Joy Mbanugo

Off the back of a long and illustrious career, Joy Mbanugo has some sage advice for today’s CFOs:

“If you're in finance right now, and you're not thinking about AI, you’re going to get left behind!”

We sat down to hear her expert take on the future of finance, and how she’s supercharging finance transformation at ServiceRocket and beyond.

The making of a modern finance mindset

Joy has her parents’ tough love to thank for kickstarting her career in finance as a young intern:

“My dad effectively cut me off financially and told me to find a job even though I was still in school! But it was cool because I was able to pay my rent and have money to go out and do things with my friends in my twenties, unlike a lot of my peers!”

So began Joy’s journey to her current role as CFO at ServiceRocket, from the USA to the UK and back again.

Whether taking on a variety of roles at the likes of Google and EY, or more recently joining VC fund “How Women Invest” as esteemed operating partner, Joy has never been one to shy away from broadening her horizons. It’s a mentality that’s set her up well to embrace digital disruption:

“Amazing things are happening with AI in every area of our lives, not only in financial services. It’s not just finance folks who need to pay attention!”
 

The moral of the story according to Joy is that anyone and everyone can stand to gain by embracing digital transformation, whether that’s AI in finance or AI in your day-to-day life:

“There are new tools being built today that are better, faster, and smarter than anything we’ve had before. If you don’t get to grips with what’s available, in five years time you’re in danger of becoming obsolete.”

Implementing AI in finance

Rather than letting teams run amok with the latest AI tools, Joy takes a more considered approach to digital transformation in finance:

“I encourage my team to use ChatGPT responsibly, and the key word there really is responsibly!”

At ServiceRocket, that looks like leveraging AI to keep the digital finance function connected and working in tandem, even when spread across the globe:

“I have team members everywhere, from El Savador to the Philippines, so English isn’t everyone’s first language. Even basic, entry-level uses of ChatGPT, such as getting them to put financial analyses into the system to ensure accurate translations into English can make a big difference.”

For Joy, the tide of digital change has been fast-paced, but worth it for the time it’s freed up as a result:

“Just two years ago, if you’d asked me to write a backlog process, it would’ve taken so much effort. I would’ve needed to interview everybody and write out all the steps - it would’ve taken me a week! Now, I just tell my team to write up a couple of questions, prompts and facts and put it into ChatGPT instead.”

Admittedly, getting her teams to relinquish legacy ERP systems in favour of new tools has taken some convincing at times. But a bigger barrier to digital finance transformation has been getting the business to loosen those pesky purse strings to invest in finance as a digital function:

“Let’s be honest, finance is never the first team you go to with a tonne of money to invest in. At least not at the big companies I’ve worked for! It’s therefore crucial to be able to make a good case to the CEO why investment in finance transformation is good for the business as a whole.”

Shaping the future of finance

So what motivates Joy to wake up for another day of making waves as a senior leader in finance?

“My kids - literally! My three month old woke me up at 4:30am this morning. They keep me on my toes!”

Life as a working mother and CFO isn’t for the faint of heart, so it’s no surprise she’s been approached by junior staff seeking advice on how to achieve similar levels of career success:

“A young woman recently asked if I’d be her mentor and I was probably happier about it than she was! Helping others grow in their careers is hugely inspiring to me. People get scared to approach senior leaders for that kind of support, but I always encourage them to go for it.”

Her top advice for aspiring CFOs? When in doubt, get curious:

“Do everything you can in finance to get a broad view and understand it as a function holistically. But above all, be intellectually curious about everything in life, not just about AI in finance. It’s the best quality to have as a leader and as a human  being moving through the world.”

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