Aligning Strategy and Execution, with Beverly Davis

TRANSCRIPT

Wassia Kamon: Welcome back to the diary of the CFO show today. I'm so excited to have me a special guest. He's barely Davis. She's the founder of Davis financial services, and I'm so pumped that she's here. She's a great voice on LinkedIn and she has over 20 years of diverse corporate finance experience. So every time she posts, every time she shows up, she's bringing deep expertise.

In transformational back office operations, internal control, finance, strategy planning. Thank you so much. So tell us a little bit about your leadership journey.

Beverly Davis: Hello. I see it. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's such a pleasure to be here with you. We've connected on LinkedIn and. We've kind of went back and forth a few times.

And so I really appreciate it. It's lovely to see your smiling face and congratulations on the podcast.

Wassia Kamon: Thank you. Super excited. You're here. So

Beverly Davis: I'm super excited to be here. Okay. A little bit about me and my leadership journey. I, as you said, have over 20 years of experience in corporate finance back office.

Jumped around a little bit, went to different areas of the bank. Luckily, I feel lucky for that now because it's gives me, you know, much more broader perspective of the financial piece of the business. I was on the business side and the operation side. So I get to, you know, I learned how to connect the two pretty well.

I started out in bank of America, customer service, very basic. I went from there, was kind of noticed for the work I was doing there, took it very seriously. I went from there to, well, wealth management. So that was a big jump. I went there as just part of the operations department, but then I moved into a trust administrative position there in about, I would say two and a half years.

And I stayed there for quite a while. That was the bulk of where I really started to learn and love finance was when I was there as a trust administrator. And this is all back office move from bank of America to JP Morgan. I worked in investment banking, their back office. And also at bank of America, before I moved to JP Morgan, I moved to securities operations.

So I worked in office and securities, then I went to investment banking in JP Morgan again, back office. So never front facing with the customers really learned a lot there move from there to city and city. I had several different. I moved 1st. I was in internal controls. Compliance internal controls move from there to, I was still within syndicated loans, but then I moved to the front a little bit where I was actually managing loans and working with the internal customers, you know, other banks there and in this kind of managing syndicated loans that I moved back to internal controls and compliance for a while there and I stayed there, I think for maybe six or seven years move from there.

Finally decided. I really like what I'm doing. I really like managing money. I like the strategy part of it. I really like the compliance part and the internal controls move from there to running my own business left corporate banking. I was also commuting. So that was a part of it. Commuting ended that started.

I wanted to do what I did for the banks. for just random businesses. I really liked what I was doing, but I realized everything I do is for this one bank. Everything is for Citi. Everything is for Vick and Morgan. You know? And I was like, how can I take this information that I've learned in the corporate world and just help other businesses, different businesses, not always doing the same thing for the same company.

That's the piece that I enjoy the most. And that's what I've been doing since. For about, uh, 14 years now since I left.

Wassia Kamon: That is amazing. And I currently I'm the CFO of a lending institution, a not for profit lending institution. So we do provide loans to small business entrepreneurs. So the lending piece is always, is always good, but you can see the impact when you're working with people directly.

So I totally understand how you will feel more fulfilled getting to be hands on and seeing how your clients are thriving. Exactly. Sometimes it's hard for people to understand why they will need somebody like you to come in and help them because not everybody understand what strategic finance is, right?

We understand finance in general, but what is strategic finance for a business owner?

Beverly Davis: I'm glad you asked because a lot of times people I get a lot of questions, I get a lot of inquiries, consultations, and that's why I love the consultation because it kind of explains sometimes they don't need a strategy consultant and sometimes they do and they don't know it, but answer your question.

What is it? What is strategy consulting? It is. It's more than a plan. It is when you have a specific goal that you're trying to achieve and you have the step you you need help with the steps. To get there and you need a strategy 1st, you have to plan, then you need a strategy that puts that plan into motion.

And so what I do when I work with client 1st, I ask them, what is their goal? What is it you're trying to achieve? And then we go from there and I'll ask them, what are they doing now? Because sometimes they do have a plan. And then I'll say, okay, now we're going to build a strategy around the plan that you have of how we're going to execute that and get to the result that you want.

So that's, I don't know if that's a long, long winded way to say it, but that's pretty much what it is. It's just providing the actual steps. That you are going to take and it's involves, of course, there's nuances there. There's research to make sure you're making the right steps and things like that.

Wassia Kamon: Okay.

So what are some of the blind spots that you think are common pitfalls that businesses face when it comes to strategic finance? Like you mentioned, sometimes they don't know they need it, or sometimes they have a plan or maybe the plan is not really what they should be having. Like what are some of the things you observed?

Beverly Davis: Off the top of my head, one of the, the biggest ones is maybe misalignment with their plan. And it's, and what I mean by that is sometimes they have a plan, but it's not executable for them. Maybe they don't have the ability to really implement, and maybe they do, but they are not going about it. But I think the biggest, the biggest one that I see off the top of my head is misalignment with how they plan to get to their goal.

And I help them to line that. I spent a lot of time helping businesses line that misalignment back up. I think also now I think a lot of people are getting a lot of other business people are getting into it, but another big one is lack of scenario planning. They look at, like, the initial risk, but when you really get into strategy planning and doing a lot of the research.

I like to look at risks that you may not even think are possible. So they say we have looked at risks for this, this, this. And I'm like, you know, well, what if this happens? What if, you know, think a little bit outside of the box because you know, the way things are now, anything can happen, anything can happen.

So, so I think they also have a lack of scenario planning as far as their risk management, when they're going into some type of strategy. And also think they have to, they have too many options sometimes, I would say no more than three ideas, you know, they spend a lot of time too much time almost with the planning and the deciding part to get into the execution part, because they have so many ideas.

And I'm like, my job is to bring them down and to say, okay, let's. Take three of these ideas and choose one, you know, come in and they have, um, start meetings and they're like, well, you know, they give theirself maybe three months, you know, worth of meetings and deciding, and I'm a person that, you know, like everyone else, let's cut down on the meetings.

Amen to that. Yeah. And when I come in, it's like, well, the first, one of the first other things other than the misalignment and the risk. You know, let's first of all set the timeline, you know, you, you need to now some of these ideas and things down to three best ideas, pick one of those and let's start, you know, the strategy and moving forward.

A lot of people spend three to six months. It's trying to decide on a strategy in the way business is running now. In most cases, that's too long, you know, speed. Yeah. You need speed. Yes. But I think that's, that's the biggest ones for me. And maybe I would say one more quickly is not incorporating non fashion, non financial factors.

in your strategy. I think also.

Wassia Kamon: Okay, tell us more. Come on, give us more. What kind of non financial items should they be thinking about?

Beverly Davis: Customer satisfaction, employee engagement, things like that. This goes almost back to a little bit of the misalignment. They have this idea of what they want to produce and I'll say, you know, after just spending some time with them and with the different teams and things and I'll say, well, you know, there's a huge lack of communication here that you might need to deal with 1st or, you know, and that sometimes even I find that their strategy.

Is it working not because it's not a good strategy, not because, you know, they're not going about a good execution or anything. It's just things like that. You're not communicating. Well, here is not a very good culture. You have left out of the loop a lot of feedback from your customers. You know, a lot of times they have an idea of what they want.

You know, and I'll say, what kind of researcher, you know, reach out feedback do you have from your customers on this? And they're like, you know, well, you know, it goes into what we plan and I'm like, but you know, your customers or your business, and if you are doing something, I mean, it may fall in line with what your, you know, model is and everything, but if you don't have any feedback from your customers saying, yes, this is something.

That we, that I want to buy or that we'll move into this next phase with you where they're already asking for it or something like that, you know, anything. And sometimes it's just what they want to do. And I'll say, this is where the risk comes in. This could easily turn into a money pitfall and a time pitfall for you.

And I start telling them, you have to go back and start doing some, um, surveying and even some tests. You know, put it out there and see how your customers react to it, respond to it. A lot of businesses are very surprised, you know, they just assume. And sometimes that is a point they assume that if they have a lot of customers.

And the customer loves the business that they're going to love everything they do. And one of my favorite lines is I tell a lot of businesses, this is how a million dollar business fails. You have a great thing and you take it too far. That can happen very quickly.

Wassia Kamon: Wow. I'm very impressed of what you just said, because you basically saying, yes, I'm coming in for finance.

Making sure there is alignment. You really showing that you cannot have that alignment without having that business knowledge. So how did you go from being in the back office of like the JP Morgan, the bank of America, seeing how things were done in the weeds for finance and accounting and merge now to being that strategic.

CFO that strategic consultant for business is like, what are some of the things that helped you along the way of made you shift your mindset?

Beverly Davis: Well, off the top of my head, the first thing is I'm a, I'm a customer to a lot of this. And so I bring that a lot of that into my work when I was at bank of America, I did have for a while, like I said, I worked on the business side for a short while, but it helped me deal with the customers.

My customers were internal, other banks. And things like that with the syndicated loans, but I also had to spend a lot of time putting out flyers for them, you know, they're calling, you know, we were supposed to get this millions of dollars of interest and we didn't get it. Where is it? We need it. Or we got part of it.

Things like that. Customer service was a big part of it. And I think having that at the top of my mind all the time is I love the numbers. But I also, one of the things that I really learned working from the front to the back, what the connection is, the numbers don't happen if the customers aren't satisfied.

And then I also learned as being a part of teams and things like that, and the business itself doesn't run well, you know, it's all a puzzle if the doesn't run, if you don't have the customers that are satisfied, you don't have. Any reason to manage the numbers because everybody's happy. So I, I, I just have a holistic view of finance and I think like, like I said, number one, I'm a customer to a lot of things.

I always approach things thinking, you know, I've seen myself. I think when I am sitting with a business and initial meetings and things like that, I will think to myself, if I was a customer of this business, And I go from there, or when I'm meeting with the teams, if I was a part of this business, what problems do I see that I would want confronted?

And a lot of times it's just getting them started because a lot of times outsider can see it's there. They know it's there, but nobody wants to say it. But once one person, that's why I love consulting because you come in and people, I spent the first couple of days just being their friend, you know, letting them know.

Get the, you know, the barriers down and everything and then the next, like, maybe a week or two in everybody's willing to open up and then you can start getting some work. Then you get the work done because not everybody has kind of put their guard down and they're willing to say, I have a problem with this.

This is something I want to do. You know, this is the way I see and things like that.

Wassia Kamon: Nice. And it definitely helps to have alignment because sometimes you don't have that alignment because of lack of communication because people are not willing to say what's going on. And that's always a barrier. And that's when you need to have those soft skills.

You know, even though you're a number person, how do you get to pull all those things out of them? So I'm curious to hear what are some of your go to tips there for when you're trying to get buy in or get people to understand or open up? What are some of the things you do? You said you're trying to be their friend.

Tell us more. How are you doing this?

Beverly Davis: It starts with a mindset. I go to in everything with the mindset of putting myself in their shoes. And that means doing a lot of jumping because when you're meeting with the C suite, you have a different mindset because they think differently. So, and then when you're meeting with the team, you finally, you know, first you start with the C suite and you get the buy in there.

And one of the things I do is first go into it with an ear. Listening, and I think once you give them the time to talk and allow them to put everything on the table, their ideas, their plans, and you give them that sense of I'm there for you. I am not clear, though, in the back of my mind, I am thinking I am here to tell you what to do, but I don't go in with that mindset.

I go in with first. I want to know. Where are you at mentally? What do you want? What do you see happening? And when you give them that voice and you, you know, give them that feeling of, you know, this person understands me. And even though the next conversation may be no to everything you said, they are more comfortable with it because they have been allowed to really express themselves.

Nice. And now they feel like she's, she's heard me. So I can listen, I kind of think I might trust her on this because she has her, because the first thing I've, you know, you will notice when people say, they'll say, you haven't even heard what I, what I want yet or things like that,

but

you know, you kind of take down a lot of the arguments I have listened to you, I have given you a chance to express everything you want now, now let me tell you why, why it will or will not work.

And they're more, they're more receptive to it. If you, yeah. You know, go into it with the idea that I'm here for you, I'm here to work with you for you. I'm listening to you and then even spend some time talking with them about it, even if in the back of mind, you know, this, this is a go probably work, but you still have that back and forth with them.

That builds that trust that when you do. say, I think we need to move in another direction. They're like, okay, you know, what direction do you think we should go in? Because now I have to buy it.

Wassia Kamon: Nice. Now you mentioned earlier that the executives, the C suites thinks differently than the rest of the staff.

Can you please bring more examples or flavor to that? Because that's something I didn't realize early in my career, right? Because you're in your world, you interact with your peers, or maybe you're the boss of your boss. But when the boss of your boss is on the C suite, you don't understand that you don't have the same priorities, the same visibility, the same way of thinking.

What are some of the things you learned about working with the C suite versus the rest of the staff?

Beverly Davis: That's a good question. And because I was a part of the staff and then moved. Into that more of a management area, I think it has to do with the culture of your businesses. I would say my last position at Citi really scoped that because we had an open floor management was right there.

You know, I could look right into my VP's office. He was on the floor a lot. And I think it also has to do with a lot of the shift in how businesses work. Now, a lot of the managers are younger, they were younger when I left. So they were very hands on and out on the floor a lot, just talking to people. But I think it's, it starts with building that relationship and understanding having one of the tips I would say is part of the relationship is more communication, more meeting, not meetings like.

You know, meeting means, but more of interaction, more of interaction and more interactions. And, um, you get to not, I wouldn't say know what's in their mind, but hear a different tone from them. I'll give you an example. 1 time, we had a problem on the floor at Citibank, and a lot of my team members were pretty much like, you know, okay, what's the big idea?

You know, we got to fix this. We're going to get it done. Management was running, you know, kind of furious and I kind of took the side. I had the mentality of management because I had dealt with them a lot. I was in a lot of it. I knew from the interactions that I had with them that it's a big enough issue that people, the management over them, the big office was calling them and screaming about it.

So they're like, what are they screaming about? And I'm like, it's because. It's something that they're being screamed at about because everybody was like, why are they making such a big deal? I said, it's being a big, being made a big deal to them. So they have to make it a big deal to us. I think it's just getting and learning that.

I think a lot of, a lot of the disconnect is people think that management number one doesn't know what's going on. And most of the time they do. And they think, what does it, some things that affect us does, you know, you always hear employees say, you know, what do they care? You know, they're. They're, they're, you know, the big guys, they're not going to be affected, but they are, they have a loss too.

And that's how you see it. And, you know, when things go wrong, somebody has to pay for it and they may be screaming at you, but that's because somebody has screamed at them.

Wassia Kamon: I was going to scream at them, yes.

Beverly Davis: And that's what I learned. It's um, it's like we all really are, they have a position. And that's kind of like where you can take away the titles.

At the end of the day, we all work for this company. And our jobs is to, you know, do the best we can for this company. What I learned quickly that when a manager is saying something or screaming or yelling or, or happy about something, I guess, like they say, don't take it personal. It has to do with the business and it's like, get on board.

Get the same mentality that this is a problem. We, you know, it needs to be fixed, things like that. So I think the more you interact with management or, or with that other side, the more, you know, it's like how everybody's talking about the collaboration now, other areas, even, you know, when I was working, we were very big on working with other areas and you feel the pain points.

And things like that. And once you, once you get that inside, it makes it very easy to communicate and understand their mentality and how to communicate with them.

Wassia Kamon: Yes. Cause you see their realities, like you said, their pain points. And so now you have their perspective when you talk to them or when you see issues.

And I like what you said about. You were on the same floor, you could see them, but now we're remote. A lot of things are changing from that perspective. And so, to me, some of the things that can help people is, even if you cannot have those type of interactions at work, how can you create them outside of work?

Maybe a community, maybe a mentor. What are some of the other ways somebody can start interacting with people in the C suite so they can understand how they think, but also start operating like them? Because that's really what allows you to grow in your career is how you are able to think about the next, like the next step, right?

How you able to operate like them? Like what are some of the things maybe that helped you outside of work, maybe books, conferences, like what kind of helped you outside of work to get there?

Beverly Davis: Helped me then and still helps me now. I spend a lot of time in webinars, a lot of things, a lot of time, you know, I just joined, you know, I'm not there as a guest and sometimes it doesn't even have to do with finance.

It's just, I like business in general, the more you know about an industries and things like that and you know, better communicate with, because I, because I work with so many different industries. I enjoy going into webinars, reading quotes. Yes, coaching, having a mentor. One thing that I heard years ago that I'm starting to hear again now is you don't always have to have a mentor that you go to and ask.

Sometimes you can just pick someone to be your mentor and that's by just making, finding ways to spend time with that person, especially if it's someone that you work with. And what I used to do, I had a manager who was very interested in teaching, but of course, a lot of people were like, that's the last thing you want to do is spend time with, you know, with a manager.

But what I used to do is every time I had a problem. And they would come out and say, maybe this is something I can help you with. Sure. Whatever, you know, a lot of people are like, I don't want that person here at my desk. I can fix it. I know how to do it. I welcomed it.

Any

interaction that I could have.

Even sometimes just getting coffee, you know, I would say I would let them know, you know, I had a problem with this. What do you think I should do about it? And then, you know, they would tell me and I would be like, okay, you know, and sometimes I didn't even have a problem. I would just. Have it, you know, something I had a question about and go to them, catch them in a breeze.

They would say, good morning. I'm saying, Hey, you know, can I ask you a quick question? You know, anything like that. And maybe it's the same person that you're asking, you know, or make a list of questions and throughout the week, you know, as you see that person casually passing, ask the question and then, you know, that's a form of mentoring, just regular, like back to the interaction and the communication.

But I would definitely say, um, yeah, webinars now because we are

Wassia Kamon: virtual,

Beverly Davis: but I do webinars. I do the books. I think coaching is good. And I think group coaching is good if you can get into that because it gives you so, I think one important thing now in even finance, especially is getting different perspectives.

That helps a lot. And I think anytime that you can interact with someone that is either financial or non financial, it's a benefit. Yes. Because just just having that form of diversity in your phone is a huge help. And believe it or not, with numbers, you know, you just get a different way of thinking about things, you know, and I, I guess, back to how much I love buying.

Yes. Whenever I'm dealing with someone, even, you know, that's in the back of my mind, how can I apply this? And sometimes I'm dealing with people in an industry that has nothing to do with me, but I always think this is interesting. How can I apply this to finance? You know?

Wassia Kamon: No, it's great. And I love your advice about having questions ready, not having to say to someone, you're my mentor, but.

You know, you don't even know you're mentoring me because I'm getting to understand how you think, which is so important when it comes to finance and strategic finance, especially is how you think, how you're going to build those scenarios, right? Because if you only think one way, then your best scenario and your worst case scenario will probably be about the same.

Right. You're just changing something. You're not really adding variables or trying to see what are all the things, the possible risk, like you said earlier, that can happen. So definitely very valuable for, you know, for people to know that about, especially about strategic finance. Now, would you say that when CFO in place and you're dealing with clients, it's easier To get that alignment between strategy operations, or do you usually have to work with CFOs work with the business owners to get there?

Beverly Davis: A little bit of both. It depends on back to the company and their culture and how they've been working. I would say it's more so dealing with having to deal with the CEOs and trying to get there. You know, I have a little bit of both, but definitely more more of that. It's more dealing with, you know, the CEOs and.

I'm trying to get to

Wassia Kamon: the path. And now when you're dealing with the CEOs, what are some of the one, two or three things that you find challenging, especially as a finance person to get across? Like everybody has their own assumptions of how CEO, CEOs are, how they think, and maybe they're not a number person, or maybe they came from strategy from operations or sales, but what do you.

What do you commonly see and how do you navigate that?

Beverly Davis: Um, good question. I commonly see what is the, because there's so many different things because you know, it varies with, believe it or not, industry and some of them are a lot easier. Some of them, I think it depends on how intense the work is for them.

One of the things that I really, when I go in and I see that I deal with a lot, I think is. Thinking the biggest, I don't know if this falls under what you're relying. You want to go towards with the biggest thing I see with the CEOs is thinking. When it comes to strategy and the strategy, a lot of times I come in and I'm helping them pivot their strategy.

They have a strategy and then now it's not working and they want to bring someone in like, why isn't this what's going on? The main thing I see with CEOs is thinking that the strategy isn't working because the employees are not working hard enough. They're not trying hard enough. Okay. Yeah. And they think they have a good plan.

They have a good plan strategy. The execution's planned out and they'll say they want me to. Help the employees to work harder to make it work. That's the mentality. Yeah. And the first thing I have to, and I have to listen to that. And then I have to really look at, well, you know, what is it? Let's look at, you know, the current strategy that you have.

And when I look at it, I see the things, like I said before, they are working hard. It's that they don't have good communication. You aren't communicating well with them. And sometimes it is, you don't really have a good strategy here. A lot of times, I guess I could say, just to sum it up, it's the non financial things that are causing the problem.

Wassia Kamon: Wow. The things that are hard to see on paper. You spend a lot of

Beverly Davis: time explaining to them how that ties back to the bottom line, how that affects finance. They'll say, you know, we're not getting enough of this in the numbers, this in the numbers. And then when I say, well, okay, well, let's look at everything.

And they'll be like, well, no, I just need them to do more of this. And I'm like. I get it. I know you want to get to this other side and you think the problem is they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. So, and sometimes that may be the case. So, what I do next is I listen to what the CEO says, everything go out and I spend time with the team.

Then I find out they're working hard. The problem is. The process, you know, it could be just the process of how they're doing what they're doing. That's, that's the problem. A lot of times it's the communication, as I keep saying, the communication is an issue. The workflow, it's mostly the CFO thinking that the employees are the problem.

And they don't think that something like the processes and things like that actually affect the numbers.

Wassia Kamon: You know what? I've never seen it that way, but it's true. It's very true because sometimes you come in and What I realized to now that I'm in the C suite is the information you get up is quite filtered just because of the title you have may not be as open to say things like they would maybe to you as a consultant or, you know, somebody else, but the information that Gets to the top, almost gets filtered, like, Oh, maybe it's not that bad.

And so yes, if nobody comes in and say, okay, I, I, you actually have to go and see what is really going on to understand why the strategy is not working. Is it really the systems? Is it the processes? Is it so many other things that can come into play or is it the market? Or like you said, the strategy is not working.

That's very enlightening. Thank you so much for that insight. Now, my question to you is what is the biggest challenge you may be facing right now? What, what's keeping you at night and how are you navigating it?

Beverly Davis: The biggest thing that I'm like a little pet project for me right now is AI.

Wassia Kamon: Ah, okay.

Beverly Davis: I wouldn't say it's keeping me up at night, but it is sort of, I'm spending a lot of time going back to those webinars and things like that, because obviously, you know, it's.

The future or it's now, I wouldn't say it's a problem, but it's the challenge that I'm dealing with now, how my thing is, I, you know, I'm trying to be as incompetent as possible. So I'm really trying to get a grip on AI, AI and finance and how it's going to work in finance. How can I use this for my clients?

And how can I use it for the different clients? Because clients will use it, you know, need things from it differently. So I'm really trying to get my head around that, you know, spending a lot of time now, again, in webinars, doing a lot of reading articles, a lot of research. Everything that comes out, I'm trying to really figure this AI thing out and incorporating it into my work slowly now so that I don't fall into the catch up syndrome, and I'm just trying to incorporate it in slowly here and there.

That's the biggest thing right now for me.

Wassia Kamon: So what have you picked up so far? Because one thing I really like is how you can take notes for you, but then you have to be careful because some of the information is confidential and stuff like that. So what are some of the things that, you know, maybe you've used already and you think is really going to make a big difference for finance?

Beverly Davis: 1 of the things that I've already started using for the clients a lot is during the research part, the research part, the work that I do with that. When I come up, the consultant come in as a consultant, I have incorporated in as far as. Getting more statistics and things like that on their specific industry, and that helps a lot.

We're building a strategy or trying to pivot a strategy, even with narrowing. And sometimes they do need help with a lot of help with narrowing in on specific metrics. If I'm dealing with a startup or a business that is kind of revamping their whole model and they're moving in another direction, and maybe they don't have a lot of historical data on a specific metric that they want to, but I use AI a lot or the research piece of that, that's been a big help and a time saver, you know, cause the information is out there, but it's, yeah.

You know, finding it. So to be able to get it in seconds and, you know, and be able to compile it, like, in different years, different segments and things like that. And to have all that already sorted out according to the way. And that's another thing getting into the prompts. Yes. And it depends on, you know, you got to be able to ask it, right?

But that's a huge, that's a huge part that I've been doing a lot with researching, looking up statistics and getting those numbers that way.

Wassia Kamon: And I like what you say about getting in the right format, because then you bring it back to the fact that you need to have that human intelligence, right? You need to have that knowledge and strategy of what you're looking for to use AI effectively, right?

Because if you don't know what you're looking for, you can ask whatever and you may not have the result. But I feel like it's good that, and that's what I'm excited when I think about AI is you have to still have that knowledge. And then it will help you, but if you don't, it's not going to be very useful, right?

Beverly Davis: And that's one of the things I'm learning when I'm in the webinars and I'm trying to whenever I see someone and LinkedIn's been a huge help because there's a lot of people on there who specialize in it and they're running. A lot of LinkedIn lives, they're having webinars and they're talking a lot about how to get the, you know, whatever it is you're trying to get at, because a lot of people are just going in and you ask the question and that's very general and I'm learning how to be a little bit more specific and even broaden that, you know, sometimes.

I always thought the shorter you ask the question, the better, but I'm learning with AI, it's the opposite. The more detail that you give it, the more detail you would get back.

Wassia Kamon: True. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm learning that too. So it's great to hear you doing it, but it's quite impressive, right? You've, you've been in finance for 20 years and now there's AI and you're not like, Oh, I already know it.

You are in the forefront of, okay, I need to learn this right to be ahead. And I think that's something that we should all be thinking about and intentional about is keep learning, keep sharpening that knowledge.

Beverly Davis: That's an absolute right now because things are moving so fast. And even after AI, there's still probably more to come.

Wassia Kamon: We have to be ready. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Beverly. This is such a joy. Thank you so much for coming in. And I will drop the link to your website, how people can find you on LinkedIn and elsewhere, how people can get in contact with you to help them in the strategic finance. Thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Have a great day.

Beverly Davis: Thank you. You have a great day.

Wassia Kamon: That's it for today's episode. Of the diary of the CFO. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any topics you would like me to cover in the future, please send it to ask at the diary of the CFO. com again, send an email to ask at the diary of the CFO. com. If you connect on LinkedIn, you can just send me a DM.

The reason I need it is because I want to make sure I bring you the insight you need to be a better leader and be better at life. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to leave a review, subscribe and share it. And I'll see you next in another episode of the Diary of a CFO. Cheers.