Behind the Scenes of My First 90 Days as CFO

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome back to Diary of a CFO. I'm Wassim Kamon, and I'm grateful that you are still on that journey with me as a newly appointed CFO, sharing the lesson I learned and also insights from other leaders. Today I want to focus about what I did right and could have done better in my first 90 days as a CFO.

Let's dive in.

The first thing I did right was meeting with my executive coach. And one of my mentors before they won as a CFO. So we're talking 90 days. Now I'm going to talk about the things I did before even stepping into the role.

Janine K. Brown is my executive coach and we started working together.

About a year or so ago, when I became VP of finance and controller at Lyft. And so when I met with her, I was like, Hey, I have this new role, what should I do? And the main advice she gave among so many others was make sure you start out asking the tough questions to your team. She advising to ask questions like, when was the last time you look for another job?

What could be three things you see here at work that you will want to change if you could so starting out meeting with my team, meeting with them one on one, making sure that I had a good pulse on my team, because that is such a key element in being successful at this level of my career, and I did, and he helped me out so much.

The other thing was, again, meeting with. Carol Knowton, she is one of my mentors. She was on the board of Live, and that's how we connected. And she accepted to be my mentor about a year or so ago, and she's on my personal board of directors. And so when I met with her, her advice was more around reflecting on what worked and did not work in my prior role, thinking about it, making decision before day one of what I was not going to do again.

And what I was going to do instead. So, for example, setting boundaries, not starting out working 80 hours a week, but rather spending time where it should be. So if I had eight hours in my day, how was I going to be affected productive? And if there were things that. I didn't need to do that will be dropped off my list or things that were essential, but somebody else will do, I would delegate that could be done to in my personal one on one.

So I have one on one with myself at the end of every day and one advice she she gave me about a year ago was to journal about my leadership. So after I go through the day. Reflect on what I did well, what I didn't do so well, and what I could do better as I will look into the next day. So if I'm in meetings, I spoke too much, listen more wasiya.

If I wasn't clear, if I was insecure, I felt imposter syndrome, like what are those things that are really shaping me as a leader and reflect on them. And one of the things I did prior to day one that I decided to do. Based on what Carol said was blocking my calendar. So my former Mahendru, suggested when I started there to block your calendar for lunch, block your calendar for focus time.

And so that was something that worked well for me at Lyft, that I was like, yes, I'm going to keep doing that and protect my time to be able to take breaks during the day to think and to actually work. Because sometimes you have so many meetings, you're like, when is it that I'm going to do what I said I was going to do in the meetings?

Meeting with them ahead of time helped me be ready that way before day one, whether it was about having a list of questions I was going to ask my staff, my peers, my boss, but also being able to reflect on the good habits, the good thing I did before that I wanted to do again. All the things that I didn't do so well that I needed to change moving forward.

And I'm incredibly grateful for these women, Janine and Carol, for that. But it also got me thinking about executives as a whole. I used to think that executive coaches and communities were overrated. Oh my goodness, no, it takes a village to be successful in this role. Because when you think about it, who will a C suite or a top executive open to?

The employees? No! They'll probably be scared and run away. The auditors? The lawyers? Heck no! Everything you say will be held against you in the future. The boss and peers? They're probably in the same mess. So, you know, you venting? Great, but we're going through a struggle as well. Whether you have a spouse or a therapist.

Your spouse may be tired of hearing that stuff, or, you know, they may be giving you advice and it feels good to have something that is into you, but you may not have the practical solutions that you need in your role. And that's where having an executive coach being part of the community is so helpful.

I'm grateful that I started working with Janine before becoming a CFO. I'm grateful that I was part of the CFO Leadership Council. A great community before becoming a CFO and being able to have a circle of friends like my finance sisterhood that we formed a couple of years ago with the AICPA at the AICPA future of finance event.

And so being able to have a network that allows you to talk to and be yourself is super helpful because it is a lot during those first 90 days. The more prospective advice you can get, the better off you'll be. And I'm grateful I did. And it's something that worked incredibly well. And that lead me to point number two, which was how I was ready when it came to one on one.

So I met with Carol. I met with Janine. I had all these group of friends. I was like, Oh, don't forget to do this. Don't forget to do that. Definitely do this and not that.

I was able to meet one on one with my team before we actually met in person. So the first week I had about 30 minutes with each team member.

Then we were able to have a lunch and an actual in person meeting. I had a whole agenda. We started with an icebreaker. I shared with them what my vision was, what I was expecting from them, what I should expect for me as well, because the same level of care and education you have for your boss and peers, you should have for your team, if you're a leader.

If you're going to present a deck to your boss about something important, present also a deck to your team about something important. So you want to have the same level of care because at this stage, you are doing your work through people. There's a lot of things you will not do yourself. I haven't booked a journal entry in the past, what, two years at least.

And so you're working through people. And so you have to have that level of care and respect for them to help you, but also for you to help them. Because again, at this stage, yes, you're working through people, but your role as a leader is to facilitate that work, understanding what the roadblocks are and removing them.

I got a chance to meet with my team. Like I said, I was ready before I met with them. I had questions for them, but also I was able to show that I was here to build relationships. When I started, that was my main goal was to build relationships. So yes, I met with my executive coach and mentor. They gave me great advice, would help me meet my team and start sharing that vision that I wanted us to stabilize before we optimize.

But then the whole thing that really helped me in those first 90 days was the focus on building relationships, getting to know people, because it's through people that you're gonna get to know what's going on, what are the changes and that you will likely support or drive and what will be the implications of these changes throughout the organization.

So I only met with my boss, my peers. I also met with employees, direct employees of my peers. Again, the more you have a chance to meet with. People that are more frontline, the better off you are because it's the fastest way to learn about the business. And so I was ready for those one on ones as well. So before I met with my peers, the CEO, I made sure before day one also that I went through our five year strategic plan, that I went through our audited financial statement, that I came in ready with questions, questions for every single person I will have a meeting with.

I did research on them and I made sure I came prepared because at this level, they're busy. I'm busy to trying to learn and deliver on the thing I'm supposed to deliver on. Meeting with the COO or the chair of the finance committee coming in ready and prepared is, oh my God, such a great way to start building relationship because people really don't ask for much care and respect.

If you're able to show care and respect to whoever you're dealing with, whether it's your employees, your peers or whoever. The rest will come out, it'll be easier, it'll be easier to implement change, it'll be easier to ask questions, to ask tough questions when people know that it comes from a good place.

And so that was my main goal, and I'm glad I successfully did it, because again, it's realizing that it is so important, it's so important to build those relationships right away.

Another thing I did well was recording anything that was training. So if I was in a meeting and the person was going to show me how do you access our accounting system?

How do you do this? How do you get to that? I'll pause them and say, Hey, can I record this piece of the meeting? Because I want it to be independent. So sooner you can get that independence and able to dig in stuff the way you want to. Feels so good. Okay, that you're not depending on someone to send you this report of that report.

There's something that already exists or where you can find historically what was done. The better off you'll be. And that's what I did. And it helped me so much because when I started a few weeks later, my controller went on vacation. I was like, Ooh, I'm glad I know where to get this. It does help to make sure you have the right access, whether it's to a drive, to a bank account, whatever it is that you identify as key things you should know and be able to get yourself definitely do this.

It helped me so much.

And so the last thing that really helped me in my 90 days, so besides being ready for my one on ones, recording the training, building those relationships, reflecting on what worked and what did not work so I wouldn't repeat the same mistakes again, and elevate the great thing I did was starting this podcast, The Diary of the CFO.

You may wonder, Oh, that sounds like Dario's CEO, Steven Barnett. Yes, it is. Because when I was like, I want to do a podcast about my journey. Oh, I want it to be a diary. I was like, yeah, I'm so staking it from you, Steven. I love your podcast, by the way, if you ever listened to this. But I was like, okay, Diary of the CFO.

Don't want to overthink, overcomplicate. Maybe the name would change the future, but it is what it is now. Diary of the CFO. And it allowed me to make time to meet with about. What five different CFOs in those 90 days, many of them were CFOs that were CFOs now for the first time at a second time, the Matt Ziegler, the Scott Myers, the Jessica McLean at CFO at Girl Scout Financial, people that were pouring information, guidance, It's easy to be an expert these days, especially with AI, you can go on AI, go in different website, you can put together some type of a cheat sheet or a quote or whatever, and bam, you're an expert, but there's nothing like hearing from people who have the experience.

Because they have substance and substance is what I desperately needed as I step into the CFO role because as I like to say, there's not always a lot of information about how to get in the role, how to get started in the role. There's a lot of information about how you're successful in the role, but how do you even get that job?

How do you accelerate your learning your first 90 days to even say, yeah, I know I have to go beyond the numbers. I have to go beyond that technology. I have to appear that I know that, but is the actual in the weeds of the job itself, that kind of advice. Was so amazing. And yes, I probably released a few episodes so far, but they're in the work.

They were amazing. But during the 90 days I got to speak with these incredible, incredible business leaders who poured. Even more knowledge into my life. So this allows me to reach out because now there are people that I always wanted to talk to. I'm like, Hey, do you want to be on my podcast? So it's like a way to say, Hey, I really wanted to talk to you for all these years, but now I have an excuse.

I have a podcast. That's why I want to talk to you, but they have been on my hit list the whole time. So, so grateful for this podcast and what it allowed me to do. Learn in those first 90 days and be able to implement also right away. Now this is all good. You may wonder, okay, was you did all this thing great.

You built relationship, you started the podcast again. I know starting the podcast was crazy , as I'm starting this role, but so incredibly rewarding. But what could I have done better?

The number one thing was I could have worked more with our executive admin. I got into the role and I was like, Oh, calendar.

No, I'm good. I only help their travel receipt drafting. No, I'm good. I got this. I felt like I was going to bother if I asked. And so one month went by, I was kind of okay. By the second month, I was. I was swamped. I couldn't keep up with what was my calendar. People were trying to have meeting with me. I didn't know where my calendar was.

What was what I would spend 30 minutes or an hour trying to draft an email when I would have asked to draft an email. And when I did, I was so amazed. I was like, man, I should have done it sooner because. It seemed like it's not much, but it compounds. So the 30 minutes you spend extra trying to coordinate a calendar invite with a vendor or trying to coordinate with meeting with somebody else that has also a busy calendar, the travel receipt, I mean, it was embarrassing, we went to a conference and we came back and we use a system called ramp, R A M P for our travel expense, a great system, AI powered, all that.

You spend something, you automatically get an alert, you get an email, all you have to do is click, submit your receipt, you move on. Sounds very easy, I came back sick from that conference. So, I fell off the wagon, I got messages that My card has been locked and I'm the CFO. So you know that the person doing the admin, the expenses, reports eventually into me.

And here I am on the bad people's list of Waseya, you need to submit your expense reports. Thank you, Atisha, for keeping me on track. And she was like, she sent me a couple emails. She said, Oh, Waseya, your expense reimbursement. Then she DMs on Teams. Oh, Waseeya, you expense reimbursement. And then she said, Waseeya, you do know you have an executive admin that can help you?

Do you want me to delegate to her? And so I was like, yeah, I should have done it before. So yeah, it felt bad. But yeah, all these things takes time. And if you'd not. Asking or getting the help we need with what may seem small. Yes, you will be swamped on things you shouldn't be swamped about. And so that's something I could have done better.

I could have reached out and asked our admins to help me with some of those things a bit faster. Now, the second thing I could have done better was having a good habit or routine in place for working out and prepping meals. What I realized is in the first 90 days, especially as a CFO, there was so much to learn.

Even when you work eight hours a day, at the end of the day, you are so exhausted. Okay, I would crash and it's not like I would be 15 hours. It wasn't 15 hours or 12 hour workday. Sometimes it was just eight hours, but the amount of information you're getting. Mentally, physically, it's very hard because you have to filter the new things, trying to have a different perspective and not go, Oh, at my former company, you did that, this, that.

You have to be able to have different compartment in your own head as you are learning those things with an objective mindset. This is hard. And so for me, I didn't have a good workout or meal plan routine, which means that during my first three months, I mostly cooked from chick filet. I cooked chick filet.

Once a week, for sure. During those 90 days, we ate out a lot, posting on LinkedIn, for example, because I had a system posting twice a week, I didn't miss a beat. Okay, I was on, you see me on LinkedIn because this thing will be scheduled two, three, four weeks ahead of time. It was going in, I had my schedule time, I didn't have something like this for work.

So when it came to missing the gym, it's not like I missed a beat or two. I missed the whole song. I gained like three pounds in those three months. Because I didn't have a system and sort of things that you have already system for good system for before getting into that kind of role will help you if you didn't have a system is going to get worse.

If you had a good system, you'll be able to keep doing. So I think not having a system for meal prep and working out really took a toll on me and also necessarily didn't have a good system for handling stress. For me, it was Cheetos and chocolate. So guess what I did? I got into the Cheetos and I used to say that I was a recovering Cheetos and chocolate addict.

I did take some of my kids Halloween candy. That's a big confession. I wouldn't say steal, but take. It was a lot of candy anyway. That's where those things can get you, right? So being able to have a good system in place for how you handle stress, uncertainty, how you handle meal prep, how you handle working out, this thing will help because it is a lot.

And at some point, I felt like maybe if I had a wife, it would be easier, but I've been married to the same guy for the past 14 years. So that's not an option now. But yeah, it's a lot and having the right system in place ahead of time, definitely. And the third thing that I could have done easier or that I didn't do so well was being Easier on myself.

I was, Ooh, such a task master on me. I imposed deadlines on me that I didn't need to. I wanted to have the right answers. But again, I was in my first few weeks in the roles. I had to get comfortable not knowing, not having the right answers right away. Why is there such a variance in this line on your audited financial statement?

I'm learning. I don't know, but I will stress myself trying to learn it quickly and headaches and ibuprofen was my best friend. I imposed so much on myself that I actually at some point felt like I was a bad mom. I will crash after work. And again, that was even when I was working just eight hours in a day.

I didn't have the energy of playing foosball or chess with my son or doing my daughter's hair. And I think if I had not set that many crazy deadlines, I would have still been fine. Thank God I got great feedback from my boss, from the board, from my team. They're happy I'm on the team and the company that I'm happy I'm on their team as well.

If I had been a little easier on me, I would have probably saved myself some gray hair. Because yes, there is some that I started seeing around the top of my head. And if you know what my hairstyle looks like, I only have hair in the top of my head. Uh, so it's hard to miss them now. But I think that's something I need to do better moving, moving forward.

So being easier on myself. having a better workout and meal prep routine and definitely work better with our executive admins. That's something that I could have done better that I'm planning on doing better. So y'all hold me accountable for this.

Overall, I will say this whole journey as a new CFO.

Showed me something that, or reinforced something I had, I thought I have seen before, which was the fact that we don't have programs or courses to bridge that gap in one of my first episode, I shared how I wanted to do a program called the office of the CFO bootcamp to help people see their blind spot where they may be stuck.

In their careers and what it will really take for them to get those roles, but also learn what it takes to lead at the highest level of the finance organization. And what I was thinking about was maybe doing a three week cohort. Some videos will be on demand. Some video will be live sessions with me going over executive presence, for example.

Watching a recording of that, but then have a live session with me, a group coaching session on how do you revamp your LinkedIn or what do you need to do online? So your executive presence is also felt online or that you show that you are leadership material or next level ready. Things like how do you implement a software?

How do you lead change? So that's some of the things that I wanted to do. Of course, have zero time to work on it during my first 90 days. And you can understand why. Hopefully at some point it will come together. So definitely, um, subscribe to my newsletter or my website, wasiakamon. com. So, you know, when he goes live, I think it's needed because we see a lot of advice of what good CFO do, what the CFO is doing, you leading beyond the numbers, you in technology, you forward thinking, your strategic business partner, but how do you get the job?

In the first place, and when you get the job, what are some of the things that you should be doing, or you should have done prior to get the job so you can thrive in that role. That was one of the things that really came out from those first 90 days, because I would like to send my controller to something like that, as a CFO, because I realized.

CFOs, we don't always have that much time, that much spare time to develop and grow our team. So the more program can help the team develop those strategic skills, the executive presence skills eventually. It's rewarding not only for the employee, but also for the CFO to know that I'm growing my staff, you know, even if I have limited time, I can send them to a program like that and they can grow.

That was something that I would always feel when I was a controller. Oh, uh, maybe my CFO doesn't have time for me, but now I see the calendar of the CFO, I'm like, shit. They probably wanted to spend time with me that they probably never had a chance, never had that time. So looking forward to it.

So that's my recap of my first 90 days.

Thank you so much for being here with me and embarking on this journey. I'm super grateful for the people who came on as guests, super grateful for you as listeners, the people who have been sharing, engaging, leaving me so many sweet notes about yes, we'll see, I keep going because yes, at some point I was like, uh, no, maybe I need to stop this, this, this podcast, but.

It's been so rewarding and so helpful to many. So thank you so much. Again, if you have any topic you'd like me to cover in the future episode, don't forget to email me at ask at the diary of the CFO. com again, the email address is ask at the diary of the CFO. com. That's it for today's episode. Hope you enjoyed it because I did.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, five star review, and also follow and listen to the whole thing. Guys, I see you. Later. And that's it for today's episode of the Diary of a CFO. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to share, subscribe, like, and also if you have Any other topics you'd like me to cover in the future, don't forget to email me at ask at the diary of the CFO dot com.

I am super excited about this journey as we try to help make better leaders and help leaders be better at life. See you soon.