May 12, 2025 • 29 mins
Ever wondered how a chemical engineering mindset can supercharge financial leadership? Join host Adam Larson as he sits down with Kingsley Afemikhe, CFO of Shield AI, for a refreshingly candid conversation about bringing engineering problem-solving to the finance table. Kingsley shares his unique journey from a family of chartered accountants in the UK to leading finance at one of the most innovative defense tech companies in the U.S.
Listen in as Kingsley breaks down how first-principles thinking helps solve complex accounting and finance challenges, reveals what it’s like to manage rapid growth in the high-stakes world of AI-driven national security, and offers practical tips on building strong, agile finance teams. Whether you’re curious about operating at the intersection of finance, technology, and defense—or just want to hear firsthand how AI is reshaping finance—this episode is packed with insights, stories, and actionable advice. Don’t miss Kingsley’s take on earning your seat at the table, embedding finance across organizations, and fostering a culture of curiosity and empathy in fast-paced environments.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Larson (00:22):
Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson.
Today, I'm excited to sit downwith Kingsley Afemikhe, CFO at
Shield AI, for an inspiring lookat financial leadership in the
world of defense tech andartificial intelligence.
Kingsley brings a uniqueperspective having moved from
chemical engineering studiesstraight into financial roles at
investment banks and rapidlygrowing startups. In our
(00:43):
conversation, he shares how hisengineering mindset helps him
break down complex financialproblems, drive data driven
decisions, and maintain agilityas Shield AI scales.
We discuss the distinctivechallenges of navigating
government contracts, buildingcollaborative and curious
finance teams, and the role oftechnology plays in boosting
productivity. Whether you'reinterested in finance tech,
(01:05):
innovation, or organized growth,this episode offers practical
insights and real world advice.Let's jump right in. Kingsley,
I'm so excited to have you onthe podcast today, and you have
a very fascinating backgroundwith chemical engineering and
(01:25):
then moving into finance. And Iwas just wondering if we could
start off just a little bit bytelling your story and just
saying, how has that diverseexperience shaped the way you
kind of approach financialleadership today?
Kingsley Afemikhe (01:34):
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much
for having me on the show, andI'm really looking forward to
our conversation today. So alittle bit about my background.
I have a master's in chemicalengineering and management, and
then I never worked as anengineer. I only ever worked in
finance.
So I worked in investmentbanking, doing fundraising,
advisory, M and A, and then wentoff and I worked for a number of
(01:58):
fast growing engineering heavystartups, or as I like to call
them emerging growth companiesas the SEC calls it. And what's
been really fantastic about thatexperience is being able to take
what I call the engineeringproblem solving framework. And
what that is is a, starting offwith first principles thinking.
No matter how complex thequestion or the challenge is,
(02:21):
there's always a fundamentalprinciple that you're trying to
tackle. If you're willing to putthe effort and time and then b,
have a very data focused, datadriven approach, you can solve
almost every problem.
And so what that means if youthink about it in an engineering
context yourself often with atheory. Behind the theory, you
(02:41):
want to go do a few experiments.You look at the literature to
assess whether your thinking iscorrect. And you have the
courage to step away from youroriginal thesis if it doesn't
quite pan out. And that'sexactly what we do in finance
all the time.
And we have core principles inaccounting. We have core ideas
behind these principles. Thereis a body of literature out
(03:03):
there. And now with the rise ofLLMs and the rise of other data
sources, we're able to really,really dig in and think about
these complex challenges. Andthen you go and you test it and
you get advice.
And then you iterated it and yousolved the problem. I find that
engineering focused mindset hashelped me think that any hill or
mountain can be conquered withstructure behind it.
Adam Larson (03:24):
When I like that that that mindset of it's still
all the same, it's stillaccounting at its base level.
Matter what industry you're in,you still have to apply those
base principles. And if you'renot applying those, then you're
not having good accountingpractices. So no matter what
industry you're in. So I likethat approach that you're giving
it.
Kingsley Afemikhe (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And even things like
you may hear from my accent thatI didn't spend my childhood in
The US. And so, it made me a bitof a personal comment about me,
both my parents are charteredaccountants and my two older
brothers are charteredaccountants. And so I really
grew up in that world ofbasically IFRS accounting, but
really just the principles ofhow to think about assets, how
(04:05):
to think about capital, how tothink about returns. And when I
had the great fortune to come toThe US, I found it really quite
exciting actually to learn moreabout US GAAP and learn more
about the principles behind USGAAP, which are the same as the
principles IFRS, but also thehistorical context that drive
the differences that we see.
Adam Larson (04:24):
Definitely. So, you know, at your current
organization, Shield AI, youknow, you guys operate at the
intersection of finance,technology and kind of national
security. Are there differentchallenges that are brought up
when you're kind of navigatingthat as your team, and and how
do you navigate them?
Kingsley Afemikhe (04:41):
So I'll start by telling you something about
Shield AI. Shield AI's missionis to protect serving men and
women with intelligent systems.What that means for us is
artificial intelligence andartificial intelligence enabled
hardware, specifically Groupthree drones, which we make here
called the VBATs. And what isexciting about working in the
(05:02):
defense industry is the supportthat we have gotten over the
years from our customer. Andwhat that means is there is a
willingness because of the focuson the mission to take certain
risks and allow and enable us todevelop our core technology.
There's also a willingness tosupport those risks by giving us
research and developmentdollars. So in our early stage
(05:23):
of our development, entitiessuch as the DIU and all the DoD
entities were really supportiveof us getting our risk. In
addition, we have a customerthat has allies. We have allies
all over the the the world. Andwe can you know, when we invest
in sales and marketing in TheUS, it also pays off
internationally.
The challenges from anaccounting perspective is, as a
(05:46):
taxpayer, I care very much aboutthis. Every dollar that the US
government spends is a dollarthat's been contributed by you
and I. So there is realresponsibility for DoD entities
to be very thoughtful aboutwhere the money is spent, are
they being compliant with theirgoals, and have we done what we
said we were going to do. And sothe process, the go to market
(06:10):
contracting process takeslonger. Very often we have post
delivery audits that we have toperform.
We have reviews. We havenational security controls that
we have to have. And so even ifwe're not a public company, but
very, very often we have some ofthose controls that are akin to
what you would see in a publiccompany. In addition, as we
(06:32):
expand abroad, we have to bereally, really thoughtful about
data stream information. We haveto be really thoughtful about
which allies and and what couldhappen without artificial
intelligence technology if wefell into the wrong hands.
And then we have to obviouslywork very closely with, yeah,
the UST entities to make surethat we're further in the
interest of our host country.
Adam Larson (06:51):
So talking about expanding, I I know a lot of
folks is I I I've I've spoken tomany different, you know,
smaller businesses and asthey're expanding, it's hard to
kind of maintain agility as yougrow. You know, are there
different strategies that haveworked best for you and your
organization as you're you know,if you're as you're expanding
and there's there's more inputcoming in, you got to make sure
that you have still have thoseright internal controls and the
(07:12):
right agility as you grow as anorganization.
Kingsley Afemikhe (07:15):
Yeah, absolutely. So the analogy I use
with my team is the, if you'veever been to Hong Kong, you've
got this scaffolding ofbuildings that are made of
bamboo. You think it'sextraordinary how you can build
a spacecraft of bamboo, butbamboo is actually pretty strong
and very flexible. We are thatline that is pretty strong and
supports the business butremains very flexible. And how
(07:35):
we do it is we embed financefurther up the chain and as deep
as possible.
And I'm going to give you twospecific examples of how we do
it. First of all, technicalaccounting. Very often in many
companies, you'll have the BDteam goes off and, you know,
gets the legal team involved toget a contract together. And at
the end, someone pops over acontract over to technical
(07:57):
accounting. And then they'rescrambling to think, what does
this mean for rev rec?
What does this mean for like,what are the risks? And so on.
And that was something I really,really wanted to change. I
wanted the BD reps of the Inc.Of Tech and Accounting as their
partners at the very beginning.
So often with our customers whenwe're just at the at the term
sheet stage, even before thefinal contract, even before the
initial drops, my tech andaccounting team is there in the
(08:20):
room giving guidance. And thatis great because we flag any
potential problems upfront. Weknow about them. We can often
discuss them with our auditors.Shout out to BWC, they're
fantastic.
B, we can work very closely withthe team around things like
managing risks or paymentschedules or revenue
recognition. So that way, whenthe contract is done, you know,
(08:40):
it's not news to us. We've beenin the room. We've been at the
table. We've done that placethere.
Secondly, you know, we have twodivisions in our company. We
have a Hivemind AI division, andwe have our aircraft kind of our
VBAT manufacturing and salesdivision. Very different
challenges. In the former, wehave things like software
revenue recognition. We havethings like, you know, where is
the contract obligation and soon.
(09:01):
How do you do that? And thensecondly, on the aircraft, we
have, as you would expect,inventory, working capital, and
a range of other issues whenwe're thinking about cost of
goods sold and allocation ofcosts. And so what we've done is
embed our financings in bothareas. And so I have a financing
pipeline that's thinking throughpricing, that's thinking through
(09:23):
government regulations, justthinking through all the
software dynamics. I have a veryoperational aircraft team that
sits in Dallas that is workingthrough the inventory counts,
working through managing ourfleet of VBAs which we have on
our balance sheet.
That is the only way that youcan be flexible if you're in the
room and on, you know, at thetable.
Adam Larson (09:44):
What strategies would you give to somebody who
is saying, hey, I wanna makesure that my team I'm embedding
my team just as you describedit, like, oh, I wanna do that
too. But they're they're notnecessarily getting the
agreement from, you know, thosearound them as well.
Kingsley Afemikhe (09:57):
Yeah. That's great. It's a really, really
good question. So you earn yourplace at the table. You don't
demand your place at the table.
Often, finance is seen as remoteor almost a bit like an internal
version of your externalauditors. Three things have to
happen. First of all, the roleof finance is to be evangelical
about controls and why we're webring the controls in. And that
(10:18):
is not condescending to people,but just explaining the journey
that we're in and explaining thebenefits. B, you have to bring
gifts.
Our teammates have greatchallenges that they're trying
to solve every day. We're allreally focused on the mission.
And if you find ways to maketheir jobs easier, faster, more
accurate, people will open doorsfor you. So I say to the team,
(10:39):
you have to kind of bring giftsto our counterparty so they see
you as a, I mean, not physicalgifts, that would be that would
be
Adam Larson (10:45):
Bring cookies to the different meetings.
Kingsley Afemikhe (10:47):
Correct. Exactly. Yeah. And finally, you
have to show up. And, you know,there's a long debate about
remote work and non remote work.
And I know that a ton of financeteammates, including some of my
very beloved teammates areremote, and that really, really
works for that. But we were in amanufacturing engineering
company. The technicians whobuild our VBATs can't build the
VBATs from home, they turn up.And so if you're in the office
(11:11):
and understanding theirchallenges and you're able to
sit with them person to person,you often get a lot more by it.
And so what that means if youare remote, know, you organize,
symposiums where you can comein, you show up in the office
and build those relationships aswell.
Adam Larson (11:27):
Yeah. It's not just staying in your silo and saying
I'm just gonna get my stuffdone, which causes the surprises
that you're avoiding by havingyour team in there early.
Kingsley Afemikhe (11:36):
Yeah. Yeah. And just one thing I just you
really remind me of something.It's just what I find with
finance people is a very strongfocus. I need to solve this
problem.
Adam Larson (11:45):
Mhmm.
Kingsley Afemikhe (11:45):
I need to get through this close. I need to
get through this audit. And thatshows a lack of empathy and
curiosity for our teammates.Engineers, manufacturing people
love to explain they're doing.They also have their own goals.
And if you have a thirty minuteconversation, and you're able to
get what you need in twentyminutes, why don't you spend ten
minutes listening to thecounterparty, understanding what
(12:07):
they're going through, learninga little bit about what they're
doing? I assure you, you'llenjoy it.
Adam Larson (12:11):
Oh, I love that advice. So when you you as an
organization, you're operatingin, like, the defense sector and
even the commercial sectors, howdo your financial strategies
diff different? Are therechallenges that come up when
you're, when you're managingboth of those models?
Kingsley Afemikhe (12:25):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll just talk a
little bit about what we'redoing. We started up in the
aerospace and defense industry,and we're now expanding our AI
hybrid efforts, are morecommercial motion, originally
starting with defense companies,but in a commercial transaction.
So in terms of financialstrategies, like I mentioned,
(12:46):
the go to market cycle in thedefense industry is long. And so
very often you have an initialRFP, which is often very formal,
they'll have certainrequirements, you have to put in
a proposal.
You go through that originalproposal and very often there's
a demonstration where you'll goand demonstrate the capabilities
and show it first of alltechnically and often
demonstrated in the field. Andthere are very strict ways that
(13:10):
they want to be fair and seethat you are indeed the best
solution. And sometimes there'swhat's called a protest ability
to when you win othercounterparties who did not win
in the process and protest andsay that it wasn't quite fair
and because, you know,governments have to be fair, you
win on the other end and then,you know, you could win the
contracts. And I have to say ourgovernment customers are all
(13:32):
amazing and fantastic. Theydon't always pay exactly on time
with what's in the contract, butwe have never ever had to write
off any receivable from ourgovernment contractors.
So we've got the best, bestcustomers, but they're just
gonna maybe sometimes take alittle bit longer. That's a
really long cycle. Yeah. And sowe have to be really thoughtful
about how we allocate costs aswell to that cycle because
(13:54):
obviously probability of windchanges as you go through that
cycle. We have to be really,really thoughtful about
financing.
We have a great debt financingpartner, QH Capital, that
supports us as we kind of tie upinventory maybe slightly longer
than we would want to. And wethen have to be really, really
thoughtful about our governmentcustomers and how we land and
expand and grow from a return oncapital employed perspective. In
(14:19):
the commercial motion, it's aless defined process, a shorter
process, but it often has a lotmore upfront sales and marketing
expense. The cost to acquire isgreater. Particularly as you're
kind of working through with theparticular customer, often the
touch points are less defined.
(14:40):
Right? So because you don't havesuch a strict process, you have
to think about who has access tothe c suites, who has access at
a manager level and how can youshowcase your capabilities all
the way through. And ourcommercial motion is much more
of a software motion. And sowe're working in a really
thoughtful way about how we growin that. We announced last week
(15:02):
the addition of a reallyfantastic CEO, Gary Steele,
who's rejoining us in mid May.
And, you know, his entire breadand butter is building
commercial software businesses.He was previously CEO of
Proofpoint and also CEO ofSplunk, which is taking a little
while Cisco.
Adam Larson (15:18):
What is so this might not be relevant, but when
you're saying that that longprocess that the government
contracts take, you know, howdoes that change when you're
looking at something likerevenue recognition? With that
long process, the revenuerecognition changes as well.
Kingsley Afemikhe (15:30):
Yeah. So it depends on the nature of the
revenue and nature of thecontract. We do deliveries of
EBATs, but we also haverecognized revenue over time as
a percentage of completion wherewe use an EAC methodology as
well. And that's where againwhat I said at the start about
having contracts really there atthe beginning and being really
(15:52):
thoughtful with your partnerabout what are the obligations
over time and how do you assessat any given point how you're
doing against the obligationsyou have overall? One of the
other net effects of that isthat we're a company that that
keeps time.
Right? And so we have to bereally thoughtful on a daily
basis about how much time ourengineers and teammates such as
myself are allocating particularparticular contracts because
(16:15):
that drives revenue. That tellsyou, as you know, in in EACs,
where am I relative to theactual goal? How far is it gonna
take me to get to the goal andthe obligation and the contract?
How much revenue can Irecognize?
That's an area where when we dothe audits with PWC, when we
close the books, that is reallythe bulk of the parts where we
drill down in a lot of detail tomake sure that we are really,
(16:37):
really on point on that as well.
Adam Larson (16:40):
Yeah. So when you and I spoke before, you had
mentioned that, you know, you'rebig into, you know, helping
allocate and attract capital foryour organization. Are there any
lessons you can share thatyou've learned that from
securing that funding andmanaging investor relations
within your within your highgrowth? Because it is a very
high growth environment whereyou're working.
Kingsley Afemikhe (16:56):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. There are three
things I would say. The first isunderstand the tailwinds and
headwinds in your industry andreally be able to speak very
clearly about them.
Right? So in our industry, we'reat Surely I, we're an AI
company. We work in the defenseindustry. We've been doing it
for ten years. We're fortunatethat, as I say in The UK, your
buses come at the same time,right?
(17:17):
But we've been doing AI andwe've been doing defense tech
for ten years. And so there aretailwinds like increased
expenditure for defense, for ourallies in Europe, the increased
focus in The US on AI andmachine learning on mass. So
intelligence affordable mass,attritable platforms. But there
(17:38):
are also headwinds, such asthings change geopolitically,
how is The US company seen inEurope, which is another growing
market? And as you say, the kindof working capital, how much
capital do you need to build upthe minimum scale to work in
this space?
And what we what we do veryhonestly and openly is talk
(17:59):
about the strengths and thechallenges because then your
investors can calibrate. Thesecond thing is to be really
clear as to what your coretechnology is and to tell the
story of the journey and whereyou've been going and why you've
been doing it. So what does thatmean for us is trust. We've been
doing AI in the defense industryfor ten years. We fly, f
(18:21):
sixteens and fighter jetsautonomously all the time now.
We flew the past, secretary ofthe air force autonomously as
well. But eight years ago, noone would have taken that
seriously because we hadn'tdeveloped technology
sufficiently and we didn't havethe trust. And so what we did
was we started off in thequadcopter markets and much
(18:42):
smaller drones, cheaper and youknow, flew Hivemind which is our
AI stack on that. We thenclimbed the aviation food chain
to the VBAT which is our groupthrough UAS and then also did
that again to the fighter jets.And so we're able to tell the
story about developments andwhere it was a few years ago.
And then more importantly, tellthe story of how with each
(19:04):
investment and each round we'vemade, we've accelerated our core
technology. And then finally, weare still cash flow negative,
EBITDA negative. I can tell youthat's something I think about
every day and we're gettingthere and being EBITDA positive,
we're growing quite quickly. SoI take very seriously is that
every cent we spend is a centthat's being provided to us by
(19:26):
people who believe in ourmission and believe in our team.
And so it behooves us to be verycrisp on what exactly will we
achieve with this fundraise?
When will we achieve it? Andmost importantly, how will you,
investor or board, know if we'reon track or not? And so give you
the confidence for the next timethat we fundraise. And so if you
(19:48):
talk about your industry and theheadwinds and tailwinds, talk
about why you are well placed towin in that industry with your
core technology and are veryclear about what you want to
achieve, we find it's, you know,pretty compelling narrative for
investors.
Adam Larson (20:01):
Well, and having the person who is in charge of
the finance, you know, tellingthat story, I'm sure is even
more is even more comforting forthe investor as they're
listening, saying, hey, you knowwhat you're talking about
because you're the one in theweeds with your team doing that.
Kingsley Afemikhe (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's a
partnership approach.
Adam Larson (20:17):
Mhmm.
Kingsley Afemikhe (20:18):
It goes back to what I said about about
curiosity. You know, I one ofthe benefits I have is I'm not
an engineer, but I have anengineering degree. So I can,
with a straight face, say someengineering concepts, but we
have phenomenal engineers in ourcompany. Yeah. Brandon Ryan
started the company, Alma Harrisand and Nate Mike Nate Michael,
really fantastic.
And I learn from them every day.And so when I'm with investors,
(20:41):
I can take it. This this is myunderstanding based on my
discussion with the engineeringteam. I'd be delighted to bring
them in the room. And thatreally resonates with people
being kind of very open andhonest about what you're aware
of and where your partners intalent could help you with some
explanation.
Adam Larson (20:56):
So, you know, with with the great story you've been
telling about your team and, youknow, how growth the
organization is happening, Youknow, I just have to ask, you
know, what do you look for intalent when you're when you're
looking for add more people toyour finance and accounting
team? What do you look for intalent? You know, how do you
structure your team for longterm success? You know, because
when you're in a fast growthenvironment, I'm sure it's very
fast paced and constantlymoving, but, you know, you have
(21:18):
your people in place and youtrust them.
Kingsley Afemikhe (21:20):
Yeah. Yeah. I shout out to my team. They are
the best team I worked with inmy career. I'm really honored to
work for them.
I really mean that. I work Iwork for them, and and I'm
really proud of them. The way Istructure the team is we have a
core accounting team, we have afinance team and we have what we
call a continuous improvementteam which is really our team
(21:41):
that manages our systems and ourERP. With the accounting team,
something that's reallyimportant to me is to bring a
team of all talents really. Ihave people in my team who works
in private equity finance, whoworks in large defense
companies, who works instartups.
And really they're able totackle challenges which day to
(22:02):
day seem new, but very oftenhave occurred in the past if
you're willing and able to dothe work. And so what that means
is putting in the controls weneed but not too much. What that
means is coming back every daywith first principle thinking to
the problems that we have todayand that our team does a really
really good job of that.Secondly, with the finance team,
we have a range of reallyexcellent people who have worked
(22:24):
with larger companies, mid sizedcompanies, and have scaled. And
with that team, what I'm lookingfor there is a strong punch
approach.
I want the individual divisionheads to think of them almost as
a as a mini CFOs. And it's we'renot perfect yet, but we're
getting there. And really, whenwhen our head of aircraft has
(22:46):
his his right and left hand menand women, he has my my next
person next to him as wellhelping him make very, very good
decisions. And in my continuousimprovement team, just a a
comfort with data and a comfortwith flexibility in what we're
doing as a as a company that'sgrowing very quickly, still
private, but has ambitions topotentially go go public.
(23:06):
Underpinning everything that Ilook for in in teammates is
empathy, curiosity.
That is so critical. Yeah.Because it's with curiosity that
you gain empathy and then yougain trust. And really an
excitement to put in the effort.What we're doing is not easy.
It requires from time to timeextra effort. And the prize is
(23:32):
clearly the mission that we arevery focused on and obviously,
you know, remunerate our teamearly, but also the prize is is
growth, and that comes in with acuriosity as well.
Adam Larson (23:41):
Yeah. You have to be curious to kinda be engaged
in the mission even if you'renot an engineer and you don't
understand what the organizationis doing. You want to be
passionate about what you'redoing so you can help out the
organization as a whole. Andthat's not something that you
can always teach. That'ssomething that's kind of innate
in some people.
Kingsley Afemikhe (23:56):
Yeah. Look, the one I say to people is that
there's no such thing as a goodor a bad accountant or a finance
person. It's just like the rightfit, right? Yeah. You know, like
a marriage sometimes, you know,brought wonderful people but
you're not meant to be together.
And so in interviews, I tellpeople I think you're fantastic
but maybe this is not the firmfor you. If you don't have a
drive, if you don't care at allabout our mission in any way, if
(24:19):
you're not willing to be curiousand deal with change, then you
may be happier somewhere elseand that's fine. Those are the
kind of traits that we look athere at Chiliad.
Adam Larson (24:29):
So what role has technology played within your
finance team? How has you helpeduse technology to complete the
mission that you're on?
Kingsley Afemikhe (24:37):
Yeah. So the message I told my team a year
ago is that we are going to 10xrevenue having a zero net
increase in the size of theteam. That is an extraordinary
challenge terms of productivity.I'm saying that we are going to
10x our productivity more orless. And the only way we will
(24:57):
do that is with the rightprocesses, with the right
systems, and with the rightpeople.
We've already spoken aboutpeople, so I'll set that aside.
And when I look at ourprocesses, there are a range of
things that we can automate.There are a range of things we
can simplify. The first step isto just ask why do we do things?
Again, best principles.
Why do we do things this way?And so we're balancing using
(25:19):
LLMs to look at our journalentries and look at how we can
think about our adjustments. Weare using AI to think about
where the risk areas are thatrequire more reviews. The whole
teams are using our Amazon, theway we tackle challenges in
terms of our reporting and net Pand A. And quite often as well,
(25:39):
we're building data sheets andso that, you know, with our
reporting now, very often it'sI'm person in finance.
I have this information thatgives me an output in Excel,
then I go and sit down withsomeone in the business and
explain to them how it's done.And what we're doing is trying
to disintermediate ourselves.Mhmm. And so produce dashboards
and information flows that arerobust and are accurate. And so
(26:01):
that the individual in thedriving seat in the front office
has access to the data and canmake decisions faster with
support of finance as opposed tous almost like being there the
instance to see it's assessorbetween the two.
And that takes time and thattakes effort. Yeah. And we're
thinking through all of thesesteps as well. What's great
though is that people in theteam are reacting really, really
(26:23):
well to that because the neteffects of that is that some of
the more drudgery based tasks,some of them lower value tasks,
the tasks that we'll be able toaccurately move on to the
technology that we can do. Andthen people can spend their days
doing really thoughtful thingslike talking to the BD reps
about particular contracts andthinking about rev rec and and
(26:45):
being really thoughtful abouttiming of particular payments
or, like, managing the risk thatwe have with our FX in different
countries.
That's fun stuff. Right? And sothat that's that's the stuff
that we we really, really wantthe team to focus on.
Adam Larson (26:59):
Have you have you seen an impact be have you I
mean, you are a AI drivencompany. Have you been able to
use AI within your finance teamto kinda help some of those
processes as well?
Kingsley Afemikhe (27:09):
Yeah. And we see yes. Absolutely. And I think
that that's one of the thingsthat we will see a lot more of
that. Yeah.
There's still I I think with anytechnology because we live this
with our customers, I'm gonnaget back to the word trust.
Right? And so parts of it isjust you start with something
smaller, particular like lowerrisk item. You know, a lot of
(27:30):
the accounting team are not keento deploy AI because we know
we're really under the gun toclose the books accurately and
quickly. But there are manyproducts as we go along that we
can use AI to accelerate oursuite and we can use a
particular skills and alsotechnology that we we have some
of our service providers that weuse fluocast, for example, for
checklists and we do the close.
(27:51):
And so we'll be implementingmore systems over the next
twelve to eighteen months. LikeI say, we are gonna be keeping
the team the same size asrevenues grow, and we will
achieve that. So
Adam Larson (28:02):
Well, that's gonna be quite a testament to see it
done, I welcome that, and Iencourage it. And, Kingsley, I
just wanna thank you so much forcoming on the podcast. It's been
really great getting to know youand just hearing about what your
team's doing, and it's beengreat.
Kingsley Afemikhe (28:14):
Yeah. Absolutely. The last thing I'll
say is I am passionate andexcited for finance. And anyone
who's in this industry, pleasestick with it. This is a great
industry to be in, and we aremaking an impact every day.
So thank you so much for havingme.
Announcer (28:27):
This
has been Count Me In, IMA'spodcast, providing you with the
latest perspectives of thoughtleaders from the accounting and
finance profession. If you likewhat you heard and you'd like to
be counted in for more relevantaccounting and finance
education, visit IMA's websiteat www.IMAnet.org.
Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson.
Today, I'm excited to sit downwith Kingsley Afemikhe, CFO at
Shield AI, for an inspiring lookat financial leadership in the
world of defense tech andartificial intelligence.
Kingsley brings a uniqueperspective having moved from
chemical engineering studiesstraight into financial roles at
investment banks and rapidlygrowing startups. In our
(00:43):
conversation, he shares how hisengineering mindset helps him
break down complex financialproblems, drive data driven
decisions, and maintain agilityas Shield AI scales.
We discuss the distinctivechallenges of navigating
government contracts, buildingcollaborative and curious
finance teams, and the role oftechnology plays in boosting
productivity. Whether you'reinterested in finance tech,
(01:05):
innovation, or organized growth,this episode offers practical
insights and real world advice.Let's jump right in. Kingsley,
I'm so excited to have you onthe podcast today, and you have
a very fascinating backgroundwith chemical engineering and
(01:25):
then moving into finance. And Iwas just wondering if we could
start off just a little bit bytelling your story and just
saying, how has that diverseexperience shaped the way you
kind of approach financialleadership today?
Kingsley Afemikhe (01:34):
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much
for having me on the show, andI'm really looking forward to
our conversation today. So alittle bit about my background.
I have a master's in chemicalengineering and management, and
then I never worked as anengineer. I only ever worked in
finance.
So I worked in investmentbanking, doing fundraising,
advisory, M and A, and then wentoff and I worked for a number of
(01:58):
fast growing engineering heavystartups, or as I like to call
them emerging growth companiesas the SEC calls it. And what's
been really fantastic about thatexperience is being able to take
what I call the engineeringproblem solving framework. And
what that is is a, starting offwith first principles thinking.
No matter how complex thequestion or the challenge is,
(02:21):
there's always a fundamentalprinciple that you're trying to
tackle. If you're willing to putthe effort and time and then b,
have a very data focused, datadriven approach, you can solve
almost every problem.
And so what that means if youthink about it in an engineering
context yourself often with atheory. Behind the theory, you
(02:41):
want to go do a few experiments.You look at the literature to
assess whether your thinking iscorrect. And you have the
courage to step away from youroriginal thesis if it doesn't
quite pan out. And that'sexactly what we do in finance
all the time.
And we have core principles inaccounting. We have core ideas
behind these principles. Thereis a body of literature out
(03:03):
there. And now with the rise ofLLMs and the rise of other data
sources, we're able to really,really dig in and think about
these complex challenges. Andthen you go and you test it and
you get advice.
And then you iterated it and yousolved the problem. I find that
engineering focused mindset hashelped me think that any hill or
mountain can be conquered withstructure behind it.
Adam Larson (03:24):
When I like that that that mindset of it's still
all the same, it's stillaccounting at its base level.
Matter what industry you're in,you still have to apply those
base principles. And if you'renot applying those, then you're
not having good accountingpractices. So no matter what
industry you're in. So I likethat approach that you're giving
it.
Kingsley Afemikhe (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And even things like
you may hear from my accent thatI didn't spend my childhood in
The US. And so, it made me a bitof a personal comment about me,
both my parents are charteredaccountants and my two older
brothers are charteredaccountants. And so I really
grew up in that world ofbasically IFRS accounting, but
really just the principles ofhow to think about assets, how
(04:05):
to think about capital, how tothink about returns. And when I
had the great fortune to come toThe US, I found it really quite
exciting actually to learn moreabout US GAAP and learn more
about the principles behind USGAAP, which are the same as the
principles IFRS, but also thehistorical context that drive
the differences that we see.
Adam Larson (04:24):
Definitely. So, you know, at your current
organization, Shield AI, youknow, you guys operate at the
intersection of finance,technology and kind of national
security. Are there differentchallenges that are brought up
when you're kind of navigatingthat as your team, and and how
do you navigate them?
Kingsley Afemikhe (04:41):
So I'll start by telling you something about
Shield AI. Shield AI's missionis to protect serving men and
women with intelligent systems.What that means for us is
artificial intelligence andartificial intelligence enabled
hardware, specifically Groupthree drones, which we make here
called the VBATs. And what isexciting about working in the
(05:02):
defense industry is the supportthat we have gotten over the
years from our customer. Andwhat that means is there is a
willingness because of the focuson the mission to take certain
risks and allow and enable us todevelop our core technology.
There's also a willingness tosupport those risks by giving us
research and developmentdollars. So in our early stage
(05:23):
of our development, entitiessuch as the DIU and all the DoD
entities were really supportiveof us getting our risk. In
addition, we have a customerthat has allies. We have allies
all over the the the world. Andwe can you know, when we invest
in sales and marketing in TheUS, it also pays off
internationally.
The challenges from anaccounting perspective is, as a
(05:46):
taxpayer, I care very much aboutthis. Every dollar that the US
government spends is a dollarthat's been contributed by you
and I. So there is realresponsibility for DoD entities
to be very thoughtful aboutwhere the money is spent, are
they being compliant with theirgoals, and have we done what we
said we were going to do. And sothe process, the go to market
(06:10):
contracting process takeslonger. Very often we have post
delivery audits that we have toperform.
We have reviews. We havenational security controls that
we have to have. And so even ifwe're not a public company, but
very, very often we have some ofthose controls that are akin to
what you would see in a publiccompany. In addition, as we
(06:32):
expand abroad, we have to bereally, really thoughtful about
data stream information. We haveto be really thoughtful about
which allies and and what couldhappen without artificial
intelligence technology if wefell into the wrong hands.
And then we have to obviouslywork very closely with, yeah,
the UST entities to make surethat we're further in the
interest of our host country.
Adam Larson (06:51):
So talking about expanding, I I know a lot of
folks is I I I've I've spoken tomany different, you know,
smaller businesses and asthey're expanding, it's hard to
kind of maintain agility as yougrow. You know, are there
different strategies that haveworked best for you and your
organization as you're you know,if you're as you're expanding
and there's there's more inputcoming in, you got to make sure
that you have still have thoseright internal controls and the
(07:12):
right agility as you grow as anorganization.
Kingsley Afemikhe (07:15):
Yeah, absolutely. So the analogy I use
with my team is the, if you'veever been to Hong Kong, you've
got this scaffolding ofbuildings that are made of
bamboo. You think it'sextraordinary how you can build
a spacecraft of bamboo, butbamboo is actually pretty strong
and very flexible. We are thatline that is pretty strong and
supports the business butremains very flexible. And how
(07:35):
we do it is we embed financefurther up the chain and as deep
as possible.
And I'm going to give you twospecific examples of how we do
it. First of all, technicalaccounting. Very often in many
companies, you'll have the BDteam goes off and, you know,
gets the legal team involved toget a contract together. And at
the end, someone pops over acontract over to technical
(07:57):
accounting. And then they'rescrambling to think, what does
this mean for rev rec?
What does this mean for like,what are the risks? And so on.
And that was something I really,really wanted to change. I
wanted the BD reps of the Inc.Of Tech and Accounting as their
partners at the very beginning.
So often with our customers whenwe're just at the at the term
sheet stage, even before thefinal contract, even before the
initial drops, my tech andaccounting team is there in the
(08:20):
room giving guidance. And thatis great because we flag any
potential problems upfront. Weknow about them. We can often
discuss them with our auditors.Shout out to BWC, they're
fantastic.
B, we can work very closely withthe team around things like
managing risks or paymentschedules or revenue
recognition. So that way, whenthe contract is done, you know,
(08:40):
it's not news to us. We've beenin the room. We've been at the
table. We've done that placethere.
Secondly, you know, we have twodivisions in our company. We
have a Hivemind AI division, andwe have our aircraft kind of our
VBAT manufacturing and salesdivision. Very different
challenges. In the former, wehave things like software
revenue recognition. We havethings like, you know, where is
the contract obligation and soon.
(09:01):
How do you do that? And thensecondly, on the aircraft, we
have, as you would expect,inventory, working capital, and
a range of other issues whenwe're thinking about cost of
goods sold and allocation ofcosts. And so what we've done is
embed our financings in bothareas. And so I have a financing
pipeline that's thinking throughpricing, that's thinking through
(09:23):
government regulations, justthinking through all the
software dynamics. I have a veryoperational aircraft team that
sits in Dallas that is workingthrough the inventory counts,
working through managing ourfleet of VBAs which we have on
our balance sheet.
That is the only way that youcan be flexible if you're in the
room and on, you know, at thetable.
Adam Larson (09:44):
What strategies would you give to somebody who
is saying, hey, I wanna makesure that my team I'm embedding
my team just as you describedit, like, oh, I wanna do that
too. But they're they're notnecessarily getting the
agreement from, you know, thosearound them as well.
Kingsley Afemikhe (09:57):
Yeah. That's great. It's a really, really
good question. So you earn yourplace at the table. You don't
demand your place at the table.
Often, finance is seen as remoteor almost a bit like an internal
version of your externalauditors. Three things have to
happen. First of all, the roleof finance is to be evangelical
about controls and why we're webring the controls in. And that
(10:18):
is not condescending to people,but just explaining the journey
that we're in and explaining thebenefits. B, you have to bring
gifts.
Our teammates have greatchallenges that they're trying
to solve every day. We're allreally focused on the mission.
And if you find ways to maketheir jobs easier, faster, more
accurate, people will open doorsfor you. So I say to the team,
(10:39):
you have to kind of bring giftsto our counterparty so they see
you as a, I mean, not physicalgifts, that would be that would
be
Adam Larson (10:45):
Bring cookies to the different meetings.
Kingsley Afemikhe (10:47):
Correct. Exactly. Yeah. And finally, you
have to show up. And, you know,there's a long debate about
remote work and non remote work.
And I know that a ton of financeteammates, including some of my
very beloved teammates areremote, and that really, really
works for that. But we were in amanufacturing engineering
company. The technicians whobuild our VBATs can't build the
VBATs from home, they turn up.And so if you're in the office
(11:11):
and understanding theirchallenges and you're able to
sit with them person to person,you often get a lot more by it.
And so what that means if youare remote, know, you organize,
symposiums where you can comein, you show up in the office
and build those relationships aswell.
Adam Larson (11:27):
Yeah. It's not just staying in your silo and saying
I'm just gonna get my stuffdone, which causes the surprises
that you're avoiding by havingyour team in there early.
Kingsley Afemikhe (11:36):
Yeah. Yeah. And just one thing I just you
really remind me of something.It's just what I find with
finance people is a very strongfocus. I need to solve this
problem.
Adam Larson (11:45):
Mhmm.
Kingsley Afemikhe (11:45):
I need to get through this close. I need to
get through this audit. And thatshows a lack of empathy and
curiosity for our teammates.Engineers, manufacturing people
love to explain they're doing.They also have their own goals.
And if you have a thirty minuteconversation, and you're able to
get what you need in twentyminutes, why don't you spend ten
minutes listening to thecounterparty, understanding what
(12:07):
they're going through, learninga little bit about what they're
doing? I assure you, you'llenjoy it.
Adam Larson (12:11):
Oh, I love that advice. So when you you as an
organization, you're operatingin, like, the defense sector and
even the commercial sectors, howdo your financial strategies
diff different? Are therechallenges that come up when
you're, when you're managingboth of those models?
Kingsley Afemikhe (12:25):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'll just talk a
little bit about what we'redoing. We started up in the
aerospace and defense industry,and we're now expanding our AI
hybrid efforts, are morecommercial motion, originally
starting with defense companies,but in a commercial transaction.
So in terms of financialstrategies, like I mentioned,
(12:46):
the go to market cycle in thedefense industry is long. And so
very often you have an initialRFP, which is often very formal,
they'll have certainrequirements, you have to put in
a proposal.
You go through that originalproposal and very often there's
a demonstration where you'll goand demonstrate the capabilities
and show it first of alltechnically and often
demonstrated in the field. Andthere are very strict ways that
(13:10):
they want to be fair and seethat you are indeed the best
solution. And sometimes there'swhat's called a protest ability
to when you win othercounterparties who did not win
in the process and protest andsay that it wasn't quite fair
and because, you know,governments have to be fair, you
win on the other end and then,you know, you could win the
contracts. And I have to say ourgovernment customers are all
(13:32):
amazing and fantastic. Theydon't always pay exactly on time
with what's in the contract, butwe have never ever had to write
off any receivable from ourgovernment contractors.
So we've got the best, bestcustomers, but they're just
gonna maybe sometimes take alittle bit longer. That's a
really long cycle. Yeah. And sowe have to be really thoughtful
about how we allocate costs aswell to that cycle because
(13:54):
obviously probability of windchanges as you go through that
cycle. We have to be really,really thoughtful about
financing.
We have a great debt financingpartner, QH Capital, that
supports us as we kind of tie upinventory maybe slightly longer
than we would want to. And wethen have to be really, really
thoughtful about our governmentcustomers and how we land and
expand and grow from a return oncapital employed perspective. In
(14:19):
the commercial motion, it's aless defined process, a shorter
process, but it often has a lotmore upfront sales and marketing
expense. The cost to acquire isgreater. Particularly as you're
kind of working through with theparticular customer, often the
touch points are less defined.
(14:40):
Right? So because you don't havesuch a strict process, you have
to think about who has access tothe c suites, who has access at
a manager level and how can youshowcase your capabilities all
the way through. And ourcommercial motion is much more
of a software motion. And sowe're working in a really
thoughtful way about how we growin that. We announced last week
(15:02):
the addition of a reallyfantastic CEO, Gary Steele,
who's rejoining us in mid May.
And, you know, his entire breadand butter is building
commercial software businesses.He was previously CEO of
Proofpoint and also CEO ofSplunk, which is taking a little
while Cisco.
Adam Larson (15:18):
What is so this might not be relevant, but when
you're saying that that longprocess that the government
contracts take, you know, howdoes that change when you're
looking at something likerevenue recognition? With that
long process, the revenuerecognition changes as well.
Kingsley Afemikhe (15:30):
Yeah. So it depends on the nature of the
revenue and nature of thecontract. We do deliveries of
EBATs, but we also haverecognized revenue over time as
a percentage of completion wherewe use an EAC methodology as
well. And that's where againwhat I said at the start about
having contracts really there atthe beginning and being really
(15:52):
thoughtful with your partnerabout what are the obligations
over time and how do you assessat any given point how you're
doing against the obligationsyou have overall? One of the
other net effects of that isthat we're a company that that
keeps time.
Right? And so we have to bereally thoughtful on a daily
basis about how much time ourengineers and teammates such as
myself are allocating particularparticular contracts because
(16:15):
that drives revenue. That tellsyou, as you know, in in EACs,
where am I relative to theactual goal? How far is it gonna
take me to get to the goal andthe obligation and the contract?
How much revenue can Irecognize?
That's an area where when we dothe audits with PWC, when we
close the books, that is reallythe bulk of the parts where we
drill down in a lot of detail tomake sure that we are really,
(16:37):
really on point on that as well.
Adam Larson (16:40):
Yeah. So when you and I spoke before, you had
mentioned that, you know, you'rebig into, you know, helping
allocate and attract capital foryour organization. Are there any
lessons you can share thatyou've learned that from
securing that funding andmanaging investor relations
within your within your highgrowth? Because it is a very
high growth environment whereyou're working.
Kingsley Afemikhe (16:56):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. There are three
things I would say. The first isunderstand the tailwinds and
headwinds in your industry andreally be able to speak very
clearly about them.
Right? So in our industry, we'reat Surely I, we're an AI
company. We work in the defenseindustry. We've been doing it
for ten years. We're fortunatethat, as I say in The UK, your
buses come at the same time,right?
(17:17):
But we've been doing AI andwe've been doing defense tech
for ten years. And so there aretailwinds like increased
expenditure for defense, for ourallies in Europe, the increased
focus in The US on AI andmachine learning on mass. So
intelligence affordable mass,attritable platforms. But there
(17:38):
are also headwinds, such asthings change geopolitically,
how is The US company seen inEurope, which is another growing
market? And as you say, the kindof working capital, how much
capital do you need to build upthe minimum scale to work in
this space?
And what we what we do veryhonestly and openly is talk
(17:59):
about the strengths and thechallenges because then your
investors can calibrate. Thesecond thing is to be really
clear as to what your coretechnology is and to tell the
story of the journey and whereyou've been going and why you've
been doing it. So what does thatmean for us is trust. We've been
doing AI in the defense industryfor ten years. We fly, f
(18:21):
sixteens and fighter jetsautonomously all the time now.
We flew the past, secretary ofthe air force autonomously as
well. But eight years ago, noone would have taken that
seriously because we hadn'tdeveloped technology
sufficiently and we didn't havethe trust. And so what we did
was we started off in thequadcopter markets and much
(18:42):
smaller drones, cheaper and youknow, flew Hivemind which is our
AI stack on that. We thenclimbed the aviation food chain
to the VBAT which is our groupthrough UAS and then also did
that again to the fighter jets.And so we're able to tell the
story about developments andwhere it was a few years ago.
And then more importantly, tellthe story of how with each
(19:04):
investment and each round we'vemade, we've accelerated our core
technology. And then finally, weare still cash flow negative,
EBITDA negative. I can tell youthat's something I think about
every day and we're gettingthere and being EBITDA positive,
we're growing quite quickly. SoI take very seriously is that
every cent we spend is a centthat's being provided to us by
(19:26):
people who believe in ourmission and believe in our team.
And so it behooves us to be verycrisp on what exactly will we
achieve with this fundraise?
When will we achieve it? Andmost importantly, how will you,
investor or board, know if we'reon track or not? And so give you
the confidence for the next timethat we fundraise. And so if you
(19:48):
talk about your industry and theheadwinds and tailwinds, talk
about why you are well placed towin in that industry with your
core technology and are veryclear about what you want to
achieve, we find it's, you know,pretty compelling narrative for
investors.
Adam Larson (20:01):
Well, and having the person who is in charge of
the finance, you know, tellingthat story, I'm sure is even
more is even more comforting forthe investor as they're
listening, saying, hey, you knowwhat you're talking about
because you're the one in theweeds with your team doing that.
Kingsley Afemikhe (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's a
partnership approach.
Adam Larson (20:17):
Mhmm.
Kingsley Afemikhe (20:18):
It goes back to what I said about about
curiosity. You know, I one ofthe benefits I have is I'm not
an engineer, but I have anengineering degree. So I can,
with a straight face, say someengineering concepts, but we
have phenomenal engineers in ourcompany. Yeah. Brandon Ryan
started the company, Alma Harrisand and Nate Mike Nate Michael,
really fantastic.
And I learn from them every day.And so when I'm with investors,
(20:41):
I can take it. This this is myunderstanding based on my
discussion with the engineeringteam. I'd be delighted to bring
them in the room. And thatreally resonates with people
being kind of very open andhonest about what you're aware
of and where your partners intalent could help you with some
explanation.
Adam Larson (20:56):
So, you know, with with the great story you've been
telling about your team and, youknow, how growth the
organization is happening, Youknow, I just have to ask, you
know, what do you look for intalent when you're when you're
looking for add more people toyour finance and accounting
team? What do you look for intalent? You know, how do you
structure your team for longterm success? You know, because
when you're in a fast growthenvironment, I'm sure it's very
fast paced and constantlymoving, but, you know, you have
(21:18):
your people in place and youtrust them.
Kingsley Afemikhe (21:20):
Yeah. Yeah. I shout out to my team. They are
the best team I worked with inmy career. I'm really honored to
work for them.
I really mean that. I work Iwork for them, and and I'm
really proud of them. The way Istructure the team is we have a
core accounting team, we have afinance team and we have what we
call a continuous improvementteam which is really our team
(21:41):
that manages our systems and ourERP. With the accounting team,
something that's reallyimportant to me is to bring a
team of all talents really. Ihave people in my team who works
in private equity finance, whoworks in large defense
companies, who works instartups.
And really they're able totackle challenges which day to
(22:02):
day seem new, but very oftenhave occurred in the past if
you're willing and able to dothe work. And so what that means
is putting in the controls weneed but not too much. What that
means is coming back every daywith first principle thinking to
the problems that we have todayand that our team does a really
really good job of that.Secondly, with the finance team,
we have a range of reallyexcellent people who have worked
(22:24):
with larger companies, mid sizedcompanies, and have scaled. And
with that team, what I'm lookingfor there is a strong punch
approach.
I want the individual divisionheads to think of them almost as
a as a mini CFOs. And it's we'renot perfect yet, but we're
getting there. And really, whenwhen our head of aircraft has
(22:46):
his his right and left hand menand women, he has my my next
person next to him as wellhelping him make very, very good
decisions. And in my continuousimprovement team, just a a
comfort with data and a comfortwith flexibility in what we're
doing as a as a company that'sgrowing very quickly, still
private, but has ambitions topotentially go go public.
(23:06):
Underpinning everything that Ilook for in in teammates is
empathy, curiosity.
That is so critical. Yeah.Because it's with curiosity that
you gain empathy and then yougain trust. And really an
excitement to put in the effort.What we're doing is not easy.
It requires from time to timeextra effort. And the prize is
(23:32):
clearly the mission that we arevery focused on and obviously,
you know, remunerate our teamearly, but also the prize is is
growth, and that comes in with acuriosity as well.
Adam Larson (23:41):
Yeah. You have to be curious to kinda be engaged
in the mission even if you'renot an engineer and you don't
understand what the organizationis doing. You want to be
passionate about what you'redoing so you can help out the
organization as a whole. Andthat's not something that you
can always teach. That'ssomething that's kind of innate
in some people.
Kingsley Afemikhe (23:56):
Yeah. Look, the one I say to people is that
there's no such thing as a goodor a bad accountant or a finance
person. It's just like the rightfit, right? Yeah. You know, like
a marriage sometimes, you know,brought wonderful people but
you're not meant to be together.
And so in interviews, I tellpeople I think you're fantastic
but maybe this is not the firmfor you. If you don't have a
drive, if you don't care at allabout our mission in any way, if
(24:19):
you're not willing to be curiousand deal with change, then you
may be happier somewhere elseand that's fine. Those are the
kind of traits that we look athere at Chiliad.
Adam Larson (24:29):
So what role has technology played within your
finance team? How has you helpeduse technology to complete the
mission that you're on?
Kingsley Afemikhe (24:37):
Yeah. So the message I told my team a year
ago is that we are going to 10xrevenue having a zero net
increase in the size of theteam. That is an extraordinary
challenge terms of productivity.I'm saying that we are going to
10x our productivity more orless. And the only way we will
(24:57):
do that is with the rightprocesses, with the right
systems, and with the rightpeople.
We've already spoken aboutpeople, so I'll set that aside.
And when I look at ourprocesses, there are a range of
things that we can automate.There are a range of things we
can simplify. The first step isto just ask why do we do things?
Again, best principles.
Why do we do things this way?And so we're balancing using
(25:19):
LLMs to look at our journalentries and look at how we can
think about our adjustments. Weare using AI to think about
where the risk areas are thatrequire more reviews. The whole
teams are using our Amazon, theway we tackle challenges in
terms of our reporting and net Pand A. And quite often as well,
(25:39):
we're building data sheets andso that, you know, with our
reporting now, very often it'sI'm person in finance.
I have this information thatgives me an output in Excel,
then I go and sit down withsomeone in the business and
explain to them how it's done.And what we're doing is trying
to disintermediate ourselves.Mhmm. And so produce dashboards
and information flows that arerobust and are accurate. And so
(26:01):
that the individual in thedriving seat in the front office
has access to the data and canmake decisions faster with
support of finance as opposed tous almost like being there the
instance to see it's assessorbetween the two.
And that takes time and thattakes effort. Yeah. And we're
thinking through all of thesesteps as well. What's great
though is that people in theteam are reacting really, really
(26:23):
well to that because the neteffects of that is that some of
the more drudgery based tasks,some of them lower value tasks,
the tasks that we'll be able toaccurately move on to the
technology that we can do. Andthen people can spend their days
doing really thoughtful thingslike talking to the BD reps
about particular contracts andthinking about rev rec and and
(26:45):
being really thoughtful abouttiming of particular payments
or, like, managing the risk thatwe have with our FX in different
countries.
That's fun stuff. Right? And sothat that's that's the stuff
that we we really, really wantthe team to focus on.
Adam Larson (26:59):
Have you have you seen an impact be have you I
mean, you are a AI drivencompany. Have you been able to
use AI within your finance teamto kinda help some of those
processes as well?
Kingsley Afemikhe (27:09):
Yeah. And we see yes. Absolutely. And I think
that that's one of the thingsthat we will see a lot more of
that. Yeah.
There's still I I think with anytechnology because we live this
with our customers, I'm gonnaget back to the word trust.
Right? And so parts of it isjust you start with something
smaller, particular like lowerrisk item. You know, a lot of
(27:30):
the accounting team are not keento deploy AI because we know
we're really under the gun toclose the books accurately and
quickly. But there are manyproducts as we go along that we
can use AI to accelerate oursuite and we can use a
particular skills and alsotechnology that we we have some
of our service providers that weuse fluocast, for example, for
checklists and we do the close.
(27:51):
And so we'll be implementingmore systems over the next
twelve to eighteen months. LikeI say, we are gonna be keeping
the team the same size asrevenues grow, and we will
achieve that. So
Adam Larson (28:02):
Well, that's gonna be quite a testament to see it
done, I welcome that, and Iencourage it. And, Kingsley, I
just wanna thank you so much forcoming on the podcast. It's been
really great getting to know youand just hearing about what your
team's doing, and it's beengreat.
Kingsley Afemikhe (28:14):
Yeah. Absolutely. The last thing I'll
say is I am passionate andexcited for finance. And anyone
who's in this industry, pleasestick with it. This is a great
industry to be in, and we aremaking an impact every day.
So thank you so much for havingme.
Announcer (28:27):
This
has been Count Me In, IMA'spodcast, providing you with the
latest perspectives of thoughtleaders from the accounting and
finance profession. If you likewhat you heard and you'd like to
be counted in for more relevantaccounting and finance
education, visit IMA's websiteat www.IMAnet.org.
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