Life Beyond The Numbers

#36 Three Pillars to Thrive - Talita Ferreira

"...understand how powerful the people dimension is and how investing more time in it, more growth and development, more attention to it earlier you can up your game and you can do much more successful projects and bigger projects." Talita Ferreira.
 
Talita's passion is to change the business world one analytical professional at a time and starts us off with a story about how she learned to adapt her style for individuals and learnt to be vulnerable and trust her team and specialists. Talita has recently undertaken a global leadership hypothesis project and interviewed a diverse cohort of individuals to look for patterns or red threads. From this she has come up with three pillars we can focus on in order to thrive as a leader or as a professional - your specialism, your growth and development and growing and developing together as a team. We talk through the five archetypes of a leader she created following these interviews. We also cover psychological safety, trust, innovation and going beyond a pure profit dimension. 
 
For more than 25 years, Talita Ferreira has led and inspired either finance, back office, or “people”/HR teams, helping to transform team culture, drive and inspire change, develop new leadership paradigms for global brands and has led and implemented award-winning cultural transformation programmes in multiple industries. She is the former CFO and CHRO of BMW UK Ltd. and BMW Financial Services Ltd. and is an experienced C-Suite executive, Non-Executive Director, Chair of Audit, Chartered Director, consultant, author, leadership trainer and International speaker. She specialises in helping leaders reinvent or adapt their leadership style and team approach to be more impactful, transformational leaders and change the business world one analytical professional at a time.
 
Connect with Talita
On LinkedIn
Global Leadership Hypothesis: www.GLHYPO.com
Finance Inspired 4 Success: www.Fini4S.com  
 
Resources Mentioned:
Dr. Timothy Clark Leader Factor 
Brene Brown, 'Taken for Granted' Podcast on Armour (at work)
 

#35 Health, Wealth & Happiness - Tony Pound

"We're into that instant gratification. Like we see what we want and we want it  now. But the reality is for things to last, it takes a bit of time to get there." Tony Pound.
 
Tony Pound takes an holistic approach to his work. As well as planning for a financially resilient future he can help people become healthier so that enjoy their health with some wealth or their wealth with their health! We talk about planning and how to create a vision for your future. Working out what you want to do is the important thing. We also cover how to form and maintain habits to support that vision. We discuss a Gallup Survey of 'a life well lived' done in 150 countries. They report on 5 areas that people need to achieve a life well lived: Community, financial health, physical health, relationships and career. Only 7% of people are happy in all those areas. Although there is so much information available these days on how to improve Tony says that doesn't mean people do it. So there's a barrier. Isn't about knowledge. It's about applying yourself to do it. 
 
Tony Pound is an Independent Financial Adviser, Health and Lifestyle Coach, Running Coach, Triathlete, Marathon Runner and father to two gorgeous girls. He worked in financial services for over 25 years and experienced all aspects of wealth management. He now combines his two passions to help people live longer, healthier and financially resilient lives. Tony also hosts a podcast The Journey Happy Podcast. 
 
Connect with Tony:
Website: https://www.journeyhappyfp.com/about
On LinkedIn
On Instagram @journeyhappyfit
 
Resources Mentioned:
Atomic Habits, James Clear

#34 People & Money - Rebecca McCaffry

"If you think about staff engagement, staff satisfaction. Well, if those people aren't happy, they're going to leave. Same with your customers. People are not going to hang around, so they're not financial indicators, but they do have financial impact eventually." Rebecca McCaffry.
 
Rebecca and I talk about people and money being the lifeblood of business with a focus on the people side. The language of accounting can be austere and finance people might be seen as unhelpful if they are unbiased, unemotional and unflappable. But that is changing and many are seen as navigators, co-pilots and business partners - they've combined technical skills with people skills and built strong working relationships, are creating value and seeing the long-term impact of what they do. CIMA have a focus on producing the accountant of the future - a well-rounded individual. We talk about the difficulty with teaching people skills, Key Performance Questions, Pre-Financial Data, Maths Anxiety, Automation, Data and more. 
 
Rebecca McCaffry, FCMA, CGMA, CPFA is Associate Technical Director – Management Accounting at the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA&CIMA). As part of the Research and Development team, her work explores public sector management accounting, talent management and finance transformation. Rebecca is a member of Accountancy Europe’s public sector expert group and a Teaching Fellow at the University of Greenwich.
 
Connect with Rebecca 
On LinkedIn
 

#33 High Performing Teams - Billy O'Connor

"All your problems come with a head and two arms and two legs. Then you have two people coming together and you have four people coming together and you can square the number of problems and challenges because you've different personalities, you have different attitudes and you have different backgrounds." Billy O'Connor.
 
Billy explains to me why he sees himself as a 'why merchant' and as someone who makes it easy for people to effect a change in their business. We cover Herzberg's motivating factors and how Hewlett Packard's discovered five common traits of their high performing teams. Billy paints colourful pictures of work-life for us with his stories but also explains how he loves to use visuals and colour in his facilitation. We discuss the benefits of psychometric testing and Billy shares his own 2143 methodology. Billy's introduces me to BingBong and how his mission in life is to raise financial acumen in schools and colleges. 
 
Billy O'Connor is MD of The Discovery Partnership Ltd. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and, in a career spanning over 30 years, has been working within a wide range of business sectors including senior executive roles in financial services and banking to the mid-90s. Billy is an experienced facilitator and trainer specialising in partnering with SME owner-managers. He is the author of 2143 coaching methodology that since 2001 helped transform hundreds of organizations and professionals across Ireland and America.
 
Connect with Billy:
On LinkedIn
https://www.thediscoverypartnership.ie 
https://www.bingbong.ie 
 
Resources Mentioned:
Herzberg's Two Factor Theory of Motivation

#32 Serial Entrepreneur - Kevin Ashley

"From a business point of view, you need to have the willingness to continuously learn and remain open and then be willing to pivot. And this is where I see a lot of people fail so often as they fixate on a framework of what success looks like to them. And when they come up to a blocking point they don't know how to just pivot and change". Kevin Ashley.
 
Kevin Ashley is one of the founders of Java House, an East African coffee house and diner. We talk about the early days of Java House and the first ten branches in the first 10 years. We also cover the further growth and diversification to eventual buy-outs by private equity firms. Kevin says that building Java House was really a HR story - one about purpose and dignity at work - while a lot of people think work is about showing up at Java they instilled in staff that while they were at work they were actually there to serve a bigger thing than themselves. Kevin believes that dignity of work and a sense of purpose is the key for the future of humanity to have a functioning society.
 
Kevin Ashley is a serial entrepreneur. His early career was as a humanitarian worker with World Food Program and Christian Aid. In the 90s he co-founded an aviation business, 748, and then  a coffee house Java House. Java House, commonly referred to as ‘Nairobi Java’, opened its first store in 1999 at Adam’s Arcade in Nairobi with the aim of introducing gourmet coffee drinking culture in Kenya. The brand evolved to an American diner style restaurant. There are also two sister brands Planet Yoghurt and 360 Degrees Pizza. 
 
https://www.javahouseafrica.com 
 

#31 Showing Your Personality - Robin Kiziak

"We've got a lot to offer beyond just giving a set of accounts to somebody. And it comes down to the fundamental fact that we're all people at the end of the day and it's all about relationships and building those relationships..." Robin Kiziak.
 
Robin and I discuss storytelling - with words and numbers. Robin illustrates the power of bringing numbers to life with a story about why a particular set of numbers (6, 2015, 15 & 107,398) is important to him. We talk about breaking down barriers at work, bringing your personality to the table and he shares where the idea for "nothing funny about finance" comes from. There is plenty of laughter in this episode as well as us discussing laughter, curiosity and the importance of finding the right balance. Robin also talks about the importance of networking and shares how he grew his audience and engages with people from Canada to China. 
 
Robin Kiziak is an experienced finance manager with 15+ years of experience in the distribution/logistics and retail industries. On LinkedIn, he describes himself as a Hardcore Finance Manager and his 'About' summary is well worth checking out - far more engaging than a CV. He believes that to stand out in finance and accounting you need to make the seemingly dark art of finance and accounting understandable to everyone in your business by focusing on how you behave and it will shine through in your people skills. Robin is known for his #nothingfunnyaboutfinance posts.  
 
Connect with Robin:
On LinkedIn
Twitter
Website: Nothing Funny About Finance
 

#30 Leading Change - Lisa LLoyd

"When people are able to pause and are given permission to pause by their leaders and they know the necessity of pausing, in terms of their brain being so much more productive and you'll be so much more engaged and so much more successful after a pause. And then that's where the magic happens." Lisa LLoyd.
 
Lisa and I talk about putting the human factor back into workplaces and treating people like people. We talk about the return on investment (ROI) of investing in staff and how a one-size approach does not fit all. We discuss how time is one of the biggest barriers to organisations implementing changes in the best way and Lisa points out they might well be going full steam ahead on the wrong path. We also cover the people side of change, the power of pausing, psychological safety, inner critics and how to become even more effective as a manager. And we chat about thinking in terms of blips instead of failure and the importance of self-compassion. 
 
Lisa LLoyd is a Chartered Psychologist & Psychotherapist. Alongside her private psychotherapy practice she founded It’s Time for Change based on the belief that if we all started to do things a little bit differently, we’d achieve huge results. She is an advocate for putting the human factor back into business and her mantra is: when we get people right, we get business right. She works collaboratively with organisations, using psychological principles and evidence-based practices to improve leadership, employee engagement and resilience and to create workplace cultures where employees excel, where teams are dynamic and where people are happy.
 
Connect with Lisa:
On LinkedIn
Website: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/ 
 
Resources:
Dr. Kristin Neff on Self-Compassion - https://self-compassion.org/ 

#29 Connect the Dots - Andi Lonnen

"The very first training course I delivered I thought this is it. I have actually found my thing. This is what I was put on this planet to do. I just cannot explain the explosion of happiness inside when I'm delivering training and just working so hard with different individuals". Andi Lonnen
Andi Lonnen chats to me about how she discovered her love for training and how she infuses that training with energy and enthusiasm. She talks about training non-finance people to help them understand the story behind the numbers and training finance people to communicate that story in a way that generates insights, inspires and influences. She talks about the benefits to individuals like overcoming fears, understanding how to work with colleagues in a way that reduces frustration and the benefit to the organisation when everyone can connect the dots and works together better. She also shares her work-life balance approach and tells me about an epic cycling adventure that changed her life. 
 
Andi Lonnen is a fully qualified FCCA accountant with many years’ financial experience to Commercial Finance Director level in addition to being a qualified ILM trainer. She is an International Trainer with a trademark upbeat & enthusiastic approach to delivering her training in an easily understood and engaging manner with skills that can be implemented in the workplace immediately and have everyone buzzing to do so! She is also an elected member of the Professional Speaking Association (PSA) and a published author. 
 
Connect with Andi
On LinkedIn
Websites:
https://www.fbpacademy.com/ 
https://financetrainingacademy.com/ 
Read Andi's Book: My Summer Sabbatical: Cycling Across Switzerland & France
 

#28 Breakthrough - Gib Bulloch

"Businesses are fairly unhappy places to be at the moment. People, young people, bright people who've done everything right, who've got a good education they've paid through the noses for, who've worked hard and they've got into these elite organisations and are saying "Is this it? Is this what I want to do?" They look 30 years ahead 40 years ahead to the bosses and say, "Is that what I want to be?"" Gib Bulloch.
 
Gib talks about how he began to question his 'lovely yuppie lifestyle' in London, in the late 90s, having done very "well" for himself. Is this all there is to life? A committed non-conformist and a catalyst for change he founded Accenture Development Partners, described by some as a guerilla movement within Accenture, where today 50,000 staff are on a waiting list to work for a 50% pay-cut. We talk about leadership, corporate immune systems, seizing opportunities and entrepreneurship. Being a corporate insurgent isn't all plain sailing and Gib openly discusses his stay in a psychiatric unit and he explains that one of the main drivers for writing his book was to stand up and be counted about mental health and to shift the debate from the mental health of individuals to the mental health of the organisation and of the system causing these problems.
 
Gib Bulloch is a speaker, writer and facilitator with a unique perspective on the relationship between business, society and the self. He spent 25 years at three of the world’s largest companies – BP, Mars and Accenture. During his time at Accenture, he set up the award-winning Accenture Development Partners, a corporate social enterprise that provides development sector organisations access to Accenture’s top people, knowledge and assets on a not-for-profit basis.  With an insider’s view of the corporate engine and an awareness of the impact that business can have on the individual, he is passionate about creating a more mindful, empowered and balanced approach to the world of work. 
 
Connect with Gib:
On LinkedIn
Website: https://gibbulloch.com/bullog/ 
Craigberoch: https://craigberoch.org/ 
 
Resources:
The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent, Gib Bulloch 
Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, Joseph Jaworski
The Hero's Journey, Joseph Cambell
 

#27 Healthy High Performance - Sheila Walsh

"We're really focused on the core fundamentals of organisational clarity, communicating that clarity, over-communicating that clarity, minimising confusion and politics. And when that's present, then you have the good stuff. And for me, the good stuff is that you're creating that environment for people to flourish and thrive." Sheila Walsh. 
 
Sheila Walsh takes me through the tumultuous year in a tech company in the travel sector. We talk about keeping teams engaged when everyone is remote working and about the lack of spontaneity in a remote environment. Sheila talks about what it is like to work in a people-centric organisation that is driven by the Leadership Team and cascaded down - the LT have a team coach and no chance to get comfortable or complacent. She shares that CarTrawler has upgraded its high-performance focus to 'healthy high-performance'.  We talk about finding meaning and purpose, rabbit-holes, pixie-dust, growth mindset, learning and more.  
 
Sheila Walsh is Chief People Officer at CarTrawler. A hands-on and motivated HR professional, Sheila has a broad range of experience across many sectors including; software, telco, publishing, healthcare and not-for-profit. She strongly believes that the provision of meaning and purpose within the workplace results in engaged employees who live and breathe the behaviours that support sustained business success. She holds an MBS in Business Practice from University College Cork, is an accredited Life Coach & Lifeskills Consultant and is an associate member of CIPD.  She is a Board Director of Self-Help Africa UK.
 
Connect with Sheila:
On LinkedIn
 
Resources:
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni