Strength In The Numbers Show

How do you know as a finance professional if you’re hitting the right notes with your clients and business partners? Our guest mentor on this week’s episode Patrick Leavy shares some practical answers that have worked for him and can work for you too. We also discuss Patrick’s unique career journey which could be seen as being a bit back the front for accountants as Patrick initially started his career performing and writing music, having worked on 15 TV documentaries, before qualifying as an accountant in the public sector and then becoming a financial consultant to schools before joining one of the most forward thinking accounting firms in the UK. Patrick also takes us through: • Some of the common threads between being a finance professional and his experience of visual direction and music. • Great practical steps on how to get clients and leaders to engage more with their finance professionals • The 3 main challenges facing Patrick’s clients and a straightforward bit of advice to reduce business failure

Often I see and hear finance professionals and finance leaders talking about ‘adding value’, but when they are asked to describe what that value is they find it difficult to articulate. They don’t have a simple way of looking at value and as a leader, some can’t help their teams think about genuine value as a result. So how can we define what ‘value creation’ is? I share in this bite-sized episode, what value looks like, why value creation matters to finance professionals and how they can start capturing more value for their organisations and to have more influential and meaningful careers in finance. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

As a finance professional are you simply a passenger in your business or a co-pilot? By that I mean are you like a passenger who sits there, behind your desk or in a row of desks, producing reports & analyses, or do you get up out from behind your desks, walk up to the decision makers, engage with them to understand their business, their challenges and implications for the future and in effect be their co-pilot in creating even more value for the business? These are just some of the areas our guest mentor Arno Wakfer and I cover together on our latest podcast. We also cover • Arno shares a story why he wished he had a mentor after he qualified • His seven learnings (value drivers) accountants get when running their own business. • Why reporting isn’t adding value and why Arno is excited about automation. • Why finance professionals need to be visible and how Arno does this • Arno shares a story of the best criticism he ever received and how it helped him. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamp

There’s a lot of talk out there that companies need to add value to their clients, and managers expect their staff to continually create value for their organisations, but do those people who are saying these things really know the difference between adding & creating value? Or worse they could actually be causing more disengagement in our organisations. So how can we improve our potential to go engage to add, create and capture value. In this bite-sized episode I share some thoughts on a practical web app so that we can better add, create and capture value to our organisations. Check it out at https://www.avfww.com/begin #FinancialMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Is Finance doing too much and should it be split between operations (Chief Accounting Officer) and strategy (Chief Value Officer)? And could FP&A be the unsuspecting change agent in this process. These are just some of the questions our guest mentor Richard E. Reinderhoff and I cover together on our latest podcast. Richard also shares his journey from finance operations, to covering most finance functions, the importance of planning in a hyper-inflationary economy, consulting, his international controllership and CFO experiences along with some straightforward practical advice on how to close the gap between Strategy & Finance. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and more at sitnshow.com/podcast/104. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you’re well aware of the rate of change impacting many of our enterprises and industries. And, of the many jobs within these organisations, one of them in particular has become much more demanding, the role of the CFO, who’s responsible for ensuring that the organisation they serve is growing both sustainably and profitably. So then how do they actually decide who to hire into their finance organisations to meet and overcome these challenges? In this bite-sized episode I share some thoughts on this conversations, what happened a introduce a practical tool so that we can better add value to our organisations. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

How do you become an award winning finance leader and have a career in finance that works for you and not the other way around? Simple! Tune into this week’s podcast where our guest mentor Paula Downey Jones shares with us: • 11 areas where Finance professionals can improve our value proposition. • How to gain a better depth of understanding in finance. • The confidence that comes from making your career work for you and • The benefits of the winding road. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and more at sitnshow.com/podcast/102. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

How do you know you're combining your insights in the right way to create value for your customers and clients? Have you ever read the story of Rumpelstiltskin? You know where under threat of death a young woman is forced to seek help to turn something fairly common like straw is into gold. In effect the story makes reference to the practice of alchemy (spinning straw into gold), and this got me wondering, sometimes as finance professionals we can create value by turning fairly disparate bits of data into leading edge insights that can add value for our stakeholders, but how? In this bite-sized episode I share some practical thoughts on how to do this effectively. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

How effective are your business partnering skills? And how do you know they’re good enough to continue to remain relevant to your stakeholders and clients? What better way to answer such important questions than by bringing on a #FinanceMaster and also mark episode #100

I recorded a podcast this week with a senior finance professional who had also ran his own business and it got me thinking that nowadays in most large enterprises finance managers and leaders also supplement their accounting training by undertaking an MBA (Masters of Business and Administration). Interestingly whilst on this course you learn the skills required to run a business successfully, the fact remains that most MBA graduates will not go off and start a business of their own, they instead take up middle to senior finance positions in existing companies. So what’s a better course of education for a finance professional an MBA or experience of running your own business? In this bite-sized episode I share some practical thoughts on the value of each. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

How excited are you about what the future holds for the finance and accounting profession? More importantly do you know how to benefit from the opportunities or minimise the risks so that you can enjoy a better future and have a more fun, rewarding and successful career in accounting & finance. On this episode we share with you how 4 of our guest mentors have prepared for the future as well as discuss ways on how you can also remain relevant today and into the future. We discuss with them what they have done, why they did what they did, the impacts it had on them, their careers, their colleagues and organisation, and they share with you some ideas on how you can also do the same or similar. The guest mentors and the episodes are: • Nilly Essaides #046 • Ken Fick #050 • Paul Sweeney #078 • Wei Chien Yoong #008 If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and more at sitnshow.com/podcast/098. #FinanceMentor #SITN #V

Who's the best mentor you ever had and how did they help you? It was a 15 minute conversation with a Mentor that helped chance the direction and success of my career in Finance. But up until then I was slow to ask for help, and even slower to pick up on the idea that Mentors could help me in my career. So let’s say you take the brave step to seek out Finance Mentors, how do you get the most out of them? In this bite-sized episode I share some practical thoughts on how mentors can help you have more meaningful, rewarding and successful careers in finance and accounting. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

As a finance professional what part of the P&L springs to mind when you think of Lean? Cost-Cutting? Or Revenue-Generation? In actual fact lean is first about how do we provide the value that the customer is willing to pay for with the minimum amount of waste, it is really customer and revenue focussed. This is just one of the many topics our guest mentor Andrea Jones and I cover on today’s episode as well as covering a number of relevant other areas around: • Andrea highlights the important distinction behind what lean really means and why it is more a revenue & customer focus than simply cost. • A massive opportunity for Finance to easily help the business around something that we take for granted. • How Finance can better support operations. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and more at sitnshow.com/podcast/096. #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Recently when talking with a fellow finance professional our conversation switched over to which martial arts style is best? Which is better, jujitsu, kung fu, karate, judo, krav maga, tae kwon do, or something like Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)? I’m not an expert in any of these, but having dabbled with a few of them each has its comparative advantages and downsides. And it got me thinking why it’s important to your career success to have access to Finance ‘Black Belts’ and ‘Masters’ at their craft. In this bite-sized episode share 3 parts to achieving your Finance Black Belt. http://sitnshow.com/podcast/095 #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Are you using your finance skills to keep busy or actually create more value for your stakeholders? How do you know the difference? I believe we’re all doing our best to add value, however in the race to do so we may actually be guilty of not focusing on doing the right things and so limiting our impact and value we can potentially add, particularly in FP&A. This is one of the many areas Rob Trippe and I discuss on today’s episode along with some other key areas such as: • The fundamental role FP&A plays in value creation. • Some simple steps to ensure we’re solving for the right answer. • The importance of starting at the end result and working backwards to ensure we not simply keeping busy. • Rob introduces the concept of operating leverage that all good financial models operate off. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and more at sitnshow.com/podcast/094. #FinanceMentor #SITN #futureoffinance #Finance #

Is your Finance team thinking about business in the right way? Most people think that business involves selling more stuff or saving money, and accountants would record this type of activity typically as profit and loss, but is this enough to ensure enterprises achieve sustained profitable growth? In this bite-sized episode I share some thoughts on why this is not enough and two other perspectives we need to consider. www.sitnshow.com/podcast/093 #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Given there’s no escaping the rapid rate of change, digitisation and globalisation on business, society and our finance profession how can we best figure out how to keep making a genuine impact for our stakeholders as well as have meaningful and prosperous careers in finance & accounting? Well, what better way to find out than ask Andrew Harding, Chief Executive Management Accounting, at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants which represents 667,000 members and students in public and management accounting and advocates for the public interest and business sustainability on current and emerging issues. These are just some of topics Andrew and I cover together in today’s episode as well as: • How we keep ahead of the rapid pace of change and we question what’s most relevant today to have a sustainable career. • We discuss the importance of successful businesses and our role in addressing the trust deficit in our society. • The advantage of becoming known as a Value Creator for sha

Over the years Finance professionals, whether having gone through business school or as part of their accounting training, have been taught and introduced to various economic concepts and mental models that if applied correctly can help create more value for our organisations and help them be more successful. But are we behaving as if the world is flat by applying them incorrectly or even worse failing to fit them to reality? In this bite-sized episode I share some thoughts on how to practically have more realistic models and how to ensure our approach to financial modelling is more well rounded. www.sitnshow.com/podcast/091 #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants

Have you ever heard the expression a rising tide lifts all ships or seen it in practice for finance professionals? I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed for this podcast by Mitan Patel and I explain why this saying is one of the driving forces behind keeping the Strength in the Numbers show going. Mitan and I also discuss on today’s episode along with some other key areas such as: • The key event that led to my last ever job application. • The knowledge sources I draw on for supporting commercial decision making. • The key assets we have and can leverage in Finance to create value. • The game I often play to enhance my knowledge of an area. I also mention on the episode I’ve had developed a free web app, currently in beta (www.avfww.com/begin) that enables you to assess your value creation potential and receive tips on how to improve the assets underpinning it. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our time-stamped show notes, key quotes, resources and ways to connect with our guest mentor and

How does Strength in the Numbers Show happen? This show doesn't happen without the input and support from our audience, guest mentors being so giving of their time & experiences but also the immense work done behind the scenes, so I'd like to introduce you to Mitan Patel one of our team and soon to be hosting some of our podcasts with guest mentors. In this bite-sized episode I introduce you to Mitan Patel where we touch on some of his background, what he hopes to achieve as host of the show and a couple of his upcoming special guest mentor interviews. https://youtu.be/uAR3leAq9Qs #FinanceMentor #SITN #ValueCreation #Finance #AccountingAndAccountants