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Cool Careers in Accounting Ep. 1 - The Private Equity CFO who “Loves her job!” with Laura Thompson
176 Plays4 months ago
Laura Thompson, CPA, shares her journey to becoming the CFO of a private equity firm. After 10 years in Big Four, she moved into private industry on the fast-track to leadership—fighting the feeling of imposter syndrome to achieve success. She emphasizes the power of hard work, building and maintaining relationships, and the range of opportunities with a degree in accounting.
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Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
Okay,
Introduction: Laura Thompson's Role as CFO
00:00:10
Speaker
Spencer Payne here with Becker and another edition of Cool Careers in Accounting. I'm here today with Laura Thompson, CPA, and CFO. Laura, can you just help, like rather than me introduce you, can you just tell the audience to your friends and family, what is it that you say that you do in your work? How do you describe yourself? Yeah,
Understanding the CFO Role: Beyond Taxes
00:00:31
Speaker
absolutely, Spencer. Thank you so much for having me. And like Spencer said, my name's Laura Thompson. I'm a CPA.
00:00:38
Speaker
And I'm currently serving as the chief financial officer and chief compliance officer of a private equity firm based here in Houston, where I'm located. And so depending on who I'm talking to, if they are financially so sophisticated, I might tell them I'm a CFO, but others, if you say CFO, they might have no idea what that is. And so to other people, I just say, oh, I'm an accountant and I leave it there.
00:01:04
Speaker
A lot of people may know what private equity is, but definitely others don't. And so sometimes I'll just explain, I work for an investment company. We invest money on behalf of institutions and individuals to try to drive shareholder returns back to our investors. So it really depends on how detailed I am or maybe the sophistication of my audience, I would say. yeah Perfect. And when you say when you say you're an accountant, how many of them ask you about taxes?
00:01:34
Speaker
everyone. There you go. That's the everyone. In fact, i I am fairly certain that my grandparents still think that I do taxes. And, and you know, to their credit, I do help my mom with her taxes, and I help several family members with their taxes. and So there you go. They're not completely wrong. but They're not completely wrong. But it is so much more than that. ah Exactly. Everyone thinks accounting tax. Actually, I didn't specialize in tax. But you got But you can still do it. and um And how do you know in this role that you're in now? How how do you know you're
Measuring Success in Private Equity
00:02:08
Speaker
doing your job well? like what are what What if anything can you share around, you know, it's at the end of the year, I did great this year. like how how do you How do you kind of have a gauge for that? How do you know?
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. I feel like there are so many different metrics that I look at. I mean, one would be just kind of where our performance is as a firm. Now, of course, that's not just solely driven by myself. And we have about 20 individuals at the fund level that manage about 20 active investments. And so you one metric that I look at is, what are our returns for the year? Were we able to deliver liquidity back to our investors? where And, you know, what about the taxable impact to our investors holdings? I mean, is that, and you know, were we able to do things in a tax efficient manner? I also look at how I'm tracking against all my budgets. And so am I keeping a tight eye on expenses, but making sure that we are not so restrictive in our spending that we're avoiding investing in things that can drive a return in the future?
00:03:14
Speaker
Also, for me, probably just being a very type A individual, I'm always looking at my to-do list. And the more things I have crossed up my to-do list usually makes me feel like i am I'm getting where I need to be and accomplishing everything that my bosses would like me to to accomplish and ultimately making their life easier. So that's just some things that I kind of look at to see really how I'm tracking for the year.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yep, awesome. And
Exciting Challenges: Capital Raise Project
00:03:41
Speaker
ah is there anything over the next say 12 months? um Are there any specific projects or new systems? Or is there is there anything that you maybe are looking forward to over the next 12 months? That's an interesting, new, exciting challenge to to tackle in your work? Is there anything you're looking forward to?
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's it's funny because i I think with accounting, you know, a lot of people assume maybe it's sleepy and you're just doing the same thing every month or every week or every quarter. And my experience cannot be more different from that. And I think every summer that things will slow down and I'm going to catch up on just like prep for you know for the next quarter or year end and things like that and inevitably there's always some sort of special project going on whether we're you know going through a merger or raising a new fund or
00:04:29
Speaker
et cetera, et cetera. And so we are in the process of raising capital at the firm that I'm working at. And this is the first capital raise that we've done since I joined the firm. And it's, it's kind of an exciting new activity and,
Journey into Accounting: Early Influences
00:04:47
Speaker
you know, just project for me to work on. That's different than what I do on a day-to-day basis. yeah and is Is this the first time you're going through that experience, not just at this firm, but, but in your career?
00:04:57
Speaker
It is. See, there's all kinds of new stuff that happens later in your career, everybody. All kinds. of Exactly. exactly um Awesome. That's exciting. um and like so Now you're a CFO of this firm. You're about to go through this big new project, a capital raise. There's not very many things that are a bigger deal than that. what what Can you help us understand your path to get to this point? like we how Where did you start your career in accounting? What are some of the the roles that you took? Maybe some of the skills that you developed? Basically, what's the short version? and Maybe we can deep dive where there's some really interesting stories of like how how did you get to this role?
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say probably where I started was I was always pretty decent with numbers and pretty good at math. And the story cracks me up now as an adult knowing this, but one of my parents first parent teacher conference when I was in elementary school.
00:05:53
Speaker
My teacher told my parents that Laura does math like a boy, and she's really good at math. And you say that now. And that was intended to be a compliment. Right, right. It was a compliment. And my father being a banker, oh, yes, yes, I get that. And my mom being a teacher. So very kind of this traditional stereotypical gender roles. And so from a young age, my dad always was pushing me more towards the business path, you know, you should do do accounting, people that understand accounting, understand the language of business. And so if you, let's say you don't actually want to spend your career in accounting, anything in business, it will be very beneficial to have an accounting degree, because you can look at a set of financials and dissect a company and understand what's driving your profit, what's driving your fade, how can we make the business more profitable. And so
Career Transition: From Big Four to Private Equity
00:06:49
Speaker
With that advice, I kind of set off and went to, I got my undergraduate degree in accounting and finance, and then got my master's in accounting, set for my CPA, and then did what I think almost all people, or all accounting majors did 20 years ago was you went and worked for a big four public accounting firm.
00:07:12
Speaker
I did that for almost 10 years. And really from the beginning, even in my internship with one of the big four firms, I didn't feel like it was my forever home.
00:07:24
Speaker
And I knew that all along, but, um you know, life has a way of going by quickly. And when you work with good people and you work for good clients and you're constantly learning and being challenged, the years go really fast. And so I just, I say they're a lot longer than I ever would have anticipated. And eventually when I decided that I was ready to make a new valve, I just started talking to talking to my network and just saying, you know, old bosses or current clients, hey, if you know anyone, i'm I'm looking to make a move, but I've spent almost 10 years here. And so I want to be very strategic in what I'm leaving to do. And so that's. And and yeah, and and two quick follow up to that. So one is about 10 years in, it's it's finally time. Like, yeah, what made it be time?
00:08:21
Speaker
yeah Second question is, where where did you go as your next role? And how did you know that was the right fit? What what made you say yes to that particular role that you said yes to? Yeah, absolutely. Those are great questions. I would say the ah to your first question on how did I know it was time, you know, life has a funny way of, you know, there's different seasons in life and different, you know, different challenges and different successes. And I would say in my early to mid thirties, I lost my brother, my younger brother passed and in an unexpected accident.
00:08:58
Speaker
And what, while it was a tragic situation at the time, it, it gave me the takeaway of you know life is really short, and don't don't take every day for granted, and you know although we all know that, and and you know if you ask anyone.
00:09:18
Speaker
you know They're going to say, of course, don't take life for granted. like Every day is precious. right But life just has a way of moving and going. And sometimes it takes something huge to really make you stop and reassess and say, OK, what am I doing it with my life? Am I happy? is this where Is this where I'm supposed to be? Is this the greatest you know use of my talents and things like that? and so it was the positive from all of that was that I really kind of did a a very introspective deep dive on what I was doing with my life and what I wanted the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years to look like. And so that's when I kind of said, okay, I'm going to try something else feels like now's the time. So
00:10:02
Speaker
And then your second question. Yeah. What, what, what did you say? What did you say yes
Embracing the Full-Time CFO Role
00:10:07
Speaker
to and, and, and why, like, what were the reasons why you said yes to the, the, the move that you made next? Absolutely. So in accounting, I was, you know, but many, many accountants will start their current big four and then they go on depending on how much tenure you have when you leave or how many years you stay in big four.
00:10:28
Speaker
know, you can leave for all sorts of different levels of a accounting jobs. And my fear was always to go into a role when I left big four and be, you know, ah booking AP and, you know, just doing like a, you know, just stuck in reconciliation land and just kind of doing like the same thing over and over and being one of many, many you know people in an accounting group and just feeling like I was just a number in a big accounting group. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that at all. It wasn't your path, right? It just wasn't my path. It just wasn't something that really excited me and motivated me. And so
00:11:10
Speaker
Which is also probably why I had a hard time finding what I wanted to do next because I wanted something that was a little bit different and that I was going to be really challenged and work with really smart people. And so I ended up getting connected to the firm that I'm at through one of my clients when I was at big four. Okay. They knew the founders of my firm and the firm had a part-time CFO at the time, but They had grown so much they had had just.
00:11:42
Speaker
just really taken off in growth. And so the CFO that would was part-time was really working more than full-time. And so they you know they made the decision like we need to bring someone in full-time um really to help her out. And eventually she was wanting to retire and and so you know kind of bring in ah someone to grow into the CFO. So am am I to understand this correctly, and correct me if I'm wrong here, 10 years in big four, it's time to move on. And your next move is ah to the place where you are now with the intention of kind of, you were the heir apparent to being the CFO. That's
Overcoming Self-Doubt: Mentorship and Experience
00:12:22
Speaker
pretty fantastic. How in the world did you get connected to that as your first... right your Hey, congratulations, heir apparent to the CFO. how how did How did you hear about this? How did how did you how did this become your first your first ah your first yes out of big four?
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah, well, thank you. I had the same thought. I said, my one of my CFOs, my client CFO brought the role to me and said, Hey, I know these guys are looking for a CFO. And I said,
00:12:49
Speaker
I can't be a CFO. And he said, sure, you can, you know, why not? Right. And I said, I'm not that I'm not experienced. You know, I mean, yeah, I've worked in audit for almost 10 years, but I've never actually closed the books. I review people closing the books. I've never actually, you know, reconciled the bank statement. Like I review what my clients, you know, I just had all this yeah thoughts in my head and And my client said, just go talk to him. What's the what's the harm in going to talk to him? And so I did. And sometimes you just meet with people and and you you just sense the energy and the intelligence and the drive and the grit. And the founders that I work for, young,
00:13:37
Speaker
gritty guys that are really hard workers, very smart. And meeting with them was just, it, it really felt like, Oh, okay, this is somewhere I could be. yeah I would be challenged. I would be able to grow into this role.
00:13:52
Speaker
It also helped that Houston is such a ah big small city, a small big city, because I was able to do some background checking in on different, you know, on on people at the firm. And we had some enough mutual connections that I could really do my diligence and make sure I wasn't just seeing something in the interview that maybe wasn't actually going to be the culture 100% of the time. Yep, so you you had to do your vetting process to make sure what they were selling was what you what was going to be reality, right? Which can be a challenging thing because you haven't done that in 10 years, right? Like that's a new thing to have to go figure out how to do.
00:14:30
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And so, yeah, there was a lot of that. And, you know, I, I have lunch with I met with them several times. I met with the then CFO several times, you know, lots of lots of vetting. And I asked her, I was a little bit nervous about going into private equity. It's a very male dominated industry, particularly on the investment side. And Yeah, I was concerned, are they going to, will they have a level of respect for a female, for someone that's younger, et cetera, et cetera. And everything that I was told what was absolutely, they're actually really good people and good guys to work for. And, you know, at some point I just kind of had to take people's word for it and I jumped in and you
00:15:27
Speaker
I am very pleased to say that that was all correct and true. So I lucked out, but it's been great. Well, kudos for asking the hard questions like that because you're making a move, right? You need to ask the hard questions to make sure this thing that you're moving to is what you think it's going to be. I'd love to dive deeper on one thing if you don't mind. Yeah. Because again, this is going from 10 years in to CFO heir apparent. right And you mentioned earlier thinking, like can i can I really do that? Can I make that jump? Am I qualified to do this? you help um Can you help us all understand? ah how did how did you How did you get past that? right There's a lot of people who can can think,
00:16:11
Speaker
Am I really good enough to do this? Am I the right person? Do I have the skill set? Am I capable? um Again, I think a lot of us, i've I've had those same doubts about myself in certain roles. Can you just share maybe some insights of how did you get past that? How did you get to the other side of that to really see that like, yes, I can do this and I can be great and I can deliver great results for for this team? how did How did you get to that the other side? Great question. I would say that
00:16:40
Speaker
Really the the main thing is just working really hard and being dedicated. It sounds a little cheesy, but you know, anytime you start at a new job, even if the people might know you or you might have, maybe you prosper past earlier in life, or maybe there's a personal personal connection, you still have to really rebuild that trust bank. And so, you know, I would say particularly for the first year, it was just really
Key Skills from Big Four Experience
00:17:08
Speaker
putting my head down making sure that I was understanding what my boss's expectations were for me. And if I was meeting those or what I needed to improve on, or if I wasn't meeting his expectations and and really just, just kind of putting my head down and and working hard. yeah And I know that doesn't sound like the most exciting answer, but
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, that solves a lot of problems. It does. work it Working hard so you understand something and so you're showing also the people around you that you're you're willing to put in what what it requires to make sure that you can deliver well goes ah goes a really long way.
00:17:50
Speaker
Absolutely. Awesome. And one more quick question on this. What what if anything in your 10 years in big four, what are some, um maybe there's only one biggest one you want to highlight, what's one or maybe a couple of maybe skill sets or things that you learned that you feel were most put you in position to be able to not only go get this next job, but to have stayed there and risen to CFO um and and kind of continued to rise. like what What was critical that that you learned or that you put into practice ah that was a the to put you into that position to be able to take that role? Absolutely. think There's two big things that come to mind. The first one is really just the power of relationships. I think that
00:18:38
Speaker
people often underestimate the power of relationships and I have no doubt that I am where I am because someone believed in me and someone was willing to put my name forward or or even back when I was at big four and I worked for the same partner for most of my time there and I Majorama has different clients and it was him believing in me and so many other people. And I think we often, or at least in my world, I think there's a temptation to put your head down, get a lot of work done, work really hard. Yes, of course, that's very, very important, but also
00:19:22
Speaker
just maintaining your relationships because you never know where one person's going to end up and where your journey is my path path, uh, cross paths in the future. So I think that is one thing. The other big thing that I learned in big four was just project management, having the ability to keep a team underneath you, moving through projects and deadlines and milestones.
00:19:50
Speaker
But being able to just kind of continue to make things happen, to measure the lines, to to keep deliverables pushing and working on large clients. I think that was certainly a very, very important skill that I do all the time now.
00:20:10
Speaker
though it It looks different from every job or job to job, but just being able to project manage, have your lists, tick through your lists, delegate where you need to delegate because none of us have endless hours. And so that's very important as well.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yep, 100%. And do
Work-Life Balance: Integration and Well-being
00:20:31
Speaker
you, one thing that is always a topic people want to hear about and hear how others face is this work-life balance concept. And we'll just ask directly, right? do you Do you generally enjoy your work?
00:20:45
Speaker
Have a good balance between work and the things that you want to do personally and and maybe also how is that trended over time? um If you don't mind sharing because sometimes know for me and for many others, there's times where it's just like it's grind mode. It is work mode. That is priority. And that's what has to happen for three months or six months or a year or whatever to you, whatever it may be.
00:21:06
Speaker
And then things can ease up a bit. And then you can people kind of can find this balance. And sometimes it's a bit of a roller coaster of how that trends over time. So curious to hear your thoughts on how how is that balance for you today? And maybe how is that trended over time? um could you Could you speak to that for for others so they can kind of help learn from from your experience? Absolutely. So on work-life balance, it's interesting because things have changed a lot from the time that we started working, and the world is just continuing to get more and more interconnected. And it's interesting when I started my career, we had emails on phones, but it wasn't like today where we
00:21:51
Speaker
and have um Maybe we had iPhones but we certainly have Blackberries and I remember I think I was a second year and I only had my personal email on my phone and one of my bosses started emailing my personal email on the weekends and I thought Uh I guess he's trying to tell me something. Yeah like how did you get this? I know I was like oh gosh I feel so invaded you know and so that was about the time that I said well but I guess I better get a blackberry.
00:22:23
Speaker
And so, like so many of us did a long time ago, you know, I had the iPhone for my personal and then I had the Blackberry with my work email. But the great thing about having two devices is if I had a day on the weekend where I didn't want to check email or I didn't want to hear it being at me.
00:22:41
Speaker
I could put it in my closet and I really would I would put my blackberry in my closet sometimes and just say you know what not today i'm not checking emails this afternoon. You know nothing will be that urgent that you can't call me or it will be fine we're not saving lives here now, and so and things have evolved.
00:23:01
Speaker
You know, it's there's pros and cons to it, right? There are very few places in the world that you can go where you you don't have access to Wi-Fi and all of the things, which in a way is wonderful because I can go spend a couple of weeks in Colorado and work from Colorado. But at the same time,
00:23:22
Speaker
going on a European vacation no longer means that I'm actually going to be out of the office for two weeks. You know what I mean? Which again, there's pros and cons, right? You can continue to keep up with things, but not be physically in the office. But at the same time, it's usually always there. And so I think, you know, one concept that I heard when I was in big four was not so much that we should focus on work-life balance, but more on work-life integration. And so kind of figuring out for every individual, like, how can you make work and life work together and keep your sanity? And so, you know, for me, work-life balance, i don't I don't have children. And so a lot of times it is that, you know, I might stay at the office a little bit later than some of my coworkers who,
00:24:14
Speaker
want to get home and, you know, have meal time with their little ones and get them put in bed. And then they'll, they might work, you know, later at night. Whereas for me, that's, that's not really my, how I work by balance. And, but, you know, I think it's always one of those things where you're constantly, constantly trying to figure out the, how to balance it and what works best for you. And it changes in different stages of your life. So.
00:24:42
Speaker
It sure does. And also, like, frankly, there's times where, I mean, I'll admit, right? Like the thought of turning everything off for two weeks. maybe isn't
Dynamic Role in Private Equity
00:24:53
Speaker
actually what I want to do. Because there's certain there are certain things that I do that are fun, that I want to go think about. It's more, I don't know, for me as an example, it's more like, oh, perfect. That means I don't have to attend those meetings I don't want to attend. thank But what I get to do, because I still want to go get a coffee and spend 90 minutes thinking about something, is I still get to go proactively think about maybe those things that I actually don't have enough time to think about. And now I do.
00:25:20
Speaker
um So anyway, there's there's the point being is there's many ways to think about work-life balance. It doesn't necessarily have to mean, oh, I stop working every day for two weeks. It might mean, hey, actually, now I get to think about the things that I really proactively want to do that I sometimes don't have the time to think about. So there's a million ways to do it. Absolutely. And i I'm a bit of ah the same mindset. I always have my computer with me when I'm traveling.
00:25:48
Speaker
even if I don't intend on doing any work, but just for me, it's, I enjoy my job. I love my job. And so even just having like, yeah that's fantastic. That's even better than the work life balance question. Like let's dig into that. Like what do you want about your job? What has it attracted you? what what What makes you say that? What makes you so excited about your job? What do you love about it?
00:26:10
Speaker
ah You know, it's challenging. It's everything it's always changing. we invest in we're not and We are industry agnostic. And so we invest in service-based fintech companies. We invest in um Staffing businesses, we invest in industrial services you know all across the board. And so there is always a new type of company that we're diligent seeing or that we invest in. And it's just, it's it's always different and it's always exciting.
00:26:45
Speaker
And then trying to figure out how how do we appropriately value that company? you know what is What are the different metrics? like Just all all of that is really fascinating to me. And in private equity, is just the the businesses that we invest in, just depending on what happens with the market and interest rates. And you know of course, we've been through a wild couple of years with COVID. And then you know just international disruptions in Ukraine and Russia and you know all of that it's like well I never would have imagined all these different things and they all impact our companies in different ways and some more than others but so to me it's just being in a bit of an unpredictable world where there's always something new that you're trying to grapple with or understand and all of that so
00:27:40
Speaker
Yep. So the exact opposite, the exact opposite of your fear you shared earlier, if I don't want to leave big four and do the same thing every day, you have found something that is not, you have found, you have found what you were looking for. Exactly. Exactly. In fact, sometimes I laugh. I'm like, maybe a little, a little calmer, a little more boring would be okay every once in a while. But then I think about myself and I'm like, no, I would be a real board. So it's good. I like the constant change.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's awesome. Well, one thing I'd love to look back maybe on your career. Is there anything that you
Milestone: Becoming a CFO
00:28:12
Speaker
look back on and think this is the, these are one of the coolest or most enjoyable or proudest accomplishments in your working life? I guess, you know, is there anything that you look back on and you just, it still makes you smile or light up. And because you're just so proud of what you and your team was, was able to do. Is there anything that that strikes you to that question?
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, and so many things, but I think maybe going back to something we talked about a little earlier is just making CFO I I was at the firm for.
00:28:49
Speaker
Let's see, I was there about two and a half years before I got promoted. And when I saw, I saw some paperwork that, not that I wasn't supposed to see, I was eventually going to see it, but it indicated that the promotion was here. And even though they had said to me, yes, your role is that you will track, assuming you track, you will eventually move into the CFO. but as many industry jobs are, you don't know the timeline, you don't know, you know, is is it two years? Is it 10 years, you know, and somewhere in the middle? And so
00:29:27
Speaker
when I saw that, and when eventually I was in disbelief, and then when I met with the partners, and they told me, I was just like, I can't believe this is a dream come true. I think no matter how hard working we are, or what success we have, I think there's always a little bit of maybe a feeling of like imposter syndrome, like, Oh, well, they can make CFO, but I don't know. I'm not maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe I didn't, you know, maybe I didn't do this, maybe I did that. And so just And getting there and particularly getting there in a bit of a male dominated world or industry um has been really exciting. And, and they're probably my, my biggest accomplishment. yeah And it would have been something that if you would have asked me coming out of college, would you ever be a CFO? I probably would have said, yeah.
00:30:19
Speaker
I don't I can't do I, you know, like i'm I'm a straight A student and I work hard and I study a lot but no, I couldn't do that, you know, so it's just, it's, it's exciting to see like You really can do whatever you put your mind to. Yeah, it's like it's like getting that title was the culmination of almost becoming. This this person who is capable of these things that maybe you you weren't quite sure if you were capable of before, right? And it wasn't something like I'm going to be a CFO. That's my goal. It was more like, wow, this almost represents a transformation of this new person. I am that I i didn't know if I was capable of being and now I am.
00:31:00
Speaker
Absolutely. That's awesome. Do you remember out of curiosity? Do you remember when you got that paperwork or had that meeting? Like, how did you celebrate that day? What did you like? What did you do that night? Do you remember that night? Yes, sir. I celebrate. I felt like I was celebrating for a long time. Yeah. Because it was like, I remember texting my best friend and and I was like, I think it's I think it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna happen. but like I don't even want to say anything because I'm so nervous that I might jinx it, you know, and then And then it was it was wonderful because. You know it's like then I got to celebrate with my parents, my my dad was a CFO for several years and so ah that was exciting as well because he really understands a lot of my day to day world and so.
00:31:45
Speaker
he and I you know constantly kind of nerd out about all the all the things that you think about in these roles. And so it's exciting for me to and have that support and be able to celebrate with him. But yeah, it was right around it was right before Christmas. And so it was great because I was with a lot of family. I had i took some time off and got to really just kind of Okay, this is I guess this is real. Yeah, that's awesome. um And on
Learning from Mistakes: Honesty and Growth
00:32:15
Speaker
on another side, ah do you recall any big kind of fork in the road moments or holy jeez moments in your career, where maybe they had a big impact on your direction, maybe maybe you didn't even realize they were fork in the road moments at the time, but maybe looking back, you're you're kind of like,
00:32:34
Speaker
Wow, I'm really glad i I handled that that way because things would have maybe changed dramatically if I handled it another way. Are there any of these moments, these kind of fork in the road or oh my gosh, am i gonna am I going to recover from this? um are Are there any of those types of moments that you can recall in your career that that you'd like to highlight again that maybe people other people can can kind of learn from the experience? Because I know I've had some of those, um but it's this not about me. This is about learning from you, Laura, like anything there that you can that you can share that others can learn from.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think the one thing that I just think about throughout my career is everyone makes mistakes, right? No one's one's perfect. And I feel pretty lucky because I haven't made any mistakes that have that have sent me down a totally different path or put a huge fork in my road. and But You know, the one thing that someone told me and when I was very young in my career and it made a mistake that at the time felt like, Oh my gosh, maybe this is, you know, this is, this is the end. Right.
00:33:41
Speaker
in retrospect, very small deal. But at the time, they told me it's not about the mistake you make. It's about, it's about how you handle it, how you move forward from it. And what do you learn from it? Because everyone's going to make mistakes. And I, I constantly tell my team that because that was such a reassuring light bulb moment for me of like, Oh, gosh, duh.
00:34:06
Speaker
We're all humans. We're not perfect. We're never going to be perfect. And so it's not about perfection. It's about continuing to use an opportunity where you make a mistake, small, big, somewhere in the middle and say, okay, how can I prevent that from happening again? How can we make sure that that that's not going to be the same hiccup that we go through again? So that has been kind of transformational for me across my career. And I always try to think of that when I'm like, that didn't go exactly how I wanted it to. But it's okay, I'm going to look forward. And here's how I'm going to do it slightly differently next time.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, uh, maybe you don't recall, or maybe it was too small. You mentioned this was earlier in your career, but do you, body curiosity, do you recall the mistake and how you owned up to it and kind of move past it and showed others that again, you're not going to let one mistake turn into a second, but you're going to own it. You're going to learn from it. Do you recall, do you recall how that happened? Yeah, absolutely. It's sounds a little silly now, but.
00:35:12
Speaker
I had, I was working and in big four and we had a team, an audit team that was based in India. And essentially, you know, our team here on the States, we would work on client deliverables during the day. And then at the end of the day, we would send an email to our team in India. Okay. If you guys can get through X, Y, and Z tonight, then, you know, we'll pick it back up in the morning, et cetera.
00:35:37
Speaker
And so at the time, we must have already filed our audits and we were going through and going through a process of archiving and and you know saving down files that we needed, but then expunging others and things like that. And I was the one in charge of sending them the instructions. It's probably two years in or something. And it was not hard things to do, but I told them to delete one of the engagements that absolutely should not have been deleted.
00:36:07
Speaker
And my, it was probably just a manager that came in the next morning. We were, you know, back in the office and he said, who, who deleted blah, blah, blah. I cannot find anything. It's not here. And in fact, maybe he probably didn't even say deleted. He was like, what happened to all these files? And, and I was like, I don't know, just kind of going around my thing. And then I was like, Oh my, Oh my gosh. And I literally, it took me probably 10 seconds. And I was like, it was me. It was me. I told him to do it. I didn't mean to. Yeah. and And so, you know, um yeah, and of course i I'm, you know.
00:36:44
Speaker
I'm going to be fired. I, I told our India team to delete this and not it's done. And now we have no files and all this stuff. And, um, and I just, you know, I kind of just went to him and just said, I'm so sorry, you know, let me know if I need to like, you know, kind of pull myself together and like, you know, start packing up and leave. And you know, he was incredibly gracious and just said, you know what, Lauren?
00:37:08
Speaker
happens. Don't worry about it. Thank you for telling me. yeah and And, you know, kind of one of those things, it's like, okay, well, how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Well, yeah I probably need to be double checking my work more, have someone else double check my, you know, just, just things like that. But I just remember being, Oh no, I, Oh, I told him. i So, you know, sometimes honesty, well, honesty is always the best policy, but at least luckily it it wasn't a career ender for me. So Yeah. And I just, I do want to highlight the way you handle that of owning it right away. And then even offering like, ah do I need to clear out my desk? Like, um, cause here's the thing, like we all make mistakes. Like you said many. And the type of person, like you have now many people who, you know, work for you, right? The type of person who owns it in that way and immediately says, I'm sorry, it was me. i I just now realize that I'm so sorry. Like if.
00:38:08
Speaker
If you need to let me go, I would understand like the type of person who takes that much ownership of a situation is exactly the type of person who I want on my team and exactly the type of person who I would have confidence in, that they would not do that again. They would learn from it and they would actively help others not, not repeat a mistake like that. So it's almost like the way you own the, again, the way you respond to these things often is way more important than what you actually did.
00:38:33
Speaker
Absolutely. And I could not agree, agree more. It's like for for my team, I tell them all the time, it's okay to make mistakes. Like we are going to make the mistakes. yeah But again, to your point, it's how we handle them. And I want an environment where people feel safe to raise their hand and say, it was neat. So Yeah, 100%. Maybe that was
Maintaining Well-being for Professional Success
00:38:55
Speaker
one of them. Were there any tougher times in your career or times where things just fell off or maybe for three months or six months or a year? You just kind of feel like, I'm not really firing right now. If something's off, I don't know what it is. And and if you ever had that, how did you get back on track?
00:39:10
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's a great question. I, I feel like I occasionally will have those moments when I get really, really busy in my job. yeah And I will go through periods of time and save more when I was working in big four, but I wouldn't always take care of myself and I wouldn't prioritize myself and what I needed to ah really be healthy and taking care of myself. And you know, I think the thing that I have learned and I continue to continue to try to learn and continue to
00:39:49
Speaker
try to make sure that I'm doing this is, you know, what are those foundational things for you individually that are going to make you a happy person who, um, you know, is then at a point where you can go to work every day and you can fire on all cylinders and you're, you know, just making sure it's it's so silly, but it's like making sure you're getting six to seven hours of sleep.
00:40:15
Speaker
Making sure that for me, like that I'm keeping up with my faith life, you know, making sure that I have family in my life, making sure that I'm working out, you know, just all those kinds of things that sometimes it's very easy to let them fall off the wayside, particularly when you're drowning in a deadline, but And for me, making sure that those things are always a priority is very helpful in how I execute on all other parts of my life. But I still work, it's still like a constant, you know, it's a, it's a work in progress to make sure that I'm doing all of those things and still doing great at work. So.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's almost like ah that movie Inception, like the ah little token that every individual has to make sure you know you're still in the real world. it's like there's We all have these different things that are very important to us that kind of keep us grounded. Exactly. It's
Habits for Career Success
00:41:07
Speaker
all about finding what those things are because they typically just bring you back to a better place where you can be thinking better, thinking more clearly, and and firing better.
00:41:16
Speaker
Exactly. and they those ones Those ones you found for you might work for a bunch of other people. They might have a couple other things that that they really need. but It's all about finding what those things are that work for you. um Now a couple more, maybe some, some ah one one more actually career questions and then we'll get to a wild, fun, crazy question. But are there any things that in your career you have consistently done that you think just work really well for you? And maybe they've helped you get to, again, this CFO role that maybe you questioned if you were going to get to or if you're so proud of because you didn't know if that's where you're going.
00:41:50
Speaker
um But are there any things you've consistently done in your career that you think have worked really well? And maybe you're surprised other people don't do those things too, because they seem to work. Anything strike you? Yeah. A couple things. And theyre they all sound a little small now that I'm thinking about them. But being responsive, I think is a huge one for me. We always had a kind of a 12 hour, okay, make sure you're responding in 12 hours to any sort of client request when I was at the firm. And for me, I'm always shocked sometimes when I'll email people and it just kind of goes into a black hole. And I will say that I've probably gotten a little laxer over the years about being like, okay, I got to respond immediately. Because you can get buried in emails. But I think just
00:42:41
Speaker
being being responsive as one. I touched on relationships earlier, but I think that ah can't overemphasize the power of relationships. And the other thing for me that always has been very instrumental is just being organized. I think I'm always not always shocked, but I'm shocked. how is you know the The lack of organization that that individuals have at some points. that are you know But everyone's got a system, right? For me, I've got my list. it's it's very It's been very helpful for me to just kind of have that constant list over years and years. and
00:43:26
Speaker
And my family all gives me a hard time about it. They're like, how's your list going? I'm like, there's a lot on there, really, to be honest. But but for me, it's just finding your method and finding out what works for you. But for me, it's the way that I don't let things slip through the cracks. Maybe they're not done exactly as quickly as I'd like them, but it's gonna it's going to get done eventually.
00:43:47
Speaker
couple Couple quick-hitter questions. We got a couple more of these as we're as we're looking to kind of wrap some things up here. so
Advice for Aspiring Accountants: CPA and Technology
00:43:53
Speaker
question Question on your CPA. so When did you knock it out? Was it before you started working or were you were you knocking it out while you were working full-time? and Maybe based on your experience what and what you see today, like what would you recommend for folks today of how to approach the the CPA exam?
00:44:11
Speaker
Absolutely. So I took it before I started working. Okay. I took it the last semester of my fifth year in school. So it was in the second half of my master's year. And I would highly, highly, highly highly recommend taking it.
00:44:26
Speaker
before you start working because once you start working particularly if you go into one of the big firms you're likely going to be working long hours it's really tough to work long hours and then go home and try to study or while you're doing on the weekends so to the extent that you have the ability to to take it before you start working i would strongly encourage everyone to do that Yeah, that's the number one piece of advice I hear is try to knock it out before you start working. And out of curiosity, ah did you have to, you know, did you have to sacrifice? I took my whole summer in between college and um working to not like any sacrifices that you had to make that at the time were maybe like, is this I really want to give this up that maybe later when you were working, you're like, I'm so glad I gave that up. So any stories of sacrifice there that again, at at the time maybe felt, ah
00:45:15
Speaker
that later you were thankful that you sacrificed that time to be done with it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I felt like I sacrificed my the second semester of my, my fifth year. Yeah, I really stopped. I was always very social. I'm like to do stuff with girlfriends and all of the things and I really stopped doing all of that my second semester and of my fifth year when I was studying for the CPA, I had structured it so that I only had maybe two classes that semester, and then I was a teacher's assistant for another class, so I'll call it nine hours of school. So I didn't have much in terms of school, but I was incredibly studious, and so I really took studying for the CPA like a full-time job. um and And so yeah, in a lot of ways, I kind of felt like, oh man, this is my last semester, and I'm really, I'm telling myself like,
00:46:06
Speaker
you know, one night a week with your girlfriends. And other than that, you know, you need to have your head down and you need to be studying and studying and focused. But then I'm so grateful that I did that because once I started work, it's very difficult to work long hours and then come home and set up the CPA. So I was very, very glad in retrospect that I put my head down and did it.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. And whats what's the number one piece of advice that you might give for ah accounting majors in college today? Or maybe it's their first year in the working world? um or Or maybe said another way, if you were in that position now, knowing what you know today, what advice would you maybe go back and and give yourself if you were in your last year of college in accounting or your first year in the working world?
00:46:54
Speaker
um So again, you could phrase that as, hey hey hey folks today, or potentially here's the advice I'd give myself. So what's what's that number one piece of advice that you you'd kind of give to folks in that position today? Yeah, it's a great question. When I was getting my accounting degree and starting my career, it did not feel like there was the emphasis on technology that we have today. And you know in so many different ways, right? I mean, now with AI and and all of the ah different you know abilities and capabilities that we have with AI, but also just the power of Excel. It sounds really cheesy, but we did not do much at all in Excel when I was in college and now I live in Excel and it is
00:47:38
Speaker
it will save you so much time if you know how to effectively utilize that program. And so I would say just keeping up with the technology and making sure they are really proficient and like excel is the advice I would have given myself back then.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yep. And you mentioned AI, how, if at all, are are you utilizing ah AI today? We're recording this here in the third quarter of 2024, and I use that just because this is changing so fast all the time, right? um But yeah, just curious, how, how if at all, are are you using AI in in your work today? Yeah,
Integrating AI in Accounting
00:48:19
Speaker
we we are using it. I would say generally, you know, we've been because we work with a lot of confidential information, and we we've been a little slower on some adopt you know adoption of naturally yeahb blown programs. I would say
00:48:37
Speaker
You know, we do use it a lot to take notes during meetings, assign action items, things like that. We've found that it's, it's great with things like that. And then it automatically is saving you time, but there's still the human time that's needed to go through and like, okay, this is the notes that came back. Um, but we need to tweak them and, you know, things like that. And so I do think, uh, you know, it, it will be a huge time saver in time.
00:49:05
Speaker
we're just kind of figuring out which, which programs work for us, but yep. Yep. Um,
Valuing an Accounting Career
00:49:12
Speaker
and, uh, going, going back to more accounting CPA path, um, you know, knowing what you know now, would you still go down the same path? Right? Would you still go down the accounting CPA journey that you went down knowing, knowing kind of what you know today, uh, is that still something that you'd get? If you could go back 20 years, would you still say yes? And would you still recommend this for others and and why?
00:49:35
Speaker
yeah absolutely it's a great question I 100% would recommend it I would do it again I wouldn't. I don't want to say I wouldn't change anything because I'm sure there's something I might change. But generally speaking, I would go the same direction. And I think you know it goes back to the advice that I was told when I was young was that accounting really is the language of business. And so by understanding accounting and the numbers and the impact on a company's bottom line, it's so powerful. And, you know, I think
00:50:09
Speaker
majoring and starting in accounting, you have so many options to branch off into something that's more financial related or something that's maybe you know more an operating a business. And there's just so many different offshoots that you can really do that I think it's really an invaluable career and and starting point.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. It's amazing to me how many people I've i've spoken with who, um with that background in accounting, myself included, who are doing things beyond just a typical accounting path, because with that foundation, I mean, the amount of things that are open to you is really much wider than most people realize.
00:50:48
Speaker
Two
Conclusion: Passion for the Job
00:50:49
Speaker
very quick questions for but quick hitters to wrap this up here. um One is, hey, is there anything you need of the audience? right Is there anything you're looking for? Hiring, ah expertise on a certain on a certain topic. um it It always is fun to ask if people are hiring and then like, I'm always looking for CPAs, they're hard to find. So um just is there anything that that you're looking for that or that you need or that you would ask of the audience?
00:51:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, good CPAs are hard to find. And so yes, we are always looking for good, smart, talented, hardworking people. And so I would say absolutely, we're always looking. um In terms of other requests, I don't think so. you know i I am very passionate about majoring in the accounting and and all of that. And so I would just say, tell your friends, it's not boring.
00:51:39
Speaker
um I do very such a small percentage of my job is actually dealing with accounting right now. And, you know, it's so many more forward looking projections, things like that versus accounting is often looking at what did happen. And so I would say, you know, it's there's just so many options and things you can do with that background.
00:52:03
Speaker
100%. And is there anything else that you'd like to highlight that you think is valuable, fun, or interesting to share? ah Or, you know, sometimes it's more like, I have nothing else, but I want to rehighlight yellow underlined three times this one thing that I said, because it's so important. So anything else you want to share or anything you want to just come back to and and restate because you feel so passionately or ah you feel it's it's that important?
00:52:29
Speaker
Yeah, good question. I feel ah there's probably several things I would repeat, but I think I would just encourage everyone to not underestimate the power of relationships. a One thing I didn't say earlier, but that just stuck with me throughout my career is one of the first partners I work with told me that building relationships at every level within your clients is important because you know as a staff,
00:52:56
Speaker
accountant or auditor you're interfacing with maybe staff accountants or project accountants but eventually that project accountant might move up to like an assistant controller and then the assistant controller could one day be the CFO or the CAO and I remember him telling me that that and thinking oh okay that that makes sense and over my career it's it's been really awesome to see that you know the people that I was kind of in the trenches with that are now you know in in places where you know they are powerful and they do have you know they've moved up in the companies. and so it's just yeah I think just making sure that people know you're never too young to to start building out those relationships. um Awesome. Relationships absolutely matter 100%, maybe even more so now in a world where we can do these Zoom meetings, but that face-to-face interaction might even maybe be more valuable because it's more rare in today's world. That's right.
00:53:55
Speaker
All right, Laura, thank you so much for doing this. Appreciate it. You definitely have a cool career in accounting and you love your job. um So there's nothing more you can ask for than that. So thanks for spending some time with us and and hope the audience got a ah great deal learned at us. Thanks so much, Spencer. Thanks for listening.