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In this special edition of Count Me In, we dive into trailblazing new DE&I research conducted in partnership by The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and The California Society of CPAs (CalCPA). The new report,  Diversifying Global Accounting Talent: Actionable Solutions for Progress, details more than 70 practices organizations can use to improve inclusivity and diversity among their workforces. Jeff Thomson, President and CEO of IMA is joined by Kevin Dancey, CEO of IFAC and Denise LeDuc Froemming, President and CEO of CalCPA to discuss the findings and why more than 60 professional accountancy organizations from around the world have signed on to the report as DE&I AdvocatesRead the report Diversifying Global Accounting Talent: Actionable Solutions for Progress  Full Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountant's perspective. Today, we have a special edition as we take a closer look at the groundbreaking new DE&I solutions report produced in partnership by IMA, the International Federation of Accountants, or IFAC, and the California society of CPAs. The report, entitled Diversifying Global Accounting Talent: Actionable Solutions for Progress is now available on the IMA website. Just follow the link in the show notes. Here now to discuss the findings and why this report represents one, if not the largest collective of DE&I initiatives in the history of global accounting profession is Jeff Thomson, the president and CEO of IMA, Kevin Dancey, CEO of IFAC, and Denise LeDuc Froemming, president and CEO of CalCPA. Let's get started.  Jeff: (01:03) Well, thank you so much, Kevin and Denise for joining this very, very important podcast. We're all committed to increasing the relevance and influence of our great profession and talent pipeline and talent retention, and certainly diversity, equity, and inclusion is an important part of that equation. I'm very, very proud and honored to have partnered with both IFAC and Cal state side of CPAs in this groundbreaking DE&I research our organizations have collaborated on over the past bunch of months. I believe that the breadth and depth of topics covered and really getting close to the issues at hand is arguably unsurpassed by any other study out there, but it's not a competition, it's about improving the profession and its its relevance and an age of disruption and uncertainty. You know, there were some hard truths, hard data points that came out of the surveys that we did both in the US and around the world, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia.  Jeff: (02:07) Speaking about inequity, for example, fewer than 60% of the 8,000 sampled believe the profession is equitable or inclusive, that's a startling number. And so it very much is a call to action to partner together, to understand how we can create diverse pipelines, how we can create an incredibly diverse and inclusive profession because of an overarching perspective that improves the attractiveness of the profession to all types of individuals and our relevance and influence going forward is absolutely paramount. Look, we can't touch on every point in the research that came up in this particular podcast, but would love to hear your reactions. For example, to the more than 70 specific actionable practices recommended in the report. These over 70 actionable practices have been mapped back to the 17 UN sustainable goals, sustainability goals for 2030, for example, goals on quality education, gender equality, and reducing inequality.  Jeff: (03:14) So let's talk about some of the findings and I need to be quiet and listen and learn. So according to the research, there is greater diversity across the broader profession than in leadership positions. In a comparison of female respondents, job titles, across all regions, to those of male respondents with similar education levels and experience, it was revealed that male respondents are holding more senior positions than in females. And that typically also extends to other diverse groups. Second, the research points to women and members of other diverse demographic groups in each region believing there is some level of inequitable treatment and exclusive behaviors that impacted career decisions and prompted some actually about 12% to actually leave our great profession. So starting with Denise as a leader in our profession, what is your reaction to the findings in this area of gender and other forms and inequities, inequalities, and similar challenges you're facing in a very diverse state of California. Denise?  Denise: (04:28) Well, thank you first. Thank you, Jeff, for having me on the podcast today really appreciate being here and also thank you for just, we really appreciate partnering with IFAC and IMA on the survey. It's very important as you said, and there's a lot of great actionable items, which I was so happy to see within the survey, cuz it gives others a pathway to move forward. So that's important. You know, in regards to gender parity, I think COVID, we could all probably agree that it didn't really help on the advancement and the momentum that we had in 2019 on with women within the workforce. A lot of women left to take care of their families, no judgment there it's just what happened. It's the reality. Often I think women and diverse populations are underutilized within the profession. They aren't provided the opportunities to stand up and to learn new skills or competencies.  Denise: (05:24) So I did talk to Dr. Mithu Dey from Howard University. And she had said too, that there's research out there. And she mostly looks at the black accountants and their experience, but she said advancement and retention challenges are really the result of them not obtaining assignments that help them develop. And they don't have the social networks a lot of times to provide that informal career advancement. And I think we could all agree. I know myself that I've benefited from others helping me to move ahead, giving me opportunities. And if you don't have that, that's definitely a gap. And it also provides you with the thought that maybe you wanna leave the profession because you don't have the network and you don't feel that sense of belonging or welcomed environment within maybe the organization that you're in. And there's a lot of statistics out there that really promote the fact that there is not equitable treatment all the time.  Denise: (06:24) So a lot of times we say to see me is to be me. And I think, you know, Heather has said that at times as well, and it's really having that awareness and acknowledgement that there is a gap within the profession and understanding that gap. So you have to know where you're at to know where you need to go a lot of times. So it's, it's on the acknowledgement and awareness that the profession does have a gap. And then also the belief that there is an untapped resource out there and that will provide the leadership and the innovation to move the organization forward. And also having that as a priority within the organization and the tone at the top, making sure that it is within the fabric of the organization to have DE&I at the forefront and have programs that support that. So essentially having it hardwired within the organization.  Jeff: (07:17) Right. Thank you, Denise so much. And you know, before I turn it over to Kevin, I think three of us would probably agree very, very passionately that we've got a great profession. We...

Connect with Nick: https://www.achievers-mindset.com/tools           Full Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountants perspective. I'm your, host Adam Larson. Today we are joined by Nick Davies, an executive coach to leaders and other professionals looking to take their expertise to the next level. At the heart of Nick's coaching philosophy is what he calls the achiever's mindset and how learning to harness that powerful mental tool can lead to transformative results for management accountants, and other go getters in both business and in life. I hope you enjoy the show today. Let's start the conversation with Nick.  Adam: (00:42) So Nick, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We really appreciate you spending time with us. And today we're gonna be talking a little bit about the achiever's mindset, but before we get there, I'd like you to kind of give a little bit of your background for our audience today and how you got to the point where you are today.  Nick: (00:58) How long have I got? You know, it's interesting. I was having this conversation yesterday with someone about talking about their story and fantastic story this lady had working in a business and it's something that I made a distinction of a long time ago that I had a resistance to share in my story. And I thought, well, who wants to hear my story, it's my story? And then what I realized was that, yeah, it's boring to me because it's my story, you know? So I always like it when people can share, because even if it feels like it's just your thing, it's like, well, other people haven't had that experience, you know? And so for me grown up in England, I worked for almost 20 years in the banking world all over the world. I've lived in three continents and five locations and been a long time doing something that I didn't really want to be doing and kind of went outside this personal development journey about 10, 12 years ago.  Nick: (01:51) I asked myself like what did I wanna do when I grew up, you know, eventually moved to states and lived in Florida, worked on Wall Street for a while and, and decided that's it like I wanna, I like working with people. I wanna work with people working on what's most important for them, whatever it is, whatever industry, industry agnostic, but use my experience working in the corporate world and understanding how things work, but also work for people's goals that are most important to them. And so I'd ask to become a coach. And it's been an amazing journey over the last six or seven years. This point, coached hundreds of people, people walk different walks of life and a corporate setting, every different industry, business owners, non-business owners worked on more people's part of life. And it's something I get very passionate about now. And I'm privileged to do every day.  Adam: (02:35) As you were talking, it kind of made me think about a lot of us are we may feel successful where we are in our careers, but despite having a pretty good handle on it, we feel like we're missing something, right. We feel like we're missing. We wanna be a top performer. And, but how do we get to the next level? So maybe that's kinda where we're gonna focus in on the conversation is how do we boost our skills and wherever we are, you know, this podcast is for folks, affecting the accounting and finance world. So accountants and folks in the accounting and finance world, how do we get to that next level? You know, we're not talking about specific accounting things right now, but it's just that, you know, how do we become successful in the next moment?  Nick: (03:12) And I think that you talked about skills and you talked about, yeah, we don't wanna talk about the technicalities of mechanical and finance. That's not the point. And so what I found out, what I believe is that right. It really starts with, well, where do you wanna go? What type of person do you wanna create within yourself? What type of life do you wanna create, rather than looking for skills or practices or best practices or strategies it's like, let's start with the best version of what it could be. What if you could have it anyway, you would want it, like, what would that look like? And really start from that point. And oftentimes that comes with a resistance, like, well, what do you mean? I wanna get 10% better this year. I wanna get 20% better this year. It's like, well, that's great and good for you, no judgment. But what if you could flip it on its head? What if you could get a hundred times better? What would that mean? What actually does that look like for you? And if you're thinking with that end in mind, then you tend to find the path to get there.  Adam: (04:12) So if you're thinking with that end in mind, how do you get to that, that change of mindset because you're here and you're like, I just wanna improve like 10% you said, and you just mentioned a hundred percent better. Like those seem like very drastically different numbers  Nick: (04:27) Yeah, absolutely. Right. And some of it starts with being willing and something within, could you start to, to talk about, right? Like some of us consider ourselves successful, but maybe there's something niggling inside you go, well, maybe it's not quite what I want, or maybe I could be doing this in a different way. And it's really kind of leaning into some of that. And I believe that we all have it. And a lot of us go through a life scene, a little bit of a fog, sometimes a lot of a fog just doing what we think is the right thing to do. You know? And I think about when I got into banking, I felt was like, well, that's good. They wanna pay me to do this. All right. And I'll play your game. And then they're gonna pay me some more and I'll play some more, I'll get paid some more.  Nick: (05:09) It's like, and it just goes and goes and goes. And that's really all, you know, and it's not often you just get to chance to step back and go, well, hang on. Is this really what I want? Like deeply to my core. Do I get excited to do this every day? Does it keep me up late? Not just because I'm told to, or that there's deadlines or is it cuz I want to, am I getting up early to go and practice to be the best version of this? And that's a question that like hand on heart that I believe most people can't answer. And I believe that that was just something that wasn't available for me. Like that wasn't the sort of person that I was. I thought that stuff was preserved for small stars or, you know, people that are in a creative field, but I believe it's available for everyone if you're willing to look.  Adam: (05:52) Hmm. So if you're willing to look, maybe we can start talking about, can you define the achiever's mindset for us? And we can discuss that a little bit more.  Nick: (06:01) Yeah. I think that, you know, the achiever's mindset is really about knowing that like there's always something else. There are no limits to what we can achieve. The baseline, the achiever's mindset for me is that I believe that anything's possible. If you think about what humans have achieved, just watching, me, my wife sat down last night to watch Netflix. We were watching the SpaceX documentary that was on there. And that what a great example, that is about what we could achieve. You know, even Elon Musk said, when we first started out, I thought there was a 10% chance. We'd get someone to orbit and it j...

Read the report here: Management Accountants’ Role in Sustainable Business Strategy: A Guide to Reducing a Carbon Footprint Connect with the Speakers:https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaudbrohe/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaxiefriedman/https://www.linkedin.com/in/regisedu/Full Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Hello again, welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast exploring the world of business from the management accountants perspective. I'm Adam Larson and today we are discussing exciting new thought leadership from IMA, which shows how management accountants are on the front lines, making businesses more sustainable. The name of the report is Management Accountants Role and Sustainable Business Strategy: A Guide to Reducing Carbon Footprint. And I'm excited as brought some of the researchers and authors involved in the project here today, including Kristine Brands, management professor, the US Air Force Academy, Arnaud Brohe CEO of Agendi, a leading consultancy for climate and sustainability programs, and Jaxie Friedman, a sustainability consultant at Agendi. Make sure to follow a link in the show notes to access the full report. Let's start the conversation.   Adam: (01:03) So before we can talk about reducing carbon emissions for a company or for anybody, we kind have to start talking about the drivers that kind of led us up to this point that would make companies and other folks realize, Hey, I need to start paying attention to this and can, so let's start there. Kristine, can you, can you start that off for us?   Kristine: (01:21) Yes. Before I speak, I have a disclaimer because I work for the Air Force. The views that I am speaking about are entirely my own and do not reflect any policy or position from the Air Force, the Department of Defense or the US government. Drivers are huge and what astonishes me is the awareness and the rising of the consciousness of people towards climate change. And they take several dimensions of clearly external and the physical drivers, which are the data behind climate change and the astronomical risk that we're facing globally as a society. And that carries over to internal drivers, into organizations that are going to be put in a position, which I predict is going to come faster than people can imagine to address that risk as well as their strategy so that they can adapt and adjust and be agile to the threats that we're all facing as a society.   Adam: (02:34) Arnaud, Jaxie, do you have anything to share?   Arnaud: (02:37) Yeah. I agree with what Kristine said. I just think that people don't realize how fast this is going to evolve. But that's critical. Basically we have 10 years to change the way we consume, the way we produce, the way we are organized as a society. We have 10 years to start thinking about how to change our mobility systems, you know, shifting from thermite combustion engines to electric cars, that's going to be very visible, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, frankly. We have, we need to revolutionize the way we consume energy in factories, the way we consume energy in agriculture. So the changes are just enormous. The drivers of course are the physical climate risk, but that's not the first drivers that companies are going to experience what we see today and taking the automotive industry as one example, to trade is that transition risk are going to affect businesses even before physical risk and by transition risk I mean, the pressure that customers, the regulators, governments are putting on existing businesses. So if you are an automotive manufacturer today, and you wanna sell your car in no way, or the Netherlands or Germany, you better be ready to switch to much more efficient cars and to gradually shift 200% electric cars. And we know that these trends are going to come here as well in the US and in order jurisdiction.  Jaxie: (04:03) Yeah. I think it's true. What both of you guys are saying that, you know, the science is showing it's, it's more and more significant and gonna be incredibly problematic, but I also think that there's in relation to that a lot of pressure coming from businesses and consumers as well, that is really driving this action. You know, of course it's true that the science is showing that more work needs to be done. But I also think that there's more awareness around that fact. So it's not just a matter of, you know, the, IPCC reports saying that, you know, there's targets we need to hit. It's also a matter of more public awareness that's trying to push us forward. And some of that is, you know, more just reputational. So investors encouraging companies to be integrating climate into their business strategies. Some of it is regulatory like Arnaud I were just speaking about kind of the SEC regulations and how there's kind of current movement towards there being potential regulatory requirements related to climate. And I think, you know, the fact that, you know, those new SEC kind of papers have come out to suggest that we're moving in that direction, I think is gonna be continuing to intensify the speed at which climate becomes integrated, not just into sustainability functions, but across entire business operations.   Adam: (05:44) So it almost seemed like you needed the customer and the government regulators to say something cuz otherwise businesses probably wouldn't have done anything.   Kristine: (05:54) I think you're absolutely right. There's been a lot of resistance. There is pressure. There's reputational pressure as was mentioned, but the real push is to pass the regulations which the European union has done. And there are daunting proposed regulations from the SEC. And I think that that's what is necessary to close the deal.  Jaxie: (06:22) I think also, you know, it depends company to company. I think, you know, considering company culture is a really important factor. There's more and more businesses that really have sustainability within their DNA evolving as it's becoming a bigger part of our society as climate action is becoming more integrated at a public perspective. So I think in order to move the needle among kind of the mainstream body of companies, I think it's completely true that the regulatory pressure helps really push things along. But I also think it's important to acknowledge that there are many companies that have taken really huge steps in this direction before regulation was even on the table. And so I think it's important to consider that fact, I think that, you know, a lot of companies get a lot of or you know, with a corporate world in general, I think gets flack that they're, you know, the causing so much of the emissions and that they're, you know, the source of the problem, but the truth is like also, they're also a big part of the solution and they've been a real driver of innovation towards our climate solutions.   Jaxie: (07:31) And so I think it's important to acknowledge that I think regulation is not, it is a kind of like a compounding force, but I think even in its absence, there've been a lot of massive growth opportunities that have evolved because of companies that are really, you know, recognizing the need even without the enforcement.   Arnaud: (07:55) To compliment what Jaxie just said, that I would say we should stop thinking about ...

Connect with Gordon: www.intrepidbrotherhood.comFull Episode Transcript: Adam: (00:06) I'm Adam Larson and welcome to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountant's perspective. Today, we are talking to author Gordon Graham about his memoir, the Intrepid Brotherhood: Public Power, Corruption, and Whistleblowing in the Pacific Northwest. This is a really fascinating story. Gordon was a senior technology leader at the public utility who uncovered blatant persistent corruption among executive management at the company. But while others accepted the corruption as an unfortunate fact of life, Gordon fought hard for change, even in the face of fierce retaliation from the executive wing. His decision to fight and ultimately become a whistleblower, provides a riveting example of the lengths people will go to on both sides of an ethical dilemma. Here's my conversation with Gordon Graham.  Adam: (01:01) So Gordon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate you coming on and let me just start by saying, you have just an amazing story that you wrote about in your book, and I hope we'll get to hear a little bit about it today, but one of the biggest items that you talk about is standing up for what is right. And now this can be especially hard when you feel like the weight of an organization or a local government on you and you probably feel very alone. Can you give us your take on standing up for ethical professional treatment at the expense of one's career?  Gordon: (01:32) Difficult choice, to say the least. I think one of the reasons I wrote the book was just so people who may be experiencing the same thing or recognize, and same characteristics in their organization can have something to refer to help them try to determine how they can help their organization, maybe get out of that circumstance, how they can help themselves, maybe the people within the span of control that they have, or have responsibility for. They can help them deal with it. It's a very personal choice to decide to actually confront those issues. If you recognize 'em in your organization. And a lot of people are going to choose differently than I did. My circumstances sort of dictated that I needed to personally dedicate myself to trying to help the organization that I had invested so many years in.  Gordon: (02:33) I really feel like I didn't have any choice. There was no other decision for me to make. And unfortunately even though I exercised what I think were the right steps, the right maneuvers to try to get people's attention, to build recognition of the problem, I failed at that. I have to admit that I didn't get that done. And in the end it caused me to have to change my employer, my career path a little bit, I had to relocate, a whole bunch of things happened, but that's, you know, I really can't advise anyone on specific approach or steps to take to you know, ultimately deal with that situation if they recognize it in their organization. But hope hopefully the book provides some tools to evaluate how to make that decision.  Adam: (03:29) Definitely. I mean, that must have been a very tough decision to make, especially job location and friends I'm sure. And like community, you had to kind of disrupt everything just to make that decision that you made.  Gordon: (03:43) That's correct. Yeah. There was a lot of circumstances and factors that weighed into our decision. I say our, because my wife played a huge part in that analysis to say the least. So yeah it really was life changing and, you know, I would've rather that it would've resolved differently, but that's just the way things evolved. And we made the choice that we did because we felt it was the right one.  Adam: (04:17) Yeah. So let's say I'm in a similar position and I'm starting to see signs of abusive leadership somehow in a management position at the company I'm at, you know, what steps should I take? Like what are the steps that someone should take when they start to see those things?  Gordon: (04:35) So if you recognize some of the things that I've outlined or specified in the book are happening in your organization coincidentally, I just, I just did at the request of my self-publishing company, I just did kind of a deep dive into that very subject and came up with a piece that will be shared with people that joined my email list and that type of thing. And there are certain things that I think constitute the right way to approach trying to resolve that in your organization. The first one I believe, and probably the most effective, if it is successful is to approach the individual or individuals that you think may be in control of the situation. So if it is your CEO, if it is your general manager that is truly turning the company upside down, or at least in your perception is doing that.  Gordon: (05:33) I think that's the first place to go. What better place to resolve it than right at the source, if you can gain some recognition and at least get the conversation started about, you know, why maybe you are misperceiving things. Although in most situations, if you recognize the things that were happening in my story, I don't think you're misperceiving anything, but at least to try to raise awareness with that individual or those individuals and get them to think about what may be the long term consequences, if it can be resolved at that level. I think that's probably the best solution. Failing that, or at least not achieving the level of success you might have liked. I think the next resource might be peers in your organization. So if you are at a mid or senior management level, there are other people that are in your group, so to speak, that you must interface with on a regular basis.  Gordon: (06:37) And if you can gain some recognition amongst that group, then you can sort of initiate an intervention, so to speak. So you've got a group of people who are of a like mind that can approach upper management or the senior management and let them know what you are observing collectively and what you think would be a better path to pursue. If you can't build that coalition, then the next place would probably be to try to get the attention of one or more of the elected board members, appointed or elected, however your board is constructed. There's really nobody else in the organization that should care more about oversight and really nobody that has more responsibility for that function. So if you can get the attention of at least one of those individuals, then I think they can actually spread the word amongst the rest of the board members and try to intervene and maybe right the ship so to speak.  Gordon: (07:58) So that's probably the next best place and then failing all of those things. You're kind of in my situation or the situation I was in. And really the only alternative I had at that point was to take my case to the public. And, you know, that ultimately ended up in blowing the whistle and having to file a petition to protect my employment, which ultimately failed. But that's the last resort. And I certainly can't advise anyone to take that step. The other alternative or the last alternative, I guess, to that step would be to just check out mentally or physically, you may just resign yourself to the fact, you're not gonna be able to change anything, move on to a different position, if you can find one. And there's a lot of advice out there in the community to do just exactly that, if you can't thrive at your job, if you are being harassed, if you're being subject...

Connect with Bruno: https://www.pesec.no/ Full Episode Transcript:Adam (00:05):Welcome back to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accounting perspective. I'm Adam Larson, and our guest today is Bruno Pešec. As you've probably noticed, we talk quite a bit about innovation here at Count Me In. After all, it's the mechanism for how companies create new products and services to drive profitable growth. Bruno is an engineer by training and an expert in helping companies think systematically about where continuous improvement ends and how robust innovation begins. His insight about how management accountants fit into the picture can often upend conventional wisdom, which makes this a discussion you do not want to miss. Let's get started.Adam (00:53):Bruno, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Really appreciate having you on as we discuss innovation within the corporate sector. And one thing I wanted to kind of start with is, you know, we've gone through almost two, three years of a global pandemic and organizations are really struggling to keep afloat, whether keep afloat, figuring how to use hybrid work from home, not work from home. Where does innovation sit in the midst of all this, as we're trying to restructure what the world looks like as we go forward?Bruno (01:22):So Adam first happy to be here. And second, great opening question. If I might add what I really well, I want to say what I really love about the last three years, but that's a wrong choice of words. So I will rather say what has became obvious in the last three years are good and bad habits in handling disruption and not just innovation, those companies and business leaders that were innovative before all these big changes happened, fared better, not because they had the best ideas or they had the coolest products, but because the process of innovation is the process of handling uncertainty. So they developed a skillset and capabilities that allowed them to handle this uncertainty. And innovation is one of those words. You know, you ask 10 people what it means you're gonna get 20 definitions. So I'm not here to tell you or your audience, what is the definition of innovation, but I want to share what is my take on innovation?Bruno (02:24):So whomever is listening that they know what am, what am I actually thinking when I use those words. So in the broadest terms, I consider innovation to be something new that creates value. Something new, not to the history of mankind, but new to your customers and to your organization. That's enough to qualify as new and value must be two by directional. So it needs to create value for the customers. Something that we have gradually gotten better at, but it also must create value for the organization. What sense does it make to create new product services and business models? If they drive you out of business? And this is where our accounting friends are very, very useful, sometimes maybe underappreciated, but back to your question. So the companies that were already innovative before they coped much, much easier in this disruptive periods, why? Because they were able to actually go back to their customers and learn how did their reality change, how people were buying and using your product could have changed overnight, just look at hospitality industry.Bruno (03:34):So everything dramatically changed. Incumbents, like big hotel chains or even smaller motel chains. They were just adjusting to what happened with Airbnb, booking, hotels.com and all these disruptors and bomb. Then COVID came and suddenly the whole industry was flipped upside down. And those that actually managed to stay afloat, they used a lot of different tactics, basically repurposing the whole venues for something else. So that, that was a good example of how did they handle disruption? What I've especially seen the companies that didn't handle it well, did all the same things. One, they tried to weather the storm. They said, okay, this is going to blow away in three months, six months, nine months, two years, three years, who knows how long, but they basically said we have our fat, we have our supplies. We have our business, let's just try to weather the storm.Bruno (04:32):Basically put our hand heads into the sand. That did not work. The only thing that we have seen is that all our projections were pretty much wrong. What we expected to be weeks than months turned into, well, we are in the third year, but we have a war that kind of is even more disruptive. So people are looking more to that. Another thing is besides trying to weather the storm was ignoring the changes in reality. So kind of just assuming that the strategy you had before the business model you had before the product portfolio you had before that it's still valid and kind of trying to keep optimizing that, you know, sending people home, working from home, hoping that will be lower operational expenses, but still keep the same revenue that did not work out so well.Bruno (05:24):And the third one was a failing to adjust the leadership mode. So what was really and remains very important in this period are leaders that are also able to provide this emotional and psychological safety. So kind of the leader doesn't need to have all the answers that's sometimes not even desirable, but the leader should always be able to say, I'm here for you. We gonna figure it out together. And those that were not able to kind of maintain that, that were not able to direct their crew in the right direction. No, the people suffered a lot emotionally, then that spills over into family spills over then back to the company on the performance. So these are kind of the things that I will highlight just at the top of the pile.Adam (06:12):For sure. Yeah. There's a lot, that's at the top of the pile and I'm sure more trickles down as we get into the conversation. So you start with what you kind of talked about, you know, where you kind of have to adapt leaders have to adapt. People have to adapt. The company needs to adapt companies that were innovating before have to continue innovating. They're probably a better set. So what about, you know, when you look at innovation like some, and you said something new that creates value is your definition of innovation, which I think is a great definition, but those outcomes, they can't be guaranteed. So how do you measure it? How do you measure that within an organization, especially when you have all these new factors, there's a lot of new things, a lot of new things that could create value are happening right now. So how do you measure all of those elements?Bruno (06:58):Yeah. Yeah. So Adam, I mean, I could probably be talking about this question for days, but we don't have days. So I'm going to focus on a couple of things. You nail the problem straight on the head. So what is specific for innovation is that no one can guarantee outcomes. Like it doesn't matter if you do everything by the book, if you follow the best innovation processes, you can still end up with a product service or even the whole failed project that there was no return on investment. But what we do have in control is the expense side, the organization side, the work side, what ideas do we select? What ideas do we prioritize over others? How do we fund these ideas? How do we control these ideas? What people do we put on them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.Bruno (07:54):So...

Today we go inside the financial transformation process at Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) with CFO John Greene. John joins Adam Larson to discuss how Discover’s focus on innovation and corporate culture has empowered the finance team to be better business partners to the entire organization.Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-greene-/Full Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In, the podcast that looks at business issues and trends from the management accountant's perspective. Today, we are speaking with John Greene, the CFO of Discover Financial Services, the company behind the Discover credit card and the television ads with the catchy tagline, "We Treat You Like You'd Treat You". I'm sure you've heard the term financial transformation before, which is basically the process of bringing digital tools and technology to the finance team inside organizations. Today, we are gonna look at how that process actually works at Discover and why it's critical to strike the right balance between driving innovation and making sure team members feel empowered along the way. Let's get started.   Adam: (00:51) So, John, I just really want to thank you for coming on the podcast today. It's, really a pleasure to have you on and today our focus is gonna be around finance and innovation and how those two connect together. And so as we start off, I just want to ask what are your guiding principles when it comes to finance and innovation and how they connect.  John: (01:08) Great. Adam, great to be here. So, you know, my guiding principles are first, we want to make sure we have the right people and the right sort of jobs. So by that, I mean, people with the right skillset, the right values, high level of integrity that are working towards a common mission, which would be to going to benefit our customers and the organization and the financial outcomes that we're seeking. So that's really, really important. And being able to connect the organization mission to individual objective's really, really important, both from an innovation standpoint, as well as from a team building standpoint. And then the second guiding principle would be to ensure we have the right organization design and the right structure to make people successful. So that includes having the right level of technology, the right commission, the right focus on innovation in order to have people feel like they're empowered to be able to make the changes that we're seeking to drive within the organization.  Adam: (02:19) But then when you look at innovation from an organizational perspective, is there like a definition of what counts as innovation? And then what does that look like for each employee?  John: (02:29) Yeah, so for me, innovation is a really, really broad concept. It can be as simple as changing the way we do do something on a day to day basis, which would be innovative, or it can be leveraging technology in entirely different way or leveraging new technology to drive innovation. So, you know, a couple examples of kind of changing the way we've done things here at Discover, without the benefit of technology would be, you know, our journal entry process. So we were doing almost two, 2000 journal entries a month. Every time we closed the books and through some process redesign some change of policies, as well as taking a different look at how we focused on certain accounts, we reduced the number of journal entries we did on a monthly basis by about 40%.  John: (03:33) So, think about it. That is, that is 400 entries that, you know, someone doesn't have to kind of put together, get the backup file, and then review. So, you know, without technology, a high degree of innovation there in terms of process redesign, we did the same. We did the same sort of thing with our FPNA, processes. So think budgeting and forecasting. We, took a look at what was important for the organization, how timely we needed updates on, where the company was going financially. And we eliminated, one third of the forecast we were doing. So what went down from six to four, what it did is it freed up capacity to spend time on analytics. Now, there are two examples that involved process redesign, not necessarily technology.  Adam: (04:34) Now we've deployed RPA, so we call them bots here in Discover and, you know, that has also enabled us to further reduce journal entries. It has also taken manual work out of a number of different areas within the finance organization. So, that that's been a win. And on top of it, we switched out from an old McCormick and Dodge, general ledger system, and just implemented, Oracle cloud, here. We put it in about, a year and a half. It went in, frankly, in a really, really smooth way on time under budget, but what that's enabled us to do is take out nearly half the cost centers we have here. So, the combination of kind of process redesign and leveraging technology and new technology we've really changed the way we work. And we freed up significant amount of time to analyze the business rather than tell the business or report on what has happened in the business.  Adam: (05:46) So as you've freed up that time to analyze, have you seen, have you already been seeing the benefits from even team morale being able to change their job description of, Hey, I'm going to stop these 400 extra journal entries to analyzing something else, has that improved even just employees as they get to do new things?  John: (06:09) Yes. Actually, so, you know, change can be, you know, harder on some people than others. And so what, what we've tried to do here is focus on a culture of, of creating positive change that will improve analytics and efficiency without the risk of job loss. So in the situation we're in right now, we have a level of normalized turnover, just like every organization does. And we've been able to absorb that turnover redesign, you know, people's kind of responsibilities or organizations without impacting kind of employment in a negative way by that. I mean, you know, we haven't had wholesale layoffs or reductions. What we've done is enrich people's jobs by taking out what I'll say is more transactional or non-value work. And, you know, that's translated into some positive results on our engagement surveys. And I feel like it's really been beneficial in terms of motivating some folks as we've been able to expand job responsibilities.  Adam: (07:23) That's amazing to hear that that's the initiative you've taken. I know that I'm sure the employees appreciate it, but it's also an innovative way of, looking at the human capital and investing in them as opposed to just slashing them and saying, well, we need to get rid of them.  John: (07:39) Yeah. And you know, lot of credit for that is to the organization, in the entirety. So Discover spent, you know, decades trying to create the right balance of financial performance and culture. And, you know, the folks that come here, I think have enjoyed that aspect of the culture in terms of trying to create an atmosphere that, you know, operates with as little bias as possible, that values innovation, that if values change, but also respects kind of human capital and tries to create the best experience for our teams.  Adam: (08:22) So you've been talking about the great improvements and innovations that have happened through technology and other ways that, you know, have helped the journal ledgers and using RPAs and bots. But what changes have you noticed in your responsibilities, and expectations, especially during these last two years with COVID?  John: (08:41) Yeah, so great question. So, you...

Connect with Braden: https://www.linkedin.com/in/braden-cadenelli-a0737b108/ Full Episode Transcript:Adam (00:05):I'm Adam Larson and welcome to Count Me In, the podcast that explores the world of business from the management accountants perspective. Coming up, I speak with Braden Cadenelli about the realities of implementing sustainability practices in the food industry.Adam (00:20):Braden is a professional baker in pastry chef who runs six state-of-the-art test kitchens for Puratos, a company which makes ingredients and products for bakers patissies, and chocolatiers around the world. This podcast helped me understand how sustainability practices must be baked into the financial planning and budgeting process at companies in order to drive long term value. And Braden is finding that management accountants are excited to work with him on his sustainability issues, especially when he brings the treats. Let's listen in now. Braden, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with us. And as we jump in to get started we know that many businesses are dealing with the reality that adopting sustainable business practices is really what's needed to be successful in the future and also is what's needed for our planet. Can you share a bit about your story, about how you came to see that this is a need and how you started the process with your company?Braden (01:20):Of course, Adam, thank you so much having me on today. I really appreciate it. And I'm excited to get to share and talk about a subject that I'm very passionate about, and that is sustainability and specifically sustainability within the food industry. There's really for our specific company where I work. We're Puratos, we're a bakery ingredient company. There's really two specific factors that have led us to our sustainability initiatives. The first one is that we are a family-owned company and the second generation of those families is starting to move into leadership roles within the company. And sustainability is a very important topic to younger people. Not to say it wasn't on the radar of the generations before not to say it wasn't important. It's even more important to the leaders who are coming up now, not only through our company, but in other companies as well.Braden (02:18):The second is consumer demand. We work in the food industry. There's a large demand over the past 10 to 15 years to clean up food. And a lot of people say they want to have food labels where they can pronounce everything on that label. If you're going to put that focus on cleaning up your food label and caring so much about the food you are creating as a food manufacturer, you have to care about how you're creating it. You have to care about every step of the system that gets you to that final finished product. And what that means is nowadays you have to have a sustainable system if for no other reason so that you can continue to be a successful business in the marketplace.Adam (03:11):I can see how that would be super important, especially if you're listening to your customers. Has it been difficult to start that path as especially with, you know, you're listening to your customers, but you also have to worry about your bottom line. So there's so many different things that you have to weigh. What has that process been like? Especially, you know, obviously this is a podcast for accountants, you know, what's this been look like as you're looking at your bottom line, working with your finance team, trying to see what is the best way to do this?Braden (03:40):Well specifically in my role. So to fill the listeners in a little bit, I manage a network of test kitchens within the United States and we have six test kitchens. That means I also have a little bit of a reach into some of our other practical physical facilities. When I work directly with our finance team in this aspect, it's all about long term planning. It is all about targeting the solutions that are going to work for our kitchens, and then making sure that we have the financial capital to be able to implement those solutions. So it's really, I have monthly meetings with the finance team, making sure that I am telling them what it is that I'm going to be looking into purchasing why I need to make these purchases and building out a proper budget. A lot of my job around sustainability is actually around budgeting and making sure that I'm doing the research and I'm talking to the right industry people and finding the right solutions and then finding ways to plan for them.Adam (04:43):That's great. So you have a really good relationship with your finance team then, because obviously if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to work on this project at all.Braden (04:51):Exactly. No, I'm very lucky. I mean, sometimes I have to bribe them with a cake or a cookie or a brownie if I really, you know, annoy them, if I forget to submit a report on time or if I forget to put a project through in power steering the right way. Generally speaking though. Yeah. We have a great relationship. It's really, for me, very interesting to get, to see that side of the business and get to play a role in planning out these long term projects and what the finances for those mean.Adam (05:22):So as you've become a partner with that team, are there other teams that you've had to kind of become a bridge with to kind of make this project a success?Braden (05:32):Yes. That's a great question because you cannot accomplish anything in any kind of business. It doesn't matter food industry or not. You cannot accomplish anything without learning how to partner with and work with other departments and other people. I heard a great saying once, and it was said to catch people's attention and it was all business is personal. And a lot of people, especially if you grew up watching eighties movies, you go, well, what about all those movies where they just said, oh, it's nothing personal. It's just business.Braden (06:01):All business though is personal because you're conducting business with other people. So what I've had to do is I've had to, A.) Get buy in from my own department, because when we're talking about sustainability, we're talking about changing people's daily activities because we are changing or removing resources that they are used to having. So I need to find solutions that they'll buy into. And so that they see the long term vision of this. I then have to sell the finance team on why we need to budget for this. For example, let's say we need to remove one use disposable item, but we need the CapEx to purchase a reusable item in its place, reusable that involves a capital expenditure, right. Something that I'm gonna use once and throw away. That's more OPEX. I control. I'm lucky I control OPEX for my department. I only have a small say in CapEx, right?Braden (06:59):The other people that I really have to have buy in from is our engineering team. They're the ones who are out there helping me, scour the industry and look for solutions. And then helping me implement the solutions. Because if we're talking again from a financial perspective, it's not only the solution. If I'm replacing, let's say a piece of technology, let's say a piece of bakery equipment that is very heavy in a certain type of utility usage. I need the tradespeople to take out the old machine. They need to install the new machine. There's an entire part of that process that isn't necessarily seen by everybody, but I need to worry about it and...

Connect with Sergio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lutav/Full Episode Transcript:Neha (00:05):Welcome to Count Me In. I'm Neha Lagoo Ratnakar. And today I'm speaking with Sérgio Tavares about design thinking and why it's crucial for leaders and management accountants to understand the basics of design thinking in a digital-first business world. Sérgio is a design leader at Frog where he researches humans, culture and society to create digital solutions that better meet consumer needs. This is a very interesting conversation as we discuss how management accountants can help shape the metrics and what data designers should be focusing on to alleviate pressure points and deliver better digital solutions. So let's get started with Sérgio.Neha (00:53):Welcome Sérgio. It's such a pleasure to have you on the show. Now let's start with the basics for people who might be new to design thinking. Can you give us a simple definition of design thinking?Sérgio (01:05):Hi, Neha. Thanks for having me on the show. I think design thinking is a term that came about already in the sixties and it talks a lot about what is the customer need, the end customer need? I think we came from an era of advertising and marketing that we're more trying to persuade the people to want certain things, to consume certain products and design thinking, subverted that by looking into what they really need the things they know they need, but also the things that they don't know yet that they need and supplying these needs.Neha (01:45):Wow. Okay. I love that. And I'm totally going to steal that in my next conversation.Sérgio (01:49):Great.Neha (01:51):All right. So I like how design thinking it keeps customers in the center and what are the challenges that companies these days are facing when it comes to this customer centricity?Sérgio (02:04):Yes, that's, that's an excellent point. I think many companies are finding a lot of challenge to compete with the startup scene. I think the startup scene is going through a change now. We're a little bit past the move fast break things time. So we are seeing the downfall of the first unicorns we had. We crash Zuckerberg had so many problems with democracy and then the whole thing with the fake news. And there's, there's all the ups and downs with Elon Musk going to Twitter. So there's a lot that is telling us that this first wave or this wave was over and companies are now need to compete in a different way with startups. I think that the challenge that companies are facing is also that startups, they have very well understood that they need to look into the customer needs.Sérgio (03:07):And it's very simple for them to do that. They just get out of the building as the jargon says and run interviews fast prototypes and then create their product or improve their product. And then when you come to AB corporation, this is very difficult because there's so much procurement hierarchy and it becomes very difficult to just move very fast. So when it comes to customer centricity, I think that is where startups have an advantage and companies have problem because they need to output the results. They need to push harder, their marketing efforts, their existing efforts, and rethinking their products around the customer is something quite demanding.Neha (03:53):Right. Wow. That, that was very insightful. And when you talk about being customer centric, how does that translate to being customer centric within the organization? For example, how does your work at Frog apply this customer centricity internally?Sérgio (04:10):Yes. I think the first thing that we come as a Frog consultant, for example, we come to a customer is like, tell me where the research room is. And that usually means that there is no room. And so that means that we need to structure that. So we need to ask first let's run a round of questions, a survey out there to your target customers or to a specific segment you want to work with. And that means also that this research that you order it'll fall into an empty drawer. So you need to create the drawer. You need to create a structure that will catalog and categorize research and put it into use in product development or marketing or on the operations. So I think that's the first thing.Neha (05:05):So building the airplane as you fly it.Sérgio (05:10):Yes, yes, exactly. That just gives us a bit of speed and it's easier to show that we are getting insights about the customers. We're getting ideas on how to make our product more desirable, viable, usable for customers. And that's usually a good way to start because in corporations, you need to start convincing like the whole hierarchy. So it starts to connect with the KPIs and it starts to need to connect to the financial numbers.Neha (05:43):Right.Sérgio (05:44):So it's not very easy to sell, like, okay, in 10 years this idea will pay off, but you can start by saying, let's discover what we can do to change things right now, and how a better experience, for example, of a digital service will mean less time that people take to let's say, use our product. And that means faster onboarding, and that means more revenue, right? So when you start to create this connection, that's when design thinking connects with financial departments management consultants and so forth. These connections are quite new designers. They were often seen as the creative side, and they are usually with high fly ideas. That won't be very sustainable. But when we start to work with business consultants that that's started to change.Neha (06:42):And you're right, the perspective on design is changing everywhere. I've also heard people talk about customer journey maps and our listeners who are many of them are from accounting and finance world, would like to understand how that helps clients with the accounting, most importantly, but also their KPIs, OKRs, metrics and operations, the hard facts of a business.Sérgio (07:09):Yes. So the customer journey is basically a map of all the interactions that the end customer goes through when interacting with your product or service. So that may seem very far fetched from accountants, but I would think it's not, for example, in a model that I have developed with the client during this year we have throughout the journey, all the pain points and highlights through the experience. So let's think of a, let's say a bank or an insurance company or any service, really. So you have a person that is first deciding if they're going to buy it, then they let's say in case of an insurance, then you have the time that a person's gonna make a decision. If they're gonna get a more premium account. And then they have another part of their journey where they're actually making a claim.Sérgio (08:05):So all these the customer goes through all these, what happens often is that the designers or the people taking care of the product are looking a lot on the customer pains. And they are telling for example, the company customers need to be able to claim very fast for where they have some, a broken, broken device at home. So we need to make this very easy. And then on the other side, you have the accountants, for example, that are saying, look if we make this just immediate, we're gonna have more fraud. So I developed this model where we add to the customer journey, the pressure points that are internal to the company, pressuring the solution stores customers. And then we can have a real...

Contact Michael Teape: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teapetraining/Teape Training International (TTI): https://www.teapetraininginternational.comGet my FREE eGuide 7 Best Facilitation Tips to Ensure Engagement & Learning to ensure your Online Training Success -> https://tti-signup.ck.page/eguideFull Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:05) Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson. Today, we welcome back Michael Teape to the podcast. Michael is a well known management coach and co-founder of Teape Training International. And he is here today to discuss how businesses can maximize their human capital, as we begin year three of COVID 19 era, and the Great Resignation continues. If you are a leader, trying to get your team back to business as usual, you do not wanna miss this insightful conversation. So let's get started.   Adam: (00:38) Michael, we really appreciate you coming on our podcast today. It's a pleasure to speak with you again, to have you come back to count me in.   Michael: (00:45) Thank you. It's great to be here, Adam. Thanks for having me back.   Adam: (00:48) Definitely. So let's just jump right into our topic today. So in your work with clients across businesses, how are people doing with the crisis as what we are heading into, what, the third year of it?   Michael: (01:00) Yeah. Can you believe it three years? No, that's just, yeah. Crazy. Well, it, every year it's changed. Right? Cause you can imagine that and as your listeners reflect back, they're gonna think, well, yeah, there was absolutely in the beginning, we didn't know what we didn't know. We were washing our vegetables, you know, we weren't going to the store and now we're way beyond that. We're managing that with seen threat come into our work. People have got COVID people have not gone to the hospital. Some have, unfortunately, so you've experienced it over two years. And as we come into the third, it's kind of normalized. It's baked in, it's like you get used to your environment. So, you know, most people are like, well, this is a reality, Adam, if I'm honest, that's what they're saying.   Michael: (01:50) And they're, going back to doing well, you know, may as well do the training. And from my point of view, you know, as a learning development specialist, face to face stuff was canceled the first year. And now in the third year, it is back on again, you know, they wanna do face to face. Haven't done it in a while. I'm not so sure that the employees want to do face to face. Cause they've got used to the virtual environment and they've worked out that actually it can work. It does work. We've been able to talk over, you know, over a virtual, just as much in fact, better than face to face, because face to face, most people wearing a mask, depending on which state you go to, depending on their level of infection. Yeah. So, you know, that's where we are right now.   Michael: (02:44) Also what I'm seeing Adam is people are moving jobs, you know, you've heard of the Great Resignation. So that's the other thing is really picking up speed now in the third year. The thing with that is that people are seeing opportunity. There is opportunity. So they're realizing that, well, I can work from home so therefore I can work pretty much from anywhere. Right? Yeah. So it doesn't, they're not as limited as they were before. So that's how people, I feel people are expanding their horizons on the work they can do and getting so much more comfortable with doing at home. So we've entered this era of flexibility. Unfortunately, last thing I'll say. And if, and those of you listeners who are leading others, I would say, this is that they're not being flexible. All right. So leaders have got to continue to be flexible.   Michael: (03:41) Even with the picture, the move back to the office. We want all of you back in the office, right? We want you all to come back and, you know what, we're losing some of that flexibility we've had for the last two years in this third year. And I feel that if leaders learn to continue the flexibility, they can continue to take advantage of a more flexible workforce and make them want to stay, want to work if you put in what I call, yeah. Of fake rules, unnecessary rules. Unnecessary. And I'll give you an example. There's a company that I know that remain nameless. They're like, right! We're all coming back to work. They've all been hundred percent remote, fairly small company. And right. We want all back at work, but we want you in Monday, Thursday and Friday, you can, you know, we'll be virtual Tuesday and Wednesday.   Michael: (04:38) You're getting these unnecessary rules and you must have your meetings. We want them face to face. So you need to have your meetings on the Monday, Thursday or the Friday. So you can imagine employees are like, hang on a minute. What if I wanna have a meeting on Tuesday, it creates all these unnecessary rules and decisions to be made when wouldn't, it have been easier just to say to the each team work out what days you wanna come in the office. We want to build up to a hundred percent back, but you know, happy to do 60, 40, whatever works as long as we're serving the client internally and externally, you know, I leave it up to your best judgment to make sure the work continues. Great, right? And then they can work on it. What works best for them? I'm seeing this over and over again. So how are people doing the crisis? I think they're doing quite well. They they're normalized it. They're getting on with it. They're looking for opportunities, other jobs. What we've gotta is being overly formal with how leaders bring their people back and teams back. We need to stay flexible.   Adam: (05:46) Yeah. So I can't imagine staying flexible would allow you to keep your workforce better because if you become more rigid, it says, well, if you're gonna be rigid, then I can just move on. Are there other tips that we can offer? Like for, you know, if you're thinking, okay, I lead a team, how can I adapt my team so that I can continue like being flexible, but what are other things that I can do to help keep my team together, but still be productive?   Michael: (06:13) The productivity is a funny thing. Yeah. So that's the first thing I'm gonna talk about here. Is it relax? Have they been productive for the last two years? Look at that. Has the performance been where you wanted it? If it is, you don't have a productivity problem. Yeah. If it isn't, then let's get into more communication with the team about your expectations. So focus. I think leading through this time now back to where people feel that COVID, isn't a day to day occurrence, or there's not another wave or they don't know tons of people that have it, getting people back, they really need to focus on what they want to achieve. And the way you do that with teams is you communicate with them. You ask them how it's going. You set expectations of what you're looking for.   Michael: (07:05) And then you coach them. You're really, really good at communication on, well, how are you prioritizing? How can I help you prioritize what you need to be doing in this time? What are some of the roadblocks getting in your way is for that leader to switch from, "I've told you my expectations" into a coaching style an...

Connect with Bharat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharat-kanodia-asa/ Tedx - https://youtu.be/zicGCnM8HagYouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/whatsitworthBlog - https://www.inc.com/author/Bharat-KanodiaFull Episode Transcript:Adam: (00:06) Welcome to Count Me In I'm Adam Larson. And today we're exploring the art and science of business valuations with Bharat Kanodia, the founder and chief appraiser at Vatra and Silicone Valley. Bharat has valued over 2000 businesses and unique assets, including Uber, Airbnb, and the Golden Gate Bridge. In our conversation today, he shares his insights on how company founders can seek to maximize their valuations and the key questions to ask venture capitalists before taking their money. It was so exciting to get an insider look at this process that drives so many of the innovations and companies in our lives. So let's get started Bharat. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us. And today we're going to be talking about valuations and venture capital and all that. So, just to start off, why, do valuations matter to a startup when you're just getting started?  Bharat: (01:10) Adam, thank you so much for having me. Startups never have a profit and they're lucky if they have a product or customers yet they need to attract investors, employees, and customers. So how do they do that? They do that by using a pie in the sky currency called valuations. And so company raised so and so money at this and this valuations, that's a pie in the sky. That's just, you know, way for them to attract people. That's their marketing almost nowadays.  Adam: (01:50) So is that actually accurate? Like how, how many times is that valuation actually accurate when you actually find out what the profit of the company over a certain period of time?  Bharat: (02:00) Well, accuracy used to be absolute back in the day, but now accuracy is measured in shades of gray, if you will. So yeah, I mean, you know, somebody cut a check for that valuation. So who am I to say that number is not accurate? It is accurate, but I would say it is inflated. and the reason it is inflated is because say, if somebody paid, raised $5 million and the evaluation is a hundred million, they paid only a $5 million for a fraction of the company. So they extrapolating that 5 million to a hundred million. Now, if somebody were to buy the entire company, would they pay a hundred million dollars? Probably not. It's kind of like difference between wholesale and retail. If I buy one cup, it's $5. If I buy 50 cups, it might be a dollar a cup.  Adam: (02:57) That makes sense. So that would be why a lot of valuations that you see, especially like when you hear about 'em on in the news, that would make sense why they're so high. So many times  Bharat: (03:07) They are high all the time, bebecause plus they also wanna show their employees that, Hey, look, last year, our valuation was 10 million and now it's a hundred million. So we've grown 10 X  Adam: (03:19) .  Bharat: (03:19) So you ought to be working harder and doing good things, you know? So this has become their marketing. You know, you never hear in the media that this company was at 10 million last year, and this year they're at 8 million. When was the last time you heard those news? No, never because they don't get traction. They're not sexy. Yeah. They don't get attention. So you only hear all these news and these headlines about these inflated valuations, because it feeds into the whole venture capital ecosystem.  Adam: (03:53) So I'm a venture capitalist, you know, what should I be looking at before I start investing in a startup that I see, oh, look, this has gotten, you know, this valuation, what else should I be looking at? Besides the valuation.  Bharat: (04:06) You should be looking at what they're going to do with that money. What have they done with that money? Have they grown that company that much? Or, just simply ask, Hey, why did you receive a, 5 million raise at a hundred million valuation? Explain it to me. Why? You know the question why, you'd be surprised is the most important question that people need to ask the how and the who and the, what, you know, you get lost. The why is the real question? And let people answer that question to you. You know, sometimes they'll explain it to you and sometimes they'll just say, Hey, somebody cut me a check for 5 million at a hundred million valuation. I am not going to say no.  Adam: (04:49) Hmm. I mean, not many people would, right?  Bharat: (04:52) Well, sometimes maybe you should, because at each inflection point they will expect you to double the valuation. So the next time you go out and raise capital and you're not able to raise capital at 200 million valuation, you're a loser. So whatever valuation you get this time, make sure you're able to raise, at least double that valuation next time.  Adam: (05:17) So how do you do that?  Bharat: (05:20) The biggest way to do that is to make sure your product is getting traction is growth in the product. They don't venture capitalists don't care about profitability or revenue. Anything like that. What they're really caring about is is your product or whatever you are putting out there as a product or a service is that gaining traction. And one of the metrics to measure how it's gaining traction is revenue. It's one of the metrics it's not the only metric the other metric could be. I don't know, traffic or users or what have you, but you have to just make sure whatever product or whatever you're putting out there is gaining traction. And it's doubling in size every year. If it's not doubling in size every year, you got a problem.  Adam: (06:03) All right. So, you know, your venture capital, your venture capitalist has said, okay, we're going to start. We're going to looking into your start. Investing in this startup. Are there multiple valuations that can happen to see? Hey, like this is where we're at at different times. Is that something that is commonly done?  Bharat: (06:20) Yeah. Most definitely. For example, this Stein, right? You're looking at the back end of this Stein. I'm looking at the front, right? I've got the logo here in the front. Somebody's looking from this side. Somebody's looking from top. Everybody sees a different perspective of the same time, but it is the same Stein. So everybody, you know, depending on the tax person or the accountant or the insurance or the investor or the employee, everybody has a different perspective off the valuation of the same company and they're not wrong. It's their perception. It's their perspective. but it's the same company. So if the company sold raise capital for, you know, raised $5 million at a hundred million valuation, that is one perspective. That is not the only perspective. That is a perspective. There could be another valuation of say 50 million or 20 million or zero. You know, somebody might say the company is worthless. Who's to say they're all incorrect. I would say they all are correct. Depending on the perspective they have.  Adam: (07:36) Do you have any examples of, of, of a time you've seen that happen?  Bharat: (07:42) Not one or two, I mean, many, many examples. I mean, every company that's out there right no...