73. How to deal with shifts and transformations within finance teams with Chris Argent, Founder of Generation CFO

73. How to deal with shifts and transformations within finance teams with Chris Argent, Founder of Generation CFO

Hannah Munro: 0:48 

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. I'm very excited to say that on today's podcast, we have Chris Argent. So, Chris is the founder and MD of Generation CFO and somebody that I regularly, you know, whose content I personally regularly consume. So, if you haven't checked it out, you definitely should. So, welcome, Chris. Lovely to have you on the show today. 

Chris Argent: 1:11 

Thank you, Hannah. It's great to be here and credit to you with the podcast. It's great to see it out there. It's needed. 

Hannah Munro: 1:19 

Oh, thanks, Chris. Really appreciate it. So, tell us, for those that perhaps haven't yet come across Generation CFO, though I think they'll be hard-pressed not to because you guys are everywhere, tell us a little bit about your journey. What made you start the brand and where was it going? 

Chris Argent: 1:38 

Yeah, well, it's quite an interesting journey in that it was totally unplanned and what I'm doing today didn't have this business plan and this sort of structured approach. Basically, I started out in finance and accounting and after about 15 years of being an SME FD, I There was a moment in my career where I thought I just need to make a change. And it was when I discovered a fraud in the company that I was in. I had a complete year of chaos. And it was kind of at that moment that I realized how poor a lot of our processes were, and our systems were and all the rest of it. And it sort of planted this seed that I... I needed to get close to technology and the solution and actually be part of the solution rather than the problem that I was finding in accounting and finance. So, I went into finance transformation. And at that point, which is a good 15 years ago, I didn't have many friends. You know, working in finance transformation, working in shared service environment, when you'd been an FD was seen as a backward step. You know, it's the graveyard, you know, you need to be working with the business and stepping up and all the rest of it. And I saw it differently, you know, because I'd had such a difficult time, you know, basically unpicking this fraud for a year and fixing everything. And I just thought, no, we can do better than this. I was really lucky to actually be with some big companies like John Lewis, Waitrose, Amazon, Vodafone going on that journey. So, they invested heavily in it. But the start of Generation CFO and the reason why I give that backstory is because I set up a LinkedIn group. When I was very lonely in the shared service days, I set up a LinkedIn group and I was just trying to find anybody in accounting and finance who just wanted to peek over Excel and look at the systems a bit more or look at the technology that was coming down the line in terms of automation and analytics. And to my surprise, I found a lot of people who were interested and not necessarily my peer group at the time, but the next generation, the Gen Zs, the digital natives coming through. And very quickly, that group grew to about 40,000 members on LinkedIn. It's called Generation CFO. And then the group became a community offline and events and training and editorial and everything that we do today. And that passion project basically became my business about three years ago. And now there's a team of us running all of our editorial content, our education and training and our events. 

Hannah Munro: 4:21 

That is an amazing story. And I think that's really interesting, isn't it? It's about... When I obviously started the podcast, it was just, I thought there was something missing. It was just something, and it's, you know, for those that are listening that don't know, it's a genuine passion project. You know, it's not my full-time job, as we were talking about just before the show. And those are sometimes the best ways to start new things and to get out there. So, tell me a little bit about sort of the conversations that you're hearing with those 40,000 members. What is the shift that you've seen over the last sort of five to 10 years? 

Chris Argent: 4:59 

Well, the 40,000 grew to 70,000. And now we've actually got a reach of about 100,000. So, you know, we talked to, but the reality is actually, we talked to a very, very small group of that massive community, simply because you don't have enough hours in the day. You know, but we do have an online community that people, you know, can sign up to for free. And we do have community meetups where we have these very real conversations. And I think what's been obvious over the last sort of, two years with the pandemic, there's been a huge demand on accounting and finance to step up, to deliver information for the business, to sort of, you know, keep the businesses going. And, you know, we talk about hero CFOs and sort of having this, you know, praise and celebration of what we do in accounting and finance and not to be, you know, hiding in the background as the sort of back office. Because I believe a lot of people in accounting and finance have kept their businesses as going in the last two years. But for all that demand, it's taken a bit of a toll. So, people are actually you know, looking at the future going, look, we need to improve what we're doing. We need to make sure that our ways of working are sustainable. And there were loads of stories about, you know, people wanting to work remotely, but still having to go into the office to get paperwork or still having to, you know, meet up to do certain things. And the system's not quite being there. So, remote working wasn't quite possible. And I think there was this weird, we do research with our community as well. And there was this sort of weird situation happening at the start of the pandemic which was um we had to freeze almost all budgets and capex and spend um generally just to survive but at the same time there was a huge demand for finance transformation and you could almost see this perfect storm in 2022 where you know the demand for finance transformation was going up but the budgets were frozen So, this year, as the certainty comes back in, hopefully that budget is being diverted to that bigger demand on finance transformation. So, yeah, it's been a varied conversation. But I think people in the main have come through it and they're looking to improve, definitely. 

Hannah Munro: 7:27 

Yeah, and I think it's quite, I don't know about you, but I feel like it's quite an exciting time in finance. It's obviously been a challenging time over the last couple of years because, like you said, no budgets, but more demand for better information, faster, and the ability to make decisions quicker is obviously important. led into some of that transformation piece. But actually, like the futures for me is quite exciting because, you know, I always say like, we don't, you know, we don't go to, we don't spend years doing SEMA to start typing numbers and spreadsheets and to, you know, as fun as it was learning those T accounts, that's not what you want to do once you're at that level. So, for me, I think it opens up so, many opportunities in terms of career options for those already in finance, but also like a change in role for those that are at a more senior level as well. So, what are some of the shifts? Obviously, you work very closely with ACCA, with AOT and, you know, all of the big names in accounting. So, what are some of the conversations that you'll have being around the shifting role? 

Chris Argent: 8:31 

So, I think the you know if you like the top 10 priorities generally remain the same within a finance team you know we want to be providing the right information to the right people we want to be business partners we've been talking about that since the 60s I'm pretty sure but it's still our number one priority and I think there's an acknowledgement now that technology is a core part of that solution. Whatever it is we're offering, whatever your priority is. In fact, I was on a webinar. I worked with the AAT. I ran a digital decoded workshop yesterday for the AAT members and students. And one of the questions we asked yesterday was, should we... being trained on the digital side in the same way that we're being supported and trained on the accounting side. A lot of people go in to finance teams and are funded in their training. And 96% out of a very large group, it's probably a couple of hundred people on the webinar, 96% said, yes, absolutely. And they said it was, I think it was slightly less, but around 90% said, understanding digital was part of being a great accountant and a great finance leader now. So, it might be slightly skewed because there was obviously a digital decoded. So, you know, you might have digital advocates on there. But I think there's just a realization that there are, you know, in the past we had the technical skill set and we had to major on that and maybe could have had a full career out of it. Then we overlaid the business part, which was the business partnering. And we've kind of been talking about that for a very long time. And I think there is actually a bit of a problem with doing that because maybe people going into the profession aren't natural business partners. So, people are starting to recruit different types of people into those business partnering roles. But then when you actually add the digital side of life, we're actually seeing that almost like that– not traditional accountant, but that accounting skillset, that analytical mindset, that analytical thinking actually lends itself really well to the digital side. So, I think a lot of people feel more comfortable with almost learning the digital skillset rather than being pushed into this communicator role and partnering up with a business. And that's what we've been talking about with the ACCA and the AAT and also you know, the learning providers. And we did this amazing research report last year. It was quite heavy, I have to say, but it was around the agile organization. It was a research paper that we did with the ACCA and also CAANZ, the Antipodean Association. And it really laid out the future of what the profession could be. But it was big thinking. What we try to do with the AAT and when we do training and our summits and all of that educational content is operationalize it, break it down, make it really digestible because sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. 

Hannah Munro: 11:35 

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good shot. Because I've always thought, if I think about where I, you know, where I personally think finance is going, is that I thought when we see it's two arms, almost like the operational and analytic and the strategic side is kind of how I think of it. What was the research? Like, what did you guys find out? Were there any surprises in that research? 

Chris Argent: 11:58 

Yeah, I think there was a lot of acceptance of this coming and there was a lot of, let's say, you know, planning and talk and, you know, I don't know, I don't want to sound too negative, but there was a lot of, you know, chat about it. Yes, I'm an innovation leader because I'm, you know, having a conversation about new technology or, you know, having a data team within my organization. Great. But are you doing it? Do you have a vision? Do you have a digital finance function vision? Do you have an understanding of the core technology even to start this thing? And I think one thing that came out of the research was a lot of people want to go straight to the tools. But actually, buying tools doesn't get you down the road. It's actually on the people side. And I think everybody from the research was saying that actually this is more of a people change. It's an identity change. We need to take people on a change journey. And change to me is structured learning. If I change a bit every day, that starts to add up. And I also think when I talk to firms and people in practice, the qualification is still very much the destination. It creates almost like a jumping off point within firms. And I think that has to change. Being qualified gets you so, far. And the qualifications are trying to change to sort of bring in this digital side of things. But it's not happening quickly enough. So, we have to adapt. And I think it's really the real change is on the people's side. And I think when people hear digital and finance transformation, they think, oh, it's the technology. But we have a CFO Tech 100 listing, and the technology is there. There's examples. There's people within our community that can talk to every one of those technologies and say, yeah, it works. If you go to Xero or the app stores, there's thousands of plug and play apps that you can pick up straight away. The tech's there, but you'll still get people saying, I don't have the time. It's too expensive without even looking how expensive it is. This will unsettle the team and it's fine. Things are working. So, why change it? It's not that broken, is it? So, I think really, it's about the sort of structured learning to make the people change before you start buying in the technology and because the technology will land if you find a good partner. 

Hannah Munro: 14:54 

Yeah, and weirdly enough, given what I do for a living, I completely agree with that. So, technology for me is kind of a bit of kit that is used on the journey to what we're trying to deliver. And I always find it fascinating that people think that They have to buy a new piece of kit to be able to achieve the change that they want. And not only just like you say, that change management journey, but I also think it's really interesting the lack of process knowledge, process engineering knowledge that finance has at the moment. The ability to look at a process and pick it apart and figure out, because some of it is nothing to do with the technology. It's actually about the changes, the process that's been driven by other areas of the organization. It's People not just thinking about the order in which they do things. There's a lot of that that goes into successful financial transformation. 

Chris Argent: 15:50 

It's the uncomfortable truth in the automation side of things, I think, that the benefit of automation is fixing the process most of the time. Yeah, you might... You might replace human hours for robot hours, and there's obviously the benefit of that, and maybe working 24-7 if you've got the volume of transactions. But actually, the real benefit there, and like I say, this almost uncomfortable truth, is that fixing the process, which you can do without changing your technology, is actually going to get you up the stream faster. much faster than maybe just waiting for a technologist to come in and start looking at the process and then say, okay, do we want to speed up this broken wheel or are we going to fix the broken wheel? I think there's lots of misunderstanding around the technology side just being this great solution coming in. We've seen talk about failure in this area. Unfortunately, there is a lot of failure in this area, but it's when CFOs and the business generally sort of leaves it to IT or leaves it to an external consultant that doesn't quite understand. And you talk about our knowledge, you know, why aren't we process re-engineering or, you know, why aren't we looking at our different sources of data? You know, I think it's just our identity. We don't look for it because we've never done it and we aren't being asked to do it, but we should because we are actually analytical experts. From an analytics point of view, we're domain experts in our function. We're very, very good technically on the accounting and finance side. So, we can unpick a process if we choose to. We can unpick the data if we choose to. And dare I say, I've been in lots of battles over Excel and should we be using it. And My conclusion over the years has been, yeah, there's loads of better tools out there. But even within Excel, there's more capability that people have never looked at. So, if you want to go on a journey, then go look at the advanced Excel stuff first if you want to start looking at technology. But that will only then lead to, well, what data should we be using? Are the processes there? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And also, I'm not against Excel. I'm more... against Excel being the only solution for people, which is a bit frustrating. So, yeah, we are made, I think we've got a ready-made role here within the digital world. We just don't know it. 

Hannah Munro: 18:29 

Yeah. And I'm the same with you is that people, obviously I talk a lot about shifting out of spreadsheets because it's almost a catalyst in itself for the change that's needed. And like you say, I think people default to Excel and that's the bit that think if I've understood right that's the bit you also have an issue with in that it's about like let's always go to excel first rather than thinking about what do we need to deliver on whatever it is that we're trying to achieve and I think it's really interesting and like you say I really support the fact that it's about where people feel comfortable and actually in finance there's a whole piece that we need to be comfortable with like you say reviewing processes challenging process which can be quite hard because I do feel on sometimes that finance is at the end of the conversation when it comes to processes rather than being in the conversation. You know, sales will come up with these amazing, you know, invoicing and pricing models. And then the finance team just needs to figure out how to deliver on it. And that is always a really, I find a really interesting piece in that processes can be driven by the rest of the organization, not finance. 

Chris Argent: 19:38 

I think, though, it's built into our learning. We need to change how we learn whether we're senior or whether we're junior. I think it's built into our learning. What I mean is we are reporting numbers normally, which is usually the output from a process. So, we don't look back over that process. We took up revenue, total revenue, or we report facts. It's the output from those processes. And we're not that bothered about the processes. But actually, what the business is starting to ask for, especially in terms of information, is actually what we call leading indicators rather than this sort of lagging indicator, this fact. They want to know sort of how many... sales meetings we've had because we think it might impact revenue. We want to understand the quality of our ingredients in manufacturing because it might impact our waste cost. And we're busy in finance and accounting going, I've done a great job because I can report revenue decreasing. I can report my waste going up. But that's not the end of the conversation. It's going back and looking in the process and looking at what's happening in the process and reporting that so, we can intervene. We can say, well, we need to make sure our ingredients is the right quality, or we need to make more calls to get the revenue. And then in terms of improving that process, you've got to improve the process to get that information, to get that data. So, it's in our interest to start looking at those processes to re-engineer them, to improve them so, we can get that information to improve the performance of our business. But I don't think many people think like that, but that's what I encourage people to think like and to learn about. 

Hannah Munro: 21:39 

And you mentioned, obviously, when you started the research, you said there was an acceptance that things need to change. In terms of acceptance, was that an acceptance with a willingness to jump in or is that acceptance with a I've got to, you know, I know I need to do this, but I'm kind of not sure where to start. What was the conversations at that stage? 

Chris Argent: 22:04 

It's really difficult because it's a sort of case-by-case basis. You know, some, and I don't think, you know, there's a lot of talk about is there a generational gap? You know, do the leaders sort of understand what the, you know, the digital natives want and what they expect? And, you know, if I've got a grad student who's been on his phone all his life and apps, and there may be a coder and a computer scientist. Maybe I should be talking to them and are they the ones that should be leading this change? I think there are, like any kind of change in a way, there are early adopters. It's that sort of marketing theory. We're going to have some people that jump in and buy the stuff straight away. Later down the line, you're going to get the masses. And I think we are still quite early on this for our profession. But, you know, you look at the marketing profession, which is an example of possibly what could change for us. Everyone's using digital analytics, data analytics. There's now a profession called digital marketing. So, maybe there's a profession called digital finance in the future, and we're focused more on the sort of finance and data and digital skills rather than the business partnering side. And there's another career called finance business partnering and it's supported by this team. I think people generally want to change because their teams want them to change, but they're a bit stuck as to what to do next. And we take a slightly different approach to maybe the traditional approach. I think most of these leaders get their information from teams. the accounting institutions which is why we work with them to get the message across and to go to conferences but obviously the last couple of years conferences have gone and I also think that conferences can be quite overwhelming for people you know there's thousands of people you know the network opportunities they talk about you know I'm not sure how good we are at networking at communities to find people who have done it before um to help us out And there's loads and loads of technology players in these conferences. And how do you know which one's good, bad, ugly? So, we take a slightly different approach and we're like, look, we'll have an educational summit, and it's purely focused on the content. So, come and learn. We'll have a community meetup. So, if you're interested in then taking it further or finding people within your peer group to learn from, come to that and we've got the online community as well which people can sign up to and ask questions all year round and we're trying to create this sort of 24 7 learning environment because we feel that people need it rather than one day a year you go and get inspired and then the next day you've got to do your accruals 

Hannah Munro: 25:01 

yeah, I know I love that because there is like conferences are really inspirational, I must admit I've missed going in and getting ideas, getting inspiration. But like you said, there's also that ongoing... Like you've actually got to do the day job whilst you're going on this journey and that ongoing push and what happens if you get questions, how is that supported? So, I think, you know, I completely agree with you. And again, you know, it was why I started talking to people on the podcast is because I was seeing a lot of people, like I talk about technology all the time and I was speaking to a lot of people and it was really interesting that they hadn't understood all of the effort all of the knowledge that goes around technology to make it work. And I do think there is something for, you know, for leaders, I guess, to engage on an ongoing basis. Let's be fair, if they're listening to this podcast, if they're part of Generation CFO, they've already made that step and are starting to engage. But I think it's, you know, that educational summit and having smaller chunks of information, because a day... You can only absorb so, much, I believe, in a day and having smaller chunks of information is just easier to digest. 

Chris Argent: 26:16 

And I think there's, you know, I love my property programs. I think most of the UK does. And, you know, it's a bit like, you know, going to a house viewing and being asked on the day whether you want to buy the house or not. And some people do. You know, some people make buying decisions of houses in very short amounts of time and it's, it's alarming when you think how much money you spend on a house. And it's a bit like that with a conference, like turn up, learn, be inspired, buy a product, right, see you next year. But what we're trying to create is almost like that ongoing learning. It's like, you know, search for stuff, ask questions, you know, almost talk to the estate agents, you know, the analogy's gone, but it's trying to keep that, because I firmly believe, you know, that change, particularly when it comes to people, is about learning it's about you know education it's about getting closer to the problem not just burying your head in the sand and you also have to break it down for people because they don't have time they've got a day job some people are massively overwhelmed and after the pandemic you know there's some people and we had comments you know on one of our webinars recently about Chris, I've just survived a pandemic. As great as this might be, I don't know whether I have the energy to make that change right now. And I totally get that. It's like if you want to put an extension on the back of your house, you've got to be ready for that. It's not just something you decide to do. So, yeah, I totally get it. But what we want to try and encourage is this community of people to support each other. And, you know, we do sort of lean very much on the technology side, but we do cover off other trending topics. And we can't ignore those, you know, things like ESG and mental health were big over the last year as well. But we do link it back almost to the technology and the use case because we talk about it in terms of information. It's like, what information are you capturing mental health-wise, you know, on the ESG side? I think there's something coming in very soon about having to report plastics. If you're in manufacturing, how are you going to do that? You're not even measuring it. Where's the data? How do you do that? Where's the analytics? Who's reporting that data? Is it on the CFO? Is it on someone else? So, we try and sort of bring it to life with a technology hat on. and keep it interesting. 

Hannah Munro: 28:51 

And I think there is that piece, and you made a really interesting comment about almost, you know, I can't cope with this, you know, because of, you know, I've just been through a pandemic. I'm at this stage. And there is an assumption that a transformation piece is this massive project that's going to all consume your life. And I don't know what your thoughts on that, but I feel like there is a conversation about what changes can you make And what small changes can you identify and just make that step into that transformation journey without necessarily having to dive in head first and into the massive pool of transformation. 

Chris Argent: 29:32 

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a massive fan of the word transformation in a way because it does explain what we're trying to do here. It's a sort of one-way change. There's no going back. But I think the word transformation also implies that it's a project or it's a big initiative and then we stop or we're in a different place now and then we stop. The way that I view this is it's continuous learning for sure. And it's not just because that's helpful to people. It's possible to change continuously now. So, before you used to get big process changes coming in, big systems changes coming in. But now with the SaaS environment and the cloud environment, especially around the small and medium-sized businesses, you can change. have a Friday project and download something probably for free and play around with it and see whether it's relevant and then the costs will start to come in later and if you don't like it it's you're not wasting a huge amount of time to go and switch to something else because it's a SAS environment and it's probably plug and play with an API for the data so, you know you can do a lot of it now you might see this as wasted time but I always challenge people saying look If you value your time as an accountant, whether it's 50 quid an hour or 500 quid an hour, the investment in trying to automate something or integrate something and improve your information or then even bring in a new service to your clients with this information is well worthwhile. You've just got to start thinking of yourself as valuable rather than just slogging to the end and getting a fee. And yeah, but I do think it's really important that people break it down. And I'm a firm believer of those sorts of tiny changes and the 1% is all adding up. 

Hannah Munro: 31:33 

Yeah, I know. And that whole agile finance. And I know I really love your comments about like financial transformation isn't a destination, it's a journey. That whole piece about like it's an ongoing piece. We're never going to, I don't believe, going to stop transforming. It's just we're going to have better skills to be able to do it is my personal opinion and better tools to play with to keep improving it. But that, yeah, agile finance is a term I think we should talk about more. 

Chris Argent: 32:02 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think transformation was born out of the sort of shared service environments, the big enterprise transformations. And there's a change now to, they call it the citizen data scientist or the citizen data analyst or transformer. And what that means is someone within a finance team, let's say, just doing it themselves, just making those changes themselves. Now, you do need a strategy around these things, and it's probably good to get your passport in, but you can actually make these changes. And one of the things we've done recently is we set up the Digital Finance Function Awards, which was to try and find those people who are making the micro-automations or even the bigger transformations, but who are doing things themselves. And it's quite separate to say some of the industry awards that come out with the big, shared service environments and stuff like that. We're trying to find those inspiring people within accounting and finance who are just getting on with it. And on the AAT Decoded panel, we had some great people who were just saying, yeah, I started playing with it, picked it up. They were able to automate things, which meant that they could generally almost stop supervising that work, even take it out of their kind of thoughts. It's just done. And we want to celebrate people like that. And we want to celebrate people who are sort of leading on learning as well as implementation on the awards side. So, yeah. If there are anybody out there, do look us up. 

Hannah Munro: 33:53 

No, absolutely. So, where do you think the next steps are for finance teams? What is the skills gap that finance needs to be able to go on these journeys? What are your thoughts on that? 

Chris Argent: 34:06 

So, I think there are two skills gaps. I think generally there's this sort of communicator business partnering skills gap. And there is this data and digital skills gap. And I would just say, you know, there you go. There are two skills gaps. The interesting thing for me is that there was some ACCA research, again, and the industry, you know, our own teams felt that there was going to be more demand on the data and digital side than the business partnering side. So, if you sort of look at those two gaps, which one should we be looking at more, then it's not black and white, but maybe we should be looking on the data and the digital side. And what backs that up is some of the government research on this, which last year the government said that there were 200,000 vacancies in the UK that needed some level of digital and data skills. So,... I know for a fact, and this is probably looking more at the data analytics market outside of what we do in accounting and finance. But if you look at the data analytics market, you have higher job satisfaction. You have loads of transferable skills. You've still got a high average salary in all of this. There's this unique blend of creativity and analytical thinking. So, I actually think a lot of people are going to go after the gap that's on the digital and the data side. and most importantly really enjoy it you know rather than try and make um and I am generalizing here but you know try and make accountants who are quite analytical into these great communicators and sit them in front of a business yeah um if you're a great analyst and you love what you're doing in accounting then just keep doing it but maybe doing it with that overlay of the digital skills 

Hannah Munro: 36:02 

now I think that's a really good shout out because I think it's like that whole, like that whole career journey. And, you know, people think of it as very, very linear. It's always up to like, you know, like you were talking about the shift when you were a FD back into shared services, like it was seen as a step down. And I think there is something to be said for the winding road of a career. You know, it doesn't always have to be like prescribed. It doesn't always have to be aiming for a qualification. And that digital, you know, technological element is, I think it's a really exciting piece. And you're right, so, many people need those skills in today's finance team. 

Chris Argent: 36:42 

Yeah, you're talking to the right person when it comes to a wandering career. I think I've had three careers now. I started out as an accountant and was in core finance, then went into transformation, and now a sort of educator and a community leader in everything that we do. But I... What's really important to what you're saying there is people talk a lot about growth mindset versus fixed mindset. And I think people have heard that loads and they're probably stopping to listen to that message, but it is really important. Having an open mind to what you need to learn, what's going to add value, what can I do next that's actually going to improve the situation that I'm in, we have to start thinking like that. And if it's going to lead to, like I say, higher job satisfaction, a more interesting job, go with it. It might not be your traditional route to CFO or traditional route to partner, but does it really matter? If I'm enjoying what I do and I go around and all of a sudden, I'm like, wow, I've got a great career. I didn't realize I was going to be doing this. I love getting out of bed and, you know, having real impact rather than just sort of, I don't know, churning out reports that people may or may not read. Yeah, I just, I think you've got to go with it. But it is probably having more of that open mind, that open mindset, growth mindset, and being open to change, which my definition is, you know, it's just structured learning. Just keep on. 

Hannah Munro: 38:28 

Yeah, and I love that. Keep on learning. That should be the tagline for this podcast, I think. So, I've just realized, Chris, we are rapidly running out of time. I did suspect this would happen, to be very fair. So, just for those that are interested in exploring, perhaps, like you say, that more data analytical process, technological element of our career, perhaps Are there any recommendations that you can give people as to where they could explore that or, you know, the best ways to understand the opportunities and the learning available? What's your recommendation? 

Chris Argent: 39:08 

Yeah, well, like I said, I think the traditional ways of doing that is via your institution if you have one and, you know, attending events and obviously getting information from them, relevant information from them. I'm, you know, obviously we're trying to sort of close on a gap here. So, I will say, you know, sign up to Generation CFO and attend our events as well. Sign up to our online community. It's all free. There's lots of training content out there. The issue that I have with it is that it's quite generic and it's not necessarily bespoke to us. And we have quite a unique situation in accounting and finance. So, what we started to do with some clients is sort of through these awareness in digital finance courses or the understanding in data analytics. And we're currently working with First Intuition on that. So, have a look at First Intuition's website. They've done Digital Awareness Week recently as well. Or just reach out to me and ask me a question. You know, we are community first and we've got lots of options to connect with me and other experts and other people in So, I'm all up for that peer learning. And if I can't answer it for you, I'm sure I know someone who can. So, yeah, I think that peer learning is as important as those big conferences now. 

Hannah Munro: 40:35 

No, absolutely. And for those that are interested in exploring any of the bits and pieces that Chris has mentioned today, then, you know, don't worry, please do check out the show notes. I'll pop in the link to the ACCA research we mentioned at the beginning of the show to the community, obviously, that Chris is talking about. First Intuition, I'll pop that in the show notes as well. So, we've got a link and of course, a link to Chris's profile on LinkedIn as well, because he does produce and I can say there's some great content that, you know, is well worth watching. worth following um and learning more about so, thank you so, much chris it has been amazing to talk to you today thank you for coming on the show and you know won't put you on the spot but really hoping we get you back on again soon 

Chris Argent: 41:19 

I'd love to come back. I'd love to come back and credit to you for running this. And yeah, definitely keep it up. Thanks for inviting me. 

Hannah Munro: 41:27 

Brilliant. Thanks, Chris. For those that are listening, don't forget that we have our Financial Transformation live sessions just launched again. So, please do check them out. The next one is actually going to be on process mapping of all things. So, keen to dig into some of that. So, thanks again, Chris. Thank you, guys, for listening and speak to you soon.