Strength In The Numbers Show

Wei Chien Yoong recently moved to Singapore to take on the role as Audit Lead Asia Pacific at the diversified conglomerate Cargill, the largest private company in the world, and as such she’s a regular business traveller across Southeast Asia. Her current interests are helping finance leverage the value of sustainability audits for the benefit of the business and local communities as well as better understanding the impact of block chain. Key Points From the Episode: • The one practice we can all do to have a fun, rewarding & successful career in accounting & finance • The 3 pillars of sustainability audits and some ideas on where they can improve the bottom line. • How diversity in audit perspectives can unlock value for the business • What blockchain means for the value proposition of global shared services centres and finance teams into the future. Detailed show notes can be found at sitnshow.com/podcast/008

Imagine you’re on an operating table and you’ve the option of choosing between a medical student with the best technical knowledge money can buy from the best schools or an experienced doctor who’s maybe not as knowledgeable but instead has a good track record on this particular procedure, who would you choose? Similarly, in accounting & finance whilst knowledge is important it's your experience that will help you make an impact. In this bitesize episode I discuss some practical steps and questions that will help you gain experience faster and accelerate the impact you can make for your business and careers. For more information see sitnshow.com/podcast/007

Our Guest Mentor: Scott Hirsch is Finance Director Customer Service Pricing & Recurring Revenue Generation at Dell EMC the third largest privately controlled company on the planet following the acquisition of EMC in 2016. Scott’s team is tasked with protecting and growing $4bn+ of prepaid and renewal maintenance revenue and is a big user of cognitive computing technologies to combine data in legacy Oracle & SAP systems with business partnering to provide insights into optimising customer lifetime value, deerling benefits for end user customers and Dell EMC via better pricing of services. Key Points From the Episode: • Why Services Finance is a great areas for Finance & Accounting to add value and make an impact in. • 3 steps to take to get intimate with your data and then the opportunities you can leverage it for. • Why mapping out the customer journey is so important, even in Finance. • A number of ways how Finance can remain relevant. For detailed time stamped show notes, links to resources menti

The role of the accounting & finance team is evolving so that it can make an important contribution to improving decision-making and ensuring the sustainable success of the business. However some finance teams are moving faster than others, which means that they’ve generally passed through different phases, or as I like to call them, seasons since evolution is never linear, it’s more cyclical in nature and by definition is always about moving forward. So what seasons have you passed through? - Autumn/Fall (Steward) - Winter (Operator) - Spring (Strategist) - Summer (Catalyst) For more information and detailed show notes see sitnshow.com

Jenny Okonkwo MBA FCMA CGMA CPA FPA CMA, is based out of Toronto, Canada, and is the founder of Black Female Accountants Network (BFAN) who’s purpose is to create opportunities for female accountants of black, African and Caribbean origins to share knowledge and empowering their experiences of diversity & inclusion through a process of engagement and personal reflection. She’s also a women’s leadership ambassador for CPA Canada, a CPA Mentor, a member of the FP&A Certification Development Committee, a DECA Judge, as well as giving back to her local community through her numerous other volunteer roles. Key Points Covered: To move forward in accounting & finance, align yourself with other successful people, choose your networks carefully, choose your circles carefully. Align yourself with other people who want to move forward. If you have gender diversity your firm’s productivity goes up by 15% if you have ethnic diversity, the productivity impact to the bottom-line of that firms jumps up to 35%. [Source: McK

A bit behind how Strength in the Numbers relates to my career story and how mentors have helped me get to experience a successful and rewarding career in finance & accounting.

Anders Liu-Lindberg covers on the episode: • The 4 skills areas you should be looking to develop to have a successful career in finance & accounting. • The key thing business partners want and the 4 ways to provide them with great insights. • Why in this age of digital disruption he views the future opportunities as half full for finance and accounting teams and explores the two roads you can take to benefit most from these changes. • How he got to 180 published articles on Linkedin and why he’s developed his finance master series.

Practical advice, real success stories and hard won lessons from leaders in finance and business to help fellow professionals deconstruct the key strengths, strategies and qualities that they need to know to remain relevant in this age of digital disruption and Industry 4.0, as well as how to apply them to: 1. Elevate the impact, value, and contribution they make for their organisations; and 2. Experience a fun, rewarding & successful career in finance & accounting.