolved or developed inside of your career thus far and now you're just layering onto that. Or are you the more traditional, introverted accountant, super, super smart, but loves sitting behind your desk and you know that you need to take steps towards breaking out of your shell so that you can feel comfortable inside a relationship or inside a conversation with your client. Or is it more that you're needing to do some other sort of, upping of other skills, which could be video calls nowadays, especially, where you've got to feel comfortable getting on video, presenting, doing that virtually, being organized to do that and not losing your place and feeling confident and having a loud, clear voice that everyone can understand and hear over the internet. What do you need to do to upskill? And so it's kind of taking that step back and saying, all right, here's what I'm trying to be. So once you understand where it is you’re trying to grow to, or stretch to then, where do I need to fill in that gap in order to be that advisor.

Mitch: (06:41)
Now, please correct me if I'm wrong. But I would assume that technology is a big reason that this evolution within the accounting profession and an individual's ability to effectively communicate and build these relationships, you know, this change is because of technology. I would say technology is now that person who was sitting behind the desk crunching the numbers, right? We have the software and the computers to do that for us and the human, the accountant, is responsible for the communication of the data that's gathered from the technology. So, utilizing this technology and kind of having that secondary relationship, what is the best course of action for a professional to increase their comfort and confidence in changing what they do on a day-to-day basis because of technology and then communicating what comes out of it?

Twyla: (07:41)
I completely agree with you that technology has really paved the way for this evolution, paved the way for us being able to have the...

International Women's Day: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

IMA's Website: https://www.imanet.org/

Contact the Speakers:

• Hanadi Khalife - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanady-khalife-78ba5610/
• Doreen Remmen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/doreen-remmen-55173812/
• Alain Mulder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alainmulder/
• Nina Michels-Kim - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninamichelskim/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:00)
 Welcome back to Count Me In and Happy International Woman's Day. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and in this special episode, my co-host Rouba Zeidan, sits down with a few of IMA's leaders to discuss what it means to operate, manage, and breed an inclusive culture. Keep listening to hear from Hanadi Khalifa, Senior Director of Middle East and India Operations at IMA, Doreen Remmen, CFO of IMA, Alain Mulder IMA's Europe Regional Director, and Nina Michel's Kim IMA's Director of Partnerships for Japan and Korea, as they all share their perspectives on social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women and the value of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. 
 
Rouba: (00:46)
Good morning, good evening, and good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for joining me and Happy International Women's Day! We're going to kick this off with Nina and Hanadi. So this day was created to celebrate social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, and it encourages women around the world to choose to challenge. I mean, the theme for this year, because as I quote “A challenge world is an alert one.” So this initiative was also created to accelerate women equality around the globe, and when you contrast that with the world economic forums prediction, that it will take some 250 years before we can achieve true equality. What are some of the major problem areas that you believe need to be challenged? Both when we talk about community elements and corporate world elements, and how are you personally contributing towards that on an individual scale and maybe even on a corporate scale. 
 
Nina: (01:52)
So, you know, I believe that in order to achieve true sustainable gender equality, society and companies have to change their mindset. It's not the quantity of hours at work that make an employee productive and also support working parents equally make it normal that men equally share household tasks and childcare. And I think society and the workplace prevent people from exercising their rights for these parental benefits. For example, you know, I kind of represent Asia Pacific and in Japan, new fathers are entitled to a relatively generous paternity leave, but less than 8% of Japanese male employees take it. As opposed to a more egalitarian country like Finland, where over 80% of the men take paternity leave. And, you know, the reluctance of Japanese men that could be for a number of reasons, perhaps it's not encouraged by the company, or  they might be judged that they're a slacker and we need to change the stigma associated with that and make it mandatory thatmen also take paternity leave. And in fact, that's a new plan that the Japan's labor ministry is actually thinking of to make it mandatory, for men to take paternity leave, and it it's to counter Japan's declining birth rate, which is a huge problem in Asia, because women don't want to have children anymore since it impacts their career. And, you know, as an individual, all individuals must have the courage to exercise their rights and stand up so others can follow. And, you know, as an individual in my former company, I was sort of a trailblazer and paved the way for other women to woman to, you know, discuss remote working and part-time working. But, you know, granted that was over 15 years ago, but that former company, they did not allow any, remote work or part-time work, and, you know, they were very supportive of promoting women, but only as long as they were single or childless or, you know, dincs, dual income, no children. So I think I was one of the first women managers to say that I was pregnant, and I really felt guilty to do so. To announce my pregnancy, which, you know, should be a joyous occasion, and especially, you know, it was coming after two miscarriages, miscarriages that I kind of, embarrassingly did not say to my employees of my employers, and I found out later that many women in that, that company had miscarriages. we were working long hours and on paper, the company even had, less than, required working hours, but nobody took that. I mean, especially nobody who were a high potential person climbing the corporate ladder. So, you know, when I did announce my pregnancy to the company, I told them things like, Hey, don't worry. You will never even think that I had children. I'll be back full time. I'd be here until the very last minute, and then I will take the bare minimum of maternity leave and I'll will be back to take off where I left off. And, you know, and I actually even did that for my first born. I enrolled him full time in the daycare center. I had babysitters to take him after it was closed and or whenever I was traveling because, you know, I didn't have extended family nearby to help, but, you know, I slowly came to realize how flat I was in my head thinking and it wasn't sustainable. You know, when he was about 18 months, he started acting up at the daycare center, you know, I kind of broke down and I went to my boss and, you know, I finally said, you know, that's it I'm leaving unless the company allows me to work part-time or work remotely and you know, the company finally relented, you know, and that action is so interesting because after that a whole lot of managers became pregnant or they were able to say, I had a miscarriage to Nina, all these kind of things and, you know, and it became okay to work like part-time, at least 80% or work Fridays at home. And, you know, so kind of, I take comfort that I finally became brave and ask for support from the company and it kind of benefited former companies, former colleagues of mine in that company. 
 
Rouba: (06:26)
No, but you're right, by the way, bravery has a big role to play in this one, to dare, to ask for more or for support Hanadi, how's that been for you? 
 
Hanadi: (06:36)
Well, I think Nina touched on, on a very important point, which is the change in mindset. And I think both men and women need, need to change that, and man has to realize that actually gender equality is beneficial and it's, in their interest as much as it is in our, interests. And of course the bravery for women, they have to proactively ask for their right. But I also want to add, three more, even actually four, more challenges, that we are facing saying, maybe these apply most to upward in the Middle East,. For example, education. Although we've done tremendous, effort and improvement in education, there are still 130 million girls who are, who don't have access to schooling, and there are 12 million who are married, that are under the age of 18 every single year. Of course also the gender gap. I don't want to talk extensively about that. I know we're all aware of the gender pay gap. Although we've seen that women now are more qualified, or if I may say, as qualified as men in terms of their post-graduate studies, and of course, women participation in the political arena, where again, in our region, there's a lot of effort that...

Contact Miguel Molina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miguelmolinaprofile/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (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's conversation will cover the topic of leadership and how finance leaders accelerate change. In episode 112 of our series, Miguel Molina, CFO at Avocados from Mexico talks about his career journey and what he has been able to overcome and accomplish through effective leadership and change management. Stay tuned as we listened to his conversation with Adam now.
 
 Adam: (00:41)
 So Miguel, can you tell me a bit about your career journey?
 
 Miguel: (00:45)
 Sure, Adam. Well, I'm the son of Carmen and Hector, and Carmen, my mother was a visionary woman and, my father was a successful entrepreneur in southern, Mexico. I'm a first generation going to college. Actually my, my mother was the one who convinced me to go to Northern Mexico to pursue a degree. And even she said, look, who knows, maybe you may end up working in the U S. And so I did my undergrad in accounting in northern Mexico in one of the most prestigious university in Latin America, which is Monterey tech. I graduated with honors in December, 1994. 1994-1995 was a difficult years in Mexico. There was years of economic and political turmoil. Mexican economy style deficits rose. Politics became unstable and even some politicians were assassinated. And after 75 years, the PRI to the main party in Mexico, lost government control to another party after 72 years. But, so despite all these changes as a young student, I always wanted to represent Mexico and work for an international company in the US. So I've quickly realized that I needed to improve my skills, Adam. I decided to sell my car both to Canada, I spent three months to improve my English skills. Vancouver, Canada was a great, great experience, but also my last year in college, a teacher of mine, actually a corporate executive and one of the largest tortilla corn meal companies in the world invited me to join Mission foods here in the U.S., and I did. and I started, I started internal auditor. I had been fortunate to travel to the U.S, and I spent a fantastic 18 years careers at mission foods. And I took a position in Southern California as a sales and distribution accountant. Company gave me a full region moving from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Eventually our corporate offices were moved to Dallas, Texas, and we relocated in 2003 and they gave me all U.S. responsibility for the sales and distribution accounting. Then in 2009, as all we know the U.S. experience a great recession, and also needed to improve my skills. So I pursued an executive MBA at Southern Methodist university, and graduated with honors in 2011. Around 2014, the former VP of marketing for Mission foods moved to Avocados from Mexico, as his precedent and CMO, and he invited me to join Avocados from Mexico.  I  accepted, and now I'm at the CFO, one of the most exciting and successful problems, marketers organizations in the U S Adam.
 
 Adam: (03:39)
 That's great, and I'm a consumer of avocados from Mexico. So that's very exciting to talk with you today.
 
 Miguel: (03:47)
 Excellent. You'll be surprised that eight of every 10 avocados consumed the U.S. come from Mexico. And just as a trivia, you need to know that avocados is a berry it's from the same family of a berry.
 
 Adam: (04:01)
 So you have a quite, quite a journey that you've come from, you know, where you grew up in Mexico, all the way to where you are today. What leadership characteristics have enabled you to get where you are?
 
 Miguel: (04:12)
 Well, there are a few topics that I can see in my career. I'm borrowing some items from the leadership tools begin with the end in mind. I think that that is very important. Be resilient and lead by example, and yes, some, some good old luck, Adam. Let me tell you a quick story about, about that. When I was in college, a classmate, invited me to spend a spring break with him at his house. He is from Queretaro, a state located in central Mexico. And during his family dinner, he talk about his plans. I remember him saying that he wanted to finish university, pursue his master's degree at the University of Michigan, go back to home to his hometown, and became the mayor of his hometown and then become the governor of his state. I was in awe. So wait a minute, here's a guy, my same age, same age, education level, both  were doing very well at school. With such plans unbelievable because until then my goals was to go back to my hometown and work for my father and my family. But I have to say that that made that night, my life change, I dare to dream. I decided to do well with school, learn English, pursue an MBA and work for an international company. So beginning with the end in mind, I think is, is important, be resilient, be consistent and always lead by example, Adam.
 
 Adam: (05:46)
 Definitely, and you know, I'm sure as time has gone on your job role has changed as an expectation changes. We're in the middle of a pandemic still, you know, how have you been able to develop your change management skills and make everyone aware of the necessary changes as you've gone along?
 
 Miguel: (06:02)
 Change is always being consistent, and I follow an author, Yuval Noah Harari, and he wrote one of the best sellers book, Sapien. And he's an extraordinary philosopher, historian, and storyteller, highly recommend to you and your audience to look for him, Yuval Noah Harari. So he makes an interesting analogy. He says, Hey, listen, in the past, we were thought to have any strong and deep foundations, it was very important, right? So like a house, if a hurricane or a strong wind passes, that foundation will keep you grounded. Well, today he says the knowledge is different. We need to have a mentality of a tent. Yes, like a camping tent and be ready for significant changes on a strong winds. So when that happens, now, what we need to do is to pick up a tent and move to another place. So let me say Harari talks about the most successful skills in the future will be the capacity to that capacity to change, right? Including the psychology of change, because in our lifetime, we need to reinvent ourselves so many times. I'm sure you Adam, me and all of us, your audience have we need them force or to reinvent ourselves. Right? So during my career, I've been very fortunate to work with great leaders, Adam, and it gave me the freedom and the confidence to make changes. So over the years, I have reinvented my position many times, I expanded my responsibilities to other areas, including technology, and continue process improvement, and I'm upstairs. We've improving processes and finding efficiencies and  changes come with risks. I have some battle scars for sure by that. However, if you're prepared to business case and take a small risk to test your ideas, you gain confidence and that the company where you're working with also begin building that trust in you, Adam.

Adam: (08:00)
Definitely trust is a huge factor, in, in any type of change management. Is that what you use to kind of get buy in from your stakeholders in your organization as you made those changes?

Miguel: (08:14)
Yes. Yes, Adam, listen, I would like to talk about a time when I failed and I failed badly. I was working for my previous company. I convinced your management that we needed to invest in a trade promotion application. I created a vision, tackle it...

Contact Serena Wolfe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serena-wolfe/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:00)
Hello and welcome back for another episode of Count Me In. Mitch Roshong here with you again and today you'll be hearing my co-host Adam speak with Serena Wolf about CFO role in implementing an ESG agenda. Serena is CFO of Annaly Capital Management and has over 20 years of experience in accounting. In this episode, she addresses the importance of environmental, social, and corporate governance and how CFO is truly influenced each letter of ESG. Keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.

Adam: (00:38)
Serena, thanks so much for speaking with us today on the topic of ESG and to provide some background for our listeners who might not be familiar with Annaly Capital Management, it would be great. If you could begin by providing our listeners with an overview of Annaly and your industry and some your specific role within the company.

Serena: (01:02)
Adam, I would love to and first I want to say, thanks for having me today. Annaly is a leading diversified capital manager that invests in and finances, residential and commercial assets. We were founded in 1996, and we went public a year later on the New York stock exchange. We are in fact, the largest mortgager REIT, and we have four investment teams. That's our agency, MBS business, which represents approximately 93% of our total assets. We also have a residential credit platform, a commercial real estate division, and a middle-market lending. Currently we have a market cap of over $11 billion and over $100 billion dollars in total assets. And with that  market cap of over $11 billion, we have the largest capital base among our peers in the mortgage REIT space. And so let's talk quickly about REIT I guess, just, for your audience as well. REITs are often public companies, but specific to REITs, we are a taxable election. In fact, whereby we have to return 90% of our income to shareholders. So we're quite popular with those folks that want a dividend yielding stock, like pensioners, and things like that ..And broadly speaking REITs can be broken down into two major categories, equity REITs, which typically own and operate income producing real estate and mortgage REITs, which provide financing for purchasing or originating mortgages and MBS. Annaly, as I mentioned before, is a mortgage REIT. Mortgage REITs can be further divided into agency mortgage REITs, which invest in really just agency backed MBS and non-agency mortgage REITs, which invest in a broad variety of mortgage related assets that are not backed by the federal agencies. So for instance, Fannie and Freddie, and while Annaly is primarily an agency mortgage REIT, I mentioned before, we've got 93% of our total assets in agency MBS, our platform is differentiated based on the credit businesses that complement our core strategy and of note, we are the only REIT with a corporate credit investment arm. So, we have capabilities to invest across the capital structure in each of these, which means that not only do we own MBS and mortgages, but we also own income producing real estate assets. We have around about 180 employees. And as an executive officer of the firm, I have a broad set of duties. though as CFO, I have primary responsibility in communicating performance results to our stakeholders, managing our financial and budgeting processes and also oversight of our treasury and IT functions, but in all aspects, to be honest, I collaborate closely with the investment side of the house, as well as ESG, Strategy, and Risk.

Adam: (03:41)
I think that's a wonderful overview. So let's turn to our primary topic of today, which is ESG nAnaly just released its first ESG report. Let's set the stage by saying stating what is ESG, what does it mean to you and your company, and then how does ESG factor into running a business?

Serena: (03:58)
Yeah, so ESG and it is a nomenclature that's a bit out in the ether these days, but what it really means is environmental, social, and governance, and it refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or a business. I know that's very definitive. I pulled it off, Investopedia or something, Adam, I think.. but historically many companies have focused on the G the governance aspect of ESG and less on the E and the S. That's not a new focus for us. I think we've been ahead of the curve in incorporating ESG into our business processes and culture from the start. For example, we are a female founded, company founded by Wellington Denahan, who remains a Vice Chair on our Board. And so diversity has always been a cornerstone of our company. And as you mentioned, Adam, actually on the 23rd anniversary of our IPO, we published our inaugural Corporate Responsibility Report. This provides significant disclosures about our ESG considerations that we've been incorporating implicitly and explicitly into our business for years. It's covered through five main areas; corporate governance, human capital and management, responsible investments, risk management, and the environment. Altogether, we aim to have a positive impact in the communities where we live, work, and invest. A couple of examples here, Adam, just to highlight that in 2019 we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 5% and we actually expect to improve that year over year in 2020. We have a social impact joint venture through which we have financed 21 community development projects and underserved communities across the country. Examples of these are things like, elder care residences and affordable housing. As of the third quarter of 2020, we have made $285 million direct investments to support community development and economic opportunity. So we, we find that, I would say that our corporate responsibility report is a great summation of all the work that we've done, but it is something that we've been working on from an ESG front really from inception of the organization.

Adam: (06:23)
I think that's amazing all the things that you're, you're doing from a, from that perspective. I think one of the challenging, challenging question that many businesses are thinking about these days is how do you balance the principles of ESG with return objectives with, to which remain a key priority, not only for your shareholders, but also for your employees and other stakeholders. And then how do you answer this question and what experience do you have as the CFO implementing this agenda and balancing these various strategies?

Serena: (

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-inclusion

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (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 TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (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 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 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-business

Watch 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-cfo

FULL 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 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'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...