Career Coaching Secrets

The Mastermind Effect: How One Event Can Change Your Entire Career Path - Leonard Fom

• Davis Nguyen

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In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen interviews Leonard Fom, a fractional CFO and business coach. Leonard explains that he started his business, FinOps Squad, out of corporate frustration, inspired by the book Think and Grow Rich. He now helps professionals, particularly those in finance and law, who feel stuck in their careers.

Leonard's coaching is built on a "limitless lifestyle" framework. He offers tiered programs, from one-on-one sessions to a founder accelerator program. His business goals involve leveraging AI, building a strong team, and creating a legacy, though he notes that managing time, money, and people is a constant challenge.

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Leonard Fom:

It's interesting. So I have actually been doing a lot of work in that space in terms of my ICPL. And I would say it's usually the individuals who are stuck in their career, frustrated. They know they've got more and they don't know what to do. So accountants and finance lawyers. So there's a high demographic of people that I work with are generally lawyers, people who have a decent wage, but they're not satisfied. So there might be heads with fire.

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. Hey

Rexhen Doda:

everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Rajen, and today's guest is Leonard Fohn, the founder of FinOps Squad, a fractional CFO, business coach, and self-mastery advocate on a mission to help entrepreneurs design lives and careers on their own terms. With a background that spans strategic finance, business transformation, and leadership development, Leonard's supports startups and high-growth companies from incorporation to successful exit, ensuring founders not only scale revenue but build profitable, sustainable businesses. Through FinOps Squad, he partners with VC-backed ventures, family offices, and ambitious founders to provide tailored financial expertise, strategic guidance, and the operational systems needed to avoid common growth pitfalls. And it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Leonard. Thank

Leonard Fom:

you, Regine. Really delighted to be on the show with you. And that feels like a glowing introduction, but I really appreciate that.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you for coming, Leonard. It's a pleasure for us to have you on. I wanted to learn a little bit about focusing on the coaching side of your business. First of all, what inspired you to start FinOps Squad and work also on the coaching side, become a coach and do coaching as a business?

Leonard Fom:

No, great question. So I always say that it starts with pain. So the pain, the frustration that I got through working in the corporate environment, knowing that I could do a lot more, led me to actually start in FinOpsQuant. So it was the same sort of thing where I get approached quite a lot by recruitment consultants. Someone came to me, there was a high-flying role with Google. I Googled to head up a team. I worked through different rounds of interviews. And at one point, they just weren't quiet. And I was like, why did it go quiet? Like, there was no feedback, no response. And I kid you not, I've had thousands of those throughout my career, 20 years career in finance, where people just go quiet. They don't give me reasons. And so I went on holiday. And while I was on holiday, I was reading a book. Everyone has read this book or knows about this book, Think and Grow Rich. And I read the book and I read it on speed dial while I was walking. And it popped in me saying that, look, mastermind, I need to get to a mastermind as soon as possible because I need to be around people who can elevate me to sort of be on where I am. So I went to a mastermind that year, went to Dubai, was in a room with some great individuals, famous business coaches, business leaders. people crushing it, eight figures, nine figures in the room, like in terms of revenue, people driving out with Lambos and Bentleys. And I was like, wow. And one business coach actually sat down with me and I was talking about sort of my career from a single point lens. I am a career person. And he said, have you ever thought about starting a business? And he broke it down so eloquently that I thought, oh, And so I went from that, that Christmas, starting to reflect, dig deep, do inner work within myself. And I created FinOps Squad. FinOps Squad was birthed from there. And literally I designed, you know, what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be purposeful. So it was from pain to purpose to now passion. And that whole passion play looked at brand identity. I grew up with hip hop. I grew up with and basketball. And I interwoven that into my abilities in finance strategy and operations to create this creative finance agency that was more than just finance. And that's how it started. That's how it started.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. So how is coaching incorporated in the FinOps squad? Beautiful.

Leonard Fom:

So the reason why it's incorporated is, again, I look at it from a four box model. So you have people who, like me, have started out. And so what I have done is documented my journey. And as I documented my journey, I looked at sort of all aspects of my life that I transformed. So there's seven pillars that I have. So health, look after my health, what I eat, what I sleep, how I train. Then I looked at location. Where do I want to go in the world in terms of free location? Business, finance, family, personal development. and then travel. So these are sort of the seven pillars. And I basically started to read, self-develop, help myself. And so I thought, actually, I can help others. And so my own reflection was around limitless lifestyle, where I can live it on my terms and design it according to where I want to be instead of trading my time for money in terms of a corporate career. And so that pivot, I literally pivoted and I said, okay, cool. I have now taken a bold step to create my own business. But also, whilst it was fractional CFO work, which I do, I realized there's a long tail. There's a lot of people behind who might not be able to afford a fractional CFO. CFOs can charge up to £3,000 an hour. So it's significant. That sort of work only comes to a set amount of businesses. So I thought, well, those roles don't always come by. And once I have some capacity, how do I create a program to start coaching and helping others come up and do and change and pivot and transform themselves? And that's how I led to coaching. So I've created now multiple programs. My lowest level programs Ticket Offering is a strategy session, half day with me, where I do something called LAAS, Leonard as a Service, where I design and go into a lot of detail and help people do inner work, then start doing outer work and transform the way they think, behave, and move forward. And then I've got other programs that I've created and designed to support them along the way.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. And Like I mentioned in the beginning, we were talking earlier, we might have some of that audience listening. So for that audience, that is these entrepreneurs, also these startups or high growth companies, how would you describe the ideal client profile for you? Is there a certain industry, certain demographic? How would you

Leonard Fom:

describe it? It's interesting. So I have actually been doing a lot of work in that space in terms of my ICPL. And I would say it's usually the individuals who are stuck in their career, frustrated. They know they've got more and they don't know what to do. So accountants and finance lawyers. So there's a high demographic of people that I work with are generally lawyers, people who have a decent wage, but they're not satisfied. So they might be heads of finance or vice presidents in finance, but they don't feel like they can progress anymore. And they've hit a a barrier and they feel like they can't move forward. So that's the demographics. It's generally the professionals and people inside organizations on the verge or they've recently lost their jobs. So they've just been made redundant and they're trying to figure out what next. Those are sort of, that's my ICP and that's my target, target demographics.

Rexhen Doda:

And when it comes to the engagement of these people that you just described, the engagement that they have with you as a coach, how would you describe that? You kind of talked about some programs a little bit. How many programs are there? Is there a certain length? How is the engagement that they have with you?

Leonard Fom:

Yeah, so there are multiple layers and tiers, and it depends on what entry point. So I do do-it-yourself programs, done-with-you programs, and then done-for-you, with-you programs. And so I've designed three programs, one's an online course. The other one is working directly with me on a one-to-one basis. The other one is more a longer form. So the one that is probably most taken is is a one-to-one session landed as a service. Because what I do is create individuals to see themselves as a business. And so I really take them on that journey. And that's usually just a one-day session, actually a half a day session with me. But they go away with a tangible playbook that they can go away and actually refer to. So it isn't just talking. It's real action, very intense. And then we check back in after a couple of weeks to see how they're progressing. Now, the next level up is basically a founder accelerator program. So it's whereby I've got experts and we do a mixture of hybrid and in-person meetups. So I'm really big on eating and getting around to get to know one another and share ideas around roundtables. So we do that as well as online, as well as having experts come in to guide these founders or individuals that are being coached. So it's almost in a program over eight to 10 weeks that we work on. And then I haven't got there yet. But the plan is to create a mastermind. But I haven't got there yet. That's in the pipeline and in the works.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. You also mentioned seven pillars earlier. And one of them was also like thinking about relocating. How important is that to you? And are you in the right place right now?

Leonard Fom:

Yeah, I am. I am. I'm actually really fortunate. I'm living in three locations. So I've got location freedom. in the UK at the moment, but I'm traveling to Tampa in a couple of weeks in the US. So I've got a base in the US and then also Nigeria. So I have three locations that I travel within. I do that with a busy family as well. So I have a family as well. But this is a part of what I believe a limitless lifestyle. I think people have been, and it all starts with the mind. I do a lot of work with the mind because limiting beliefs and we're very taut people. especially in the UK, to live a certain lifestyle system, go to school, attend that. And so I've absolutely smashed that. And now I don't live according to the rules. And so that's why I want people to know that it's possible. And actually, it's super exciting. Last year alone, I traveled to about 10 destinations, countries, and had a wonderful year. whilst also coaching, coaching and building and developing my clients and supporting my clients.

Rexhen Doda:

Amazing. So where are you headed next? What is the goal right now with your business, with OptinTech Squad?

Leonard Fom:

The goal actually is to continue to, I'm actually learning a lot around AI. I definitely want to leverage more of AI and the capabilities. I'm building my team. at the moment. So as we speak, I've got new people joining. That's super exciting. And the aim is to hit the revenue goals as well. So it's the business goals in terms of team, the processes, optimization, but it's the revenue goals and targets because the aim is to ultimately create a legacy. And I do this and I've got a why because I've got a family. And the whole plan is to get them to also believe that they can also live a limitless lifestyle in terms of my family, my children and my community. And what I mean by community is anyone engaging with me, friends, not like anyone involved with me. I want people to grow. So almost start a movement. A movement where people realize that they can really make an impact and a change. So that's the goal. That's the vision. And we've just got started. We've just got started. We're not even... I haven't even scratched the surface.

Rexhen Doda:

I'm curious about AI though. What sort of space in AI are you working on right now?

Leonard Fom:

So AI at the moment is working on efficiencies within the business. How can we do things smarter, smoother, You know, I leverage it in terms of lead generation, customer support, so onboarding the people on board, finances, char, recruitment. So AI can be everywhere and should be everywhere within the business. And so, like I said, I'm learning new through it. It's an interesting path. I believe it's definitely going to be embedded within my business. And then I've got, you know, I'm not going to give everything away because this is my IP and But I've got clever ideas on what I was, I was actually thinking about one idea today, this morning, about what I can do for my clients, both in terms of personal clients when it comes to coaching, but also consultancy in terms of, with regards to fractional CFO work. What can I bring into these companies where I can definitely help workflows? Where can I come in and give insights for these businesses and help automate, optimize and accelerate them.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. Thanks for sharing all of that. And it seems like everyone is kind of like into AI right now. And some of the coaches that I speak of every day are, some of them are actually concerned about AI, but AI is a beautiful thing. So there's a lot of it to leverage there. Right now, where do you see challenges with the goals that you have going forward? Challenges, wow.

Leonard Fom:

Do you know what? I think the biggest challenge will always be around resource. And what I mean by resource is time, money, and people. So, you know, time in terms of trying to move at pace and not being slowed down by things, that could be a challenge. Resource in terms of finance, delayed payments have impact too. Yeah. So finance, and then I say resource because getting the right people is really hard sometimes. So I spend time, you know, actually today alongside all that I've been doing today, I've been fine tuning and looking at the values and the principles and type of people I want to bring into the business. So, um, yeah, hopefully because I'm going to be up front now, I don't live a rosy in heaven life. I've made it like lifestyle. It's heavenly. I've had bruises. I've had bumps. I've had scars. And bringing in the wrong team members have cost me. It cost me last year a couple of clients because I didn't pick up too quick. I was too nice and I was allowing the rot to take place in the team. So I've learned from that. But again, We will see. I'm hiring and it just takes time to see and hope that people can prove themselves.

Rexhen Doda:

Nice, cool. And yeah, it's having the right people from the get-go can make a tremendous difference. So it's like the highest cost is typically in hiring, hiring the right one. And because you hire the wrong one, it becomes very expensive. You'd have to just find another one. And it's like, yeah, it's one of the most expensive items in the business. So yeah, is there... Any advice you'd like to give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact just like you are?

Leonard Fom:

I'll be honest. I'd love to. I'm working with people who are coaches as well, new to entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs. I would say, come onto my program. And I'm not saying this. I've had some amazing transformations with people who, honestly, they thought this and now they're thinking the world. changes. And it's lovely seeing it. I love seeing the impact that I'm doing in the lives of people that I'm working with. So yeah, my offering is quite low, to be honest. It's a low entry, but it's high impact. So low entry, high impact. You're going to get definitely 10x whatever you put into my program, at least.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you so much, Leonard. And thank you for coming to the show. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, they can go into LinkedIn and they'll be able to find your profile at Leonard Foam. They can also go into the website. I've got a stand

Leonard Fom:

store.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool.

Leonard Fom:

Sorry. And I can share the link to a stand store later if you want to. But yes, that's where I am. I can

Rexhen Doda:

also see finops-squad.com. Is that correct too?

Leonard Fom:

That's correct. That's my fractional CFO because my business is FinOps Squad. I do coaching out of FinOps Squad, but it's quite unique. You know, I've just started to really hone in on that business coaching space. But yes, you've got FinOps Squad, my website, you've got me on LinkedIn, probably the easiest way to get there. And then there's Stanster.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you,

Davis Nguyen:

Leonard. Thank you so much for coming to the show.