67. Building a global and scalable finance function – with Andrew Collis, CFO at Moneypenny

Hannah Munro: 0:49 

So, hello everybody and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. Today we are very excited to announce we have Andrew Collis on the podcast. Now Andrew is currently CFO at Moneypenny who are a local legend in my area for both their people and also their growth story. So, welcome Andrew, fantastic to have you on the show. 

Andrew Collis: 1:11 

Good morning, Hannah. Good morning, everyone. Looking forward to this. 

Hannah Munro: 1:14 

Yeah. Well, so, tell us a little bit about yourself, Andrew. You know, what's been your journey to Moneypenny? 

Andrew Collis: 1:22 

Yeah, so, I joined Moneypenny in July last year, so, I've been with the business seven months. And before that, going back to the start of my career, I first started off with Deloitte and the Big Four background, which... Quite a few CFOs do follow the journey. That's probably 20 years ago now. So, yeah, Deloitte, loved it, had a fantastic time, massive, wide experience, meeting lots of different businesses and really cutting your teeth and understanding numbers and performance of business. And from then, I worked at AstraZeneca for two years. And that was great. That was a great experience, great company, and obviously really come to the fore globally in the last two years with their vaccination program as well. I love AstraZeneca, but what it really brought home to me is that I wanted to work in a smaller, medium-sized, quick-growing company. And from there, I spoke to a few people and I realised I wanted to work in something that was probably private equity backed and joined a business called NES Global Talent, which was an engineering contract services company based out of near Manchester and then had offices, a few around the UK and then a few across the world and That was a great journey over 12 years and that grew globally to 30 different countries, 45 offices and a billion dollars of turnover. So, that was a fantastic journey and learned so, much on that as well. From, again, culturally dealing with different people from different countries and how to get the best out of them. And real, real quick growth and everything that comes with that. So, the funding of it, private equity, transactions, and really building structure into a business as well. And then from there, I worked at a business called Mobica, which is a software services business. Again, private equity backed, and I was there for just over three years. Again, Great business, great opportunity in the marketplace and people-based as well. And that's a recurring theme through my career is working with people-based businesses that have a technology angle as well. And that's really one of the pieces that appealed to me around Moneypenny. And a couple of other things you mentioned around great culture and as you said, a bit of a local legend in the area. So, yeah, and that's brought me to where I am today. So, there's a long winding path of lots of different experiences. 

Hannah Munro: 4:41 

Yeah. And there's so, much to, you know, to talk about along the way. So, well, you made a really interesting comment at the beginning about liking working with sort of small to medium, but fast-growing businesses. What is it that really appeals to you about those kinds of organizations? 

Andrew Collis: 5:02 

I think firstly, no day is ever the same. And you have a multitude of different, different challenges and problems. And I think sometimes you work in a big corporate, you are sort of narrowing your focus. And the breadth of challenges that come to your door is so, so, wide. So, for example, Moneypenny last year, I was getting involved with recruitment and different things. So, just a real breadth of challenges that Nestle you wouldn't see from a big PLC or big corporate. But it's each their own. Everyone has a different path and that may really appeal to someone, does that make sense? sort of narrower focus. 

Hannah Munro: 5:53 

Yeah, I was going to say, they are very different, aren't they, working in a big corporate, you know, both culturally, but also, like you say, in the scope of the role. So, it's really interesting to hear that you prefer that kind, you know, that style. And, you know, and to understand also that you actively looked as well, it sounds like, for businesses of that size and with those kind of ambitions. 

Andrew Collis: 6:19 

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And part of their journey is they; all those businesses have had a very entrepreneurial founder. They've been on a great journey. And then it's then that next part of the journey is then to want to bring that structure with it and also how to take the opportunity in the marketplace. Broader is that into different verticals, is that into different geographies? And how do we go about that? 

Hannah Munro: 6:51 

Yeah, because the expansion into different geographies can be quite challenging. Tell us a bit about your experience, because it sounds like you went on a real journey with obviously your previous organisation. 

Andrew Collis: 7:03 

Yeah, so, NES was when I first joined. We had a couple of offices in the US, an office in the Middle East and two in Asia. And then we went on a great journey in terms of... growing more offices in the US, into Canada, Africa, Scandinavia and through Asia as well. So, particularly I was involved a lot with the US, Africa and Europe. And every country has its own challenges. Going and setting an entity up and then starting to trade from that entity. in Africa or even some European countries that they're not always easy and the legwork and the paperwork you have to go through. We had two branches in Russia. So, again, some of the documentation around that was huge and actually just the administration around that as well. 

Hannah Munro: 8:06 

And culturally, how different was it? Was there any things that you learnt in terms of working with individuals over in those countries? Was there culturally a difference in finance? 

Andrew Collis: 8:19 

Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing is listening to the people in that country because listening We have a set view, I have a set view, and you think that's how it should work, but actually you go and suddenly try and impose that straight away onto people, it just doesn't work. You can be banging heads against a brick wall very quickly. So, building that relationship and listening to the way things are done in that country and the nuances there is really important and then once that's established it's right how do we look to prove this and so, we acquired a couple businesses in Norway where there was an inherent finance team there and management team and it was working with those guys to get the best out of the team but equally bringing them into a larger group structure and all the things that are required around reporting and governance and all the things that come with that. 

Hannah Munro: 9:35 

Yes, and that's a big growth journey to manage, isn't it? The combination of bringing new people into the team, but also the adjustment into how the overall group works and all the policies, etc. So, how did you find that process? Have you got any top tips for anyone that's going on that journey? 

Andrew Collis: 9:54 

Yeah, so, I think from a well, there's both an organic and there's also an acquisition place. Cause when I referred to Norway, we did that organically initially, and then we started to acquire businesses and did the same in Canada as well. So, what you best thing to do is almost get a playbook, a playbook of an organic perspective, right? These are the things we need to do from company registration, from appointing a lawyer, corporate lawyer, right? accounting firm that can take care of all the initial tax and accounting regulations and filing just to make sure you set up properly and then all the banking as well so, again we take banking for granted in the UK and actually we're pretty advanced in terms of the world around corporate banking believe it or not. So, it's all those things. And you have a playbook for that. And then the same applies for acquisitions as well. It's what's the playbook and what am I looking for from an acquisition or is the parameters on the acquisition? And then once the business is acquired, right, what's my plan? What do I need to go and do to integrate it into the wider group? So, I think that's the biggest thing is that playbook and working towards that playbook and bringing both the current team and also the new team along for the journey and knitting those two cultures together is massive as well. 

Hannah Munro: 11:37 

Yeah, because that's a big challenge, isn't it? So, it sounds like you had a mix of sort of obviously hiring in-country for your finance team potentially and also acquisition. Have I got that right? 

Andrew Collis: 11:49 

Yeah, exactly. No, it's exactly that. So, yeah, exactly. It's getting that balance right. 

Hannah Munro: 11:56 

So, how did you approach bringing that team together? Because obviously they're on opposite sides of the world and a very different culturally. So, how did you approach it? 

Andrew Collis: 12:08 

Very much big on in-person. So, either of us... was going across to whether it was Norway or US, et cetera, or at times that team or the management of that team coming to the UK. And I say that, and then given what's happened the last two years, that the world's slightly changed. And people are successfully doing acquisitions and integrating acquisitions, but a lot less face-to-face. And it's interesting from a Moneypenny perspective, Moneypenny acquired a business in the US in February 2020, so, a month before the first COVID lockdown. And then both the UK and US went into a big lockdown, so, actually it's really minimised that face-to-face contact, it's all been done by teams remotely. So, but what we've really seen in the last six to eight months where we've been able to do some more of the face-to-face, it's made a massive difference. And the biggest thing is the culture and actually seeing both the guys in the U.S. coming across to here and seeing the culture here. Culturally, we've got a very special business. And then taking that back to the U.S., then equally bringing the management team from the UK going out to the US and seeing that and helping guide them on that journey and that integration. 

Hannah Munro: 13:52 

Absolutely. And that brings us quite nicely onto the topic of, I guess, culture. So, it's not just about obviously internationally being different, but Moneypenny itself is quite unique, isn't it? So, tell us a little bit about the culture that Moneypenny have built. 

Andrew Collis: 14:08 

Yeah, it's very... special place the and it stems from founders ed and Rachel brother and sister and who founded the business just over 20 years ago so, in 2000 and they embodied this this special culture this people focus and they've gone on to achieve great things and it's a lot of charity work now And Ed still sits as a non-exec on the board. So, his influence is absolutely still there. And then that's been very much carried through with Joanna, chief exec, who's been with the business 16, 17 years. And just, it's a huge people focus. We put our people first, very much a servant leadership style, so, make sure that the people are happy in the environment, happy with the role they are doing, and they will prosper. And then we talk about the environment. It's all the things that go into that. So, it's the offices. We have free breakfasts. We subsidise lunches. We've put a gym in. We do... yoga classes we put on different things box size all those sorts of things so, um it's all those good things and obviously that has been impacted by covert as well um and for example we've got pub on site as well so, the bill was built five years ago so, that's a pub on site but all that's been um not taken away but it's really it's been on and off the last two years um So, that's brought its own challenges as well, but it's maintaining that culture. And actually, it's great now because you start to see people coming back to the office and really keen to get back to the office. They actually want to be in the office, which is great. 

Hannah Munro: 16:18 

No, absolutely. Because, you know, it's going to be interesting, isn't it, over the next couple of years, how people approach where they want to work as much as in terms of physical location and working from home. versus, you know, typically it was kind of the status quo was to work in office, but there's a lot changing at the moment. 

Andrew Collis: 16:38 

Absolutely. And as you all know, the rules in Wales are different to the rules in England. So, we're just inside Wales in Wrexham, so, three, four, five miles from the border. So, we've got three quarters of our staff are in Wales, a quarter in England. We've just had to plot our way through with forever changing rules. And sometimes the Welsh government, very sort of immediate changes in rules. And suddenly we've had to get, just before Christmas, we had to get 250, 300 people just to work remotely almost overnight, about two days. And that was in Christmas week. So, that's been a challenge. And I think, Unless you're in it, you don't really see that and you don't see the logistics and the efforts from everyone to make that happen, from the support guys, the technical guys, the IT guys to make all that happen and make sure everything's working properly. 

Hannah Munro: 17:45 

No, absolutely. And I think there are some unique challenges. We're also on the Cheshire Welsh border. It feels like we've got one foot in England and one foot in Wales. And yeah, it's a bit of a unique situation and particularly during COVID as well. Because exactly like you said, we've got some people that really want to be in the office. You know, others are quite comfortable working from home and are thriving that environment. There's quite a few that really feed off the vibe and the energy that comes with a great office environment. So, it is a challenging situation. So, tell me a little bit about the growth piece, because obviously... A lot of the businesses that you've worked with have gone on this massive growth journey. And you said a really, another many interesting comments, I will just say, around building the structures that need to sit within that high growth environment. So, talk to me a little bit about, you know, when you go into a new company and you know they're on that growth journey, what are the sorts of things that you're looking at when you go into that organization? 

Andrew Collis: 18:46 

Yeah, so, the key thing is, I try and understand is the drivers of that business. What are the success measures? What are those key KPIs that drive the success of that business? You see now, businesses have multitudes of KPIs and metrics, and you can have hundreds and hundreds, but actually getting down to, you want to be able to write them on one piece of paper, so, you have 12 KPIs and say, right, these are the success measures. These are the things that really make the business tick. How do we manage those? How do we improve those? How do we report and manage performance on that? And that's been the same across all those businesses, NES, Mobica, and now Moneypenny. So, that's one element. And the second one's really around people and structure of people in the teams. And is, is that got the platform in it to, to deliver growth or is everyone running around and busy sort of frantic and actually, right, let's put, let's get some structure around it. Who's, who's doing what and, and having that platform to, to really drive that growth. And from a finance perspective, that's, that's, that's really important as well. Cause as a finance function, we're a partner to the business. 

Hannah Munro: 20:34 

And how do you, because obviously you've worked in lots of different businesses over the years and, you know, you've come from sort of traditional corporate background into fast growth. How do you see that finance structure? What does good look like to you for like a medium, small to medium sized business to prepare them for growth? 

Andrew Collis: 20:55 

Yeah, so, there's two or three elements to it. There's the transactional aspect. side the transactional team so, accounts receivable accounts payable managing the banks on a day-to-day basis the payroll the nuts and bolts and there's then a second element around all the reporting so, management reporting and the group reporting, consolidation, the monthly board reporting and requests from investors as well and banks and all the things that that brings. And then the next one is really around being that business partner to the business. So, that's to the functions, that's me to the board, me to the stakeholders of the business. And I'm a big believer that finance should be the centre and the heartbeat of the business. So, when I'm talking about the KPIs and the performance, actually finance tracking and reporting on that performance is really important. So, it's probably those three buckets really. And if I look back over the last 10 years, I think the first two buckets, the transactions and the reporting, the management and the board reporting, that's always been there. But what's really grown in the last 10, 12 years is that partnering piece and being a partner to the business and influencing decisions around the management table. So, that's a big focus for me here as well. But it's great. It's all good stuff. You want to be talking about being involved in those SME type businesses. That's what I mean. It's being involved in that decision making. Finance just isn't a reporting transactional function. 

Hannah Munro: 23:09 

No, absolutely. And it's an interesting conversation because it's one I have a lot. Finance can get distracted, like you say, with the transactional and the legalese that goes around finance. And actually, building out that commercial piece is so, important, even to small and medium-sized businesses. So, how do you approach it? Have you got a team in place that you're coaching and training up? Are you looking to bring in? What's your plan? 

Andrew Collis: 23:35 

Yeah, so, we've got a great team in place. And... A few people have been here for a good period of time, so, they've seen a lot of great growth. And so, it's upskilling those guys. So, right, and brilliant at the transactional side and the management reporting, we're improving some pieces around the reporting side. And then we're starting to improve around the business partnering side as well. So, yeah, it’s funny, we had a session a couple of days ago on this very point. Emma and myself, the FD and the finance controller, just going through, right, okay, what are we currently doing? and how do we how do we take this forward what's that what's the next stage and we made loads of progress last six months of last year and we've integrated the us acquisition properly into the finance team and um we're going to manage the reporting and the partnering from the UK which will work well and So, yeah, it's all those things. So, it's a lot of upskilling and then maybe the odd addition to the team just to help strengthen that. 

Hannah Munro: 24:57 

yeah and because it sounds like you're taking sort of those that have been more focused on the transactional side but know the business really well into more of a commercial view so, how do you approach that in terms of development and skills like is do you coach them individually do you have particular courses and development that you work with them on what's your what's your approach 

Andrew Collis: 25:20 

yeah so, it's um it's more the former so, it's that I'm doing it in a team environment. So, a couple of days ago, it was three of us and actually brainstorming what that looks like. I have a view of what good looks like, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's right. It's saying, right, this is where we want to go and getting all those views from around the table. And then once you identify in terms of, right, that's the goal, that's the objective, right? What's the path to getting there? What are those key things? And how do we spread that around the team as we have? And then equally, are there any resource gaps where we do need to bring somebody in to help us um to help do that because you can end up busy on all the transactionally reporting stuff um but actually unless you make that that step forward and sometimes it is through bringing somebody in you never quite get there so, um so, yeah that's it's more that the coaching and that collaborative um piece I think innate living finance people they enjoy numbers, but they like business and they want to be involved in business. And sometimes it's always giving them the avenue and the opportunity and the platform to do that and get involved in the business rather than being sort of in the corner of an office, sort of crunching the numbers. 

Hannah Munro: 27:01 

Yeah, if you think of all of the memes that are of finance, isn't it? It's somebody banging away on a calculator or typing into a spreadsheet. And I think this is, you know, we're in a, I think it's a really exciting time for finance. We're in this opportunity where we have these new, more commercially focused roles coming out that I think, you know, will make people want to get into finance and to be excited about it rather than just because they like numbers, if that makes sense. So, there's a real opportunity, I think, in terms of how the finance team itself is going to develop. 

Andrew Collis: 27:37 

Yeah, absolutely. And look, as technology improves, and again, I've seen that in the last 10 years and some of the things now, managing... just accounts payable and automation around that and expenses and different things. It is a technology improves it. The transaction piece almost it's less intense. It happens. Um, it's more maintenance rather than actually having to go and crunch several thousand invoices. Um, so, yeah. And then that then gives the opportunity on the value add and, um, focusing resource and efforts onto that. 

Hannah Munro: 28:22 

Yeah. And just out of interest, do you have any measures that you use to assess how well the commercial side is working? Do you have KPIs or ways, apart from obviously seeing the impact and seeing how engaged they are, is there anything that you see as a way of measuring how well a commercial team, commercial finance team is operating? 

Andrew Collis: 28:46 

Yeah. not measures, so, to speak, in terms of outputs around success. I mean, we have different projects and that could be making something more efficient. It could be costs. And obviously you say, right, there's a goal there and measure against that. And then it's as much as anything, it's feedback from the operations board or the, the other stakeholders around the business around that, that partnering and making sure that that's happening. And I think that's as, that's almost the best measure for me is that, is that feedback to say, actually, no, that's working really well, or actually we could do this better. Um, because if the business has been supported from a financial perspective, every, um, every ops board member knows that from a financial perspective, they're in safe hands and the numbers are taken care of and they understand it. They understand the main messages and then they can go and focus on what they need to do, whether that be people, technology, operations, sales. 

Hannah Munro: 30:02 

No, absolutely. And that feedback is, I think, really important when your main stakeholders really value your finance team for more than just the report they produce. Yeah. that's a great sign of success. So,- 

Andrew Collis: 30:17 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Hannah Munro: 30:18 

That's all right. So, obviously you've been through a massive amount of change and you're going through a massive amount of change. Sort of how do you approach that? Are there any sort of tips that you can share with our audience around leading such a shift in how you're working? 

Andrew Collis: 30:38 

Big one is plan well. I'm always one where I'd like everything done yesterday. So, it's very much planning well. It's having those sessions, those brainstorming sessions, saying, right, these are all the things we want to go and do. This is why we're going to do them. Plot that through what that looks like on a timescale. And then allocating the tasks to people. You've got to take the team need to come with you on the journey. You can't do it all yourself. And it is a massive team effort. And it's feedback to the team as well. So, we did the exercise end of August, and we plotted through all the things we wanted to do in H2. And we did this session a couple of days ago. And it was great because we went through and there might have been 30 things on there and they were subdivided into sort of four or five different categories. And actually, a number of items we put a green, green tick through was amazing. And actually, that gives a real sense of achievement and, um, the team feels that, and then we're going to feed it back to the wider team as well. So, that then helps say, right, okay, well, there are other things we achieved in the last Q3, Q4 of last year. Now this is what we're going to aim to do in 2022. And that feedback loop of where we're up to, because again, you set out timescales. Everyone knows things happen. COVID, acquisitions, things happen. So, you can have the best laid plans in the world but being agile around it and being prepared to move things around and reprioritize or bringing a bit of flexible resource or whatever is so, important. But the way you get there from an agile perspective and move things around is the buy-in from the team, the flexibility from the team. And it's that communications is paramount. 

Hannah Munro: 32:54 

Absolutely. I think people forget that. And I love your approach to Agile. I'm a massive believer in Agile generally in terms of approach to planning because the world just changes too quick for us to be planning, you know, or sticking to the plans that we made three years ago. Can you imagine if you just followed the rule book during COVID? It would have been a very different scenario. 

Andrew Collis: 33:15 

Absolutely. I completely, absolutely agree. And I think COVID has actually helps with that in terms of its changed so, much the last two years and I was just saying before Christmas and no days you come into it you just don't know what's going to happen and we've had to you have to respond because there's been its needs must at certain times and that's where just all the focus not from the finance team but the whole management team or um the wider team have had to focus just to make things happen and I think back, and that's probably happened to me three or four times in my career as well, because I remember the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, and suddenly the banks were tightening on lending, and suddenly again, that was a big crisis from a financial perspective, obviously not anywhere near as wide as COVID, but you have these moments in your career, and I think it just really enforces that around the agility and You learn how to manage in crises. 

Hannah Munro: 34:25 

Yeah, it does, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I think is the quote, but it is very true. You get a, if you go through experiences like this, I do think it makes you think differently about yourself. you know, how you work and what happens. And there was a really, on a previous episode, we had Patrick Dunn, he's written a book about boards and how they function, you know, how they function well. And he said one of the interesting things, because he's obviously chair of a few, is that they're changing from a sat-nav world, from a maps world to a sat-nav world. So, if we think about how we were driving... Well, I don't know about you. I had an A to Z when I learned to drive. So, I was sat. 

Andrew Collis: 35:02 

there 

Hannah Munro: 35:03 

trying to figure it out. And you had to plan your journey sort of before you started. Whereas now, obviously, we're reacting to Google Maps when we're driving. We're not actually figuring it out before we leave, which is quite interesting. 

Andrew Collis: 35:16 

That is interesting. It's a good analogy. I like that. 

Hannah Munro: 35:20 

Yeah, well, you know, for the youngsters, that probably doesn't make any sense because I don't think they know what an A to Z is. I haven't seen it. But for me, it really brought home how different the last sort of 15 years have been in terms of data and what we have access to. But yeah, what a shift. So, obviously, so, as much as I think we could talk about going global, we could talk about culture, all sorts of things, but My final question for you today is, you know, obviously you're new into role in that you've been there for eight months now, is that right? Have I got that nailed? 

Andrew Collis: 35:55 

Yes, 

Hannah Munro: 35:57 

yes. So, if you, for those new CFOs that are starting, because there's a lot of shift there, what are your top tips for starting a new role? 

Andrew Collis: 36:07 

Yeah, okay. So, plan, plan well. 

Unknown: 36:13 

Yeah. 

Andrew Collis: 36:14 

understand get to understand the business take that time to understand the business and the people um it's probably the most critical thing so, actually understand yeah the finances and the drivers of the business but actually get out and understand how the operations work how the sales team work why what makes that business different to the others on the market what are those the unique selling points that that business has and what makes it special. Once you understand that, it'll help you massively on that journey. So, I think that'd be my biggest tip. After that, it's the planning well and what you want to do, particularly the first sort of three, six months and then 12 months. And then communication. So, continue to communicate both with the team, staff finance team, but the wider board and management team around where you're up to, what you're planning on doing and being constructive about it as well. 

Hannah Munro: 37:30 

That's great. And some great tips there on for any new CFOs about to start their new role. So, thank you so, much, Andrew, for coming on to the show. It's been an absolute blast. And it's been a hope, you know, I'm sure our audience have found it incredibly useful. So, if anyone wants to learn more about Moneypenny and the awesome work that you guys are doing there, what's the best way to find out more? 

Andrew Collis: 37:55 

Yeah, so, go on our website, moneypenny.co.uk. There's lots on there. We... We were looking at this the other day, so, we now support 7,000 clients in the UK and more actually. So, we've got a similar number in the US. So, it's, yeah, we're growing all the time. So, yeah, have a look at what we do on there. And yes, it's got all the cultural pieces as well and all the special things we do for our people. 

Hannah Munro: 38:23 

Yeah, and I can say, so, I regularly drive past the beautiful Moneypenny offices on the A483. But no, if you want to learn about people and culture money penny is an awesome way to start and it certainly inspired me a lot when I first started out um or 10 you know 10 or so, years ago so, thank you Andrew for coming on the show and yes um really appreciate all of your insights and experience that you shared with us today 

Andrew Collis: 38:52 

brilliant thank you Hannah, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.