The Journey of Two Finance Trailblazers: From Fraud to Transformation

"Failure is on the rise when it comes to transformation and change.” Chris Argent

Get ready for an inspiring journey on the 'It's not all about the numbers!' podcast with hosts Chris and Mike. Tune in as they share their captivating stories, exploring topics ranging from financial fraud to environmental data and the intersection of finance and transformation.

Discover the essence of pre-consultancy and community learning as Chris and Mike delve into their experiences and insights. Be intrigued by their discussions on collaborative knowledge sharing and the importance of bridging the gap between finance and transformation. Stay engaged as they explore topics such as leadership, change management, and the future of accounting and finance.

Feel the desire to embark on your own journey of learning and growth as you listen to Chris and Mike's engaging discussions. Experience the excitement of discovering new perspectives and insights that can help you navigate the challenges of today's financial world. Imagine the possibilities that arise when you embrace collaborative learning and harness the power of community to drive positive change in your organisation.

Tune in now to the 'It's not all about the numbers!' podcast with Chris and Mike. Gain valuable insights into financial fraud, environmental data, and the future of finance and transformation.

Episode Quotes

What Chris Argent said…

• "I still didn't like it that much. It was a very manual kind of role. I did work up to divisional CFO in medium sized companies. But I still didn't like it that much. To be honest with you, it felt like I was a back office player. I was in overheads. It felt like the value in that team wasn't really appreciated."
• "I certainly didn't like it, because of one moment in my career, which is when I found out that the group CFO was defrauding the company, which kind of hit me hard, I had to clear up all the shit related to it."
• "Failure is on the rise when it comes to transformation and change. And the CFO has got this mandate to make change. But there's a huge amount of failure. And I put this down to a sort of lack of awareness and understanding of change and transformation and lack of a vision, you know, for digital finance function, as I call it, you know, lack of positive action."
• "I was also trying to do all the forensics and build the case, which was a huge task and because it was a fraud over four years, and you'll have to meet me in person for me to tell you how they did it, because I thought it was appropriate, of course, but But now, you know, when you've been through that amount of pain in in a role that's been caused, frankly, by poor process and zero technology, and you've suffered the consequences of it, and the company almost went bust as well, you know, it was running a loss for quite a while until we discovered the fraud, and then all of a sudden, it looked like it was recovering."
• “I was no longer, you know, on reflection, I didn't realise this at the time, but I was no longer happy being, you know, a sort of passive back office leader, I needed to get out there and make change.”

What Mike Rose said…

• "So I suppose the short answer is that you asked me to do it. And it sounded like a good idea. But the sort of expansion on that is, so I'm not an accountant. I don't work in accountancy, but I have worked with finance people for years and years. And I think that in what you just described there, there's a translation question."
• "So I wrote down, I wrote down some notes, which is very unlike me, but the first line of my notes, I was almost a geography teacher."
• "So I went to university, the first generation of my family to go to university, and getting into university was the outcome, right? And so I finished it with a degree in oceanography and no clue. Absolutely no clue, never experienced and came across the professions. I didn't really know anybody that did anything other than my dad was a policeman, my mom was an accountant assistant."
• "So I switched it from this 5 million pound profit making business into a zero sum open data, give, give the data away for free for anyone to do what they want with."
• “My view, isn't it still, my view is that organisations, people would do much better to spend a little bit of money on pre consultancy, getting some experts in to help them understand the questions that they're asking, and knowing the answers before they then spend the big bucks on the thing.”

Episode Summary

This introductory episode of the "It's Not All About the Numbers" podcast explores leadership, change, and the evolving role of the CFO profession. Hosts Chris Argent and Mike Rose discuss their motivations for starting the podcast and share their personal career journeys.

Chris Argent explains that as a former CFO, he felt like a "back office player" and wanted to take a more proactive role in driving change within organisations. A defining moment was discovering fraud by the group CFO, which led Chris to pursue finance transformation work. However, he found that finance alone could not effectively transform businesses. Chris now focuses on raising awareness of trends like technology and talent through his company Gen Z CFO.

Mike Rose shares that despite studying oceanography, he ended up running a profitable open data business within the Environment Agency. This experience taught him the value of data and facilitated conversations between different stakeholders. Mike transformed the business to give data away for free, realising skills in negotiation and understanding processes were transferable.

As an outsider to finance, Mike provides a valuable perspective for CFOs needing to communicate across boundaries. Both hosts saw a need for CFOs to get closer to trends in their evolving role and have deeper discussions beyond numbers. The podcast aims to explore big themes and keep topics balanced and accessible through diverse guest co-hosts.

The hosts then delve into their personal meeting where they discovered synergies in Chris' finance transformation work and Mike's skills as a translator. They collaborated on projects through Chris' company Gen Z CFO and identified a lack of awareness as a blocker for CFO-led change initiatives. Many CFOs are tasked with transformation without proper training, often leading to expensive consultant engagements and failed projects.

This realisation led Chris and Mike to develop the idea of "pre-consulting", where organisations invest in upskilling themselves first before consultants. The goal is helping CFOs ask the right questions to commission solutions effectively. By sharing experiences from their community, the hosts hope listeners can learn from others' journeys rather than being sold to.

In summarising their motivations, Chris and Mike emphasise creating a forum for diverse co-learning and co-creation. The podcast aims to future-proof accounting teams and strategies through practical conversations on leadership, technology, talent and driving positive change for CFOs and their organisations. This introductory episode provides helpful context on the hosts' backgrounds and sets the stage for addressing these important issues in future episodes.

Episode Time Stamps

00:00 - 06:00 - Introduction - Mike and Chris introduce the podcast and explain their goal to explore leadership beyond numbers.

06:00 - 09:00 - Chris' Career Journey - Chris shares his experience discovering fraud and pursuing finance transformation work.

09:00 - 11:00 - Mike's Background - Mike discusses his non-traditional path from oceanography to running an open data business.

11:00 - 14:00 - Value of Outside Perspectives - The hosts discuss how Mike brings a different lens as a non-finance outsider.

14:00 - 17:00 - Pre-Consulting Concept - They explain how their collaboration led to the idea of pre-consulting for CFOs.

17:00 - 20:00 - Lack of Training for CFOs - The hosts analyse blockers like lack of awareness and the need to upskill CFOs.

20:00 - 22:00 - Community Co-Learning - They summarise the goal to create an inclusive space for sharing knowledge.

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