Books To The Boardroom

Journey from BP to CFO with Andrew Edwards

• Sumith Dissanayake • Season 3 • Episode 14

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In this episode, Books to the Boardroom had the pleasure of speaking with Andrew Edwards, CFO at Perfection Fresh Australia, who shared his remarkable journey from aspiring tradesman to finance leader. Andrew's career path took him through BP's global operations, where he developed the communication skills and inquisitive mindset that became his defining strengths.

We explored how Andrew navigated becoming a management accountant by 24, his philosophy of "don't avoid the risk, manage the risk," and why he believes the future of finance lies in moving beyond traditional accounting into data interpretation and business partnership. Andrew also shared practical insights on leading offshore teams, choosing the right technology, and why being uncomfortable is essential for growth.

What really struck us was Andrew's approach to developing his team - he wants people who "come into work wanting to be better today than they were yesterday." His emphasis on curiosity, understanding operations beyond the numbers, and taking on projects outside your comfort zone offers valuable guidance for anyone aspiring to senior finance roles.

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Andrew Edwards-CFO Podcast

Andrew Turner: [00:00:00] I think I was lucky to get that wide ranging geographical experience, I guess relatively early on and working for a such a wide ranging business as BP globally that has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. You get to know a lot of different people doing very different jobs from those driving the delivery truck of oil and gas through to multinational leaders as a junior person, and I got lucky interaction with those sort of people.

Andrew Turner: I think I, I learned very quickly how to handle myself and be able to talk at all levels of organization. 

Sumith - Host: Welcome back to another episode of Books to the Boardroom, season three CFO Capitalist podcast. I'm excited about today's guest is he has got a dream career, especially for an accountant who is aspiring to be a CFO at some point.

Sumith - Host: Today. My guest is Andrew Edwards. Andrew is the CFO at Perfect s Australia. Andrew, great to have you on our podcast. Thanks for having me, Phillip. I'm [00:01:00] really excited, as you can imagine about your career, but I'll start with your bp. That's probably your turning point in your career, so especially traveling to some remote, remarkable locations.

Sumith - Host: And how did those early experience shape your leadership and the finance career? 

Andrew Turner: Oh, look, I think I was lucky to get that wide ranging geographical experience, I guess relatively early on and. Working for a such a wide range of business as BP globally has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. You get to know a lot of different people doing very different jobs from those driving the delivery truck of oil and gas through to multinational leaders as junior person.

Andrew Turner: And I got lucky interaction with those sort of people and I think I, I learned very quickly how to handle myself and be able to talk at all levels of organization. And certainly a couple of my mentors over the years have commented that I. One of my pluses has been my ability to talk to the various levels of organization.

Andrew Turner: I probably never really thought about it that much, [00:02:00] but in looking back on it now as you do, when you reflect on parts of your career at times, it's definitely something that has helped me and inadvertently has been a positive for me in my career, 

Sumith - Host: especially in a bigger corporate like bp, like Giant. I'm sure that you sometimes the corporate leadership, you don't get to see them.

Sumith - Host: So you are working with like a very smaller cohort, but still. You are accountant of a big organization. I think it's a very important point about this communication. They have realized that you understand that your communication skill is way higher than the, in a junior accountant. How important it is for an accountant to have a good human skills and as a communication skills.

Andrew Turner: I, I think it's a differentiator in our, call it industry or our sector. It's very unfair to generalize, but there's definitely a perception of accountants as there are perceptions of various career, various type career people. There is a perception that accounts stay a desk, head down, count numbers, produce reports, and [00:03:00] that's the way things, that's how accounts operate.

Andrew Turner: So I think I've always had an interest in business in general, and I think I. It's important for financial professionals to be genuinely interested in your business operations. One that'll help you understand the numbers, it'll help you add value to the stakeholders within the business, across the business.

Andrew Turner: Uh, it'll help you have those conversations at all levels to the business. The more you understand, and I, I'm quite an inquisitive person. I think it helps to be inquisitive. I talk about being inquisitive to my team a lot. Asking the why you will be a pain in the neck to people at times, but be inquisitive and that that, that's been a real mantra that I've carried from a very early stage in my career, probably since I've led people way back in my tour rush days.

Sumith - Host: I think that's a great point. Because nowadays, like the accountants, especially the CFOs, they got a different job to what it was like 10, two years back. 

Andrew Turner: Absolutely. 

Sumith - Host: Earlier you got a bit of a debate between the trade and finance and looked like you got some trade skills and you were thinking about going that direction.

Sumith - Host: Yeah. [00:04:00] 

Andrew Turner: I was very keen. I did engineering at school actually, and didn't do commerce. I did commerce early on at high school, but didn't do it later in my later high school years and really good engineering and architectural. Drawing and, and was very keen on trades and, and using drills and saws and did stuff at home.

Andrew Turner: My, my father was a country doctor and we lived on a, I guess a hobby farm, and so we had big sheds and all that kind of thing. I loved it and I've always been keen using my hands to do stuff and I really admired the building and yeah, so, so I did kind of choose that. I was really keen on business and I was good at maths.

Andrew Turner: I knew I was pretty good at maths and got into. Commerce degree at Newcastle. To get away from home was very keen. Get away from home, being the oldest of six and having some pretty young siblings. I at 18 years of age and I keen to get away and so I moved out of home just before I was 17 to go to university in Newcastle.

Andrew Turner: So that kind of led me down the path I was on. I was then on the path and on the journey. I guess I'm still on today. Yeah. 

Sumith - Host: [00:05:00] And. You describe yourself as a risk averse by nature. How do you balance both risk taking and financial leadership? 

Andrew Turner: Well, I am a keen businessman, right? So I have a saying, don't avoid the risk, manage the risk.

Andrew Turner: And I got that from some leadership in BP early on. And I'm sure BP has a history of certain events. It would say it's very risk averse, but in actual fact, it takes a lot of risks every day. And some of those risks haven't paid off as a well documented. I really do like that saying because there's risk and reward.

Andrew Turner: So if you can take the risk and manage the risk, then hopefully that risk is for a reward that compensates you for taking that risk. So if you can manage the downside, then, then you can get a lot of reward on the upside. And I've believe that for a long time. I've used that a lot in the last, certainly I.

Andrew Turner: 10 or so years since I left BP, 10 or 15 years now. And so I do call myself risk averse. The main reason I call myself risk averse is I decided by the time I reached, I felt a maturity and a knowledge level that I, I feel like I could do something myself, run my [00:06:00] own business, set my own business up, do my, I'd become risk averse in, oh, I don't wanna take that risk.

Andrew Turner: I have a family now, and it doesn't help. When I was in a job, I was very, by and large, I've been very happy through my career, I haven't had. Certainly large periods and even very few small periods of unhappiness in my career. And so the yearning wasn't big enough and, uh, and, and to take that risk. And, and so I call myself risk averse.

Andrew Turner: I guess in, when you look at it, I'm not totally risk averse, but that's how I feel. Uh, 'cause I haven't made that leap. As did you know, as many of my friends have some very successfully, some maybe not so successfully. Usually the 

Sumith - Host: CF fours are famous. That's, I think. 

Andrew Turner: Yes, and I try and not be that CFO, so I'm very conscious.

Andrew Turner: I don't want to be the doom and gloom guy in the room. I know we're in one way, we're kind of pegged to be that. I really try and balance it out. And it's interesting you use the word balance. I really believe in balance. I use the word balance a lot in the business, and I really hate extremes. [00:07:00] I hate extreme language.

Andrew Turner: That's terrible. That's no good. And I'm being quiet in some to the language that that you hear. That's amazing. That's fantastic. Yeah. Yes, that's right. I don't like that. I like a balanced view and I talk a lot in my C-suite group. I talk about balance a lot and especially and will and I'm quite willing to call out my fellow, uh, on being balanced if I feel like it's appropriate.

Andrew Turner: That's certain. In the right meeting context and discussion environment, I think balance is really important. 

Sumith - Host: Spot on, because these days the CFOs are. To IC, to the CEO and the business. So there you can't go one extreme. So you already be in the middle and have balance approach for everything and patient, listen to everyone and make sure that you somewhat try and accommodate as much as possible.

Sumith - Host: And I think Andrew, you have turning point was like you became a management account and by 24, which was very early for someone to become management account, especially because management account is as a. Broader [00:08:00] responsibility. For example, the budgets forecasting the cash more policy, the future than recording the historical transactions.

Sumith - Host: Yeah. So how did you learn to navigate through those challenges at the early stage? 

Andrew Turner: Yeah, so definitely that came from being the inquisitive person around, or was young, to be honest. That was the Toys Raan back in the late nineties, and we were all pretty young. One up to another CEO at the time for our various roles really.

Andrew Turner: Certainly, what are we talking 25 plus years ago? I think I really got that role 'cause I, I grew into those role, that role and then onwards by being inquisitive and just doing numbers at the time, doing income statements and, and, and ar reports and AP reports and accruals and prepayments and all the kind of usual technical accounting work just wasn't good enough for me.

Andrew Turner: I, I was happy to do it. I'm a bit of a, I am known as a bit of a grafter. I'll work away on, on something and. Won't give up and keep going and get a job done, I guess. But I [00:09:00] wanted to know about the future and I wanted to understand how we could predict the future better, which is a fair, while it feels a long time ago now, but using VP Planner back then and that the pre sort of some to the systems we use now and we, I remember implementing Oracle in the late 1998.

Andrew Turner: That was a big deal. And writing Oracle reports and trying to develop, uh, Oracle, the data, the historical data we had in Oracle to drive. Views of how we could forecast. How we could budget. I remember talking about planning calendars way back then. In terms of establishing a forecast after one quarter was the forecast, look for the year after second quarter, what does the forecast look for the rest to the year?

Andrew Turner: What's your planning cycle? Forecasting and budgeting at developing that on the back of that, and I was keen on that and no one else is doing that. Certainly not in our business, but, but I, I think in one way it was fairly early on. It was early days for that kind of thing. So now, nowadays we have numerous systems that, there are various systems out there.

Andrew Turner: We use T one in my business today. Uh, but there's [00:10:00] plan for, there's various, uh, systems that will help you do that. But yeah, I was just driven to know more and try and be more accurate about where we're heading and, and wanted to do better for my bosses, both domestically and in the US at the time. And, and I also learned really early on to develop an affinity with it.

Andrew Turner: I had. It wasn't working for me or anything like that, but really getting closer to the technology and the data and understanding where that data sat. I mean, back in the Toys Rust Days again was we were using an old, old AS 400 registers and systems and IIBM based and really understanding how we could utilize that.

Andrew Turner: So I was just inquisitive. I just wanted to know how we could get better, and I think that's a really important term as well. You wanna get better. One thing I really have a mantra about in my current role and have done for the last several years. I want people to come into work that want to be better today than they were yesterday.

Andrew Turner: That doesn't need to be lightning bolt stuff. That doesn't need to be every a retired. It doesn't have to be game changing. It just, [00:11:00] you are really talking about incremental, just even talking. You don't even have to achieve something definitive, but having a conversation with someone about discovering something that might improve the future or improve the way we do something today, or it's a mindset and.

Andrew Turner: To be honest, I, I do give people a hard time, a business that just wanna turn up, earn their money, go home, turn up, earn their money, go home. There's a place for that in certain parts to the business. But, you know, even when I talk to our warehouse guys, when I talk to our growers in the farms and they're a group that typically always want to be better next day, every day want be back.

Andrew Turner: Naturally that, that write down to people who pick our fruit and vegetable and how can we get faster or how can we make it easier? Or how can we, I always try and drive conversations that way as to what do they think they know bit more than me about what they do and, uh, trying to just drive that inquisitiveness to be better.

Andrew Turner: A really successful company. Benefits from more to their people resource, which is the best resource they have, [00:12:00] wanting to improve on a day by day basis. Machines. And I know we can talk about AI and we might talk about it certain you later here. Yeah. When still driven by people at the end to the day. By and large, I know AI can then, can work on itself, can do some things of course.

Andrew Turner: And technology's getting better all the time. I know. But ultimately, at the moment today. And probably for the next, in the few handful of years, we're still very reliant on people and people driving improvement and being better. So that, that's something I've been focused on. 

Sumith - Host: Love your thoughts and love your approach for people and Well, at the end to the day, business means people like whether the business is good, better or worse or bad.

Sumith - Host: Yeah. It's the one from people who work there. 

Andrew Turner: Yes. And then, and I've been lucky enough to work in businesses that have been largely people focused and relationship focused. I haven't actually worked for that many companies. I've worked in many roles because I've worked across various roles within the companies that I've worked for, but I've only really worked for four entities in my life.

Andrew Turner: There. There's a bit of a trend at the moment to really hop, hop [00:13:00] around companies, and that might work for some people. I'm not critical of that at all. But for me, I developed by and large. In every business I worked for, it would be more than several years at a time. I've developed very deep knowledge of that business and that helps.

Andrew Turner: That definitely helps you drive on. It's something that satisfied me and so that sort of helped me and also helped me do things like get BP to support me in getting an MBA. And you don't get that if you're a what? A golf Y by nighter over a couple of years. You move on to another company, you're not gonna get that sort of support.

Andrew Turner: You need to develop that sort of support over a few years and, and similarly achieved. Last year I completed the A OCD directors course and, and it was fully supported by the business. I work for Perfection Fresh that I work for now. I wouldn't have got it that if I just landed in infection, I had to develop that support and so I do believe in that.

Andrew Turner: Yeah, that, that deep knowledge. 

Sumith - Host: Yeah. You a fair goal, right? So a lot of people want an instant gratification. That's a problem. 

Andrew Turner: Yes. I don't want to turn this into a, a, gen Y, gen Y or Z or X or we 

Sumith - Host: wanna call it bashing or [00:14:00] anything like that. But, uh, it takes time for you to achieve better things and also rather people see who you are and what you are capable of doing.

Sumith - Host: So yeah, saying here and you, because I know you are really obsessed with the AI and you spot abusing them in your business as well. Since we talk about more human aspect, of course we still, people are. Relevant in this, in what we are doing. And still we need them still. We wanna elevate them. And there's a peer in the accounters community, especially like a lot of people think the accounting jobs are going to be pretty much taken over by the AI in the future.

Sumith - Host: And I have a different opinion about it, but I really like to get your thoughts on how the CFO, the CALS proposition will be transforming this 

Andrew Turner: ai. Definitely see pressure on the core, the traditional financial accounting. Models and create that work, that piece of work, you can definitely see a lot of that work being done by core technology, whether it's AI bot technology.

Andrew Turner: So I think we have to accept that as a profession to a large degree. [00:15:00] However, I think our, where we should be progressing as a profession is far more into the, what was traditionally been called the management accounting back to me being a management accountant many years ago now. But you know, more, taking that further into.

Andrew Turner: We're spending a lot of time in our business on data, and I mentioned TN one that we use at the moment that we're working on our, on data warehouses. And, uh, we've been doing that for a few years now. And that key, that data is absolutely key. And while AI and technology can help you with the data, interpreting the data and bringing value to your operations, we're very operational business at the moment.

Andrew Turner: Perfection, fresh and taking that. Insights and helping your operators understand their business. That's human. At the moment, I can't see technology taking it that far. Of course, it's gonna keep developing and I could be very wrong in 10 years time with AI being far more intuitive, you never know, right?

Andrew Turner: But right now, I, I think there's still a massive role for if you understand numbers each, you relate numbers [00:16:00] to activity. Not numbers to payment terms and, uh, cruels and prepayments and that sort of, you know, I can produce an income statement and a balance sheet and a cash flow, but relating numbers to performance and why performance is a certain way and even better, how we could look at improving that performance.

Andrew Turner: What else could we, what could we do? Over the last several years, I've done a lot of mergers and acquisitions work. And of course whenever you bring on acquisition or which is largely what we've done, what, what economies can we achieve by doing that? And that's human work at the moment at least, and not, I don't see it for the foreseeable future.

Andrew Turner: AI is not gonna be able to do that work for you. And I think that's something the finance profession can continue to bring and grow and probably should be focused on more so over the coming. So certainly several 10 years. 

Sumith - Host: It gives you more leadership opportunities and gives you more It does. Yeah, it does.

Sumith - Host: And then down with the transsexual level, so you can value refugee level and, 

Andrew Turner: and I received some advice, [00:17:00] or several years ago now, I was talking to, I think it was the CFO of latent. So one, one to the very last, I think it was latent and just did talking to him. He obviously, he had a very big CFO role, a multinational, multi-billionaire.

Andrew Turner: He loved his business, knew a lot about the business. He said, have hobbies. And he didn't mean hobbies outside of work. He meant hobbies in work, try and get involved in projects, try and lead projects if you can, that are outside your sphere to that helps you get to know your business better. And I've never forgotten that advice.

Andrew Turner: I, I've only achieved it really once within perfection. Here we have a, we're the biggest mango company in Australia having click, so man owning clso, mango and running other mango varieties as well, uh, mango products. So we're a big exporter of mangoes. We decided to build an export center in Brisbane that was completely focused on mangoes, so that's treatment of mangoes, doing certain things, unpacking them.

Andrew Turner: We had to build that. I ran that build project, so I ran that multimillion dollar project to build that export facility. Took that on, did the business [00:18:00] case, took it to the board, got approval project, managed it, a lot of external expertise to get that done. Obviously built internal stakeholder relationships and all that, and I loved it, and that helped me understand our operational environment more and more.

Andrew Turner: And, and so I really, I do believe in that advice to, again, that if being inquisitive, wanting to know more than just the numbers and your finance role, understand your business, understand your, especially in an operational business, understanding your operations. And I think any type of business a finance person can look to be involved, either involved in or even hopefully they get the opportunity to lead.

Andrew Turner: A project that is, that is outside the sphere of finance, 

Sumith - Host: and that's a good example for young and upcoming CFOs. So, or anyone aspiring to become A CFO in the new era. I think that's what you really need. You need to go outside of what your comfort zone and then take on these kind of changes. 

Andrew Turner: And you'll also earn, you'll earn a lot of credit in your business for doing it, even if you have challenges.

Andrew Turner: Everything didn't go right for me. Right. In terms, yeah. [00:19:00] Things haven't necessarily all gone right for me in my career. But that project didn't go, oh, it wasn't plain sailing. I had UPS and out, I got the budget wrong and I had to find money and I had to, I had to, to Joel this and had to work this and that and, and get things on my side and work with suppliers.

Andrew Turner: Oh, do me a favor here. And you work. You learn a lot. Yes, you learn a lot. So you 

Sumith - Host: should definitely step out of your depart mindset. 

Andrew Turner: It was uncomfortable. Yeah. Be uncomfortable. I know sports coaches will tell high performance sports coaches and I've always been big into sport as I've got older, it's got harder, big into sport, but high performance coaches.

Andrew Turner: And you read some books on some to the, the Fergusons to the world, Alex Ferguson. And like they wanted their, their stars to be uncomfortable, get used to being uncomfortable. There's a little bit of that you can take into business, be uncomfortable, do things that are uncomfortable. If you just wanna be comfortable all the time, you, you, you're gonna reap the results accordingly, and it might be fine for you, but if you want to take it to another level and be something, call it better, or you wanna expand your horizons.

Andrew Turner: [00:20:00] You probably need to be uncomfortable at times. Of course, growth comes with a pain. Yeah, pain. Trouble with pain is, pain can be very negative, right? Yeah. That's why they use the word uncomfortable, but often they do mean pain. 

Sumith - Host: You're right, whatever the way we say it. But you have be vulnerable. You wanna be exposed.

Sumith - Host: They are out of your comfort zone to achieve better things for your life. 

Andrew Turner: And 

Sumith - Host: Andrew, now this is another problem. We have the world now in AI or automation or in the technological environment, there's lots of choices. How do we choose the data One for our 

Andrew Turner: business? I've just taken a big sigh there because Right, and, and it's very rare.

Andrew Turner: You'll get consensus within a business as what's the right thing to do on a technology front? Your head of it will have one view. Your systems engineer will have another view. Your operations guy will have one view. Finance might have a view hr. It is just depending on what system, you know what you're talking about.

Andrew Turner: Of course. It's really hard. I've always tried to coach. And get a team that's making a decision. [00:21:00] Stick to facts. You gotta stick to the reality and the facts. Establish the facts. And so in a systems environment implementation that, that's first of all establishing what your requirements are. And the more detail what I've found, I've been involved in many mistakes and can take a lot of blame for mistakes in technology decision making.

Andrew Turner: And when you boil it down, it's normally, it's normally a couple of things, one of two things. It's normally either you got your requirements wrong, you didn't do enough work upfront. On your requirements or you got your communication wrong and you didn't spend enough time on your communication of change.

Andrew Turner: Right. That, that change, word is a, is an ugly word in most businesses, including the business I worked on today. It's hard, right? Change is hard and so you gotta work at it. But going back to your question of how do you get to like the right answer? Yes. Yeah. Normally the, normally for a start, there's more than one right answer.

Andrew Turner: So you shouldn't get too hung up on it. Yep. There is not. It's very rare that there's utopia. There's this absolute one optimal solution. There are normally many solutions, and [00:22:00] then it's about trade offs and the pros and cons. And again, it's not just a matter of doing a pros and cons table, it's really digging into that.

Andrew Turner: It don't weigh up pros and cons as you see them, because a pro might be far more significant to a business than the corn that you're measuring it against. And so it, it, it's also measuring the importance of each to the, those decision points and criteria. And yeah, it's a little bit like I, I've been, uh, believe it or not, I've been painting my house the last few months.

Andrew Turner: Uh, I did get a professional, do some, but I've been doing quite a bit myself as well. And again, that's back to me being handsy. And I, I like being on the tools and doing stuff, but, and I don't love painting necessarily, and I'm sure many people have heard this. The painting is easier. The more work you do upfront, the better job you do a preparation.

Andrew Turner: It be sanding, peeling back a lot of filling and, and just making it a better environment to paint in, the easier the painting is. There's no doubt about that. It's the same in this sort of TT project environment. The more work you do up front and get it right, you know, on your requirements, your [00:23:00] planning, understanding your, if you're using third parties, understanding those third parties, you know, getting references if you can, understanding others and you know, that's where your circle I, I certainly enjoy my CFO circles that I mix in.

Andrew Turner: You can find things out, right? You find nuggets and nuggets are really important. And, and then, so going back to your question, it, it's about doing all that upfront work. 

Sumith - Host: I love what you say. I think that's everything. Like if you go the proper preparation. The work is easy, but a lot of people don't do the preparation.

Andrew Turner: That's right. And let me say, uh, I think really important, I haven't done everything perfectly at all. I saw Michael Jordan interview a little while ago and the interview was asking about all his success, the number of baskets that he did, I can't remember the number. It was a ridiculous number. 10,000, whatever it was.

Andrew Turner: Yeah. And, and he said, it's funny, everyone wants to ask me about my 10,000 baskets or, but they forget about the 50,000 I missed. Yes. And so it's, there's these sort of nuggets that you pick up are really interesting. Stay inquisitive, manage risk, not avoid risk. Learn from your mistakes or misses [00:24:00] and keep pushing forward.

Andrew Turner: They're really good little messages to remember along the journey. Right? 

Sumith - Host: And and since you are working in a business which is working in the environment, working in the environment every day. And how important is this ESG, or what do you do about ESG at this point? I dunno whether it's mandatory for you guys at this point.

Andrew Turner: Yeah, so look, it's not mandatory yet for us. It will be in the near future, but however, we're just about to release our second, uh, annual sustainability reports. And we started that a year ago. We do have a couple of dedicated staff. It's sustainability and, and we've taken ourselves very seriously in regards to the environment for quite a while.

Andrew Turner: Obviously, we're a big user of packaging and in. Plastic packaging, I guess you could say, and we've really, really worked hard to get to over 90% recyclable packaging over the last few years has been very challenging, especially cost-wise and you often don't get the credit. It's a strange one for finance people to get their heads around because it's hard to put a monetary upside to all the work that that you need to put in adding [00:25:00] to headcount.

Andrew Turner: What did that achieve? I'm very a headcount orientated as most finance and CFO people are office holders are. Where's my upside on having two headcount and relate to that. Now we've tried to turn it into a positive. Obviously it helps us working with our customers, whether it be the supermarket chains or or independence or you working with other customers.

Andrew Turner: We have like McDonald's Airlines and food prep companies like Marley Spoon and Fresh and like you hope that they recognize the effort you're putting in, but you can never be a hundred percent sure that that to be. Frank people talk a good game on all this stuff, but do they really give you credit for it?

Andrew Turner: And do consumers give you credit? And we've certainly seen consumer behavior change over time where there's times when they do give you credit, but the moment you wanna increase the price, because we're gonna change this packaging to be far more sustainable or, you know, environmentally friendly, oh, I'm not gonna pay for that.

Andrew Turner: And so it, it, again, that word balance can be applied here, right? You've gotta try and achieve that balance of practicality. Keep pushing forward and keep improving. And [00:26:00] a lot to the costs that you see is high, that we've seen as high have come down over time. And even now that where we see we can't get to a hundred percent, we could, but we couldn't afford it.

Andrew Turner: Well, we will be able to afford it sooner or later. And so we have to keep our finger on the pulse and look to continually improve even when we're already at plus 90% where we wanna be. And even that, when we talk about recyclability. I wouldn't say that's working well in the supply chain. And are we recycling as a, as an, it's probably outside the scope of an ability of our business and our company, but again, we'd like to be encouraging of actually achieving that, that recyclability, just because we can say we, we use recyclable packaging.

Andrew Turner: Doesn't mean that's actually what happens and how do we help encourage that to happen. And so it's a wider equation that is, that you can own, you've got a part in. And we try and feel good about our part, of course. And I think it's just something that will evolve, continually evolve over time. 

Sumith - Host: It takes time because it's, especially when we work with wider communities, so it takes time for us to 

Andrew Turner: Yeah, and it's not natural finance.

Andrew Turner: You're really talking about an [00:27:00] area that. Well, where's the return for that? If I do, where's the R-O-I-M-P-V it for me. You can't, right? It's very hard. 

Sumith - Host: So I want to explore this last thing with you that's about working with the remote team, especially working with the overseas staff because you have done that in the past.

Sumith - Host: So what's the biggest challenge or challenges in managing finance function across 

Andrew Turner: qualities? I think it's really important that they feel like part of your team and part of your organization actually started during COVID, which is quite challenging. I had develop manila teams and actually had Indian teams before.

Andrew Turner: We used someone else to do it, but we're not doing it directly. Unlike in my prior lives, in my prior circumstances, we have done it in-house entirely and that that's challenging. You don't have quite the control. But we used someone to do it and that's 'cause we started small and then still building. But we were very insistent that we wanted, when they were employed, we sent them a couple of shirts, stationary that had our logo on it, that they sat in an office environment that had our logo on the wall.[00:28:00] 

Andrew Turner: And they felt like they were part of perfection, that they had the same, we have a background to teams that's branded up, that they use that background, that they, when they are on teams calls. And so that, for me, that's really important and, and the provider that that provides us. We only have currently around 20 people in Manila.

Andrew Turner: They do about 4,000 people ranging from companies that have. A couple of hundred with a few hundred with them down to one man bands. Yeah. We have one to the lowest turnover rates of all their clients. Now, it's not just because of what I just said. There are many reasons, but I think that's really key that they're thought of, that they were part to the part of you, your company, and they feel like part to the company.

Andrew Turner: And secondly, we have spent, we've invested in either us being there or them coming here to Australia. And of course. They'd love coming to Australia. Who wouldn't? And, and so that's been a big deal and we don't, we, it's once a year and in some cases not even that, but they also see a leader every few months there's a C-suite member or a senior manager's in Manila [00:29:00] takes all to them out for a meal, spends time with them, obviously spends more time with people that are in their direct team, and they love that.

Andrew Turner: And, and so it's, it's also goes on to understanding their culture, knowing a bit about them and their personal lives. Feeling like they're part to the business. And so that, that's really what I get focused on. When you can find technically capable people, very technically capable people, there's that. But finding that point of difference and being that point of difference as an employer, and that doesn't necessarily have to be money.

Andrew Turner: It's engagement. It's offering them opportunity, it's giving them challenges. It's making sure that they don't feel like they're just an outsource. They're doing the crap work. Right. You don't, even if in some cases frankly you, you are shifting work and you don't really wanna do what I'm sure, give them something interesting, make them part of projects, if it works, get them involved, get them engaged.

Andrew Turner: And so we've done a pretty good job of that. To be honest, I'm pretty proud of where that sits. We always wanna be better. I'd like to be at 30 head count if we could just haven't made that work. We haven't restructured to do that. It's been [00:30:00] natural evolution. If people have left, we've maybe moved the roll offshore, which we've added heads to the business.

Andrew Turner: Our first thought is, well, let's see if we can add them offshore as opposed to onshore. That's how we've built it so far, and I'm pretty proud to the way we've done it. It hasn't unsettled the business in any way. Not that I'm aware of. And as I said, we have a very low turnover and we've got some really skillful smart people, which to the businesses respect and we don't have employee to the month and those sort of things.

Andrew Turner: But when we talk about high performers in the business, some to them are now sitting in Manila. So that, that, that's a really good sign, right? A really strong sign. 

Sumith - Host: It must be even you as a client, Mike, because you seem to have mastered it to the whole process and getting the best benefit out of this outsource syringe.

Andrew Turner: We might be a relatively small client to them for who we use, which I don't mind promoting a business called Satellite Office, Australian Business that sets up for you over in Miller. They have several offices around Manila that you can utilize, and I enjoy the interaction. I've made sure that I have a [00:31:00] direct path to their most senior person in Manila.

Andrew Turner: Country manager, I think his title, official title is, but he runs everything in for them, the whole 4,000 people and can pick up the phone and talk to him at any time. That, that's very handy and useful as well. 

Sumith - Host: So we have time for one last question in this podcast. So what's your advice for the young and upcoming accountants who aspire to become A CFO, like USA in the future?

Andrew Turner: I can only advise on what I think, I guess my path to an extent. But also what I talk to my, uh, my younger members of my team and how I'm, I coach them, uh, and try to be more than just a boss. You, I, I think some of what we've already talked about, honestly, be inquisitive, think more than just the numbers.

Andrew Turner: Understand processes, particularly not, again, I go back to being an operational company. I, by and large being in a more operational environment, uh, understand the processes, understand the risks. I'm a big believer in business as a whole, and certainly I wanted to do an MBA, so I did an MBA. [00:32:00] You don't need to go and do an MBA, but I think you do need to understand some of those MBA aish call it concepts, uh, around risk management, strategy planning.

Andrew Turner: Even things like I, one to the subjects I really wanted to do an MBA was turnaround management. 

Sumith - Host: Yeah. How 

Andrew Turner: do you turn something from being a performer to a good performer? That's not necessarily just a process, that's, that could be a business year. It could be a person, it could, you know. Yeah. How do you remain positive?

Andrew Turner: How do you look at it factually? And how do you bring people along the journey, especially if people are involved, of course, and now are, how do you do that? And I think you've gotta think wider than numbers. And you hear that rhetoric a lot, right? In the final, think outside the numbers. And there's been many ways of doing that over the last 20 years or more.

Andrew Turner: But I just boil it down to being, I, I guess inquisitive. Want to know more. He, he's one thing I push on my guys a lot, so I guess that's a fairly simple message, but I also think simple's the best. Don't overcomplicate it, right? Uh [00:33:00] uh And those people get lost. They start quite, you can see young people's eyes glaze over and say, keep it simple.

Sumith - Host: Great advice. Andrew, thank you very much for being on Books to the Boardroom podcast. 

Andrew Turner: No problem. Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed it. Thanks. Thanks for joining us on this episode to the CFO Catalyst Podcast season three. If you enjoyed our discussion on CFO leadership, please subscribe on your preferred platform.

VO: When you share with fellow CFOs and business leaders, you're helping us build this community of strategic financial thinkers together, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Connect with us on social media and join the conversation as we explore how the CFO role continues to evolve in today's dynamic business landscape.

VO: Until next time, keep innovating in your financial leadership and stay tuned for more forward thinking discussions in our CFO Catalyst series. Join us next time, proudly sponsored by Brisca Global with production and distribution by [00:34:00] Disrupt X one.

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Sumith Dissanayake

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