GrowCFO Show

Kevin Appleby is joined by GrowCFO’s Founder and CEO Dan Wells to discuss CFO training and how GrowCFO tries to cater for everyone’s needs in their training programmes. Why was there not a good place to go to to get all of your CFO training together?  This links to why GrowCFO was set up. A lot of finance leaders asked Dan where they could go for CFO training and he had a look to see if...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Clarity First Founder, Davina Stanley, to discuss the 5 biggest communication traps. Davina goes into these in detail and how we can avoid falling into them. 1. Assume that shorter is always better Shorter text is not always faster to read.  It is important to recognise that a shorter piece of writing may actually be more complicated to understand.  It can take the audie...

In this episode of The GrowCFO Show Dan Wells and Kevin Appleby discuss the 9 biggest challenges faced by finance leaders and what you can do to address some of the underlying issues. We hear about the biggest finance leader challenges all the time from our GrowCFO members, and its given us a great insight into the issues you need help with. What are the 9 biggest finance leader challenges? The ch...

Kevin Appleby is joined by GrowCFO mentor, Susana Serrano-Davey, to discuss storytelling and how it is useful in the CFO role. Where does storytelling come into the CFO role? No matter what job you are in, you can think about becoming a good storyteller. Not only do you want to get your point across but you also want to make an impact and getting people on board. You can use the recipe that storyt...

There’s a big gap between the skills and competencies you need as CFO to those you have as Head of Finance. The GrowCFO competency framework provides a great way of assessing your readiness for the top job. We use the framework as part of the Future CFO Programme . It usually highlights a lot of potential development areas for our students. One of the challenges for you as a prospective CFOs...

Kevin Appleby is joined by GrowCFO’s Founder and CEO Dan Wells to discuss the launch of GrowCFO’s Finance leader support Forum. Finance leader support Forums overview GrowCFO’s community support Forums help finance leaders to share knowledge, seek advice and solve common issues. They allow free or Premium members to quickly benefit from the combined knowledge and experience of yo...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Ian Kaye, CFO and executive coach, to discuss how to present with confidence and how to improve confidence. What is your background and how did you learn to present with confidence?  Firstly, Ian trained as an accountant at one of the big 4 and worked in industry for 5 years. This led him to be based in Hamburg, returning after 2 years to do a full time MBA. Directly aft...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Andrew Tapson, experienced portfolio CFO, to talk about becoming a CFO to fast growth startups. How did you start being a CFO for various companies? As a teenager Andrew was surrounded by peers who were massively influenced by others and the group above. This is shown as 5 went on to be engineers and 5 to accountants! He at first wanted to be an accountant but then reali...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Paul Marchant to discuss his fast track to CFO at the Rail Safety & Standards Board. Where did the fast track to CFO start? Paul qualified at a small firm in Birmingham and then proceeded to move into politics for a few years. The political world gave him certain skills that are still useful in his current role. He then transferred back to finance 7 years ago. Paul&#...

Kevin Appleby is joined by consultant, David Tuck, to explore how to set a transfer price. He also looks at transfer pricing advice and how effective it is. There has been a shift in transfer pricing David tells you there is a mystique of complexity around transfer pricing. It does not need to be that way if you have modest international aspirations. Is transfer pricing all about tax? Or public im...

Kevin Appleby is joined d GrowCFO mentor, Susana Serrano-Davey, to discuss how to give feedback properly. How do you start preparing a manager to give feedback properly? Susana explains to you that feedback is a craft that we acquire over time and experience. You will go through a learning curve to reach the point of giving feedback properly. To prepare a manager for giving appropriate feedback so...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Tony Shafar to discuss dealing with difficult conversations and how you can make them less difficult. Why do people avoid difficult conversations? Someone may not be forthcoming to have a difficult conversation with someone if they feel they will get a negative reaction from them. Tony explains that this is usually driven by them not having done the task the way they tho...

Kevin Appleby is joined by David Appel from Sage Intacct to discuss reporting for a SaaS business. 5 Stages of SaaS business growth David Appel discusses with Kevin the 5 stages a SaaS business will go through, also what they need to accompany them: At this stage the simple goal is to create product market fit. The next stage is for you to prove you can sell your product and hire reps. Here, David...

Kevin Appleby is joined by Chris Tredwell to discuss this years GrowCFO finance systems survey and how the results will help them structure future sessions. The finance systems survey Chris explains what the survey’s purpose is and the benefits using it brings. He touched on an area of benefits that hearing the results from peers or the people who actually use the systems bring. It brings to...

Change is an important part of the CFO role. Change is a big part of a transaction, a business restructure or a systems implementation. The CFO is involved in leading all three. We look at each of these in this weeks podcast. The CFO’s role in business change can’t be underestimated, the CFO is a catalyst for change. GrowCFO’s future of finance functions group meets every Tuesday...

The CFO and CEO’s roles have an important relationship. On this episode of the GrowCFO Show Kevin Appleby looks closer at this relationship with Richard Medcalf, founder of Xquadrant . Richard is a mentor to CEOs and tells you how the CFO should work with the CEO and also how to make the jump from the CFO role to the CEO one. About Richard Medcalf Richard studied at the University of Oxford...

Great communication is a vital part of the CFO’s brief. Using the right language is often the difference between good and great communication. On this episode of the GrowCFO Show Kevin Appleby discusses the power of language with Susana Serrano-Davey. Susana tells us about the many ways the right language can make a difference. The right language is vital to communicate to a team or individu...

Hugh Watchorn is the latest member of GrowCFO’s mentoring team. Hugh brings with him a wealth of experience, and he’s passionate about passing it on to the next generation of finance leaders. Kevin Appleby catches up with Hugh on this week’s GrowCFO show and finds that its a combination of business and people that keeps him motivated. Listen to the audio recording and find out mo...

GrowCFO mentor Catherine Clark often finds assertiveness to be an issue when she is helping aspiring and new CFOs. She tells Kevin Appleby why that is and what you can do to be more assertive. Catherine and Susana Serrano-Davey recently covered assertiveness in the GrowCFO Women Finance Leaders group and on this episode of the GrowCFO Show she shares the key messages from that session Why do some...

Mike Whitmire is CEO and founder of FloQast. He’s based in Los Angeles and is a CPA turned Entrepreneur. Mike loves building software that helps accountants go home early. Mike and Kevin catch up to find out how you can use technology to improve the culture in your finance function. About Mike Whitmire Mike founded FloQast in 2015, but it isn’t the first venture he’s been part of...

Do you feel that you are delivering your full potential within your finance leader role? During this week’s episode of The GrowCFO Show, I talk to GrowCFO’s Founder and CEO Dan Wells . Dan explains how your CFO Programme will help you to maximise your performance within your finance leader role . What is the CFO Programme? The CFO programme is a blend of workshops, self assessment, and...

Iain Nairn is an experienced insolvency practitioner. In this episode of the GrowCFO Show I chatted to Iain about the role of the insolvency practitioner. Why and when and why a company should call on his services? We also took a look at the state of the economy following Covid-19. We discussed how great the negative impact on business actually is. Listen to the podcast to find out more. About Iai...

Catherine Clark leads GrowCFO’s mentoring team. One thing Catherine discusses regularly with her CFO mentees is how to create more thinking time. Finding the space to think is so important in so many areas. In particular thinking time impacts the quality of the decisions you make. So in this episode of the GrowCFO Show we’re going to talk about decision making and lack of thinking time...

Susana Serrano-Davey is an experienced finance leader, mentor and coach. She even ran her own business for a while. Susana is joining the mentoring team we have here at GrowCFO. On this podcast I catch up with Susana to find out more about her. I also asked her “What makes a good finance leader?” About Susana Serrano-Davey Susana is a Spanish national, and currently lives in Marbella o...

Abu Ali is a partner in a Newcastle based  corporate finance  boutique, WilliamsAli. He provides strategic M&A and funding advice to business owners and investors. Abu joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to explain the role of a corporate finance advisor, and the value that working with an external specialist can bring to your business. About Abu Ali Abu Ali qualified as a Charte...