Developing Business Acumen necessary to become a strategic business partner with Robert Blanding
In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, Paul Barnhurst sits down with Robert Blanding, an experienced finance and operations leader in the ag-tech sector. Robert shares insights on building high-performing FP&A teams, partnering effectively with accounting, developing financial acumen, and applying strategic finance to drive operational impact in global businesses.
Robert Blanding is the Chief Financial Officer at Fall Creek, a global leader in the Ag-Tech sector. He brings extensive experience in finance and operations from 18 years at Intel and leadership roles across industrial manufacturing, technology, and ag-tech companies. Robert combines strategic financial leadership with a focus on innovation, long-term business growth, and developing high-performing teams.
Expect to Learn:
What great FP&A looks like and the importance of business acumen
How to develop strong partnerships between FP&A and accounting
Strategies for building high-performing, empowered finance teams
Navigating systems, processes, and technology challenges in FP&A
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
"It starts with being connected to the business, having strong acumen, and being consulted by stakeholders." – Robert Blanding
"Investing in relationships outside of crisis is critical to getting support from accounting and operations." – Robert Blanding
Robert shares practical insights for FP&A professionals and aspiring CFOs, emphasizing the importance of business acumen, strong partnerships with accounting, creative problem-solving, and developing high-performing teams.
Follow Robert:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rfb19/
Company Website:https://www.fallcreeknursery.com/
Earn Your CPE Credit For CPE credit, please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, answer a few questions, and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for the FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode
[00:00] – Trailer
[03:55] – Defining Great FP&A
[07:39] – Career Path & First CFO Role
[17:49] – Fall Creek & Ag-Tech Overview
[21:18] – Importance of FP&A & Accounting Partnership
[32:23] – Creative Problem Solving & Process Improvement
[38:59] – Challenges in Building High-Performing Teams
[45:32] – Advice for Aspiring CFOs
[49:11] – Top Technical Skill for FP&A Professionals
[52:50] – Personal Interests & Basketball
[56:12] – How to Connect with Robert
Full Show Transcript:
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:00):
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of FP&A Unlocked where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, A K the FP&A guy. Each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts, and practitioners who are reshaping the role of FP&A nd a in today's business world. Together we'll uncover the strategies and experiences that separate good FP&And a from great helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. This week I'm joined by Robert Blanding. Robert, welcome to the show. Thanks.
Guest: Robert Blanding (00:33):
Appreciate it, Paul. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:34):
Really excited to have you. I know we've, I think we first chatted a few months ago and I'm glad we were able to find some time together to go through this. I'm excited to chat with you.
Guest: Robert Blanding (00:44):
Yeah, me as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:45):
So lemme give a little bit of Robert's background. He's a native Oregonian. He somehow found his way back to Eugene after a career path that crossed industries, company sizes and leadership challenges across the country. He earned a BA in business administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Washington and later an MBA in finance with a minor in marketing from the Indiana University, Kelley School of Business. He began his career in litigation financial consulting before returning to graduate school and then spending 18 years at Intel where he developed deep experience in finance, operations and large scale global business environments. Over the following decade. He pursued the right private company leadership opportunities working across a diverse set of industries that included heavy industrial manufacturing, fortune 100 technology and a small technology manufacturing business. Today he brings that broad operational financial perspective to the ag tech sector where he combines strategic finance leadership with a passion for innovation, long-term business building and developing high performing teams that creates lasting organisational impact. Love the background, love the ag sector. My wife's from Logan, which is an ag community in Utah, if you know it. So my father-in-law originally wanted to be a farmer. They still own quite a bit of farmland, so I can preach the agriculture side.
Guest: Robert Blanding (02:16):
Excellent. Yeah, it's a new industry for me. Out of the total lineup that I've been in, it's been super fun. Something that would've been more interesting sooner if I'd have realised how much there was here. So really happy to be where I am for sure.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (02:30):
Yeah, I can't imagine you pictured looking at your career background that you ever thought that that's where you'd end up.
Guest: Robert Blanding (02:35):
Yeah, I mean on a couple of levels. I mean, most of my background has definitely been high tech and also Oregon is a fairly small place. Eugene is a reasonably small place within it. Ending up back in Eugene is also not something I would've guessed ever happened. It's a little bit strange. I'm about a mile where I currently work from where my dad spent 30 years working for a small farmer's cooperative during his career.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:04):
Yeah. Well and I would imagine Eugene, I mean, correct me wrong, it's Nike in college town.
Guest: Robert Blanding (03:10):
It is.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:11):
There's probably not a tonne of opportunities. I imagine Portland is where most opportunities would be. I would think
Guest: Robert Blanding (03:18):
In Oregon for sure. Although there's a handful of pretty good companies that are Eugene based, so more than you might imagine.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:25):
Sure, yeah. It's just not the place you typically think of when you're thinking of the map. If you hear Eugene, you think Nike or the University of Oregon, you don't think opportunities to
Guest: Robert Blanding (03:34):
Go be A CFO. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:36):
It's for sure. Yeah, exactly. That's great. It worked out. You get to be back home.
Guest: Robert Blanding (03:42):
Yeah. Fantastic.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:43):
Alright, so this is the question we like to start off with every guest. I always love the diversity of answers we get here. So if I asked you what does great FP&A look like, how would you define it or what would be the answer you give?
Guest: Robert Blanding (03:55):
So a few things. I mean, there's a lot you can pack into that question and answer, right? For me, it starts with being connected to the business. That really is, for me a big distinction between finance and accounting, if you will. Accounting still needs to be connected to the business, but there's another step further if you're an FP&A nd a and that involves great partnership with stakeholders, very strong business acumen around whatever the company is doing, the industry it plays in, but it also includes being very forward thinking. If you're connected to the business, what's happening today that has implications for the future, what dynamics are going on? You got to help the business see what's coming next. And if you're doing all that well and you're really connected to the business, you have that partnership, you have the acumen, you are being consulted by your stakeholders, you're involved in things as they're thinking about what comes next, they're seeking you out.
(04:56):
That's to me a great indicator that you've got great FP&A And a with that. You've obviously got to be technically capable, you got to be in command of the numbers and the data. But back to that acumen piece, you have to have context around that and be able to provide that context to the business in a way that helps them make decisions and see what possibilities are out there for the future. The last thing I'd throw in there is you have to be fast on the warning curve. I've had the advantage or the fun of doing a bunch of different industries, different companies, different roles within companies, and part of that is learning to get down the learning curve, to develop the acumen, to understand the business, to connect with your stakeholders. It has to be different in every circumstance and you have to be adaptable to make that happen. So if you can package all of that together, which at various points in time is tougher than others, that's I think what makes you a great FP person. And if you can get a group of people together that are all hitting those things, then you've got a great FP&A team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (06:02):
And I love how you said if you can get everybody gap team, because getting somebody that can do that sometimes can be a challenge. You have to have a strong technical and a strong soft skill skillset and then try to get a team of that. Everybody's different in one area or the other. You got to get a really strong team that has a very rounded skillset. So it can be a challenge. I really like the mention where you said the difference of accounting and you FP&A, they both have to know the business. It's just in a different way. I think what I think of is accounting has to have relationship with the business FP&A and a has to really understand the operations of the business. I think it goes deeper than accounting like you mentioned. And so I appreciate that answer. Can definitely relate to it. I love that you said business acumen. It's not mentioned enough in my mind. We don't think about that enough in finance and I'm sure as a CFO, that's something you use every day.
Guest: Robert Blanding (06:58):
It is. And for me, again, if you really boil what I said down, it's the business acumen piece that really is the, I dunno, secret ingredient, special ingredient, whatever you want to say. It's what makes you truly useful for your stakeholders is understanding that context and I deal with that context in relation to their strategy and their objectives as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (07:20):
Great point. The context in relation to what they're trying to accomplish. I'd love to know a little bit of your background. How did you land your first CCFO role and how did you end up where you're at today? I know you spent a long time at Intel learning in a big global organisation, but talk a little bit more about your path and how you ended up where you're at.
Guest: Robert Blanding (07:39):
Yeah, so pathwise give you the standard answer first. There's probably, and also a colourful story and how the first CFO job actually came to be that I can get to at the end. But part of it for me was really building breadth of experience. And I think as is probably more typical for FP&And oriented folks, I don't have my CPA, so I, I'm definitely reliant more on the operational finance element. And so a lot of my background was trying to get good breadth in understanding different businesses, different stakeholders, different roles within FP&And a. There's budgeting, there's strategic planning, there are project ROIs, a whole bunch of different angles that you can pursue to get that breadth. The other thing for me was making sure I had enough accounting to at least know when to ask the right questions, but it really was a background put together of how do I find a collection of experiences that would enable me to lead a broader organisation from a finance perspective.
(08:51):
So as you note kind of a path through consulting early, which that was actually a lot of forensic accounting onto two different Fortune 100 companies. The big chunk at Intel and Intel had a rotation based culture. So I worked about half of my career supporting manufacturing organisations with Intel and the other half supporting business units and strategic organisations, but lots of different rotations, lots of different people that gave me exposure to a number of things. And from Intel, I really was looking for broader finance leadership role at a smaller company. It was what I wanted to do. And the private side is what interested me the most, just given the you get out from under the quarterly public part, that is for some super enjoyable for me. I was more interested in long-term nature of what you can find in the private sector. So started down that path, found a couple of different opportunities, but didn't land the first CFO role until after I had actually bounced back to a Fortune 100 and I was looking for a role and plenty of rejections along the way.
(10:06):
Plenty of, Hey, you're not A CPA, we're going to go with the CPA and plenty of, Hey, you've not been one before, so we're going to go with the guy who has been one before. So really getting down to how did the breakthrough happen? It happened in an industry that my background supported really, really well. Intel, in fact was actually a pretty major customer of the company that I became CFO at for the first time. And just if you looked at the background, it was a manufacturing oriented company. We sold products into Intel in the groups that I used to support. So there was a lot of background there that really supported getting that breakthrough and that connection with the company. And then just the finance experience that came with that as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (10:53):
Lot to unpack there. I mean the first thing I appreciate is just the honesty, transparency of saying, look, it took a lot. It wasn't like I just applied for a CFO role at lo and behold because I think sometimes people think that's it. Well, I've done everything and that's the next step. I should just be promoted. Rarely is that how life works
Guest: Robert Blanding (11:13):
For me. When I joined the company, I joined outside of leaving Intel, I was on the CFO succession path, but that company I joined at perfectly the wrong time. They hit their a hundred year revenue peak the year before I joined, and then the industry went into a multi-year downturn that really impacted the business and it was super clear that it just wasn't going to happen there, which led to me leaving great experience there from what I learned, but led to me leaving bouncing back to Fortune 50, which wasn't really the plan and then searching for what the opportunity was. But yeah, as you say, it's rarely a straight line. I mean, ideally you would find the succession based approach to it, but more often than not, it's probably going to be outside of wherever you are. So yeah, I'll share with you the colourful story part of it though, because it is kind of a weird one.
(12:11):
The other places that I've landed roles have really been through the usual network and recruiting and those kinds of things. This one, I was working a lot of hours at the Fortune 100 company that I was at. Family knew that I wanted to go do leadership smaller company, and I really did not have the time to do the career search. And my son, who was about 15 at the time, came to me and he said, teach me how to find you the job that you need. I was touching and a little funny and interesting, but I was like, okay, here's what I'm looking for. And within a few weeks he actually came back. He was doing his own internet searches. He actually came back and said, okay, I found this job for you to apply to. I really was not expecting much. And so I pulled it over, looked at it and was like, yeah, actually this fits really well. I'm a good fit. It is for the cfo. And they were doing their own no recruiter search, all internal. So I threw my resume over the wall and got the interview, which again, from a how does it usually work standpoint, none of this falls into that category, right? Yeah.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (13:23):
This is not the typical pap everybody tells you of how to find a job.
Guest: Robert Blanding (13:27):
Yes. So huge credit for my son for finding that. And then when I went into the interview, I actually got food poisoning the night before and I was violently ill all the way through into the morning. And so I called them, I think I had a one o'clock interview. I called them and said, Hey, I don't think I can make it in. And they'd flown in a senior exec from their parent company and said, Hey, this is it. We have two finalist candidates. You're one of the two. If you don't come in, you're done. And so I basically gutted it up literally and
(14:10):
Had my wife drive me to the interview because I was weak enough that I did not trust myself to be able to drive on the road, went in, did the interview, and it's one of those things where usually there's a fair amount of stress with interviews. You're trying to do your best, sometimes you can get into your own head. In that interview, I was so focused on not throwing up that everything, just everything, the good stuff, the information part just flowed. And it was probably the most natural interview because it was just, they asked the question, I had the answer. All of my focus was on not being sick. And so it came out, it was a really good interview. It was probably the best I've done because I wasn't so focused on being stressed of what the interview was all about. And I remember walking out across the parking lot, getting in the car. My wife waited for me and telling her, I said, interview went really well. And as I mentioned previously, that job, that company fit really well with my background. So what I had put together from a breadth standpoint did match really well. And I told my wife, I said, yeah, that went really well. I'd be really surprised if I don't get the offer here. Which again, is not a usual feeling walking out of those interviews.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (15:27):
You usually either think it went bad or you don't have a good feel correct. Usually you walk out thinking it went good, but at least I found that's not the majority of the time.
Guest: Robert Blanding (15:37):
Yeah. So that was definitely one of the most memorable interviews and whole setups in my entire career. And yeah, it was definitely would not want to repeat the sickness part. I'm not sure that was worth it for the result. But anyway, it makes for an interesting story of how the first CFO job actually happened.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (15:56):
So the moral of the story is get sick the night before an inter no, I'm kidding.
Guest: Robert Blanding (16:01):
Don't eat the wrong.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (16:02):
It sounds like you still have trauma from that one. It sounds like it was an awful
Guest: Robert Blanding (16:07):
Yeah, I've had food poisoning a few times in my life. It's never fun, right when you have
Host: Paul Barnhurst (16:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I've had it a few times and wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's always been awesome. And the older I get the worst it gets. But that's another story.
Guest: Robert Blanding (16:23):
Yeah. The other fun little tidbit in that is it's also the only interview that I can recall in my entire career where they actually had a food plate in the interview well, of which was like, it's like, eh, I appreciate the gesture, but the smell is not doing me any favours.
Guest: Robert Blanding (17:49):
Sure. Yeah, so it's been fantastic. So it's private company, family owned Ag Tech, so it's a great combination of, we have a strong r and d organisation. There's actually a 10 plus year pipeline of r and d projects in crossing blueberry varieties that leads to eventual commercialisation. So you have a good technology bent to it, which obviously is the tech part of Ag Tech, and that leads to production. We're producing plants in nurseries, but selling to farmers around the world, we're global in nature. We have our facilities on every continent except for Antarctica and Australia, and we sell millions of blueberry plants every year.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (18:35):
So you sell the plants, you're not doing any of the harvesting or any of that? Correct.
Guest: Robert Blanding (18:40):
No fruit, just the plants to enable what we call our mission, which is building a world with better blueberries and so bigger, crunchier, more flavorful, available 52 weeks per year trying to make it a year round. Superfood superfruit that again, from a business support standpoint, you get to look at r and d projects, you get to look at manufacturing and the costs associated there. You have a whole commercial organisation and regional teams that are all about serving the customers, but it really is about delivering some absolutely fantastic, very large blueberries out to the world that are great to eat and good for you.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (19:24):
I'm a big blueberry fan. I want some berry bushes, but I haven't done that yet, so I definitely appreciate that. I have some upstairs at the moment. So like I said, so you're all distribution, are you selling directly at all or is it all,
Guest: Robert Blanding (19:40):
It's all business to business, and
Host: Paul Barnhurst (19:42):
So I'd like to hear,
Guest: Robert Blanding (19:43):
It depends on what country you're talking about. Sometimes it's small family farms, other times it's large agricultural companies that are planting thousands of hectares of blueberries to hit whatever market they're trying to serve.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (19:59):
So it's everything from those who are selling it to an end user to those who are planting it. They need it for their entire farm.
Guest: Robert Blanding (20:05):
So as far as the fruit goes, yes, it really is though that business to business and most of the people we sell to are then selling the fruit to distributors. Our stuff going
Host: Paul Barnhurst (20:19):
Got, it's almost everything you're selling. They're farming versus I go to Home Depot or Lowe's or wherever, pick up a blueberry bush. It's not likely not going to be Fall Creek.
Guest: Robert Blanding (20:30):
Correct. We have a small nursery business that is in that nature, but the core element of what we do globally is yeah, volume wise, millions, tens of millions of blueberry plants to major growers who are growing the fruit for retail like Costco or Sam's Club or local grocery markets.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (20:51):
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Wherever you pick up the actual blueberries versus makes sense. And you mentioned you're global, so appreciate that background. That's helpful. I want to shift gears a little bit, ask a question. When you and I chatted, you said something about a high level FP&A and 18 can't achieve its goals without a high level accounting team. Elaborate a little bit on that if you would. I'd love to get your take there.
Guest: Robert Blanding (21:18):
I can tell you two stories there. So when I joined Esco day one for me, this is the job I took right out of Intel day one for me. They announced a major reorganisation. They were basically going from one big company to three divisions. My job was to weed finance for the biggest division we had. And that reorg at the announcement, that was basically the extent of the work that had been done. So no p and l, no financial information whatsoever, no managerial financial information for the division and for the product alliance within the division. And so the accounting team could obviously be compliant with financial reporting because they had everything they needed for total company. We had nothing for the division and we obviously were going to get measured on how well the division did, how well the products did, which products are the ones that we want to focus on, should we get rid of products, et cetera.
(22:21):
None of the plumbing existed. And so the first three months or so was really the FP&A a team working very closely with the accounting team to actually get the plumbing in place. And back to what I said before, different kinds of business acumen needed you absolutely accounting team had to understand the business, had to understand their stakeholders in the finance and the operational team that they supported, but it really was connecting new pipes, moving pipes, all of that to get financial information to a place where it was usable for FP&A to do their job. So without that partnership with accounting and without their understanding of how we needed to see information on the FP&A a part, absolutely would've been a non-starter. I mean, we literally had nothing. So once we had all of that partnership in place, then we started to be able to produce product line financials, obviously a p and l, but product line, financials, margin analytics, figured out, hey, this major product line is actually a money loser we should get out of this product line. All of that, none of that information was really visible in the old structure. And this wasn't an ERP change or transformation. This was just a, hey, in the existing system, work with accounting to connect all of the accounts to the right places and make sure we understand the why and the where. So that's what I mean by we were completely in the dark without the accounting team helping us get there.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (23:59):
Sure. Whenever you have these new reorgs, often the plumbing's bind and you got to kind reorganise it. I dealt with that a little bit. There's a bunch of tangled stuff in a p and l. I remember I had a big project where I had to try not tangle it all and had a lot of intercompany entries. So that was fun. Try non tangle those from years old because the business that it had all originally went in was Travellers Check, which is the oldest business for America Express. And they had added a bunch of new businesses, all kind of commingled in it. And looking back, I could tell I was part of preparing it for the step I left, but after that it was all sold off and I could see why they, they're trying to pull everything out of Traveler's check because that wasn't a business they were going to sell in 2020, right. The rest of it was so they needed to split it all out. At the time, I didn't think as much about it. The looking back I'd left a company saw, I know what all that worked went for. Right.
Guest: Robert Blanding (24:56):
And well, as you say too, I mean inter companies a key detail within what I was describing, right? Because if you are in a global business, which that was, and the current company I'm at is global as well, the intercompany piece, I mean it's the accounting team that can give you the Rosetta Stone to get things to the right place. Your FB and a folks, they shouldn't be in the intercompany piece. That part all has to be worked out, but the end result has to be something that again supports the business, which is the part where you get the partnership between FP&A a and accounting. You
Host: Paul Barnhurst (25:31):
Got to work with accounting because if an intercompany entry shows up wrong, your p and l line, regardless of whether it was accounted for properly, which 99% of the time it was, it's the right entities, but the rollup is wrong else. You've got 3 million showing up in expenses with no offset and it's just an intercompany that really doesn't impact the business per se. It just has to do with the legal and the tax side. You're like, all right, I got to go fix this. And that's when you go to accounting
Guest: Robert Blanding (26:01):
And if you're not in sync there and you don't recognise what you just said, then you can be putting bad information, supporting bad decisions across. So again, that partnership piece, and you and I were also talking a little bit about the job here and we just did an ERP transformation here and we were running off of multiple charts of accounts and consolidations was really tough. It's another one where as we've gone to hear a new ERP and cleaned up to get one global chart of accounts, it's another one where we're good on the financial accounting side. We needed to make sure the managerials tracked. And so again, here, just what we're going through and not completely done with great partnership between FP&A and accounting to get things into the right place so that its decision useful, it describes the business and actually you're much more efficient. You're not spending days and days chasing, is the data good? You're actually cleaned up and good to go support the business in a timely fashion, which is also critical and why that partnership and really the acumen on both sides is really critical.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:15):
You're making a lot of great points there. Any advice, let's say you have an FP&A team and they feel like they're not getting the support they need from accounting. I think everybody's experienced it at some level, one way or the other. You can go both ways. Would love a little bit of your thought. What advice would you get to an fp? A professional if they feel like they're not getting best support and they're struggling on the accounting side?
Guest: Robert Blanding (27:36):
Yeah, I don't know that that's any different than any stakeholder issue. If you're not getting the right support from your operational person, I think it comes down to have you built the right relationship? Have you developed the right understanding in terms of, Hey, here's the business need, here's why we're here. But probably more important than that, are you investing the time outside of the times of crisis or crunch time to have the right relationship with people to connect with them? Because it's pretty rare in my experience, that you've got a strong connection with somebody and they're not delivering for you. Usually it's a lack of understanding or a lack of connection that is driving that or in some cases prioritisation. But usually if you've got the strong relationship, you work through the prioritisation piece and you get to the right piece. So I mean, I think for me, regardless of the circumstance, whether it's finance, accounting, accounting, finance or finance to operational stakeholders, it really comes down to get the right relationship and invest the time to do it. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:48):
I think you make a great point. Relationships are so important, and there's something you said in there that I want to kind of repeat is make sure you're developing that relationship beyond times of crisis. One of the best examples I've heard is Christian Wadi, he's a programme director for Wharton. He talks a lot about the emotional bank account. And when I talk about that, I say, look, in finance, we have more withdrawals because of the rule. If you're doing a reorg, you have to tell people they have to cut heads, budget season, those are going to be withdrawals. Even if it goes great, there are going to be parts of it that nobody likes of, no fault of your own. So I'm like, make sure you're putting in those deposits throughout the year so the emotional bank account relationship can withstand those withdrawals that are negative just by the nature of them, no matter how well you,
Guest: Robert Blanding (29:38):
Yeah, no, I think that's true. I absolutely use the emotional bank account metaphor frequently in those conversations. The other one that's useful, and I'm not sure I'm going to get it perfectly right, but if you do any youth sports coaching, they will tell you it needs to be, it's something like a 10 to one ratio of positive reinforcement versus negative, Hey, this needs to be our corrective reinforcement. And again, I think that also lends itself to if you're only dealing with people in times of crisis or crunch time, man, you have not spent the 10 to one ratio in terms of developing that emotional bank account.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (30:18):
Yeah, it's similar to, I haven't done much, I haven't really done youth sports, but I did a lot of boy scouts for years. Similar idea. If you wanted to learn, you need to really focus on being positive with them, not just you messed up your tent. Oh, you didn't clean up after yourself. I mean, it's true with kids. You want to try it, and I find myself guilty of that sometimes. I'm sure you can remember as a parent where you're like, oh, I was just negative all day with them. No wonder why they're grumpy and not doing what I want instead of focusing on the positive side and trying to help 'em see in addition to that, here's the other things you need to be doing. So I think it's a great, it doesn't matter what the relationship is, there's just a lot of value like you said there, and especially with youth of that positive reinforcement and building the bank account,
Guest: Robert Blanding (31:08):
Right? Absolutely. I mean, as you said, it transcends what the circumstance is. If humans are dealing with humans, you need to get a positive, productive relationship to really make things work
Host: Paul Barnhurst (31:20):
Great. Just advice for light goes far beyond anything. We'll talk about finance, so I love that. Another thing we deal with, another challenge, and this is challenging across the business as well, but high performing teams, something that allows you to be a high performing team is often good systems or at least makes it easier. If you have a lot of really bad systems, really bad data, it can become a real challenge, right? Often the company grows and you're lagging by, I think you talk about NetSuite going through high implementation. I'm sure some of that's because of company growth and now there's a lack. There's some tech debt that you had to solve. So any advice to the people on the frontline, the average FP&A and a person often doesn't get to say much about the system, but it can sometimes feel limiting. How do you manage those situations? How should they think through that? Because I look at it and say the last thing people want to hear is always, Hey, I can't do it because the system doesn't solve anything, but there's some reality to a certain extent. So how do you handle those types of situations?
Guest: Robert Blanding (32:23):
Yeah, I think two things. One is, I mean, at least for me when I was frontline and even today in thinking about certain other circumstances, part of being successful is being a creative problem solver. You can't be too creative. You have to be creative within some bounds, but if the system mean you
Host: Paul Barnhurst (32:45):
Don't want to hallucinate answers
Guest: Robert Blanding (32:48):
Or you don't want to go hire somebody on the side to construct an outside system without it knowing it, there are boundaries. But within those types of boundaries, which are fairly broad, is how do you figure out how to make, if you're in the short term, where the system is not going to change, how do you make it work for you as best you can using creative problem solving skills and likely your internal network on, Hey, I'm really struggling with how to do this. Maybe somebody else has actually cracked that nut, and you can get a best known method from them to help you. So that's kind of step one in the crisis. Rather than being defeatist, have that growth mindset, look on it as a challenge and figure out how you get your best work around to get there. And typically that is what most people will do.
(33:42):
The other thing I would say, if you step more into the short to medium term, it really is make sure you're investing in the underlying processes and keeping it as simple as you can. Because I've seen a couple of groups where, and these are non-finance groups that come to mind that think somebody who's supported by A CRM or an HRIS system or a warehouse management system who have said, our major problem is we don't have the right system. And if you look a little bit deeper, their major problem is actually they have really bad underlying processes, and if they automated it with a system, it would be a disaster. And so that's the other controllable element here is take a step back, look at the underlying processes, and do those need to change in a way that simplifies makes them more straightforward and produces cleaner data that enables you to get where you need to because before you ever change the system, put in a new system, whatever, you really need to have solid processes and good data. Those are the key things, and there's a lot that's there that's controllable without a system changing.
Guest: Robert Blanding (36:13):
Haven't heard that one. I like that one a lot.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:16):
And it's true. I mean, I think you summed it up that I'd say three things that you summed up really well there. First you just have to have the growth mindset, be creative, look at it as a challenge to solve versus woe is me two is look at the processes or there ways you could simplify. And the third thing I can think I heard there is you mentioned a little bit around that was the data, but right. Doing that, you can overcome a lot. You still may not solve everything. Sometimes you can't give, give the business what they want, but you'll get closer for sure.
Guest: Robert Blanding (36:50):
And along the way of doing that, you'll actually build the business case for upgrading the system as well.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:57):
A hundred percent agree. Because when you can start showing you continually be, okay, I've done all this, or we need this, that's not a fill that's not available. Well what would it take? And you start putting that bug in people's ears, well, we either have to do this to the existing system or upgrade to a new one. Then all of a sudden, well, what's the business case before it? Hopefully it starts driving some chains that allows you to make everybody's life easier, assuming you get the implementation right. That's a whole nother story. You
Guest: Robert Blanding (37:26):
Got to have a good team and you got to have everybody on board. So that's for sure.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (37:29):
Having just gone through an implementation, you would definitely be able to relate to that one
Guest: Robert Blanding (37:34):
And to give credit while we're in that general topic, our team really came together well, not just finance team, but the global team. And yeah, it's been, I would hesitate to call any ERP implementation fund, but the result has been great and it's going to really enable the business to scale. So it's been a very good team effort here.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (37:55):
I think having just gone through it, you'll laugh at this one as well. My co-host Glenn Hopper, he always jokes that there's two things that will get a CFO fired. One is fraud, and the second is tell your CEO you want to do ERP implementation.
Guest: Robert Blanding (38:09):
Well, it is funny you say that because what the board told our CEO when we embarked on this is only one of the things that gets CEOs fired is a bad ERP implementation. So I can see how that rolls downhill into his comment.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (38:25):
Exactly. And he's gone through a few implementations. I've been A-C-F-O-A few times. But yeah, it's definitely one of those things that everybody hopes goes right and is real challenge, so I'm glad it's gone really well. I want to touch on one other topic and then we're going to move into the FP&A a section and get to know you. So I saw a study somewhere that said something to the effect of, in general, CFOs have said the hardest role to fill is FP&A and a role, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it. What have you thought about the challenges of building a high performing FDA and filling those roles?
Guest: Robert Blanding (38:59):
Yeah, interesting question. I'd love to see the study, not one I'm familiar with, and I've been fortunate both at ESCO and here at Fall Creek that I've inherited a really good core FP&A team, which obviously is fortunate and gives you a good running start. I think it's always somewhat challenging to do hiring well, right? And I'm not sure I see a difference between hiring a controller or accounting manager versus hiring an FP&A a manager or analyst. I think the people are out there, it's a matter of whether or not you can tap into them and whether you can run a good enough process to identify and land that talent. So it's definitely, you got to have people who fulfil all the things we talked about at the front end around great FP&A, right? The people who are technically competent can partner, all of those sorts of things.
(40:01):
So yeah, those are tough skills, but there's a lot of schools and companies that educate and give experience to people, I guess. I think it's more a challenge in how you execute finding them and landing them than whether or not they exist, which is kind of how I took the finding it part, but I think there's enough people out there that for me, with a good process, you can find the right people and bring them in. It doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes from time to time, but that's not one I worry about so much. For me, it's more the concern is how do you continually develop people along the way, which takes effort, process, engagement, all of those things. Not to say that there's mysticism around it, but you got to make sure you're paying attention to it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (40:54):
And that's where I was going to go next was that's a little bit of a development, so that leads perfectly. The thing I'd say, when you mentioned hiring and getting good processes hard, you never know if the person on the other side of the table is being forthcoming with you. You can get ideas, but it could be difficult. I had a boss who he put it once he goes, hiring's hard. I will never fault someone for getting a hire role. It happens. I will fault you if you don't fix it. And that could be development, that could be moving the person in another role. Sometimes that means having to displace somebody and I thought that was good. You've made the decision, now you need to figure out how to make it work best for the company, whatever that means. That was a good way. I'd never heard it put that way, and it always kind of stuck with me because I always felt like, oh, I'm going to mess up this hire, but you do. What you do afterwards is on you. I won't hold you responsible for messing it up.
Guest: Robert Blanding (41:44):
Yes, no, I agree. And yeah, the key there gets back to what I was saying, it's how do you coach and develop and as needed performance manage, and that can be both high performers and low performers, but how do you make the right thing happen?
Host: Paul Barnhurst (42:00):
I'd love a little bit of advice there. I mean, what have you found works well in developing teams? How do you think about that of trying to make sure you have a high performing team that gets the opportunities and the growth they eat?
Guest: Robert Blanding (42:12):
Yeah, so I think a couple of things come to mind. So first off, if you have a multilevel organisation, you need to have leadership at all levels that's engaged in this. It can't, especially if you're global and you're talking about multiple time zones, it would be a point of failure or lack of scalability if it depended on me to do all of the development for everybody across the globe, including those who don't report directly to me. So I got to make sure I am making my managers accountable and understanding what good development looks like and that we're making that happen in an empowered and scalable way. So that's first off, what's important if you're bigger organisation, and there's an element too that is, hey, if you're not a manager but you're a peer reinforcing the importance of peer coaching, both giving and seeking that out to make sure that you're getting as much as you can.
(43:11):
Then the other two things that are kind of connected for me in this space is most learning is experiential learning. Usually when you go into the class, they give you the statistics around, hey, classroom learning is really a very small part of how people actually learn. It's really the experiential. And so it really is creating that environment where people are in situations where they are part of a team frontline, partnering, having the stakeholders it is, they are having the experience and they have accountability and responsibility in an empowered way to get through with coaching and tools, systems, all of those sorts of things that help them perform and get to a better place from an experience standpoint. So figuring out where are they in that and where can you plug them in that's situationally appropriate for where they are on the learning curve. That'll stretch 'em a little bit and give them that experience.
(44:11):
And then what I mentioned is connected to that is one thing I try and do with my FPA team is everybody has a designated, ideally staff to be on, meaning they're in an operational staff as a staff person being their finance or what I usually say, you're their mini CFO, so you need to support the business and do all the things I would do at the total company level you need to be doing for that organisation. And that gets them involved. And if they're not in a position where they can be part of the staff, Hey, here are you one or two key stakeholders, there's no staff, but you're well connected with them and having the same kind of conversations. I think those are the things that really develop the high performing team and get you into, we talked about great FP&A at the start, get you the opportunity to practise all of those things of being connected to the business, understanding it, using the numbers and the data with the context and being consulted by those stakeholders or that staff to help them figure out where the business needs to go.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (45:15):
That makes a lot of sense there. I appreciate that. Before we move into an fp, a section where we ask some standard questions, I want to ask one more, I know we have some people listening to the episode, they want to be a CFO one day. What advice would you offer to someone to help prepare themselves for their first CFO role?
Guest: Robert Blanding (45:32):
I think I've touched on a couple of things. For me, it goes back to make sure you've got enough breadth in your foundation. If you've only been a pricing FP&A and a person for 20 years, you're probably not well positioned to do a CFO role. That is much more than just pricing. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be different industries, although the one thing I really like about finance is it's pretty industry agnostic. So you can go a lot of different places as long as you pick up the learning curve part of it to understand the acumen of what's going on, but really get the breadth, understand key components that a CFO oversees as part of their role from accounting through treasury. Your ability to cover everything is not going to be possible, but figure out how to get major blocks and there will be times in your career where your best move is to go lateral, not up because you're getting the breadth piece.
(46:35):
And that can be a hard choice. There were a couple of times in my career where I actively chose lateral rather than up because it was a breadth play that eventually got me here. And so that's probably for me the most important part. Then it just gets down into the growth mindset piece that we talked about listening effectively and partnering well. But the other thing I will mention to people that I think we talk about networking a lot and usually that conversation goes to go out and join finance organisations, meet people, go to conferences, all good, all stuff people should do. But one of the biggest networking opportunity is networking your timeline. And by that I mean the people when you start your first job, your peers at that job and maybe the first level managers that you work with, a lot of them are eventually going to be CEOs or CFOs.
(47:32):
I'm amazed at all the people I started with and where they are today. That is a tremendous network that if you cultivate as you go through your career, you can't pick up the phone and say, Hey, 30 years ago we used to work together. Do you remember me? And now I'm networking with you. You have to maintain this network through your time horizon. But there's a very exponential impact of classmates and for people that you first started with that go to amazing places that produce just an awesome network for you to not just find roles, but also just to help solve problems. Hey, I'm facing this for the first time. I know you've faced it. Let me call you and talk to you and get some advice. Networking your timeline, it takes a long time and you don't necessarily see it maybe for the first decade, but man, after that it pays a lot. And there's a lot of people I started with that I call up and have maintained enough of a relationship with that I know I can call them and they can obviously call me and we can have deep conversations with some shared history that help get us to the right place and it's super valuable. So the breadth piece, but also just recognise the power of the time in your career
Host: Paul Barnhurst (48:52):
And I've never had it kind of put that way. I really liked that phrasing of network. Your timeline made me think that was something I wish I would've done better if throughout my career. So that's really good advice. Thank you. Alright, these are some standard questions we ask every guest. What's the number one technical skill that you think FPA professionals need to ask?
Guest: Robert Blanding (49:11):
Well, I'm going to feel a little repetitive from what we talked about. I'm going to tell you it's the application of business acumen to your financial modelling. I mean that implies you're pretty good at financial modelling, but I've seen some great financial models not connected to the business that don't really produce anything useful. They're really cool models though. The ones that are super effective is when you've developed the acumen, you've spent enough time with the stakeholders, they're building in stuff that really is impactful in terms of where the business goes. So that for me would be the number one.
(49:48):
So I was listening to your State of the Union podcast from a little while ago, and so I'm going to resist the temptation to say empathy because you say I take that as a challenge. So I'm going to say actually an associated item for me, which is effective listening. And by that I mean broader than usual that people say, right? I mean there's the traditional, hey, make sure you're really absorbing repeat things back. All of that absolutely mean all of that. But more than that, when you're presenting to a room or someone else is presenting and you're in there, it's reading body language. I was in a board meeting a few board meetings ago and somebody who reported to me was doing a presentation and I could tell that one of the people in the room had real issues with what was being said, but they didn't say anything.
(50:42):
It was all body language. And I put that in the category of effective listening that enabled me to find that person in a break. And we ended up in a conference room having a conversation around what the concerns were. Got a lot out in the open, worked through it and got to a much better place. And that would've been hidden under the surface if I hadn't been paying attention and looking at what was going on. And like I said, that's a little bit beyond what most people consider effective listening, but the body language part I think is important and making sure whether you're presenting or someone on your team is presenting or a stakeholder, you're taking it in and you're understanding and you're seeing things before they become issues.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (51:23):
Great advice. I appreciate that. Going beyond just what we typically think are work, we shared listening. Alright, so this is kind of a fun one going in a little different direction. If Excel removed one feature tomorrow, which one would cause you the most panic if it went away?
Guest: Robert Blanding (51:39):
And this is, I will hold my hand up and say, I love Excel. I used to be very good at Excel. I'm not that good at Excel anymore and I don't think you really want me to be that good at.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (51:50):
No, that's a typical answer I get from CFOs.
Guest: Robert Blanding (51:53):
However, I did, I have thought about this a little bit and I actually bounced it off of a couple of people who are very good in my organisation where it would hurt and really the answer I came up with, which I was pleased with, was very consistent with what they said. Mine was just based on much older functions and reference matching. So for me it was vlookup for them it was a combination of either X lookup or index matching. Basically any function that takes away the ability to match things would be detrimental to the analytics side.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (52:26):
Yes. Yeah, no, I can understand that one. Whether it's the lookup, whether you're using Power Query, you lose that ability to match things. We've all done several hours if not years of matching. Alright, so now we're going to move this section to get to know you have a couple of questions we'll wrap up here. What do you like to do in your spare time when you're not working, kind of a hobby or passion you have?
Guest: Robert Blanding (52:50):
Well, so two things. I'm a big basketball guy, so everything from coaching to watching and to playing, it's playing as much harder as you get older. I'm collecting a number of injuries that are all basketball related, but I do, for me, basketball in all of those forms I just mentioned is a big stress reliever just in terms of really getting into the sport and really it's all levels. I enjoy the game and have a decently long connection to it one way or another. So really enjoy that. We're now, actually, it's very nice that WNBA has come up and filled the summer because now there's no long layoff with no basketball. So in the NBA final or playoffs now, I don't have a dog in the hunt with the NBA right now, but WNBA season is starting. Actually went to a game in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I saw the ACEs play. So basketball is loads of fun for me in whatever form it's in from youth to pro.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (53:49):
Were you a Sonics fan as a kid?
Guest: Robert Blanding (53:52):
Actually given I grew up in Oregon. I'm a diehard Blazer fan.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (53:55):
You are a Blazer, okay. I wasn't sure,
Guest: Robert Blanding (53:57):
But I will say given I went to school in Seattle, I became a Sonics fan, which is a little unusual because those are two pretty big rivals.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (54:06):
Yeah, yeah. Pacific, I certainly Northwest,
Guest: Robert Blanding (54:09):
Yes, I certainly would want the Blazers to win any matchup with them. But yeah, I grew, I had a roommate whose dad had Courtside Club tickets to the Sonics that I grew to love them with X-Men and the teams of that era. As a result, I despise Oklahoma City's team for stealing the sonics apologies to anyone who's a diehard Oklahoma City fan, but man, that was just a wrong thing for the NBA to do. But yes, the Blazers for me are my NBA team.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (54:42):
Yeah, I know I'm a big NBA fan. We could probably spend a whole podcast on that, but we'll lose everybody by then. So we'll keep going. But I do, I love basketball as well. I played a lot of it as a kid and don't play much now, but I can relate to, I do a lot of running and it just feels like one injury after another now.
Guest: Robert Blanding (55:00):
Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (55:00):
So the joy of ageing.
Guest: Robert Blanding (55:03):
Yes. It's not so much the injuries, it's the recovery time actually.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (55:07):
Agreed. I'm recovering from pulling a calf muscle right now, and it's just like, why is this still hurting? I get it. All right. If you could have dinner with one person in the world, who would you pick and why?
Guest: Robert Blanding (55:22):
So I'm going to stick kind of on the basketball path. I'm going to go with Mark Cuban. So for a couple reasons. First, like me, an Indiana business School grad, he's got strong ties to the school. So there's an interesting set of conversations just around the university experience that would be good. He also clearly loves basketball, big sports guy, and has an interesting personality as well. So there's a lot of connectedness there and business people can talk about everything from business to basketball to Indiana really would, I think, lend itself to a very long, interesting conversation over dinner.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:03):
Alright, well we'll go ahead and wrap up here, but if someone wants to maybe get in touch with you or kind of learn more, learn about you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Guest: Robert Blanding (56:12):
Via my LinkedIn profile is probably the best and easiest.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:16):
That's what I think. That's the typical answer nowadays. LinkedIn is, I think it's made to go from six degrees of separation to two or three,
Guest: Robert Blanding (56:25):
And I am not a daily LinkedIn person, but I am on frequently enough that that's going to be the best way to hunt me down. Of
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:34):
Course. Makes sense. Well Robert, thank you so much for joining. I enjoyed the conversation. It was a real pleasure having you on the show and appreciating everything you shared with the audience. I think they'll find it really valuable.
Guest: Robert Blanding (56:44):
Yeah, I appreciate it. I've enjoyed listening to the podcast and this has been a fun conversation for me as well, so appreciate it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:52):
That's it.That's it for today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com. Downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A guy, and I'll see you next time.