Have you ever read the story of Rumpelstiltskin? You know the one where under threat of death a young woman is forced to seek help to turn something fairly common like straw is into gold. In effect the story makes reference to the practice of alchemy (spinning straw into gold), and this got me wondering, sometimes as…

I recorded a podcast this week with a senior finance professional who had also ran his own business and it got me thinking that nowadays in most large enterprises finance managers and leaders also supplement their accounting training by undertaking an MBA (Masters of Business and Administration). Interestingly whilst on this course you learn the…

It was a 15 minute conversation with a Mentor that helped chance the direction and success of my career in Finance. But up until then I was slow to ask for help, and even slower to pick up on the idea that Mentors could help me in my career. So let’s say you take the brave…

Recently when talking with a fellow finance professional our conversation switched over to which martial arts style is best? Which is better, jujitsu, kung fu, karate, judo, krav maga, tae kwon do, or something like Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)? I’m not an expert in any of these, but having dabbled with a few of them…

Most people think that business involves decisions around selling more stuff or spending less money, and accountants would typically record the results of these types of activity in a profit and loss or net income statement, but is this enough to ensure enterprises achieve sustained profitable growth? Well intuitively this type of profit & loss mindset assumes…

One of the main truths we know in Finance is that income follows on from assets so long as an organisation is managing them well. I believe the same can be said for all the teams within organisations and in particular Finance, but as finance professionals in order to manage our assets so that they…

As accountants and finance professionals we’re expected to have great attention to detail and the numbers, in fact it’s a large part our training, but what if we’re paying attention to the wrong things and so limiting our ability to make a meaningful impact at work as well as holding us back from having a…

Over the years Finance professionals, whether having gone through business school or as part of their accounting training, have been taught and introduced to various economic concepts and mental models that if applied correctly can help create more value for our organisations and help them be more successful. These tools and models I refer to…

In a previous article I suggested that an effective vision, as much for finance professionals as the organisations we support, starts and ends with value creation for the relevant stakeholders, which is the only reason for any business to exist. Relevant stakeholders can be found in the 4Cs diagram and can be those customers, company owners, communities…

There’s an old saying: “Where there is no vision the people perish.” PROVERBS 29 VERSE 18 Which means that there’s two types of vision for finance professionals, there are those who have no vision and so are held back in their careers and struggling to make a meaningful impact with their organisations; and then there…