Aslan Sissekenov

With key roles at global giants and dynamic start-ups, Aslan Sissekenov’s career has been far from uneventful. But his early impressions told a different story:

“At the start of my career I thought finance was boring! But the more you dive in, the better it gets.”

We sat down to hear more about how he’s leveraging digital transformation in finance to stay at the cutting edge of AI, and getting the balance right between good talent and good tech to drive innovation.

Leading finance transformation

Aslan’s native Kazakhstan was the ideal proving ground for a budding career in finance:

“Kazakhstan is a huge country dealing with a lot of local and international companies combined. Starting my career at KPMG there I was lucky to be working with big clients from the get-go.”

Those early days bring back memories for Aslan of just how manual financial auditing used to be: 

“At one point I went through every single transaction over the course of a year for one of the biggest energy companies in the world, ensuring each item was money spent in accordance with government legislation.  It’s a testament to the level of hands-on work we had to do back in the day, before digital transformation in finance was really a thing!”

A move from KPMG Kazakhstan to KPMG London meant a switch to an eclectic range of industries from telecoms to the travel space - and a huge uptick in management responsibilities as a result:

“At one point I had fifteen ongoing clients, which also meant managing fifteen teams! It was challenging to say the least, but an experience that really helped shape the leader I am today.”

Challenging, but not challenging enough so it would seem, since Aslan made the switch to the world of start-ups once he felt his professional development begin to plateau: 

“My career had been great up until that point, but the learning curve just wasn’t steep enough for me. I didn’t want to get stuck doing the same thing over and over just on a slightly larger scale. I knew it was time to take a risk and try something new.”

From his time at health-tech company Peppy, to his current role as Head of Finance at Papercup - a powerhouse in AI dubbing and translation - the start-up space has been perfect for Aslan to flex his finance transformation skills: 

“At Papercup, we’re in an industry that’s becoming increasingly competitive, so leaning into digital transformation for finance helps to stay ahead of the curve. For example, historically finance has been the one to pull data and present it, but we’ve got a dedicated non-finance data team helping me drill down into every element driving our growth which has been a game-changer.”

Redefining the digital finance function

We’ve all heard ad infinitum how finance transformation has a lot to do with freeing up finance teams to do “value-add work.” But you might be forgiven for feeling a little hard done-by at the implication finance hasn’t been adding value all along, says Aslan:

“People use the term value-add but it’s not like that work wasn’t adding value in the first place! For me, finance transformation is more about making the value of the work finance does more visible.”

The finance function is far from mundane, simply misunderstood, and next time you run into someone who needs convincing of the fact, Aslan has an analogy to help:

“A career in finance is like an RPG game: you start off with a basic set of tools for a seemingly boring set of tasks, but over time you grow and grow until you’re basically a god who can see everything going on across the entire business!

Hard to argue with the value-add of an omniscient being. For Aslan, finance transformation is at the heart of levelling-up to become a major player in business partnering: 

“Automating those early stage tasks in a person’s finance career just helps speedrun the beginner stuff (...) Even with all the developments in automation, I don’t see any company not being reliant on a good finance team and a strong CFO to support them.”

Balancing tech and talent

So what exactly does digital finance transformation look like at a video translation start-up? 

“One of our biggest business goals at the moment is improving the efficiency of our video translation pipeline. Making processes better and faster is as much a financial goal as it is for the rest of the business.

At Papercup, taking a human-in-the-loop approach to machine learning (integrating human input and expertise into the lifecycle of AI systems) has been the best way forward to boost efficiency and growth. 

But getting the balance right between investment in automated tech and honing the digital transformation skills of your employees has been a learning curve to say the least:

“We realised early this year that we’d been focused so much on the automated part, that the human element was sorely lacking, which is crucial for translation work as so much can go wrong. The pipeline might spit out something politically incorrect, or a concept that exists in one language but not another. We need that human element to address those things.”

For all the developments in AI then, the necessity of attracting the right tech-savvy talent is clear - something that Aslan highlights as a particularly key challenge for digital transformation in finance: 

“A lot of bright minds are going into data functions where there are opportunities in machine learning or engineering. That’s having a downstream impact on a lot of things that we do here in finance. There's still a lot of smart people out there, obviously, but we need to improve the branding around what a finance function actually is to attract them.”

Aslan is as good an advert as any for the fulfilment a career in finance can bring:

“I used to think being a CFO meant doing financial work 80% of the time, and dealing with people for the other 20%. In reality it’s the reverse. That cross-functionality has meant every business I’ve joined in a finance role has been a pool of knowledge to swim in and I think that’s exciting. One thing’s for sure, it’s never been boring!”

Connect with Leaders like Aslan Today

Check out our Pro vs Exec Membership and discover how you can build connections, boost your career, and connect with other future-minded leaders.

Join GENCFO