Leveraging Data Insights For Smarter Business Decision Making

Written By Ankita Ghosh

Show Notes

Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, where we discuss financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects, with your host Paul Barnhurst. 

The title sponsor for this week’s episode of FP&A Tomorrow is the Third Generation FP&A Tools Showcase. Join the Showcase and see the latest technology in FP&A planning software. Register for free today: https://www.accelevents.com/e/fpatoolsshowcase

In today’s episode, Paul engages in a thought-provoking conversation with the awesome Jim Cook and Winnie Aoieong, for a fascinating discussion on the importance of decision-making systems, the value of trust in business partnerships, and the role of generative AI in modern FP&A.

Jim Cook, former CFO of Mozilla with a rich history at Netflix and Intuit, shares his valuable insights on effective decision-making systems and the power of community building.
Winnie Aoieong, VP of Business Finance at PowerSchool, discusses her experience on scaling financial operations and the critical balance of technical skills and business communication.


Key takeaways from this week's episode include: :

Here is a concise summary of the key points from the discussion:

  • Great FP&A goes beyond data analysis to create effective decision-making systems, allowing businesses to make strategic decisions based on comprehensive insights.

  • Building strong, trust-based relationships with business partners is essential for effective collaboration and achieving organizational goals.

  • Discussion on harnessing the power of community and crowdsourcing can significantly enhance problem-solving and innovation within an organization.

  • How to balance technical skills with effective communication is crucial for translating complex financial data into actionable business strategies.

  • Adaptability to embrace a mindset of continuous improvement and learning from failures. Progress over perfection drives long-term success.

  • Utilization of generative AI for tasks like meeting summaries and action item tracking can enhance efficiency and focus on high-value activities.

  • Leadership development within the team and creating a safe environment for challenging assumptions encourages innovation and growth.

Quotes:

Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode about the importance of decision-making systems, building trust in business partnerships, and the role of generative AI in enhancing FP&A efficiency:


"Great FP&A is the balance of technical skills and translating that into actionable plans to communicate with the business."

"Ultimately what they're trying to do is partner with their department business unit and create excellent decision-making systems because that's what our data is eventually doing."

"A relationship builds on trust. So trust comes from your capacity, your capabilities, but also your way of wanting to build that alliance with whoever you work with."

"Mozilla taught me about how powerful communities are. Communities always win."

"Perfection is a prison. It's about always progressing and improving because there is always room to get better."

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For CPE credit please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, and answer a few questions. For AFP FPAC certification answer the questions and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.


In today's episode:

[00:05] Introduction.

[01:20] Guest’s background.

[01:28] What Does Great FP&A Look Like?

[02:13] Evolution of FP&A

[02:45] Future of FP&A

[10:30] Scaling a Company

[12:00] Leadership Changes

[16:00] Role of Finance in Business

[21:32] Systems and Chart of Accounts

[29:40] Safe Space for Innovation

[40:52] FP&A Tools and Generative AI

[42:00] Rapid Fire Questions

[49:20] Get to Know Our Guests Personally


Full Show Transcript:  

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: The third-generation FP&A Tools Showcase is this week's title sponsor of FP&A Tomorrow. Join the showcase and see the latest technology in FP&A planning software. Hello, everyone. Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, and I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of FP&A. Each week, we are joined by thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned FP&A professional or starting your journey, this show has something for everyone. I'm thrilled to welcome our guests to the show this week, Jim and Winnie. Welcome to the show.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Thanks, Paul.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Thank you, Paul.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'm excited to have both of you. So let me give a little bit of information of our guests. They're both coming to us from the Bay area. Winnie is the VP of business finance at PowerSchool, and she spent ten years working with Jim at Mozilla. Jim is currently helping companies scale leadership and operations as a consultant, but previously he was CFO of Mozilla, and also worked at Netflix and Intuit, among other companies. So we're excited to have both of them with us. So this is a question we'd like to start every show off with., Winnie, we're going to ask this question to you. In your opinion, kind of in your view, what does great FP&A look like? What is great FP&A?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Great FP&A? Good question. So I always think that great FP&A is the balance of technical skills and translating that into actionable plans to communicate with the business. It hasn't changed all that much what great FP&A looks like. But where I started, when Jim started coaching me, it's about merging those skills where you need to do jobs, but like, how do you tell that story? How do you get the business to understand and make it actionable to achieve those goals? So that's where I think how great FP&A looked in the past, and looks like today.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. I appreciate that. Jim, anything you'd add to that?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: My answer has changed over time. In the early days, it was not about the data, it was about the insights. About partnering. Now it's about how I like to push the FP&A teams that I either coach or advise to create decision-making systems. So ultimately what they're trying to do is partner with their department business unit and create excellent decision-making systems because that's what our data is eventually doing.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that, decision-making system. So is that where you see FP&A going in the future? Is much more of that decision-making systems thinking in FP&A or what are your thoughts for the future of FP&A, Jim?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Winnie, do you want to take that or do you want me to take that? We'll both take it.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Yes, you go ahead.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Okay. I do see it going there because once upon a time FP&A was kind of this backroom department. We were only supposed to produce the numbers and then hand them off to somebody. Then along the way, we were asked to be more strategic, and then we kind of learned how to do that, but didn't learn where asked to communicate better. But I think in order to be strategic, strategy is all about making decisions. So if our data is all about making decisions and we're asked to be more strategic, then we have to set up the systems to create great decisions.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Make sense. Winnie, what are your thoughts on that?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I do agree with Jim, and I think about like the way that I partner with the business, with some people like, what's business finance? How is that different than FP&A? It is that business partnership. In order to have a good business partnership, you are leveraging those decision-making systems. Those decision-making systems come with a set of things that you need to do, either through predictive modeling or the things that are hot, like generative AI. How you take these different approaches and package them in the system that makes sense for the business. Not everyone speaks the finance lingo, but in order for them to make those decisions, capital them into those breast tax, translate it into the system that they understand and they can mobilize and execute.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I love what you mentioned. Go ahead, Jim.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: It's interesting, Paul. You and I may have talked a year ago in our podcast, but about being a system thinker. But Winnie and I have certainly talked in the past, and this is probably going to be a thread about being a systems thinker, but I didn't put two and two together until a few years ago that it ultimately results in these creating decisions from the systems you build.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that you mentioned systems. One thing I like that you said, Winnie is the translation process. Because if finance doesn't translate what they're doing into business language, you get this look of like, what are you talking about? If you're in a meeting and all you're discussing is accounting, and an accounting terminology, they're all going to look at you like you're wasting my time. Why am I here? So that translation is so critical, and I've seen it. When people don't have it can be a painful meeting with the business. Why don't we go ahead and have each of you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll jump some more into the interview? I want to dig deep into experience you two had at Mozilla of growing that company, how you thought about scaling FP&A, how you both went through that, working together as CFO and FP&A. But before we do that, why don't we give you an opportunity to tell the audience a little bit more about yourself? We'll start with you, Winnie.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Great. I am Winnie Aoieong. Currently, I'm the VP of Business Finance at PowerSchool. I have been with PowerSchool for the last three years, and before that, I had the opportunity to work with Jim for the last ten years. My background has always been either in accounting and FP&A. One thing that I quickly knew in my career is that I love the analytical part, the forward future-looking piece, the business partnership rather than the back corner, crunching numbers, counting beans, if you will. I have dabbled into different industries, including entertainment, telecommunications, digital marketing, but where my heart and soul are in technology, Mozilla is the open source company that focuses on technologies on a different end. But right now, at PowerSchool, it's all about education technology. I love this space because education is meant to be disrupted in such an archaic past. One thing that you can say COVID has accelerated that put a light on that industry that needs to be accelerated, to be disrupted. So I'm excited to be where I am today and continue working for a mission-driven company.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All Jim, why don't you give us an introduction about yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I think the best way to describe my background, looking back over since I've been in Silicon Valley since the early 90s, is I've been at the early stages of several companies helping to build their finance and operations. Looking back, I never sought to become a CFO, but everybody said, you need to be the CFO. So I've been elevated to be CFO eventually of many of these companies. But I think of myself more as a builder, an operator, and a leader. I happen to do finance. So that's how I think about myself. I've been at companies like Intuit in the early 90s, helped start Netflix in the late '90s, and joined Mozilla in the mid-2000s. Hired Winnie around 2010, 2011. Probably, it was my best hire in my life. That's why I'm glad to be on this podcast with her.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: It's always good when you hire the right person, it makes a world of difference. When you get that one you never want to let go of, it's great.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: 100%.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Good deal on that. So what were you looking for when you made that first hire? You hired Winnie as your first one there at Mozilla. As you were trying to make that decision, bringing in that first finance hire, what was that process like?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: First and foremost, I wanted a partner. I was doing most of that. Almost all of it. I was doing all of it by myself. Mozilla was still very young. I wanted a partner. I wanted a thought leader. I wanted someone who was hands-on, who thought in systems because we had a lot of things to build. I needed an all-around business athlete. So after a dozen or so interviews, when I stumbled on winning, I was like, ding ding ding, you're the one. She didn't join me for three months, though, so she almost said no. But anyway.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: No, I'm curious. Winnie, what made you interested in Mozilla to work for? a startup environment in the Silicon Valley. What was it that made it so attractive to you that made you choose to join the company?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I think Jim caught a lot of things that I was nodding my head along. I wanted to join a company that is in the Hockey stick growth space and has a lot of opportunities to build things, build systems, and build processes. So when Jim and I talked about last year, the first question he asked was like, what do you want to do? I told him that I want to grow with the company. I want to build systems that can grow. I wanted to have a seat at the table, working with the leadership's part in solving problems. This sounds fantastic, but what are these things that you would do? We went on a two-hour conversation. He sounds great. Where can you start? I was totally taken aback by that. So I would say, coming back is the opportunity to build these systems and the processes that grow with the company. That's what attracted me to Mozilla.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: That opportunity to build, grow, and scale a company. So talking about scaling a company, we'll start with you, Jim. How did you think about scaling this company? I'm sure you saw the rapid growth that was going on and knew over time the plan was to hire a lot more people. So today's processes weren't necessarily going to be tomorrow's. You had to modify and change. So how are you thinking about that as you were in the CFO role?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Well, the good news is I was classically trained from my Intuit and Netflix days to always think about the customer first. So I always thought about the business as the customer. What did the customer need at that specific time and why? It's combined with what you said, which is I fundamentally believed in my core that you have to always be thinking at least 18 months ahead and then build to that future. I could see, anybody who was at Mozilla at the time could see the growth that Mozilla was experiencing and the systems we had, when I walked in the door, there were 18 employees and a bunch of community members, when Winnie walked in the door, we were 150 employees, maybe. But we knew we were going to be 300, 400, 500, probably, 1000. We had to build those systems. We know it takes three, six, or nine months to get systems up and running, at least, back then. It's faster now. So if you weren't ahead of the curve, you were drowning.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Systems could take a long time. I was like, three months? What systems were you implementing in three months? I'm impressed.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I can name a few.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'm sure you can. I'm sure you can name a few that were a lot longer than three months, too.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: True. Most, most.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Exactly. That's what I was getting at. There we go. You had mentioned this when we chatted about this, I know we've emailed back and forth. One of the things you guys mentioned is how the leadership had to change at 600 and 1200. You had to make some hard decisions and make some real changes. So I'm going to go to you first, Winnie. As you saw those changes coming, how did you manage that from your perspective? The CFO and seeing leadership changes happen within the organization. How did you manage that with your team?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I'll break it down into two parts. So when we talk about leadership, leadership does change over time. The leaders themselves are also maturing with the business at the time at Mozilla. They were offset and they went from operators to hands-on managers to become the senior leadership and sometimes even the executive leadership. So you have to meet them where they were truncating the information, the insights into bite-size that along with the North Star or the initiatives that we're doing. So that's like one way that you're going to have to tailor the different delivery with the audience that you have. But the other part is if I'm a VP of engineering, my focus is on delivering code on my product releases. All the things about operations are secondary to them. So as an operator, like Jim and myself, I have to think about how we do this necessary legal reviews or purchasing review and get these things moving so the business doesn't have to worry about that. So the second pillar was about how we put together operational procedures, processes, and systems that can enable us to do that.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: So we talked about those three, six, nine months of system implementation to the very initiatives that Jim and I tackle. Once I started at Mozilla, those three-way, hacky, open-source ticket systems that do all these reviews so that we know the business is like, oh, do I need a privacy review? Do I need a data review? Do I need a legal contract review? Do we need a financial review? That all happens simultaneously so people know exactly where things are. The second thing is how we scale financial systems. We went from a multi-tab Excel spreadsheet into our first implementations of Adaptive Insights. So how do we do the system and be able to churn out our monthly reporting, and our dashboard into the business so that they understand financially where things are? Those are the things that we have to do to scale with the leadership changes, but also evolve over time with the business.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that and yes, you have to evolve. Question for you around this, Jim. How did you think of the evolution process? First, from people you mentioned you had to make some big changes to leadership as you scaled. Some people are great for a startup and the role may not be the same for them at 600 or 1200. So talk a little bit about the people and then talk about how you thought about the systems and scaling them, because I know that's a real challenge for finance department, is trying to scale and manage that budget when you're growing and you want to spend every dollar you can investing in the business.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: There are a lot of questions there, but I'll take the people first.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: There is. Sorry, I should have broken those up, but I threw it all at you at once.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: No, it's fine. I got them. They're all up here, Paul. Don't worry. But from a people-first standpoint, Winnie touched on it, we say this all the time, but the people who get you to a certain milestone aren't necessarily the people who need to get you to the next milestone. So as one product, an all-focused Firefox company, we needed a set of people who were insanely community-driven, customer-driven, and understood the browser. But then as we grew, we started experimenting with other products, and all of a sudden we had experiments with identity or with Firefox OS and each of these experiments became smaller companies within the larger Mozilla brand. So I think that's the intersection of, okay, when you're creating a small company inside of a large company, you need to go back to getting those entrepreneurs. But then when one of those products becomes very successful, then you need to treat it almost like a division. A divisional manager is different than a department manager. They have to be mini CEOs of their area. We got to a point, and we'll probably get into this at Mozilla where we had several GMs, if you will, of various areas because they operated so independently of each other, but underneath the Mozilla umbrella.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: So that's how I think about the people. It's like, what kind of person do you need to run Firefox OS, the mobile phone system? What kind of person do you need to run a five-person lab? Those are different people. Then how the finance people support that is they have to understand this as well. I think most people believe small teams win. So support small teams with the minimum finance. But also you have to influence everyone around the table. Small large division owners, GMs of the entire budget, of the entire set of resources that it's not unlimited. This is why you can't have everything you ask for because it's part of a larger set of resources that we're all operating under. This is the trick. You only know to the five-person lab, why can't I get five more people? Because engineering has hired 105 and is nothing to the 100 person engine100-person. Well, we can give you ten people but you don't need that many because we need to give them to other people.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: One thing, I want to come back to what you said, Jim, that I appreciate is understanding the financial envelope that people need to manage and influence the decision. I think the other part, the other trick is understanding the trade-offs. If you weren't doing certain things, what are you giving up? It is not about the financial envelope. It's about focusing on the initiatives. There are always things that we're going to add to the plate that we want to do as the business, as the GM. We don't want to be master of None's. We want to focus on 3 to 5 initiatives and be good at executing them. So the other part is how are you doing that? Are we adding more fire to the problem or are we adding other initiatives? Because you remember, at Mozilla, we're very hands-on. As a company, we always want to do the next shiny, new thing. So how to balance all the initiatives and execute against them? That's the trade-off things that we always talked about with the business.

 

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Guest: Jim Cook:: Well, I'll add one more thing to that, Paul. Because I love Winnie's answers as well. If I look back, we were growing it department by department. Why were we standing up this new department and what data, insights and decisions did that department need? But as Winnie and I both experienced, I think what many FP&A people experience is that once you get a new product going or a new department or a new set of departments going, you need to constantly be redoing your chart of accounts. Because we need different answers. We need the data sorted in different ways. So there's this trade-off, not trade-off, but there's this constant build of we need more accounts because we don't have the system financial chart of accounts to report in the way we need to to create the decisions that we need to. So you're constantly diving deep into the chart of accounts all the way up to what are we trying to do and why at the GM level. We're trying to play the bridge and the intersection between accounting and decisions at the corporate level.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: You're looking at the big picture and saying, we need to understand this now. Things have changed and you have to be able to translate that down to the level that somebody can take that and change the chart of accounts so that you can make the decisions you need to make based on how the business is today, instead of how it was yesterday or three months ago or six months ago.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Winnie was perfect at that, she mentioned many systems, a couple of which she custom-built. A shout out to Delly Tamer if he's out here, a little quite for Biztera, but she created one of the most amazing ticketing systems ever. But we can get into that later.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Winnie, it sounds like you got to do a lot of chart of Accounts work. Any advice for companies as they're scaling? How to think about a chart of accounts? I feel like that's an area that almost every company struggles with at some point. Getting the chart of accounts right, so to speak if there even is a right, if you know what I mean.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: No, I do know what you mean. I think it's a balancing act. Right, Paul? You can't solve everything in the chart of accounts because none of the systems, even the best systems in the world, is going to crumble with this many accounts to manage. I think the way that we have done it at Mozilla or at my current space is what other data field dimensions that we can leverage. Oftentimes, we're thinking about product tagging, like what product line or what line of business. That's not the chart of accounts. It's the department or is that a geo locations tag, I would say. I think I'm answering your question slightly differently. So it's not the chart of accounts, but other things that tie to the business metrics that we can leverage on. Oftentimes, companies want to tie customer data or business data into the financial data. So what is the common thread that you can pull these things in the native systems and leverage your big data to get to those insights that you need? So I think we have gone past the day where let's solve everything on our ledgers, on our chart of accounts. But the SaaS industry is like over whatever billions it is, you are good at the things that you're good at, let's leverage the best of the best in the system that you can offer either chart of accounts, either your department, your geolocations, but all the things that you can find, that common thread that ties them together. That's what I would advise the business to leverage today.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: It's a great point. Tagging the transaction at the customer level at the more and following that transaction through the business in order to create the modern-day general ledger is the new way of doing things, tagging it at the most basic activity level versus starting with the general ledger and pushing it out and saying, you must adhere to these rules. The latter is the old way and the former is what AI is going to help with, and tagging, this concept of tagging.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Agree, we're seeing that. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to somebody who's creating an AI-based general ledger, ERP. It's a new company and it's growing fast. We're talking to the CEO and talked about those things, kind of the tagging and some of the stuff we're talking about here. It is about, hey, how can we make this all flow and understand the customer all the way through and not starting today with the general ledger, but realizing the general ledger is something that needs to be able to help with that entire process versus starting there and trying to force everything to align to that.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: But therein lies the problem, Paul. When he's closer to this, and I am at this point, is when you start tagging transactions, it's easy to add 5 tags, 10 tags, 20 tags. You now have to be a finance person that says, what do we not need to tag? Do we need that tag? Why are we tagging it? What are we solving for before you tag it? It's so easy to create noise. The human beings create noise out of data. So we had this big data noise problem. There was no signal. How do we keep the signal going in finance without creating noise that's not needed?

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I couldn't agree more.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Yes. It's something that we tackle every day. Also, nothing is binary. There's not one person who only does one thing. So you can't say, I only work on this 100% of the time. No company, no employees do that. So, again, it's finding the right balance of what to tag. How do you use the 80/20 rule? They use the 70/30% rule. You have to figure out what is the right balance for your company, and for your business to find that tagging so that you can use all these amazing systems and technologies to solve those problems.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I think that's a great point. That's where the judgment and having people that had experience and are able to think through those types of things and look at it and say, hey, look, this would be great to have, but it's not critical to what we're doing. These other three are, let's start with these. Let's do our analysis. We can always come back, and reevaluate this, but generally, less is more. when you hear KPIs, it's not 50. You see that where people want everything to be a KPI and it's like you're going to get yourself in trouble if that's the case. You can track everything, but you have to realize some things are going to conflict, and at some point, you have to go back to what's your strategy, what's important to inform that strategy, and make sure you tag that and then go from there. At least, that's kind of my thinking. Jim, any thoughts on that?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Well, look, for the younger listeners here of FP&A, what Paul described, Winnie described, and what I'm describing is based on years of experience, of learning, the painful lessons of saying yes to every person who wants you to tag something. So none of the three of us did what we are talking to you about today. We said yes to every single tag, built these systems that didn't scale, and then had to learn to influence others about why they didn't need those tags, and how we could go faster. So we compressed for you like 20 years of experience into don't be a yes person, and ask questions that do we need it up front? I can't repeat that any louder here.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: It's funny, Jim. I'll tell one story and then I have another question we'll move on to. So I had a boss who said to me one time and I didn't understand at the time. He goes, you're good at your job but the only problem is, he goes, you're not hard enough on the business. What he meant by that is saying 'no', and pushing back and challenging and making sure that things needed to be done. It took me quite a while to realize it, because of the way he said it because he could be very abrupt and often came across as a jerk. That's how I took it, and then I realized what he's saying is, look, you need to say 'no' sometimes. You need to be more forthcoming and own the situation when it requires it. It was a good learning lesson. It took me a long time to realize that because yes, I was the yes man. We've all been there. Then you get done and you're like, why did I ever agree to that? But I want to move on from the systems and talk a little bit more about relationships and something you mentioned, Jim. You talked about how important it was to create a safe space for Winnie to be curious, and explore innovations in her job, and a safe space for the team. Can you talk about what you meant by that? What defines a safe space and why is that so important?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Well, first and foremost, Mozilla's DNA and culture were very much of an innovation culture. So I think it was kind of a safe place to begin with. We were not a public company. We didn't have investors or VCs. So that's it's important to put a pin in that. But with that, there were a lot of people competing for we want finance to do this and finance to do that, and we had to carve out our own leadership style. When he had to carve out her own leadership style, what I learned early on and what we were doing as a department, and Winnie and I, partnering together was to create this, it was fun to create this, what I call a challenging environment, in which respectfully, everyone can challenge anything of what we were doing and why we were doing it. Because two things would happen. One, if you create a safe challenge environment where even the lowest level person in your department can say, I don't understand what we're doing and why we're doing it, and if the leader who is making that decision can't defend why they're making it then that's a problem. They'll probably learn something like, oh, I didn't realize that was the cause of my decision, caused a downstream problem. So there's learning on two sides, either from the leader, saying, I didn't realize there was a downstream problem, thanks for speaking up, or the person asking the question is going to learn why we're doing it that way.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: But you have to create a safe space for them to ask the question. A lot of times they do what the boss says. They must think they're more experienced. But by creating this challenge environment of, hey, I need to understand. So I'm going to ask a question and not judge them for that. I can't emphasize more how that creates great teams. I think Winnie and I live that at Mozilla of constantly asking people to challenge us. I remember being in meetings where I would say, it's too silent. With my decision that has come down, someone has to challenge me because I'm not comfortable. There's no way I looked around all corners. Someone, sitting there, knows that this decision is going to create a downstream effect, that's wrong, and we need to talk about it. So I would try to pull out that challenge of people. But when he took that mantra and I think she built that throughout the rest. I took my hands off the wheel for a long time, and she drove it from there.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I have a question for you that on Winnie, but I have one follow-up for Jim. How do you let go? Because I know a lot of people, when they get challenged, become defensive. We've all seen it. We've all been in those conversations where you challenge a situation and become defensive. So how do you keep that balance of making sure it is a safe environment that people guard doesn't go up when they get challenged?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: You have to emphasize and you have to model as a leader that when I challenge you as the CFO or you challenge me from your seat, I want you to challenge the assumptions. I don't want you to challenge me personally. If it gets personal, I'll shut it off. Challenge the assumptions, challenge the principles, but don't challenge the person. Too many times, especially, in the US, we're challenging people because we're trying to one-up people. No, we're challenging those assumptions. So you have to remind people a lot that that's what we're doing like that.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Winnie, how did you take what Jim did there and kind of filter that among your team? Why don't we start there? How did you make sure that the finance and the FP&A team were working in an environment where they felt safe to challenge things?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Well, I think the first thing is that when you have an executive like Jim who is personally modeling that, it speaks volumes. So once you have that infrastructure or that safety net that you can say, hey, look, Jim, as a CFO is doing that, like we have all the air coverage to do the same thing. So I think that already building a lot of the fundamentals for us to do that. What I always say is that I told the team in my years of experience, two meta themes. One, I'm always the least smartest person in the room. Y'all are the reason why you guys are here, because we hire smarter people than ourselves, and I value the feedback, I value the opinions, and I want to bring them to the table to discuss with the team. Because collaboration is super key to me is how I lead my team. I want people to either in a group setting or in my one on one to share those things with me. The second thing is. Progress over perfection. There's never perfection in any business because the business always going to evolve and improve. So perfection is a North Star you can get to. But it's the progress over time like what are the things that we're measuring ourselves against that we have better than last month or last quarter? What are we doing with the business that they see the value? So it's taking those two things into the team as our guiding principles of how to operate as a team. I think they take that on and come up with a lot of great ideas in the system that we talk about, all the processes we talk about, a lot of them is integrating their ideas into it. That made it better.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I'll followfollow up on that quickly because this is what Winnie and I share, this concept of perfection. I've talked about it before that perfection is a prison, but perfection is very limiting because it doesn't allow you to continuously improve. The only successful teams, companies, and products are constantly improving. If you ever think you've achieved perfection, you're not asking hard enough to improve. The second follow-up is, and I love it when Winnie said about me, but I'm not the smartest person in the room. I heard a great quote once, and the smartest person in the room is the room. If we can all remember that, that crowds always win. Crowdsourcing, the community always wins. Lots of brains on it, always have a better idea than one brain. The smartest person in the room is the room, but that only happens if people speak up and they are comfortable speaking up in a safe environment. Most people aren't, especially, early in their careers. We have to pull it out of them. You, as a leader, have to pull the ideas out of people and make it safe for them to speak up.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: FP&A Guy here. Today, I want to talk to you about Future Finance. Future finance is the passion project of Glen Hopper, CFO, AI expert, and all-around good guy, and Paul Barnhurst. We're starting a podcast together. Why? Because we want to talk about technology, AI, where finance is going, and what the future of finance looks like. So join us on your podcast platform of choice. Check us out on Apple, Spotify and others. We look forward to you joining us for this new show. I agree, there are times when I haven't felt safe over my career to speak up, and I've seen others in those situations. So there are two things I like that you said, I love that idea of the smartest person in the room is the room, that community, that collaboration. All of us have probably guessed, how many Skittles are in a jar, or how many M&Ms or whatever they might be. They've done studies and they'll find if they take a collective 20 or 30 people, they'll be quite close to the answer, even though most of them, about a third of them or more will be on the extremes. Because bringing that together, you get close as a group. I think there is a lot of truth to that, that idea, in general, when you work as a group, you get closer to what might be the optimal answer. Rarely is there an optimal, or you would say perfect answer. Because I like how you said that perfection is a prison. It's about always progressing and improving because there are always room to get better. That's one thing I've noticed in my life. My daughter will let me know because I like to joke with her. I tell her I'm perfect. She goes, there's no such thing as perfect, Dad. The only thing that's perfect is the girl with the name perfect. That's what she always says. I kind of laugh.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Nice.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: She's wise beyond her years.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: There you go. So we've been going for a little while here. I want to ask a question. In scaling the entire process, as you look back, at Mozilla and what you went through over those ten years? Winnie, what were maybe the 1 or 2 key lessons you took from that building experience at Mozilla that you use today and that you'll take forward in your career?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I learned a lot of things over my decade at Mozilla. If I have to borrow down 1 or 2 things I come back to and I continue to use it today and I know I'll use it in the future, that will be that relationship building. Everything falls apart when you don't have a trust system when you don't have a respect system in place, whoever you partner with or work with or work for. So that is the key. A relationship builds on trust. So trust comes from your capacity, your capabilities, but also your way to want to build that alliance with whoever you work with. I think it's important between a direct report and a manager, but also from a business partner when I need to work with either my chief product officer, my chief marketing officer, or my CRO, they understand where I'm coming from, what are the things that's important to the company. We're here all for the betterment for the company. But there are certain things that are important to me. For example, I need to see how we're building the revenue and look at the margin.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: He's looking at the bookings, like these things, we're all wanting to do things, the same things, but sometimes they might be not crashing, but they could be at different ends, different things. So I think the business partnership is one of them. I think the second thing is, I learned that from Jim that truly perfection is a prison. I already said that earlier. It's the progress that you make over time that is more important than trying to hold on to information, hold on to things that you're cooking up in your own team that you're not sharing. So it's progress over time through active communications because nobody likes surprises. So it's about concise, actionable communications through what you're doing. What are the things that you're going to be able to do, and things that are going to fall, like communicate early so that you have time to recalibrate with your team, with the business, so that you can continue forward? Those will be the things that I will continue working on with my teams and myself.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I love that. The relationship building and you mentioned trust a couple of times. So foundational. I've had a business partner, a super smart guy, hard-working, but there was no trust there. I had been lied to, the trust had been violated and it always impacted the relationship. Sure, we were still able to work together. I got the work done. But do you think our outputs were as good? Do you think the trust was there? Of course, not. So it impacted things. So it's important that trust and relationship building. Then I love the comment about making progress. Always be trying to move forward versus waiting till everything's perfect. I kind of get it, and then I'll release it because you'll wait forever. Jim, what would be your kind of key takeaways from your time at Mozilla? Maybe the lessons you could share?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I have three. The first and foremost is, Mozilla taught me about how powerful communities are. Communities always win. I didn't fully understand that. I understood it, but I didn't fully understand it until I understood the developer community and how powerful the developer community was. But it's beyond a developer community. Create a community around your product and people will follow that community. The second is getting close to the customer of your product. Now this was in my DNA from Intuit and Netflix. But the closer you can get to your customer, get all the way down to the end user, the customer, it morphed over time at Mozilla for me that I realized that even as a finance person, everyone delivers a product and therefore everyone has a customer. Therefore, being the CEO of your product is something that we can all work on. That's a second key thing that we worked on a lot on the finance team. Finally, I learned I learned how to lead with why there were a lot of people questioning a lot of things. I created a challenge environment. So there are a lot of questions. If you do that, you have to learn how to lead with why we're doing something and you have to story tell why you're doing it. You have to story tell the data. You have to be a good communicator. I was not a great communicator when I first started at Mozilla, and over the years, I became better at it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I think you mentioned there are three takeaways. Let's see if I can sum that up first. Community wins, the power of community hits home to you, and then the other two is, you talked about the importance of storytelling and how you realized you have to be a better communicator. The third one was, I'm trying to remember, help me with it.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Close to the customer. It's customer-based. Everyone's a CEO of their product.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: We talked a lot about this last time, and even as a finance person realize the spreadsheet is not your customer. You have an actual customer that you're supporting those insights, those decisions you're bringing.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: The spreadsheet is not the product. That's exactly right. The spreadsheet is not the product. Well, the spreadsheet may be the product, but it's not, we'll have to go back and look at that one.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: hIt's something you have to have. But you got to remember it's not about the spreadsheet. It's about the customer. It's about the insights. It's about the value you're bringing. The spreadsheet is a tool. It's a method you're using to bring value. All right. So can I ask one more question here? Then we're going to move into our rapid-fire and get to know You section moving toward the wrap up. So the question I want to ask Winnie, if you were to start this process over or have to do it at another company, is there something you'd do differently, maybe something where you're like, hey, I learned and I wouldn't do it that way again if I could do it over?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Many things.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I figured there would be a few.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I will say two things. One, part all the assumptions at the door. What I learned at Mozilla doesn't usually translate everything 100% to the next company, or the other companies to be around. So the second thing that ties into that, what I love to do is a listening tour. Learn the business, understand what they're going through, what the current challenges are, and what are the opportunities. Then I take my experience from my previous place. Then I can see where I can add the low-hanging fruit values that I can immediately help and also build the strategies, and the new initiatives that would help execute and achieve the goals that the company has. Those two things are monumental because tying back to what Jim and I said earlier. I'm never the smartest person in the room. I need to learn about what people are going through. People here are successfully scaling at the company, at those phases where you're at or where you are now joining. So it's important to know that not everything that I have learned before would copy and paste and work out perfectly. So those are the two things. I have a third thing, it's about not thinking all the things that you do from the first go are going to land perfectly. So coming back, retweaking what you needed to do, and going back to the drawing board is perfectly fine. Don't be so hard on yourself that you think the first go is going to be landing exactly where you need to be, and have the self-awareness and the vulnerability to share those things and get the help that people around you can support you.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I love it. So to sum it up, we have started with a listening tour, leaving the assumptions at the door. The third one, the way I'll say it is a little different than what you said, but something that's always stuck to me is learning from failure. When I say that, I had somebody when I was 20. The guy was worth about half $1 billion at this point. He was speaking to all of us, and he looked at us, was of 19/20 year old. I was a missionary for my church in the Bay area at the time. So this was in the 90s. He looked, and he goes, do you guys know? I've never had a failure in my life. What is this guy talking about? I'm 19 going, oh, that's a bunch of BS. He goes, I've only had a learning experience. I love the way he framed that. That's stuck with me ever since in my life. It's the idea of, hey, sometimes it's not going to go the way you planned. Learn from it, improve, and grow. Sometimes you have to be willing to admit, hey, I thought it was a good idea. I was totally wrong. That was a bad idea. Let's try something else. Jim, what's your key learning or learnings?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: If I had to do it all over again, I would focus on the people even faster and harder and try to make them leaders faster, challenge them to step out of their own insecurities, or potential imposter syndromes, and delegate and delegate. Because if you hire the right people and give them the space and the safety to succeed and require them to be the leader that they can be, great things happen. But usually, that takes time. I took too much time doing that. I think over my career, I would do that a lot faster from day one.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Hey, there. It's your host, the FP&A Guy. Today, I'm thrilled to talk to you about Plan Buddies, where professionals meet excellence. This isn't any community. It is a community run by and for planning professionals. Our Plan Buddies were all about fostering connections, sharing knowledge, and providing mentorship among FP&A experts. Ready to elevate your career? Visit plan-buddies.com, and become a member today. Here's a special treat. Use the promo code TheFPandAGuy, that is TheFPandAGuy, for an exclusive 25% discount on your first-year membership. So it sounds like, if I'm hearing you right, communication and developing leaders, focus more on that, if you can do it again.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Perfect.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I got it. All right. So here's how rapid-fire section works. We're going to go with one of you. Then the other I got four questions. The idea is to kind of be as quick as you can. Not to elaborate, kind of give an answer. Then after we're all done, if you want to elaborate on one, you can. So, Winnie, are you ready?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Let's do it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right. What is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Modeling.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Modeling? What's the number one human skill or soft skill that FP&A professionals should master?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Communication.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'm not surprised by either answer. What is the number one thing you look for when hiring an FP&A professional?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Cultural fit and energy.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Cultural fit and energy? Then the last question, are you currently using generative AI?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Yes, and I highly recommend it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: How are you using it? This is where you get to elaborate a little.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: There are two things that we're using. So Zoom has this great release that you take a lot of meeting notes from your Zoom meetings, and summarize that for you. We use that for all our team meetings. Now, the second thing is during our working sessions for all the people's ideas, send them to our Microsoft Copilot where it will summarize all the action items and all the key things that people have talked about so that we can turn them into plan. Those things are way better than a human trying to take notes and not paying attention, or trying to commentate. 6000 people's thoughts into something super quick, I highly recommend it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I agree, it's amazing how well it can do with summarizing things, taking notes, all those types of things. That's a great way to use it. Are you ready, Jim?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Yes.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right. So what is the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should master?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Be a forensic expert of systems. Understand that technical data structures down at the lowest levels.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: You and I can have a show on that one alone, but I hear you. I haven't heard it put that way, and I like that one. What's the soft skill, number one?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Storytelling your data.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right, so what do you look for first when you're hiring someone? What's that number one thing you're looking for in FP&A?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: An all-around business athlete.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: A hands-on, all-around business athlete.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: How about you with generative AI? Anyways, are you using that today?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Yes. For a lot of my client meetings and other recordings like this, I'm trying to parse out the best, not in FP&A parse but I think it's a great way of doing 80% of most work, whether you're writing, whether you're recording something, whether you're summarizing something, lean on it because it will do the first 80%. It doesn't do the last 20% well, at all. But it will save you a ton of time if you ask AI about what they think about how to structure this, write this or summarize this for me.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I've asked it to give outlines for courses. I'll ask for two different tools. We'll combine those together, start adding our own thinking. It saved me two hours of trying to come up with all that myself, because now it's giving me a framework to kind of jump-start the thing.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Don't be afraid of it, I guess, is the message. Use it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I am with you, 100%. Embrace it. It's here. It's not going away. You need to learn to be more productive with it. All right. So now we have to Get To Know You section. These are a little more personal questions. We'll start with you this time, Jim. What's your favorite hobby?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: It's a tie between golf and fly fishing.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Well, I know where I'm. I know, next time, I'm coming to California, I'm doing 1 or 2 things.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: There you go.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: What's a book you can recommend to our audience that they should read?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Can I have more than one, or do you want one?

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: We'll give you two.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Two? Darn it! Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I know who that is. She's great.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Measure What Matters by John Doar.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Okay, I've read that one. I've listened to Annie Duke. I haven't read her book, but I've listened to her. She's good. Next one, favorite travel destination. If you can go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where are you going?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Fiji.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Fiji. If you could have dinner with one person who's alive in the world today, who are you going to dinner with?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Probably, my son or my daughter. That's the person I want to hang out with the rest of my life. I can't lie because I can't think of anybody else I want to go to dinner with. I need to think better about that question.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Well, if you come up with a better answer at some point, let me know. Not that I'm saying your kids aren't a great answer. I realized what I said that came out wrong. But I had one guy go. He goes, it's my wife, every day, all the time.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Let me go again and I'll come back and you can edit it and I can give you my answer. But I haven't thought about this one.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'll let you think about it for a minute. Winnie, are you ready? Favorite hobby?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Two things. Making sourdough bread and hosting dinner parties.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I'm coming to your house. I'll go fly fishing with him, and then I'm coming for sourdough bread. Well, if you ever need fresh flour, I grind flour, my own flour.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Oh, that's perfect.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: But we can talk sometime. I'll send you some. My brother-in-law loves getting fresh flour. I've got him into it now because he does sourdough. Here's the next one for you. What's the book you're going to recommend?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I like to read for pleasure. So I would suggest two things. One, Doctor Death podcasts love the true crimes, but the second one is the Raw Signal Group's newsletter they publish on a weekly basis. They talk about management, leadership skills through different sides of the company. I highly recommend it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Great. What's your favorite travel destination? Where are you going tomorrow? If you can go anywhere.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: It depends. But if I need to pin down onto one, I will say Hawaii.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: That'd be a good place. That's always a fun one to go. Then who are you having dinner with?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I thought about this question a lot, and I come back to my 93-year-old grandma.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Love it and why?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: She's not gonna live forever, and since she's sick.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: This is true. You have to enjoy the family while you have.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Since she's in California, I will take any opportunity to see her and have a meal with her. I love her.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I love it. Well, thank you both.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I'm gonna add my answer so you can edit it.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: All right, Jim.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: I'm gonna say the person I have dinner with is Warren Buffett. He's not going to be on this planet much longer. I want to hang out with him.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: You know, I've had that one a few times, and I think the reasoning is very similar. He's amazing what he's accomplished. It would be fascinating to sit down and kind of pick his brain and learn his thinking. So that's a great one. So we're going to go ahead and wrap up here. I have one last question for you. So we'll start with you on this one, Winnie. If you could give our audience one piece of advice to be a better business partner, what is it?

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: I would come back to what we saw as a conversation today, I think is balancing your technical skill sets your chops to tailor to the people that you partner with. That combination of the technical skills in the soft skills, nothing any of the generative AI or any of these modeling skills that can get you to what you need to be if you cannot translate it into the people that you partner with. That is something that I have learned in my 20-plus years of experience. I think that's if someone can hone into that, that skill that's going to serve them well.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Great. Jim?

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: From being a better business partner. Talk less, listen more. Listen, listen, listen, and document the assumptions. After you've asked a bunch of questions, be curious. Ask a bunch of questions and document the answers.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that. Listen, listen, and listen.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Because if you can listen, ask a bunch of questions and document the answers, that's half of what being a great business partner is because you can go find the answers, or challenge the assumptions or validate the assumptions.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: I like that. Well, thank you. I appreciate both of you joining. What we'll do is we'll leave your contact information in the show notes. So if anyone wants to learn more about you, they can reach out to you on LinkedIn or wherever you want to be contacted. But thanks again for joining me. I enjoyed the conversation and thanks for being on the show.

 

Guest: Jim Cook:: Thanks, Paul.

 

Guest: Winnie Aoieong:: Thank you, Paul.

 

Host: Paul Barnhurst:: Thanks for listening to FP&A Tomorrow. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a five-star rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice. This allows us to continue to bring you great guests from around the globe. As a reminder, you can earn CPE credit by going to earmarkcpe.com, downloading the app, taking a short quiz, and getting your CPE certificate to earn continuing education credits for the FPAC certification. Take the quiz on earmark and contact me the show host for further details.

Ankita Ghosh
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