GrowCFO Show

Helen Cowan runs The Tall Wall, a coaching company that specialises in coaching ladies in senior leadership roles. Helen also leads the Women Finance Leaders group within the GrowCFO community. We chat about the issues that affect women finance leaders and the typical challenges she helps her lady clients overcome.

About Helen Cowan

Helen Cowan is an accountant and worked extensively on M&A projects within the big 4 before discovering her passion for coaching. She was fascinated by the way people performed. Helen was asked if she wanted to train to become a coach. She took that opportunity to re-skill and become part of KPMG's team coaching directors and partners. Ultimately this has led to Helen setting up her own business, The Tall Wall, and pursuing her passion.

The Tall Wall is an executive coaching business that specialises in working with female leaders and high potential women in professional services and large corporates. The business supports women, helping ladies go as far as they want to in their careers.

Helen also leads the women finance leaders group in the GrowCFO community.

If you want to take part in the monthly meetings of the women finance leaders group, they are open to all members of the free GrowCFO community. If you haven't already done so, why not join the community today?

What issues does the women finance leaders group address?

So far the women finance leaders group have identified three big issues that they want to work with Helen to address. These are:

Imposter syndrome

Branding

Having difficult conversations

The group operates as a discussion and self help forum,. with help and guidance from Helen and her colleagues. Helen uses the collective wisdom of the group to find ways through the challenges. Members of the group are at all sorts of different stages in careers, but have tremendous talent. An impressive group of ladies!

Imposter Syndrome

We talked about imposter syndrome last week on the podcast with GrowCFO mentor Catherine Clark

The group is really powerful and full of wisdom, but most members will admit to suffering imposter syndrome to some degree. Through the group though women can normalise their feelings and thats the start of the way through the problem.

Its a surprise finding imposter syndrome to be a problem among such a high calibre group. Helen and Kevin reflect that its something they have both seen among newly appointed partners in the big 4 even though the individuals are more than capable.

Helen believes that a good deal of the problem stems from comparing your inner to every one else's outer. You see someone who is apparently performing well and full of confidence, but you never realise that the other person has all the same insecurities that you do.

When people, men or women take on big roles, whether partner or CFO, it's natural to have some self doubt. Remember that 8 out of 10 people have the same feelings as you.

Personal branding for women finance leaders

Harvey Coleman's research in the 1990's shows that excelling at your job is only 10% of getting ahead. 30% is about impact and the impression you create. The remaining 60% is about your exposure. Who of influence knows how good you are? Many women will take the view the if you keep your head down and do a good job someone will noice you. Trouble is Harvey's research shows this is not true

https://amzn.to/2GgOXBN

Women are often conditioned not to brag and not veto blow their own trumpet. This is the crux of the matter and must be addressed, but in the right way.

Stage one is an audit of your network:

who has noticed the good work

Who is missing from that list,

What opportunities have you to shine in front of that person

Stage 2 is what gets in the way of you shining, and in practice this is often back to imposter syndrome.

Maternity leave

What are the big issues and how do you address them? Helen believes that the best organisations invest heavily  in one to one coaching for both women concerned and line managers. Its important that both parties fully understand the best way to deal with maternity leave.

Coaching covers before during and after leave. Its important that dialogue is happening between the new parent and employer at all stages. People need to keep in touch, communicate their wishes and expectations.

Almost all the problems happen when communication doesn't take place. Lack of communication leads to assumptions both by the woman involved and by the organisation. Lots of these assumptions remain unspoken and are often wrong. But what is assumed easily becomes reality.

The Tall Wall do a lot of work with organisations so that they can help women exit well and return well.

Group coaching for women finance leaders

Helen is starting an initiative for paid group coaching to go deeper with a select groups of ladies.   These will be small groups (4-6 people) meeting every few weeks and getting together with Helen and colleague Claire Allan. The format will be taking topics the women bring to the group and help them find answers through hearing the wisdom of others.

Small groups with committed members means that coaching participants will get to know and trust each other and this will allow the group as a whole to go deeper.

Helen is looking to get several groups going. This will help ensure individuals in each group are at similar career levels which will in turn create a better environment for participants.

If you are interested contact Helen: [email protected]

Catherine Clark is this week's guest on the GrowCFO Show. Catherine provides mentoring for CFOs and is part of GrowCFO's own mentoring team. We discuss the role of a mentor, the common issues that Catherine finds with her CFO clients, and how mentoring for CFOs can add value for both you the CFO and your organisation.

About Catherine Clark

Catherine Clark is a chartered accountant, she qualified with KPMG, and worked for several companies before taking on a role as CFO of a global consultancy, giving her 10 years of boardroom experience. During this time she became really keen on both developing herself and her team.

The CFO mentoring her own finance team

Catherine mentored her own team members. She found conversations with the team very honest. Because she saw people every day she knew their strength & weaknesses. Her people knew she was coming from a position of support, so this led to good quality trusting relationships.

Mentoring CEOs in the not for profit sector

Alongside her day job Catherine joined a scheme that matched women from the commercial sector to women CEOs in not for profit organisations. Supporting these CEOs made her realise she had a real liking for being a mentor and supporting other C-suite individuals.

Catherine found she was addressing two common issues; self confidence; and self esteem. She discovered her real passion is to help people overcome these.

These same problems are common across everyone. Catherine finds that its not just CEOs in the not for profit sector, but just about every leader she mentors.

Imposter syndrome is a common problem

At the core of these issues is something called Imposter syndrome. In short, people think they don't deserve to be where they are. This, of course, isn't true. Catherine finds people need to understand what holds them back before she can help them move on. She generally does lots of work on limiting beliefs. Catherine works with people on their strengths, this makes them affirm why they are so good.

One of Catherine's techniques is to take folk back to successes they have had in life, analyse the success, and appreciate the strengths that made it happen.

What makes for a successful mentoring relationship?

A successful mentoring relationship is all about developing trust. This starts with a chemistry call of about 30 minutes. Thats where trust first established, but builds over time.

Mentoring is always confidential. The mentors job is to actively listen and be a sounding board. It's as much about the mentee realising they can get to their own answer as it is supplying the answer.

The mentor needs lots of energy, being present in the conversation is vitally important. Catherine finds she must be in right frame of mind for every mentoring call so can't do lots back to back. She gets into right mindset by maintaining right balance in her life. Yoga, walking and some kind of personal mental or physical activity every day get her in the right place. This way she can turn up in every session as the best version of herself.

Mentoring for CFOs. How does it work?

What does mentoring for CFOs look like? How does it work?

Catherine likes to have a flexible arrangement that can be tailored to the needs of the individual CFO. Mentoring for CFOs will usually happen across 6 or 12 sessions. These sessions usually take place monthly.

Catherine has a structure, but prefers to work on what is affecting the CFO at the time. She works from current issues, but using a toolbox of things that can be adapted to the situation. Its a very practical hands on way of giving support.

What key issues crop up?

CFOs often believe they can't ask for support, so turning to a mentor for help doesn't feel natural. Often the CFO feels isolated, and therefore might need reassurance. The mentors job is might be to validate the CFOs thinking. For example the CFO checking a strategy process is being driven in the right way.

One big challenge is the amount of new stuff the CFO needs to quickly develop expertise in. The development route of most CFOs doesn't help. Its quite common for CFO to rise through financial controller and head of finance roles. The boardroom needs a whole different set of skills. The world changes at board level and a whole load of new stuff comes along. Stuff you never needed to know to pass professional exams, and nothing prepares you for the new role.

Suddenly you need to be a boardroom leader, an influential leader, not just a functional team leader. There are people looking up to you wanting to be inspired. You need to look outwards customers supplier investors, not just the finance team.

You will need gravitas to present new stuff to a new audience. This may need a huge change in style. Often its not what you say but how you say it and what your body language gives away. You need to give people faith that all is ok, or under control.

Catherine loves seeing CFOs rise to these new challenges. People transform, and it can happen quickly once they see the light!

GrowCFO's Mentoring for CFOs Programme

Catherine is working with both aspiring and first time CFOs in GrowCFO, as well as heading up women finance leaders group. The mentoring for CFOs programme provides support to help in the new role. Mentoring is geared to each individual, and is based around each person's strengths and weaknesses

The programme is mentee led. It starts with a chemistry call, one to one, to explore the outcomes required. We use this to make sure the right mentor is in place, the person that can support the mentee. The next step is to go into detail about where the mentee is now and what immediate support is needed.

GrowCFO gives you more than just mentoring

The mentoring programme is supplemented by the GrowCFO Learning centre. There are online programmes for both Future  and 1st Time CFOs. GrowCFO is fully CPD accredited, so you can use these to fulfil your professional body's annual requirements.

Alongside mentoring and online learning, GrowCFO runs cohort groups. These Cohort groups match you with a group of your own peers and you meet together to support each other. Together these 3 ways of learning make a great combination. Group sessions, mentoring, and online learning each play a different part in aiding your development.

In the end though its all about putting stuff into action. This is far more than just an online learning programme. New stuff comes up all the time, thats the fun of being a CFO. We support CFOs in a practical hands on way. It doesn't get boring!

GrowCFO provides both coaching & mentoring. These are very different. A mentor will always be a CFO, been there and done it. Coaching is more question led, and not necessarily supplied by another CFO. Instead it comes from a subject matter expert. GrowCFO has a range of such experts that can be brought in when coaching is needed.

How do you find out more about mentoring for CFOs

You can find more on GrowCFO's mentoring page, but the best thing is to talk directly to one of the team. Go book a free chemistry call. Take a look at testimonials from people we are already supporting..

Think about the time you waste by trying to do it all by yourself. Consider how a mentor can accelerate your progress and give you some time back.

Why not drive value faster in your organisation. Do you always show up as your best self? Can someone else help you do that and enjoy the journey at the same time.

You have to be yourself to be your best!

In April 2020 GrowCFO undertook a major finance systems survey. Dan Wells surveyed the entire GrowCFO membership, so the survey combines the experiences and opinions of several hundred CFOs. The GrowCFO membership includes CFOs from many industries and a whole range of business sizes. The finance systems survey gives us a great independent view of the landscape.

Who took part in the Finance Systems Survey?

Good spread of responses across sector, industry and size

32 different accounting systems represented

29% Single Entity Organisations V 71% Multi-Entity Organisations

27% Single Currency V 73% Multi-Currency Organisations

What finance systems are GrowCFO members using?

Startup / Small Business - majority will complete implementation inside 1 month / Mostly self service implementation without support (Less than £1,000)

Xero is dominant. Quickbooks, Sage 50, Free Agent less so

Mid-Sized Businesses - majority will complete in 1-3 months / Needs support to implement by the provider (£10,000 - £100,000)

Aqilla and Netsuite performed well. Financial Force, SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics and InforSunsystems less so.

Enterprise Businesses - majority over 6 months to implement with many > 1 year / Help required typically from a Third Party (£250,000 +)

Workday and SAP Hana performed well - Oracle ERP less so - Unit4 not representedA number of people still only using Excel (Not just startups)

To what extent are businesses using a cloud solution?

70% suggested using cloud products / 26% suggested using On-premise: with remote access / 4% suggested using On-premise: without remote access

We suspect this is misleading as some have answered cloud despite using known on-premise (hosted) solutions. Highlights the mis education of true cloud. The ability to access remotely does not necessarily imply a cloud solution.

What does the finance systems survey tell us about quality of software?

66% of responders rated their software's sophistication lower than 7

64% of responders with multiple entities say their software cannot manage consolidations

43% of responders with a multi-currency requirement said it performed average at best

30% of responders had done no integration yet

Of those that had done integration,, Expenses, CRM, BI, Excel were most popular

Only 42% people felt they would be using their system again in 5 years

11% would not recommend their solution to anyone!

92% of responders can access the software remotely (cloud or remote access to on-premise)

Only 50% of responders get automatic updates

25% of responders rated their finance system a 5 or less with respect to it how closely it meets their current requirements / 46% 8 or above

10% currently looking to replace

Of the 16 mainstream systems reviewed, only 7 performed 7 or higher for 'Meets Requirements'

Its generally accepted that you're doing well if your system does 80% of what you need it to. Once you are doing more outside your system than inside, its a true sign you need to make a change.

What does the survey tell us about the future?

The top 5 innovations responders plan to implement in the years ahead are:

API Integrations

Advanced Business Intelligence

Workflows

Mobile Expenses

Cloud Technology

Only 5% suggested they would not be implementing anything - the adoption of tech is in front of mind

In summary the GrowCFO Finance Systems Survey shows:

Modern cloud tech was the overall clear winner

A lot of businesses appear to 'settle' for their software and find workarounds to fill voids

Many poor systems are still in use. This may be fear of cost to change

Current system might do more than you suspect - especially if handover from your predecessor lacked information in this area. Poor account management may also be a factor - challenge them about what is possible.

If foundations are not right, future plans will eventually suffer.

Clearly still a big miseducation around cloud

We discuss the future finance function in a Zoom call every Tuesday lunchtime. Finance systems take up a large part of the discussion. You can join in by joining the GrowCFO community today. Membership is free.

Stuart Trood is a portfolio CFO. He undertakes the CFO role for a number of different clients, each on a part time basis. We caught up with Stuart to find out more about the work of the portfolio CFO and find out how to become one. Stuart also explains to us the importance of a support network of fellow portfolio CFOs.

Stuart Trood portfolio CFO

Stuart Trood has undertaken previous full time roles as both a CFO and a CEO. He worked for a range of businesses from large corporations to startups over a period of 30 years. Stuart wanted to take this experience and use it to help smaller businesses. Stuart wants the choice of working for businesses that interest him. He also wants freedom in the way he can use his time. He manages his commitments to maximise the time he can spend working on the things he enjoys most and to achieve a better balance between work and family life. Stuart became a portfolio CFO following the sale of his previous business. Following the sale he wanted to do something completely different and ddeliberately chose not to return to corporate life.

Does a portfolio CFO work fewer hours?

The portfolio CFO has the ability to work as much or as little as he chooses. The big challenge is balancing what you want to do and how you want to work with demands of the client. Stuart doesn't work any less but has more choice in what he does and when he does it. He wants to be involved in managing the business and not just the numbers. The portfolio CFO has more choice and can easily get involved in direction and strategy of the business in a hands on way. This may mean he works more rather than less.

How do you switch from corporate to portfolio CFO?

Stuart was fortunate. His transition was relatively easy. Following a business sale he got his first portfolio role quite quickly, but didn't have the financial pressure of needing to immediately find other roles. He had time to develop his portfolio.

Stuart found networking a key requirement. Joining the right networking groups is important. No matter how much you network its unlikely that everything will come together immediately. You need to be patient while your portfolio develops. You also need to be dogmatic, and stick with your vision. Its all too easy to give up too soon or take an opportunity that doesn't align with what you really want to do because you simply need the income.

There are various agencies for portfolio CFOs that will help you find work. Its worth investigating these. You can register with more that one.

Covid-19 has changed  the market

Covid -19 seems to have increased the opportunities for portfolio CFOs. This has happened in two ways:

Some businesses are struggling to afford a full time finance professional.  They realise they can buy part time support from a portfolio CFO rather than employing their own CFO.

Other businesses  may never have employed a senior finance person. They are realising they need extra support. Many of these can't afford the extra member of staff but may be able to afford one or two days a week from a portfolio CFO.

What does Portfolio CFO do?

The portfolio CFO isn't necessarily doing the books and the accounts. He may take on more of an oversight role. Alternately he might have more of a project focus. This can be business turnaround, or doing finance transformation.

On the other hand, the portfolio CFO might find it interesting to go back to the basics. It can be refreshing after corporate to be more hands on again. He can do some bookkeeping and  use systems like Xero "hands-on".

Stuart has found lots of variety. Covid has meant he has been involved in loan applications and managing the furlough scheme for his clients.

Can GrowCFO help the portfolio CFO?

Stuart originally came into contact with Dan Wells and the GrowCFO network because he wanted new networking opportunities with his peers. He has ended up running the portfolio CFOs community within GrowCFO. He is also the CFO of GrowCFO! Its part of his personal client portfolio. The community has become a great place for sharing experiences and learning with fellow portfolio CFOs . The covid crisis has actually been a great time to establish this group. Everyone has new questions to answer at a very difficult time. Sharing and collaboration has helped disseminate knowledge both quickly and effectively.

What to become a portfolio CFO?

If you want to become a portfolio CFO what are the 3-4 things to do in the next 100 days? Stuart has some clear advice:

Be certain you want to do it. Talk to existing Portfolio CFOs. Make sure you cover a range of people. Varying tenures and different disciplines. Find out as much as you can.

Work out who your first client might be. Don't step out of corporate into a black hole.

Figure out what networks you might need to join

Be clear on the sort of portfolio you want. What sort of work interests you?

Decide what lifestyle you want. This will impact on the sort of client you take on.

What about day rates?

Portfolio CFO rates can vary hugely. It all depends on what the business can afford to pay. Its not necessarily just day rates. Some CFOs will keep timesheets and charge by the hour. Others will commit one or 2 days a week to each client and charge by the day. Day rates can be £500 upwards

Rates will vary according to the type of work you do. Deep specialists in particular areas may be able to command higher rates. A portfolio CFO might also act as a mentor or coach. Mentoring day rates can be quite high. Some of the top mentors and coaches may well charge  £1000 -£1500+ per day.

Giving back

Money isn't necessarily the CFOs motivation. Both Stuart & Kevin want to pass on knowledge to next generation. There are many years of experience to pass on. For example navigating the financial crisis of 2008 has many lessons for the covid crisis. The role of CFO is changing rapidly, Covid has accelerated this, often with CFO being more hands on strategically. Portfolio CFO can bring big corporate experience into the small business that can't afford full time support.

Good time management is vital

It's Easy to be a victim of your own success. A good CFO will be asked loads of questions by the rest of the business team. He will become key member of that team and can easily end up working 12 hour days. Multiple clients can give conflicting deadlines. There is a real need to be disciplined and understand when to say no. The portfolio CFO role will easily creep from a part time to full time role. This can happen unintentionally and you end up back with a single full time role you never really wanted.

How do you find out more?

Join GrowCFO, its free. Once you join the GrowCFO portal you can make contact with Stuart. You can join the GrowCFO Portfolio CFO community. There's no cost to join. You can take part in monthly community meetings, make contact with the portfolio CFOs, chat, and get informal support.

This week's GrowCFO Show guest is Chris Tredwell. Chris runs the Future of the Finance Function topic in GrowCFO. Chris hosts a regular weekly live session over Zoom discussing the many different aspects of the topic. These sessions are free for any member of the GrowCFO community to attend.

Introducing Chris Tredwell

Chris Tredwell is currently part of the team at Aqilla. Before Aqilla he worked for a series of innovative tech companies from various industries. This led him to working with business and individuals all over the world. His passion is  to help his customers address their toughest problems and work with them to find best in class solutions.

Chris has international experience that spans SME’s, blue chip organisations, government entities as well as Industry associations and startups. He has managed relationships throughout the business hierarchy from entry level professionals through to C suite executives.

Who are Aqilla?

Aqilla is a modern Cloud based, multi currency accounting solution designed to suit the needs of demanding mid-sized (mid market) organisations. Its one of the systems to look at when you have outgrown Xero and Quickbooks. Gartner describes Aqilla as "Post modern ERP".

What is the future of the finance function?

The aim of future of the finance function is to allow CFOs to collaborate and understand the issues that the modern finance function needs to tackle to stay abreast of technology. The format is a weekly meeting, every Tuesday, using Zoom. The Zoom call is open to all members of the GrowCFO portal. These sessions can be discussions amongst members, or a subject matter expert giving a presentation followed by a Q&A.

Chris arranges and chairs each session. Though he works for Aqilla, he remains impartial and the future of the finance function sessions are generally technologically agnostic.

We record each session. Recordings are published within the premium section of GrowCFO meaning that premium members can access the back catalogue of topics covered whenever they need.

What topics has Future of the Finance Function covered?

The very first session was an open discussion amongst members and this highlighted quite a number of areas that the community wanted to explore further. From this Chris compiled a list of topics for future sessions, the things that CFOs wanted most. So far these have covered:

Remote finance function, a very timely session as many CFOs were struggling with remote working at the beginning of lockdown

The results of the finance systems survey, where the community pooled their combined experience.

Automation and integration. This continues to be one of the hottest topics CFOs want to know more about

BI tools helping CFOs provide more insights into their business.

Managing change. Most CFOs haven't been trained in change and lack skills in this area.

Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, the Wild West for many CFOs.

Digital Transformation, which impacts the whole business and draws the CFO out of his comfort zone.

Just joining GrowCFO now? Don't worry, you haven't missed out on all of this. We record every session. Become a premium member and theres a whole back catalogue of recordings you can access.

How does the Future of the Finance Function community work?

Many CFOs have made the leap from a financial accounting role into the boardroom. GrowCFO helps those CFOs develop the skills they need to become a strategic advisor to the board. Some members aspire to be the next generation of CFO while others have many years of experience. GrowCFO's role is to allow you to collaborate and network.

The future of the finance community is all about sharing knowledge. You can learn from other CFOs who have been there and done it. Many CFOs feel isolated and the CFO community can help break this.

Future topics

There's still lots to talk about. Some of the topics in the pipeline include:

Making tax digital which is fast  becoming a hot topic.

Cybersecurity.

More on KPIs and non financial reporting.

As always the agenda will be driven by the needs of the GrowCFO community so the agenda will evolve to meet members needs.

The future of the finance function is the cloud, but is the cloud safe?

The future is cloud accounting and integrating systems using their APIs. That means your financial data is stored by somebody else. Is your data safe? Its a question every CFO asks as he moves his finance system from a desktop application to the cloud. I asked Chris his view on this.

Chris points out that CFOs and CIOs of small or medium businesses generally aren't data security experts. The big cloud providers have that expertise so why not use it?  Aqilla has just transitioned to Amazon AWS. Amazon has great capabilities, and deep expertise in cloud storage and data security. Its a great place to trust with your data.

Have you joined GrowCFO yet? Find out more about the community and how it will benefit you and your business.

Welcome to the very first episode of the GrowCFO Show. In this episode Kevin Appleby chats to GrowCFO founder, Dan Wells, about why he left the "big 4" to set up the GrowCFO network. We chat about GrowCFO and what it offers to both existing and aspiring chief financial officers.

 

Who is GrowCFO founder Dan Wells?

Dan is a chartered accountant with almost 20 years experience in the big 4. Latterly he was an equity partner in KPMG. His role made him a trusted business advisor to entrepreneurial businesses who have built and sold their companies for a combined billions of pounds. He is an FCA member of the ICAEW (ACA-qualified in 2004) and has a first-class degree in mathematics from Durham University. Dan has a great working knowledge of most common business challenges and opportunities, and a strong track record of supporting businesses and their key executives throughout their life cycles.

You can check out Dan's LinkedIn profile

Why did Dan Found GrowCFO

Dan met many CFOs as part of his last big 4 role. There was a common question that they all asked him. He found that CFOs always wanted to know what their peers were doing. Dan realised the finance community needed a easy way to collaborate. CFOs needed a place they could share their knowledge, network, and talk about shared issues.

Dan observed that CFOs often feel lonely, and have few people to turn to within their own organisation or immediate circle of associates for good advice or to debate issues. Dan decided to do something to solve the problem and started GrowCFO. The initial GrowCFO portal contained interesting articles and allowed the community to start talking and sharing.

GrowCFO arranged many Zoom session, allowing members to chat about interesting topics. These really developed during the early stages of lockdown when CFOs were keen to chat to their peers and find out how each other were coping in crisis.

These discussions lead to GrowCFO developing white papers, particularly looking at how individual industry groups were being affected by Covid-19.

Polls and surveys have followed, and these have been a great way of bringing together the expanse of members knowledge into easy to distil findings.

Who is GrowCFO intended to help?

Dan sees four distinct groups of GrowCFO member

* Future CFOs; those that aspire to take on the CFO role in the near future.

* 1st Time CFOs, still growing into the role and wanting to extend their skills and knowledge

* Experienced CFOs with lots of experience to share with the community

* Portfolio CFOs, working part time across a number of different organisations.

GrowCFO gives something specific and unique to each of the 4 groups, but the dynamics of these 4 types of finance leader collaborating and sharing with each othe...

Welcome to the very first episode of the GrowCFO Show. In this episode Kevin Appleby chats to GrowCFO founder, Dan Wells, about why he left the "big 4" to set up the GrowCFO network. We chat about GrowCFO and what it offers to both existing and aspiring chief financial officers.

Play the audio version

Or watch the video

https://youtu.be/IzGeW50AehU

Who is GrowCFO founder Dan Wells?

Dan is a chartered accountant with almost 20 years experience in the big 4. Latterly he was an equity partner in KPMG. His role made him a trusted business advisor to entrepreneurial businesses who have built and sold their companies for a combined billions of pounds. He is an FCA member of the ICAEW (ACA-qualified in 2004) and has a first-class degree in mathematics from Durham University. Dan has a great working knowledge of most common business challenges and opportunities, and a strong track record of supporting businesses and their key executives throughout their life cycles.

You can check out Dan's LinkedIn profile

Why did Dan Found GrowCFO

Dan met many CFOs as part of his last big 4 role. There was a common question that they all asked him. He found that CFOs always wanted to know what their peers were doing. Dan realised the finance community needed a easy way to collaborate. CFOs needed a place they could share their knowledge, network, and talk about shared issues.

Dan observed that CFOs often feel lonely, and have few people to turn to within their own organisation or immediate circle of associates for good advice or to debate issues. Dan decided to do something to solve the problem and started GrowCFO. The initial GrowCFO portal contained interesting articles and allowed the community to start talking and sharing.

GrowCFO arranged many Zoom session, allowing members to chat about interesting topics. These really developed during the early stages of lockdown when CFOs were keen to chat to their peers and find out how each other were coping in crisis.

These discussions lead to GrowCFO developing white papers, particularly looking at how individual industry groups were being affected by Covid-19.

Polls and surveys have followed, and these have been a great way of bringing together the expanse of members knowledge into easy to distil findings.

Who is GrowCFO intended to help?

Dan sees four distinct groups of GrowCFO member

Future CFOs; those that aspire to take on the CFO role in the near future.1st Time CFOs, still growing into the role and wanting to extend their skills and knowledgeExperienced CFOs with lots of experience to share with the communityPortfolio CFOs, working part time across a number of different organisations.

GrowCFO gives something specific and unique to each of the 4 groups, but the dynamics of these 4 types of finance leader collaborating and sharing with each other collectively is very powerful.

The role of the CFO is constantly evolving, and there are always new things to keep up with and learn about irrespective of your background or years of experience.

The Future CFO programme

The GrowCFO Future CFO programme has been borne out of lots of discussion with our community of aspiring CFOs. The next generation of finance leaders. We realised that something needed to be done to help folk who had moved up through financial controller and head of finance roles to transition from back office to boardroom.

Most business accountants qualify early in their career, and learned about the basics of accounting, law, tax, and financial reporting. They now need to be future facing and operate strategically at board level. The big challenge is learning how to become the catalyst of change in the organisation.

The Future CFO programme is mostly online self paced learning, and can be found in the GrowCFO learning centre. It contains lots of individual lessons, many with video input from our experienced CFO community.

Alongside the programme we offer prospective CFOs the ability to join cohorts of their peers in order to support each other on the journey to gaining that first CFO role. Each cohort consists of 10-12 people who meet monthly on Zoom. Each Zoom session maps to one of the modules in the Future CFO learning programme, and quite a few involve our more experienced members offering advice and guidance.

Many of the experienced CFOs have joined in order to give something back and share their learning, and one reason we created future CFO is to allow experienced CFOs help the next generation gain the right experience & knowledge.

GrowCFO has an active community of portfolio CFOs

Quite a number of portfolio CFOs have joined our membership, and have formed their own active and lively community. These folk will generally have two or three CFGO roles across different companies. Stuart Trood, GrowCFO's own CFO, is himself a portfolio CFO and is taking a leading role in this community.

Many of the portfolio CFOs are towards the end of their career having previously had a full time CFO role. We have seen two trends emerging:

More younger CFOs wanting the variety and flexibility of a portfolio roleMore companies wanting the services a CFO can offer, but not being in a position to employ somebody full time ion the role. There's lots of demand in the fast growth companies in the high tech sector.

We see a key future role of GrowCFO in helping CFOs prepare to take on a portfolio role. GrowCFO can support them by teaching some of the sales and marketing skills they might not previously have had need for.

Monday Masterclass and An Audience With

Once a month GrowCFO hosts a Zoom session either with an expert in a subject area who will present to our premium members, or we interview an experienced CFO about his career and cover some of the particular challenges he has faced.

July's An Audience With was hosted by Stuart Trood. Stuart Interviewer Richard Baker about investment strategies. Richard is a partner with Acuity Advisors.

In August Kevin Appleby presented a masterclass on cost reduction.

GrowCFO Women finance leaders group

Women are under represented at CFO level. Only around 20% of CFOs are female. We want to do something about that. The women finance leaders group is now meeting monthly and we are working in conjunction with Helen Cowan. Helen runs the Tall Wall executive coaching service and specialises in helping and advising ladies.

The group is exploring the common issues faced by the senior female finance leader. It looks at issues such as

Juggling family and workUnconscious biasImposter syndromeInfluencing,Operating in male dominated environment

Polls and surveys

Earlier this year GrowCFO undertook a big survey about Finance Systems. A significant number of GrowCFO members responded to the 20 questions we asked. We wanted to find out what are the right finance systems for different sizes and types of business. Our members experience covered 32 different accounting systems and allowed us to give a very candid and revealing view of the finance systems marketplace.

The survey gives a great deal of information and we will cover it in a future episode of the GrowCFO show.

Since the survey we've been running shorter polls, almost one a week. These ask members about a variety of subjects. Questions have included:

What are biggest tech challenges?When expect finance fully automated?

Future of finance functions

The finance systems survey revealed our members thirst for information about the future of the finance function. In particular how technology is driving change in the back office. Members have concerns over many issues, and we are gradually, week by week, addressing these.

Chris Tredwell leads the Future of Finance Function. It meets weekly over Zoom.  Anyone can join the live Tuesday lunchtime call, and recordings are available for our premium members. We're planning to interview Chris for a future episode of the GrowCFO Show.

Topics covered so far have included:

A detailed review of the results of the finance systems surveyBusiness change and benefits realisationDigital transformationBlockchainCryptocurrencyAutomation and IntegrationOpen bankingSelecting the right people for a systems project

There's quite a knowledge library building up, and if you join GrowCFO premium you can listen back to any of the sessions you might have missed.

Its not just about finance

Mark Channon & Andrew Tallents both offer coaching in different areas of high performance. Andrew has run a series of workshops on self coaching.

Mark Channon originally trained as an actor, before becoming one of the first 8 people in the world to become a Grand Master of Memory in the 1995 World Memory Championships. He shows your how these skills can give you an edge in business. Remembering names and presenting without a script are two key subjects he covers