Last year I won the New Zealand Emerging Finance Manager of the Year award. This award recognises, celebrates and encourages the exceptional finance talent under the age of 40, and looking for the future leaders in the finance sector of New Zealand.
This was truly a massive milestone in my career. It recognised my determination and hard work, authentic leadership and passion for what I do. Could I imagine standing in front of the best finance professionals and receiving the prize from the hands of Hilary Barry 10 years ago when I just landed in Aotearoa? No way! This award proved to me one more time that everything is possible.
Today I would like to share 4 main pillars which my emerging finance manager world is based on.
- LEADERSHIP
Today’s constantly evolving business environment calls for a new approach to leadership. Since technologies allow to automate transactional activities and accelerate complex tasks, soft skills of finance leaders such as leadership capabilities and character traits are becoming more critical.
Leadership for me is not about titles, authority or positions in the company’s hierarchy. It is simply about one life influencing and inspiring another. If you read my personal mission statement, you will see that my mission is to live my life to the full potential and make a difference in the lives of others. How do I make a difference in my workplace? Well, it is very simple. I teach by example, and I encourage my team to be curious, hungry for learning and discover their talents. My job is to align those talents and strengths with the company’s strategic plan to boost efficiency, add more value and achieve harmony.
I’m passionate about people and I strongly believe that every person is unique and has great potential. One of my roles as a finance leader is to be a coach. I invest lots of time and energy in my team. Every year I undertake a goal setting coaching session with each of my team members where they reflect on the previous year, share key achievements, discover their strengths and areas to work on and set goals for the upcoming year. Every month I have 1:1 coaching meetings with my staff where we look at the progress, share feedback and discuss the plan for the next month. My aim is to ask more questions than prescribing solutions to allow staff to seek multiple perspectives and expand their horizons. This helps my team to have a clear structured growth plan and for me to evaluate my staff performance. I believe that driven, determined and growing staff brings greater value to the business.
People need to develop greater business acumen, learn to think more strategically and critically and deepen their ability to collaborate. Every day I do my best to create an environment where people feel comfortable to discuss what could go better, celebrate achievements, bring their authentic selves to the office, feel inclusive, work in an energizing and positive environment where they pursue the full range of their personal and professional aspirations.
- INNOVATION
In my opinion emerging finance leaders should focus on leveraging technology to improve efficiency and release the full capacity of the finance team. My primary focus at work is process improvements and automation. Last year we automated Accounts Payable process which resulted in elimination of 1,500 invoices being printed every month. This also improved the accuracy of transactions and enhanced approving managers accountability.
I also participated in the reengineering of the Transport Management System project. As part of this project we performed a full review of the current system, identified the areas where manual inputs could be replaced by electronic interfaces and investigated reporting tools that will allow us to build reports for better decision making.
- VALUE
One of my hats as an emerging finance manager is a guardian of a company’s value creation. Value is created by lowering costs and shifting work towards more value-added activities. I‘m constantly looking into ways to add more value to the business via collaboration with other departments and business units, exploring other finance and business processes, documenting formal processes and procedures, assessing and reducing risk, improving controls etc.
- ENERGY
I’m a people person. I get energy from people, but I also give lots of energy to people. The energy exchange is a way to connect, collaborate and create. I would like to share my energy through mentorship of young female finance professionals and show them through my example that everything is possible. You can not just build life from scratch in a new country as an immigrant but also get leadership roles, pursue your dreams and become whoever you want. Opportunities are unlimited. This is one of the reasons I created MoneyMindLab as an educational platform and community for immigrant women like myself to learn more about personal finances, money mindset, business and career.
L – eadership I – nnovation V-alue E-nergy
or simply LIVE
LIVE here and now
LIVE your purpose
LIVE to the full potential
The world is full of possibilities and it is only up to us how we want to LIVE our lives.