In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst, aka The FP&A Guy, dives into the evolving role of the CFO and the impact of financial planning and analysis (FP&A) on modern businesses. Steve Rosvold joins the show to explore the critical skills and strategies that drive success in financial leadership today.

Steve Rosvold is a seasoned finance leader and the founder of CFO University, a platform dedicated to developing CFOs and aspiring financial leaders. With a robust career spanning over two decades, including a CFO role at ConAgra Malt, Steve shares his journey from corporate finance to entrepreneurship, offering invaluable insights into the CFO's expanding role.

Expect to Learn:

• The evolution of the CFO role: from cost controller to strategic partner.

• Key challenges CFOs face in balancing tactical and strategic priorities.

• How FP&A professionals can better align with business objectives to drive value.

• The importance of technical and soft skills in transitioning from FP&A to the CFO role.

• Practical advice for aspiring CFOs, including mentorship and self-awareness.

Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:

• "Human capital is becoming one of the most critical areas for CFOs to manage and measure." - Steve Rosvold

• "One of the best ways to refine your communication is to get feedback from mentors."  - Steve Rosvold

• "The foundation of FP&A is in accounting, but its value lies in its forward-looking insights."  - Steve Rosvold

This episode of FP&A Tomorrow provided a masterclass in the evolving landscape of financial leadership. From the significance of self-awareness to the need for actionable insights, Steve emphasized the blend of technical expertise and interpersonal skills required for success.

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In Today’s Episode

[02:13] Steve’s Career Journey and Background

[03:57] Transition Challenges as a CFO

[09:53] The Changing CFO Role and Responsibilities 

[14:11] FP&A Transformation as a critical function
[21:37] Skills and mindset shifts for aspiring CFO’s

[29:14] Steve’s Approach to Training Finance Leaders
[34:31] Great FP&A Practices

[45:29] Embracing Generative AI Tools
[55:08] Closing Advice and Wrap Up

Full Show Transcript
[00:01:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Hello everyone. Welcome to FP&A Tomorrow, where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy, 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. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Steve Rosvold. Steve, welcome to the show.

[00:02:18] Guest: Steve Rosvold: It's great to be on with you, Paul. I'm really looking forward to this.

[00:02:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, excited to have you. This will be a fun time. So a little bit about Steve. Steve comes to us from the state of Washington. He's in the Vancouver area. He is the founder and principal of CFO University, providing content for people training courses, information for those who want to be a CFO, helping them get there. During his career, he was the CFO of ConAgra Brands. He earned his CPA. He did his undergrad in history, might ask him about that, and did an MBA in finance. So we're thrilled to have him. So, you know, the first question I want to ask is, how did you go from being a CFO of ConAgra to starting your own business? How did that happen?

[00:03:04] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, yeah, you know, I spent 22 years in the corporate world, a bunch with Cargill and then with ConAgra for four years as a CFO of their malting company. ConAgra, and the other owner of this joint venture, decided they wanted us to move from Vancouver to Omaha. So we moved the headquarters office from Vancouver, and we had kids in high school at the time. And Pat and I started talking about it and saying, you know, this might be a great opportunity to get out of the helter skelter of the multinational and try something on my own. So my entrepreneurial bent was kind of a I was pretty excited about that. This gave us the opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to kind of test that. And so when we moved the office, I didn't move. And I stayed here in Vancouver, and the rest is history. Let me put it that way. 

[00:03:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Great. And we'll jump more into that. Both CFO University and some of the consulting you've done. But I want to go back to your days in corporate. You know, you worked in corporate, worked your way up and eventually becoming a CFO. I'm curious, what was the hardest part of making that adjustment from, you know, being a team member to being over the entire function to being that CFO?

[00:04:08] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah. You know, I'd spent my career in accounting and finance with these multinational companies, which can be their own career paths. Right? And so when I became the CFO at ConAgra Malt, I think the most difficult things for me were becoming strategic. So all of a sudden, the tactical pieces where I'd been really successful with certain areas, whether it was, you know, the P and L division in Cargill's grain department or whether it was in our energy department, where I kind of ran some of the logistics, I didn't have that strategic bent. So that was a big shift where all of a sudden, you know, you have to really not get caught in the weeds. So I had to pull myself up from the weeds. I think another area was working with execs from really directly with sales and marketing, with operations, with some of the logistics people, and making sure that we worked together with them in the past. I could do a lot of things on my own and come up with ideas, and it really didn't impact them as much. Now the decisions I was making were going to impact them, and I think the third area when I was I never had Treasury operations. So at CFO University, we consider finance, accounting, Treasury and leadership as the four pillars of the CFO. And at my Cargill days, Treasury was centralized. And so I never had that cash management fundraising experience I got thrown into as a CFO at the ConAgra joint venture. And so I think for me, that was very specific technical area I didn't have skills in. But I think the more strategic and the more being able to work with the executives from other departments and making sure I saw how they saw the business, because that was my biggest transition, was I thought I was the smartest in the room, and I very quickly learned that was not the case. And I better be able to work with these people and learn what they're all about. And so those were kind of the three big shifts I made when I became a CFO.

[00:05:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I want to dig into one of those. And that's the first one you mentioned of becoming more strategic and also being able to see the big picture versus being in the details in the weeds, because I think that's a common challenge FP&A professionals have in general. I know it was a real challenge for me. I had to work on is okay, they don't need all the details. My boss doesn't care. He doesn't want them. He wants the strategic and the big picture. How did you make that adjustment?

[00:06:17] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, I think one of the things that helps a lot is the CFO is you have a team to help you do that. So you still need somebody in the weeds, somebody to do all that heavy lifting. And so that but being able to manage them rather than wanting to do it. So you know, and especially finance and accounting, you know, we're used to delivering results. We're used to doing the work. We don't mind hard work. And so, you know, if you kind of enjoy that part of your role, all of a sudden, all that detail you're getting in where you're creating those insights from all that, you know, somebody else is going to start doing that for you or you're not going to be in that CFO job very long. So I think from my background, it was being able to accept others are going to do great work and I just need to be able to lead them and, you know, nurture their great work and use it more strategically than tactically. And so that was, I think, kind of the biggest framework, you know, mindset change for me was others are going to do the work. So it's not so much that you don't do the work or the group doesn't do the work, it's just that you're not doing the work right. As much gratification as that used to come, when I'd get that big project done, you kind of have to step back from that.

[00:07:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes total sense. As a CFO, what if you're in a role where you're still pretty hands on, but you're managing or work not managing, but you're supporting high level people who want the big picture? Any advice of how you make that transition or focus on making things high level? Right. Because you have to get into the weeds, but the people you may be supporting don't want you in the weeds. They want that big picture. And I know for me it was difficult to make that adjustment or that switch. It took a lot of practice.

[00:07:47] Guest: Steve Rosvold: That is such a great question. And I still to this day, you know, people look at a PowerPoint presentation of mine and they say, how come there's so much on there? So I have to consciously think, remove, remove, remove because that's my background. Give them all that work I did because it's great detail. Yeah. So you really have to step back from that and say what's really important. And one of the best ways you can do that is to, you know, find some mentors to test with. And so what I would do is I had my CEO at ConAgra was great at this, but even other people that you're not necessarily presenting to go over your presentations with them. Here's my message and you'll get that great feedback. So that's one way to get real life feedback on here's what I was going to say. And let somebody kind of say, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, that is way over the top. I just need the executive summary. And that really helps you.

[00:08:33] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I think that's great to get feedback from others. I've told this story many times on different podcast episodes. I had a boss that was extremely detailed, so he got along great because I'm very detailed. He wanted everything. Then all of a sudden they let him go through a reorg and I had a new boss that wanted everything high level and she didn't like me. And it was, you know, pretty, pretty apparent. It was like, he does good work. Just give him time or people, you know, telling her that when she complained and one guy would literally on meetings, he would DM me on the side, like, bring it up, you're getting too detailed. And we had an agreement. He would always tell me. And that was something that forced me to start thinking more big picture, because I would want to get so much into the weeds. So it was definitely a hard transition for me.

[00:09:17] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah. And I think it's something you have to consciously think about and especially, again, finance and accounting people, we love the details. That's partly you know, a lot of us have the routes where deep analysis is kind of what we, you know, bringing something new to by looking at things very carefully is kind of in our DNA. And so there's all this tension to say, well, now I want you to know all the work I did, and I think that's what you got to steer away from, you know, don't worry. That's a sunk cost. Figure out what we need to know to do their jobs. And that's when you can hit gold nuggets for sure.

[00:09:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Agree. Next question I'm going to ask you two here. First, how have you seen the role of the CFO change over the last decade or even from when you were a CFO to now? What are maybe some of the biggest changes you've seen?

[00:10:02] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, I kind of think there's a few of them. One of them, the CFO, used to be the steward of the balance sheet and the cost control guru. Right. So if you look at it and they're still the key, that's still the case, certainly from the balance sheet steward and the balance sheet cost control is still important. But where the CFOs are getting much more involved is above the gross margin line. And so you see them getting involved in procurement more in sales more. I mean, you and I did a talk on pricing in the finance team. And 20 years ago that wouldn't have been a discussion, you know, so being able to have input in above the gross margin line, I think is a huge opportunity and a huge change, a shift in the CFO role. So that's exciting. It's whether it's selling, figuring out what information you have you can sell, figuring out how to price better, you know, looking at product mix more carefully and having an influence on that. I think those are really important. And then I think the other two big changes are human capital has become much more important.

[00:11:04] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So, you know, the idea of how do we measure human capital? It's, you know, we don't have it on the balance sheet. You know, we expense it. How do we really know? The value is becoming a really interesting area for CFOs and finance people to get involved in. So there's some really, really bright people working on that. And then the other area is just technology. I mean, there are so many tools now, you know, this with all the work that you do on evaluating tools for FP&A, that is all over the CFO suite, not just in FP&A, but in, you know, billing systems and accounting systems. And so I think those three areas have supercharged the CFO role, made it really important, but also made it much more difficult. So I think, you know, you find a good CFO that can adopt all that and get to those areas, you know, super valuable.

[00:11:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: When you talked about it makes it much more challenging, but much more valuable. That led me to a question. I saw something recently that showed of your typical C level employees like your CRO, CPO, whatever you want to call them, the different ones. You CEO right? All those different ones. Typically, the CFO has the shortest tenure and you've probably seen that before. Why is that? Is it because they're being asked to do so much? Do you think it's burnout or just naturally they're ready for the next challenge? Or why do you think that is?

[00:12:20] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah, it's a great question. I know that from my background, that role is challenging enough to be a career. You know, the end of your career. I mean, but I do think that with all these things, there is a big burnout factor. You mentioned that I don't think the CFO is being the scapegoat, but I think with all these changes, there's expectations that a lot of CFOs or finance leaders can't meet yet. Those three areas that we described, whether it's, you know, having a focus, having more impact on the strategic part of the business, the above, the gross margin line from a P and L standpoint, understanding how human dynamics work. So being able to keep staff, train staff and build a good staff that necessarily wasn't in the CFO's realm 15 and 20 years ago now they now it's demanded. You have to be able to manage people well to keep them, attract them and grow them. And so I think they're part of it is I don't want to call it a competency issue, but there's an experience issue that people are still trying to go through to be able to achieve those capabilities and that so the expectations versus the performance, there might be a disconnect there, because the expectations are that those three areas I mentioned earlier are getting done. And I'm not sure all CFOs are ready to jump on board with that yet. 

[00:13:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I'm hearing this. I think the expectations have continued to increase, no doubt. And with that, there may be a little bit bigger gap of people being able to meet all those and adjust, especially first time CFOs. Plus there's sometimes a burnout factor as well to that role that probably is contributing to that shorter tenure.

[00:14:01] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I could have not said that better myself. That was a great summary, Paul.

[00:14:05] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you, I appreciate that. I will try to summarize it, but now let's talk FP&A. So we've talked a little bit of CFO. How have you seen FP&A change over the last, you know, ten, 20 years during your career from when you were a CFO to kind of how you think about it today?

[00:14:22] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, in my day, it was, you know, the accounting function kind of ruled. And, and a lot of the reporting and analysis came out of what the comptroller function and what's happening is FP&A has been able to carve out a place that says, hey, there is more to our role. We in fact, we want a separate role. That doesn't have to do with all the recording, all the governance and the internal controls that kind of get kind of wrapped around that controller function or accounting function. And so I think there's a recognition that this is forward looking and I don't use that as a negative against accounting because I'll tell you, without a great solid accounting team, FP&A can't go very far. 100% agree. So I think that the foundation is still that accounting piece. But FP&A recognizes, hey, and I think business leaders recognize that having this forward focused kind of, you know, insights driven, analysis driven is kind of a separate group, potentially a separate group from that recording and reporting function, internal control function. And so that split and there's still a lot of small companies that kind of have one area where the controller does a lot of the FP&A function. But as the companies get bigger, they recognize that we need this separate group focused on just the future. And so FP&A is a great fit for that. And FP&A, you know, it is the shining bright spot in the CFO suite right now, right? I mean, if you think about all the data and analytics and AI, that's all being kind of flushed under the FP&A area. And again, not to say accounting is accounting is super important. And if you don't do that right, you're never going to have a strong FP&A function. But FP&A is recognized right now as really important to the growth engines of any company. And it's an exciting area to be in for sure.

[00:16:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I had planned on titling this episode, Steve says accountants are not important.

[00:16:22] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, that would be a mischaracterization. Completely.

[00:16:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I didn't summarize that one well. All right. No.

[00:16:28] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You're good. You get an F on that one. Yeah.

[00:16:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: As I've often said, a good accountant is FP&A's best friend. If those books aren't right and you don't have a good understanding of them. It's really hard to take that and project forward and understand what you think is going to happen. So it's a partnership. It's like you said, it's not that one is more important than the other. They both feel different roles and they need to work together. The best FP&A team works well with their accounting. Best accounting teams work well with their FP&A goes both ways.

[00:17:00] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yep, they leverage each other. And do remember one thing the roots of accounting and FP&A are really in the financial statements. So as much as you know, we want to kind of separate these. The roots all come from the, you know, the same place. And so from that perspective, you know, there's that commonality that really binds accounting and FP&A and that's, you know, a good understanding of the financial statements. 

[00:17:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. The CFO manages finance and accounting. Right. And accounting and finance are all part of those financial statements at the end of the day.

[00:17:36] Guest: Steve Rosvold: And we add treasury to that too. By the way, But yes, accounting.

[00:17:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Treasury is important as well. There's no question, especially if you're going to be a CFO. Like that's one thing I haven't really dealt with. I dealt a little bit with Treasury at American Express. I supported traveler's check, and so we had a $2 billion liability on the balance sheet for all those on and cash checks that we invested. So I had to work with Treasury to understand that and meet with them monthly around, hey, what's the rates we're earning trying to project what would get called potentially, you know, how much cash we needed to have in that portfolio. So that was my experience with Treasury, but more the traditional raising funds, those type of things that you often think about as the CFO, I never got involved in, but I definitely did get involved in some of it, supporting a prepaid business because of all that money you get up front.

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[00:19:20] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well and really important for FP&A, the cash flow forecasting is regulated directly to Treasury right. So, Treasury has to either raise funds if we're not giving the right terms to customers or, or vendors aren't giving us the right terms, all of a sudden Treasury's the one who gets the burden because they got to go raise the funds. So FP&A has a direct link to Treasury. It just on the cash side for sure.

[00:19:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean the example like that with the bonds, at one point, if it dropped below a certain amount, we would have had to put money in or liquidate, move it elsewhere. And they changed some of the rules within how the company was incorporated to allow us to keep it the way it was. And that was Treasury that managed that with legal and tax and all those people. But it had a big impact on our business, because if they hadn't done it, there would have been a big hit as we continued to wind down. You know, when I support Traveler's Check eight years ago now, you know, eight, ten years ago, it was definitely not a growing product, as you could imagine. Right? Half the people listening to this will probably be like, what's a traveler's check? What is that?

[00:20:20] Guest: Steve Rosvold: What's a traveler's checks? Well, what you just described, though, is the teamwork that we're, you know, the CFO suite. FP&A accounting touches so many parts of the business. That's why it's just such a great education. Whether it's FP&A or accounting. You get exposed to every part of the business unlike any other department in a company. Normally you're touching every part of the business and that starts with the accounting group and goes right to the FP&A group when it comes to budgeting, planning, forecasting, and doing investment analysis. You really get to know the other. In fact, a lot of Cargill, the strategic planning group, was really kind of an outcropping of the finance team and the CFO.

[00:21:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, you hear the term a lot now. I see people there over financial planning and strategy or you hear you see the term strategic finance originally. A lot of that was by the vendors to make it sound, you know, better for selling, but you're seeing more and more of that in titles and roles and finances being asked to be more strategic. So I have one more question on this front, and then we'll jump into some things about CFO University and talking about being a CFO, because a lot of people who listen to this podcast have aspirations, right? They want to be a CFO. They're working in FP&A. And to figure out how do I get to the top. So the question I have around FP&A kind of relates a little bit to the CFO. I had Jack McCullough on the show. I know you know him. CFO, Leadership Council. He predicted that going forward, within the next couple of years, the majority of CFOs would come out of FP&A versus Controllership. What's your thoughts on that?

[00:21:56] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, I don't, I won't disagree with Jack on that. But I would say part of the reason is accounting. There's going to be more FP&A people in accounting, people that just it's going to happen that way. And so part of it's just a lot of accounting people are going to move into FP&A partly because of the shortage of jobs. What accounting is, you know, you're going to have your CPAs and your chartered accountants, all the attestation piece that's going to stay there. And those people are learning skills that aren't necessarily key to becoming a CFO anymore, right? I mean, those skills, they're very important. They're going to help you get funding. They're going to help your investors understand the business. They're going to be important, but they're not going to create as many CFOs as they have in the past. In fact, that's changed quite a bit already. So the CPA and chartered accountant world, I think that number is going down from 44% ten years ago to 34% in today's market in the public companies. So you're seeing less CPAs, but they're still going to be a lot of CPAs. So where then and the training at FP&A, the training that you get, the strategic part of FP&A is perfect for a CFO. So I think there's a skill that there's a supply issue. You're going to have more supply from FP&A. But there's also a capability issue that I think you're getting more, there is more capabilities that the CFOs will need in the future that are going to come out of FP&A.

[00:23:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Makes sense. I would agree with both of those. We're definitely seeing.

[00:23:25] Guest: Steve Rosvold: We've got to find something to disagree with here, Paul, because we're agreeing on everything. So you got to ask me a question that we can just fight about.

[00:23:33] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Let's see. I disagree with wearing coats. Vests are much better.

[00:23:37] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay, well, and I've got all this old inventory sitting in my closet. And the second somebody says, you got to get a vest for something, I got to go to the store and buy it so I can just pull this out of my chest. Out of my closet. I don't have to go to the store. So it's an efficiency thing for me.

[00:23:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Spoken like a true finance person, I can't even argue with that one. Dang it, you can't. You ran the math and you figured it was cheaper to just throw on the inventory that you had than go buy new stuff.

[00:24:03] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Just go to my closet and throw something on and then. Well, and if I could grow a beard like yours, I would. So that's another place. We agree. But I can't grow a beard like that. So I'm kind of stuck with what I got, you know.

[00:24:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Well, there's really only two things to growing a beard. Genetics and time. One of them, you either have it or you don't. And the other one, you just have to be patient.

[00:24:24] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I definitely have the time, but I don't have the genetics I guess.

[00:24:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I won't comment on the time. I'm grateful we have a few young people on the show. I'm going to get myself in trouble. All right, back to the regularly scheduled program here. So you run CFO University. Tell us about that.

[00:24:40] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, CFO dot University and I use the Dot because that happens to be our URL. So we use that in our branding. But CFO Dot University you know it's a place to develop CFOs. And anybody who reports to a CFO towards the CFO position. So normally a CFO has been in their job more than five years, doesn't believe we can help them. I might disagree with that, but so it's usually what you might call inexperienced five year and less CFOs. And anybody who reports to the CFO. That's kind of our target market. And we are a practical, convenient and performance enhancing platform for people to use. And how we look at that is we are, you know, we're not trying to be an MBA school, trying to, you know, teach MBAs, the Black-Scholes pricing model or whatever it's going to be. We're trying to get practical advice on how to be a CFO, and that means how to run the departments of a CFO, which again, we talk about that being accounting, finance, treasury, and then a leadership quality. So that's what we teach in practical, practical terms. And how we do that is we do that through courses.

[00:25:44] Guest: Steve Rosvold: We do a lot of thought leadership. That's all free. And in our website a lot of that. But then we also have courses people can take under our four pillars, and we have tools that shine a bright light, you know, on kind of really important aspects of the CFO role. And those tools are normally short, easy to easy to implement. And they're really meant to get information that you can deliver to your board, your executive team, your team to kind of show how an issue, how you could position an issue that might be really important to your business in a really easy light. So it kind of it tries to take that complexity of some of our roles or some of what our jobs that we do and try to make it, you know, bite size, ready for a board or an executive team or your CEO. And then we have coaching. So we do some coaching. I do some coaching with Andy Burrows out of the Supercharged Finance Group out of the UK. Got to know Andy over the years. And so we do some coaching as well.

[00:26:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What is the coaching mostly consist of? Is that helping with soft skills time management. What do people usually come to you for help with on the coaching side?

[00:26:47] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, you know, what we do is we kind of do an assessment. So we have a CFO readiness assessment that assesses more the experiential part of somebody's career. And we can identify with the four pillars where they've had experience. So we'll use that. We'll also use an assessment on their team and their operations. And that usually involves more than just the CFO. They'll use the executive team too. And so we'll marry their competencies individually, their professional competencies with what the business needs. And then we'll create a professional development program for them. And as that and then how the mechanics work is. We'll go through that, discuss that with them, and then we have a monthly check-in meeting where we help them kind of manage their progress, see what they do. And, you know, if it's somebody we recognize pretty quickly, is it the soft skills they need? Does their business require some technical skills. They don't have. And we talked about this earlier I think Paul. But one of the technical part of the job really depends on the company you're with. You know, you don't have to have much finance at all if you're a public company CFO who's got, you know, a chief accounting officer, you'll have all these other resources. A lot of, you know, a lot of the public companies, CFOs aren't necessarily financially trained. But if you're in a small or medium sized company, you will need to be a top financial expert because you're the one who's driving all that. So it kind of depends what you need there. And we cater to the small and medium sized enterprises. There's not a lot of public companies who are coming to CFO University, I should say yet, because I think we can train all the executives below the CFO in any public company. But we really that isn't our target market.

[00:28:36] Host: Paul Barnhurst: But so you're saying when I plan on becoming CFO of Apple, you're probably wouldn't be the target for me?

[00:28:41] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, I wouldn't be your coach. Well, of course I could be your coach, but our platform could help you train all your team. That's and that's, I think a market that we're trying to dabble in and find our footing there haven't been very successful yet, but it isn't going to be you as the CFO of Apple who's going to spend a bunch of time with me. It would be your team that spends a bunch of time with CFO University.

[00:29:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. Helping kind of upskill that team to prepare them for more senior roles and that type of thing. Yeah. All right. So as we've talked about a little bit earlier, you know, many people on the show want to be CFOs. What advice would you offer them? Where should they get started? If they're thinking, hey, you know, at some point I want to be a CFO, but they're like, I'm not sure how to get there. They're working in FP&A today. Maybe they've been in their career 3 to 5 years. Maybe, you know, analyst, senior analyst, maybe their first manager role somewhere in that area. What advice would you offer to them?

[00:29:40] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, let's assume they have the technical skills for the most part. And by that they understand a balance sheet and a PNL. They know how they work. They know the big metrics they can ask. They can look at a balance sheet of the financial statements and make some quick assessments and ask some really smart questions. So I'm going to assume that that's a start. And so a general background that you know it, that they understand enough of the big picture items, that they know how the moving parts work. Then I would say it gets into more, you know, being bold and being willing to share your insights. So now it becomes, okay, I've been in my financial analyst role. I've kind of, you know, the information is kind of bubbled to the top. I'm going to be more and I don't want to say dramatic, but I want to be a bigger presence. So how do I do that? So talking to your boss about how do I give the presentation rather than you give the presentation, how do I, you know, how do I have more influence within our teams? I think I have a lot of ideas. So being able to share those ideas, not just do what you're told, but do what you think should be done. Right. And so I think that's a big part of it. And I think that if that sounds like, hey, go be a big mouth and just blab away, I caution you that, you know, we have two ears and one mouth for one reason, and you learn a lot more when you listen than when you talk.

[00:30:53] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So you got to kind of couple that really be strategic in how you're absorbing information from your company, who you're meeting with and when you're. And so I think that's really important that you strategically get around the right people. And that isn't just the networking people. It's more, you know, who can you learn from and who's willing to teach you and that's really important. So one of the real soft skills and then, you know, kind of thinking about Strategically. When I have a business interaction, there's two outcomes. One is I want to make the business better and the other is how do I make my career better? So if you kind of position, you know, all your business interactions with that second question, what can I do? Do I have to deliver more? Can I be better prepared? How can this person help me? How can I help them so they want to help me? All those strategic things, you know, you kind of give an answer to a question. A spreadsheet gives us an answer, and we kind of deliver that to somebody and throw it on their desk. That all has to change. It has to be how do I nurture these relationships with giving great information? And how do I solve a business problem and how do I improve my career?

[00:32:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thank you. Great advice. I really like, you know, one. How do you solve a business problem? How does that help you improve your career? Learning to listen and also ask questions. I had a boss say, you know, he started to move up when he started to ask smart questions during meetings. You know, they could tell he was listening and thinking and he had done preparation, not hey, this number doesn't tie or you used the wrong font there. You know, sometimes finance can have that pointing out every little technical thing that's wrong. That's not what we mean by bringing up more things in a meeting. That's not going to help you advance. But I've seen that where sometimes people think, but I'm commenting. Yeah, but you're not helping your cause.

[00:32:41] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah. That's the, you know, kind of having self-awareness and understanding how you're being perceived becomes really important. And, and frankly that's an easy thing to not be, especially finance people who have continually getting praised for your good work. So that's a great report. Thank you for that. You know, for that kind of stuff and not thinking, okay, how do I deliver this in a way that's going to, you know, people are going to want to absorb it. They're going to want to do more. They're going to ask me more questions. And I think that self-awareness piece is where, you know, the person asking that question, hey, the font is the wrong size on that slide. Can you change it for me that they're not very self-aware?

[00:33:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, exactly. It's, I think, self-awareness. There's something else you mentioned in there is that ability to take things to the next level. You can be great at your job in the sense I deliver all my reports on time. My forecasts are generally accurate, my models are well built, but you're not actually providing recommendations or being proactive. Help the business move forward, which I think goes with that. Self-aware. Like you said, when you start to combine those together, that's when you really will start to see opportunities open up because you're making others lives easy, not just doing your job requirements really well. Job requirements are the table stakes. That's what we expect. It's how do you take that and make more out of it in the sense of adding value to the business?

[00:34:12] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah. Great points, great points. Taking that extra effort to think about that and manage it. You know, don't just let it happen, but think about how can I make this better?

[00:34:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I wish I would have spent more time during my career. A lot of times, just kind of doing the job versus thinking about how do I manage this and make things better because it really makes a difference. We're going to move into the FP&A section here. I have a couple different FP&A questions I'm going to ask you. And we're going to start with what does great FP&A look like? What is great FP&A in your mind Steve?

[00:34:43] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, I think one thing is impartial and data driven. So you want your FP&A not to be sponsored by a sales department or your operations people. So I think, you know, we want to look to the FP&A. You're going to get great data analysis and that they're data driven. So it isn't somebody's opinion. It isn't. And so I think FP&A is kind of based on that independence of thought using data. So that's kind of a really important concept I think, for people to understand I think FP&A teams, and that means all the people in the team need to be intellectually curious. So I think you want to understand the next level. You have this craving to know more. And normally it should be about the business craving to know more. How can we make this better? But this intellectual curiosity that says, you know what would happen if we did this? Nobody's ever thought of that before. You know, how could we? And I think that's that's a great kind of it's maybe innate. I don't know if you can build that, but you want people that have that burning desire to be that way. And then I think, you know, dynamic and strategic insight. So you want to be able to be flexible.

[00:35:56] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So you want to be able to cater to people's needs and adjust your thinking. Because I think that if anywhere, people need to evaluate options, so they need to come up with options. So I don't think they have to be very open to dynamic changing of a business and strategic. So thinking on a high level And then I think, you know, being able to give actionable, insightful, you know, important insights, you know, that are so being able to raise above to say, here's what's important. You know that, you know, the paperclips aren't that big a deal. If you buy 10,000 more, it's not going to kill us. But boy, if we don't sell product, see more of that. You know, we can see products D, E, and F are going to decline. So you know that insights that say what the dependencies in the business. And it all comes down to, you know, capital allocation. How do they understand how we best allocate capital and how we and that's really when it comes down to it, FP&A is all about how companies should be reallocating capital and deploying capital. And so thinking at that level strategically is important.

[00:37:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: FP&A Guy here today, I want to talk about the FP&A Guys Ultimate FP&A course bundle. This bundle includes over ten hours of content recorded by Ron Monteiro and myself. Many templates and great lessons to make you a better FP&A professional. The content includes FP&A business partnering, how to manage tough conversations, build world class relationships, and hold the business accountable. Includes modern Excel, which is a real game changer for the way you'll work in Excel. Excel tables the gateway to modern Excel. Power query A game changer for transforming your manual processes and loading data, and then dynamic arrays. Next, we cover modeling design principles. In this course, we talk about the importance of designing models in a certain way and how important it is that you think about design. And last but not least, driving value through smart analysis how you can conduct data analysis to be a better FP&A professional. Go ahead and sign up for this bundle at thefpandaguy.com. That's thefpandaguy.com. Use the code Podcast to save 25%. Get started learning today. As you said that especially the capital allocation, I couldn't help but think of Warren Buffett. Could you see him in an FP&A department?

[00:38:28] Guest: Steve Rosvold: He would have made a great FP&A guy. Wouldn't he? He'd have been. Yeah.

[00:38:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, because he said once, you know, that's kind of what he was born to do. That type of thing is allocate capital, right? That's what he's doing as an investor in FP&A. We're helping ensure how we're allocating capital is smart. It's really what it comes down to. And you boil it all down is are we doing a good job of allocating capital. And you'll know by the returns in your PNL you're constantly losing money or your numbers are getting worse and worse, then you're not doing a good job of allocating capital. Now, there may be external factors for that. And that's your job to help the business understand that and determine if you need to go in a different direction. But at the end of the day, it will be pretty obvious in your financials if you're doing a bad job.

[00:39:12] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, and FP&A is the most important role, but it's not something we necessarily tasked them with the first. But when you think about it, we've allocated capital. How is that doing and where would we reallocate? Where should we reallocate capital? That's a really tough question because you have to kind of see that third dimension. And so I think, you know, challenging for people to think about if we didn't have this product, where would the capital to make that product go? Or if we weren't in this geography, where would the capital to run that geography go? And that's a kind of a third tier question. That's but that's where, you know, a really thoughtful, curious FP&A team is thinking about, you know, yeah. You guys say we make a bunch, we sell a lot of this product. But is it really, you know, are we really getting a return on the capital. And I think that's kind of an exciting area for FP&A and where a lot of data and analytics can help us. And we're really moving much closer to that than we were, you know, 15 or 20 years ago.

[00:40:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it. Thanks for that. All right. Next one. What's the number one technical skill FP&A professionals should master?

[00:40:20] Guest: Steve Rosvold: The number one technical skill. You know, I talked about our roots. Accounting and finance. And so I still think about accounting. You need to understand financial statements and kind of how, how businesses make money, which is how, you know. So understanding, you know, how a financial state, how they interact and what they mean is, is super important. Now you stick that into ChatGPT and it's going to tell you Excel modeling skills. Right. I mean, so and I'm sure but I think it's more fundamental than that.

[00:40:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We're going to try that right now live. Keep going.

[00:40:58] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay. You do that right now and see what happens. But I think the fundamental understanding of finance is being able to communicate. I mean financial statements are what we use the language of business. I mean, it is the language of business. As much as you know, they seem like they're, you know, a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper that people want to, you know, disparage. They're still how we communicate in business. Right?

[00:41:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Are you ready for the answer from ChatGPT?

[00:41:26] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I'm ready for the answer.

[00:41:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It disagreed with you. So we have another area of disagreement. Okay.

[00:41:31] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay, good.

[00:41:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Number one, technical skill for FP&A professionals to master is not accounting. It's advanced Excel proficiency.

[00:41:41] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So advanced versus just Excel. So. Okay okay. We can argue about that if you want. But you know I think and those and you're deep into it I saw your modeling skills when we did a job with Prashant and I saw your high level. And those are very valuable. But I think what came first was the understanding of accounting and financial statements. In fact, I know it, I'm sure. I would bet my life on it.

[00:42:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You have to have a fundamental understanding of finance.

[00:42:12] Guest: Steve Rosvold: And so. But frankly, you know okay, so here's what I did today. This morning I stuck in a fake financial statements just, you know, sales into ChatGPT and said, make me a forecast. Okay. It does some averages and makes a four just like you would do in Excel. You make okay I'm going to use an average. There's no I'm not giving you any other information. I'm not. And then and then I said well now tell me. So this is the fun part. Now tell me what happens where, where I should, what should I focus on? What area of the PNL should I focus on to improve my business the most? And it made up an answer. And it was an okay answer. But that answer is going to get better and better and better. So your ability to use finance, use Excel, I think that's great. Right now, I think we still really need it, but eventually it's going to be asking questions. It's going to be asking the right question, not being able to use dynamic arrays and all those big fancy things you do that I that right? I mean, it's not going to be that something else is going to do that for you. But being able to ask the right question is going to be what's important.

[00:43:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, there's definitely an element of being able to get something else to help you think about it. I mean, I can use ChatGPT to write formulas for me now. I can use copilot. They can help enhance my Excel skills. You need that understanding skill to be able to validate things. And so I think when you have the knowledge you're more deadly with ChatGPT. But there are definitely areas where it's going to change. And over time, ChatGPT I think will do two things. It'll make us more strategic and more big picture human, the soft skills. It's also going to make us a little more technical, but in a different way. A basic understanding of coding like Python and data science, will allow you to do things that you could never do before without years of that. Yeah. And so you'll see more of that needed than how to write a Vlookup.

[00:44:05] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah. Right.

[00:44:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And so that's what I see happening is a little bit more technical, but in a different way and not the same depth. Yeah. And more strategic.

[00:44:14] Guest: Steve Rosvold: And we're still building on the same platform. Right. You're still building on the same roots. So I think that's a great point. And what I you know, I don't know, we haven't talked much about, you know, generative processing yet, but if I think about it, how, how I see that happening is using it as a reference tool. So when I use it I don't want to pre pre jump on a question you're going to ask. But ChatGPT for example is something I'll use. I'll try to get my own answers first. Here's what I expect to see. And then let me see what that says and compare the two. And it almost always gives me new ideas, very rarely better ideas by the way, but very more ideas that I can leverage. And so I think that's the tools that we have available to us in. I am going to certainly do those things you mentioned and just help us get better, but you can't let it think for you, right? I mean, it's not, it's not going to think for you. You're going to have to have a stable of, you know, a really good background to begin with and even some hypothesis yourself. I think otherwise you're going to kind of blindly, you know, travel into areas that you're going to make a lot of mistakes.

[00:45:25] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. So let's go ahead and go to that question for a second. You shared a little bit of how you're using generative AI. So a two part question: what are you mostly using it for. And do you have a tool you prefer? Is there one you mostly use or are you trying all of them? 

[00:45:39] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I don't think I'm as far along as you are on this, so I still have ChatGPT. I use Claude for a little bit and didn't and kind of got out of that. But you know, when I'm using it to check something and maybe an example would be we're forming an advisory board. So I put out here's the skills I think we need, here's the dynamics, here's how, here's what I think I want out of this advisory board, and here's how I want to put it together. Here's the skill sets we need for a company like ours. And I put that together. And then I ran it through ChatGPT. And I got a really really pretty lot of interesting ideas and thoughts like, oh, I miss this and this, this. And so that's where it augments, you know, it augments kind of my initial thoughts. And frankly, for the millions of people it's checking at, you know, who am I to think that it's not better than me in some of that? So I think we got to be realistic that some of these areas, if we're not technical experts or the deep expert in a certain area. Chatgpt is going to go to a lot of areas that have that expertise. So I think that's where if you're not the subject matter expert in the world on a specific area, you know, using it to help you is a real bonus?

[00:46:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I think I think it's a great point there I agree. All right. So now back to the next question for FP&A professionals to master. What's the number one soft skill?

[00:47:00] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, in the general realm of communication, I would say being able to connect with people. And so, you know, call that part of the influence. But, you know, understanding how people are perceiving your message and being able to change that if people aren't receiving your message. And so how often do you hear somebody complain? I told them that and they didn't do it. You know, I told them to do that and it didn't. And why didn't they do it? Well, look in the mirror and say they didn't do it because they didn't believe you or they didn't take you seriously. So if you ever hear anybody saying, I told them and they didn't do it, then look in the mirror because you didn't tell them, right? You didn't use the right language, you didn't have the right support, whatever. So I would say that that piece of connecting with your audience so they know so they can understand you better is really important. And that again, comes back to self-awareness, you know? So how do you become self-aware and connect with the audience? So that's and that's how you get people to listen to you when you connect with them, they listen to you. If you're not connected with them, they kind of, you know, toss you aside.

[00:48:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And I asked ChatGPT this question as well. I figured we'd it gave two responses and told me to let him know which one I prefer. We won't read through all of them. They're a little long, but both of them said the number one soft skill is effective communication. Yeah, yeah. And then they went on to talk about data storytelling, translate complex, you know, ideas, data driven recommendations to non-finance stakeholders. You know, that we're a bridge between finance and the broader business. So I think a lot of things you're talking you took a different approach, but I think there's definitely some similarities between them.

[00:48:43] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So ChatGPT looks at me as an expert.

[00:48:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It does. They probably went to CFO University.

[00:48:50] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Just said, here's what Steve said.

[00:48:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Scraped all your stuff for their training. It's amazing how much material they have. All right. We're going to move into the get to know you section. So this is where I get to ask some questions about you. You're a little nervous I know, but you'll do okay I think you can pass. Favorite hobby or passion? What do you do in your spare time?

[00:49:09] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, when we're not chasing grandkids.

[00:49:12] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I knew grandkids were going to come up. Yeah.

[00:49:14] Guest: Steve Rosvold: When we're not chasing, I'm a pretty big cyclist. I love getting on the bike and tooling around mostly Clark County, which is where I live in Vancouver. And that's kind of my healthy habit and my way to get away from work and the solitude, the, you know, that that I get. So that would be my biggest hobby.

[00:49:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Love that one. All right. What is the one book you'd recommend to our audience if you could recommend any book? What are you going to tell us to read?

[00:49:40] Guest: Steve Rosvold: You know, I don't know how well this book is known, but. But it's called The Design of Business by Roger Martin and a friend here, Albrecht Enders, who's an innovation specialist. Had me read it a few years ago. And, you know, the whole message to me stood out. And I like to think of myself as innovative, creative, curious and all this. And what he talks about is going from, you know, the heuristic to the from the mysterious to the heuristic to the algorithmic. So all these things, you know, you look at the data analysis and all this and trying to get a place to improve things so that it kind of happens automatically. And you think about that from a business standpoint. You say, well, that really is smart. How do we take that, you know, mysterious something we don't know to the heuristic, to something that we can kind of we've practiced and now we can do it ourselves to the algorithmic that now we just plug it in and it works. And so salespeople hate this when we talk about it because salespeople, one of their biggest strengths is their heuristic knowledge, right. They know it. Nobody else does. They have their customer Rolodex and nobody else does. So they don't necessarily like that. But if you could figure out how to do a sale without having a salesperson. And I love salespeople, So I got to be careful. But, you know, that's the algorithm that you'd want to use. And so I look at that innovation. And so I've always taken that book every couple of years. I read it again and highlight it. And I just take a lot out of it from an innovation standpoint and creative standpoint. So that's one book that people may have not known that I'd recommend.

[00:51:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: See, that's why I talk about software tools so nobody can know as much as me all about containing that information.

[00:51:22] Guest: Steve Rosvold: That's right. That's where you create your value right now.

[00:51:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Favorite travel destination? If you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where are you going?

[00:51:31] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay. And okay, I'm going to Dallas, Texas.

[00:51:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Why? Dallas.

[00:51:35] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Dallas. Because that's where our son took our two grandkids and his wife a few years ago. 

[00:51:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So there were Grandkids involved, I knew.

[00:51:44] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Actually, and our other, our oldest daughter and our youngest daughter, we have three kids, all live close by here. So Dallas would be one place now if you said. But if you couldn't go to Dallas, where would you go? I think I'd book a ticket to Bermuda or to Geneva, Switzerland, for personal reasons. In Geneva and then Bermuda. Just a beautiful place.

[00:52:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, I like it. So we got Bermuda, Geneva and Dallas. If you could figure out what those three have in common, let me know. I got a prize for you.

[00:52:12] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Oh, but I don't have to do it right now. I can do it later, because I'll definitely give you an answer.

[00:52:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Sure. I already know what the prize is. I'll tell you offline, though. I don't want to, you know, get anyone too excited.

[00:52:21] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay.

[00:52:22] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. If you could have dinner with one person in the world that's alive, who? You'd taken to Dinner?

[00:52:29] Guest: Steve Rosvold: That's alive?

[00:52:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yep. Gotta go alive. I should have added that to the question, but I'd like to add a couple things.

[00:52:35] Guest: Steve Rosvold: So let's think about okay. So I'm going to stay away from politics just because I'm sick of politics with the election so close. 

[00:52:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: We're right before the election. So anyone in the US is probably like you. They're sick of it. Can we just get it over with?

[00:52:47] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Right. So, Tom Hanks, because I just love his movies. I think I would love him.

[00:52:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Run, Forrest. Run! Got it.

[00:52:54] Guest: Steve Rosvold: And I hope I wouldn't be disappointed, but Tom Hanks would be one. And I think Stephen Covey love his teaching. Love his teaching.

[00:53:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: He taught at my alma mater before he started his own business. He taught at BYU.

[00:53:06] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Do you ever have a class from him?

[00:53:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I did, we had a class where we did his seven habits book and discussed it. He had left before, a couple years before I got there.

[00:53:14] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, the seven habits. So I worked on a job 20 miles away and I would leave on Monday mornings, come back Thursday or Friday nights, and I got the tapes from the seven, and I must have listened to that book 7 or 8 times through my trips to Pendleton, Oregon. And I just really got to really like the way what he taught and what he preached. The other thing I would do people so, you know, you asked about who's alive, people who are dead. I think it would be all the big religious leaders, whether that's, you know, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, maybe even throw in a few philosophers, Socrates or something in there. But that would be pretty interesting.

[00:53:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Imagine sitting down at dinner with the great religious leaders of all time, like Martin Luther. You know, the Protestant Revolution, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius, whoever it might be of all the different religions out there.

[00:54:07] Guest: Steve Rosvold: That would be really.

[00:54:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Cool and really just spend a couple of hours understanding them. That would be amazing. I'll be the fly on the wall for that one.

[00:54:15] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Okay, well, I'll invite you when I go. Okay.

[00:54:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: When you make that happen, let me know.

[00:54:20] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I'll let you know.

[00:54:21] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Another great book and then we'll wrap up here. I don't know if you've read it by Stephen Covey is principle centered leadership. Really good one. He talks. He makes that whole argument look great. Leaders have principles they don't violate that they always follow. It starts on a base with being principally centered. Right. Those are those core values. So you don't get yourself in trouble. It doesn't mean you can't be situational and you treat everybody different. You need that awareness, but you need that Core to keep you grounded.

[00:54:51] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Well, I'll pick up that book for sure, because I love his writing. His son. Do you ever read The Speed of Trust?

[00:54:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I know the concept. I haven't read the whole book.

[00:54:59] Guest: Steve Rosvold: But it's a pretty good book, too. 

[00:55:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Bit of the concepts and a couple of other courses that he has.

[00:55:03] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Yeah, it's a worthwhile read as well.

[00:55:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And it's definitely one I need to. All right. Well we're on wrap up time here. We've had a great conversation for almost an hour long here. So the last question is any other advice you offer to anyone listening who wants to be a CFO one day? You can give them one more piece of advice or just kind of a wrap up. What would you tell them?

[00:55:24] Guest: Steve Rosvold: I'd say be curious, be bold, be heard and be learning. And that means listen.

[00:55:32] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Be bold, be curious, be heard, or be listening. And what was the fourth one?

[00:55:37] Guest: Steve Rosvold: Be learning.

[00:55:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Got it? Be heard. Be learning. Be curious. Be bold. Love it. All right. If someone wants to learn more about you or get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:55:47] Guest: Steve Rosvold: They can find me on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with them. So just Steve Rosvold. They can get to me pretty easy on LinkedIn is probably the best way.

[00:55:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, that usually is. It's quite easy these days and we'll definitely put your profile in the show notes. So thanks for joining us Steve. I enjoy chatting and you have a great day.

[00:56:04] Guest: Steve Rosvold: What a pleasure, Paul. Thank you for having me.

[00:56:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks. 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.