February 6, 2024 • 43 mins
In the episode, Wassia talks about her work with H.O.P.E - Helping Other People be Empowered: you can find the link here. This is an amazing organization doing work that matters and changing lives for the better.
Embark on a transformative journey through the dynamic world of finance with Wassia Kamon, Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller from the Low Income Investment Fund, as she unpacks the essence of value beyond the numbers. Wassia telling her story coming from the Ivory Coast to become a senior finance leader is so inspirational. She not only underscores the significance of soft skills but also the power of a professional narrative in career progression. This episode is a treasure trove for middle managers looking to show their value so they can rise in their organizations, offering insights on how to strategically navigate the intricate path to senior positions.
You can visit Wassia's website at wassiakamon.com.
Please connect with me on:
1. Instagram: stephen.mclain
2. Twitter: smclainiii
3. Facebook: stephenmclainconsultant
4. LinkedIn: stephenjmclainiii
For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy: financeleaderacademy.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephen McLain (00:05):
This week I am sharing my interview with Wassia
Kamon. Vice President of Financeand Corporate Controller of the
low income investment fund youwill see is an amazing leader in
the finance and accountingcommunity. And you can find her
sharing realistic actionableadvice on her LinkedIn profile.
Please enjoy the episode.
Welcome to the finance leaderpodcast where leadership is
(00:28):
bigger than the numbers. I amyour host, Stephen McLain. This
is the podcast for developingleaders in finance and
accounting. Please considerfollowing me on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, andLinkedIn. My usernames and the
links are in this episode's shownotes. Thank you. This is
episode number 119. And let'sget right to the interview with
(00:50):
with Wassia, please enjoy. I amjoined today by Wassia Kamon.
The Vice President of Financeand Corporate Controller of the
low income investment fund withWassia was also recently
recognized by practice advisoras a 40. Under 40 accounting
professional, she is widelyrecognized as an innovative
(01:13):
voice for finance and accountingprofessionals who want to grow
in their career. And I'm honoredto welcome her to the finance
leader podcast. Please tell usmore about you.
Wassia Kamon (01:26):
Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. It's
such a joy to be here. As yousaid, I'm Wassia and what Wassia
means something you cannot burnin my native language. I'm
originally from Ivory Coast,West Africa. And I came here
when I was 17. And it's been along journey. I started out in
accounting at Georgia StateUniversity and went all the way
(01:48):
up. Did public accounting didn'tlike it been in corporate
finance and accounting sincethen, as you said, I'm the
current VP of Finance andCorporate Controller at the low
income investment fund. We helpwith mostly affordable housing
and community development,something I'm very passionate
about. As I'm also passionateabout helping other
(02:12):
professionals, I always lookback and see. Okay, if I was
talking to me 15-20 years ago,what would I say? And it's from
that perspective that I post onLinkedIn that I write articles.
And then I'm also have acommunity called strategic
achievers, where we're able tohelp others in that journey.
Stephen McLain (02:33):
That's amazing.
I love your story. And I'malways looking forward to that
next post on LinkedIn. Yeah, soI appreciate everything you're
doing in this community to makemega all better. I appreciate
you so much.
Wassia Kamon (02:46):
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Stephen McLain (02:48):
One of the things I wanted to talk to you
today about is the future ofaccounting as a profession. The
Wall Street Journal reported inOctober 2023, that we are seeing
fewer students entering theaccounting field. And they
mentioned pay as a major reason.
Accounting is often a primegateway for understanding
business fundamentals. And alsofor advancement into senior
(03:10):
roles. It's easy to say, justraise pay. But why did
accounting entry level rolesfall so far behind and pay? And
what can executive leaders do toreverse this? And what advice
would you give youngprofessionals who are passionate
about studying accounting, evena starting pay has fallen
behind?
Wassia Kamon (03:31):
I think to me accounting as a profession, we
have that stigma, right? We wedon't have people don't always
see the value of what we bring.
And as we have not been able toraise our prices, as partners or
companies are able to show thatwe can do more than number
crunching and processinginvoices. We still in that view
(03:53):
of okay, you know, 50,000 isgood. When I started back in
2009. I think as a staffaccountant, the annual salary
was 45,000. I was rejoicing, butthen you look like how many
years later and is the samestarting salary. Other fields
(04:14):
are starting at 75 by 200. Andso for young professionals who
know like people in accounting,they see that the cost of
tuition is here. And so if mystarting salary is here, okay,
how do I bridge the gap? Andit's very sad. I saw a statistic
(04:36):
that said that there is a lot ofaccountants accounting students
saying that accounting is theirmajor when they enter college,
but only about 50% actuallygraduate in accounting. So they
get in and because we doaccounting, you have to be good
at a lot of things. And they seeother options and they end up
majoring in other fields.
Stephen McLain (05:00):
Yeah, that's tough for our profession,
because we want that continuingpipeline of, of young people
coming into this profession. Ithink it's something that we all
need to address as seniorleaders in this profession, and
work to figure out why that wefall so far behind and continue
to grow that passion. So thankyou so much for that. One of the
(05:24):
things that you do is try toemphasize your value. As you
move up in your career, you're avoice and advocate for middle
managers who want to run seniorroles. You're sharing a story of
trial and error, seeing yourvalue potential for more senior
roles. And you'll highlight notto chase more credentials, you
emphasize soft skills,especially, please share how you
(05:46):
can highlight your value toothers. So you get the
opportunity for more seniorroles. And let us know how you
use LinkedIn as a channel toshowcase your value.
Wassia Kamon (05:56):
Yes, that's a very packed question. So I'll start
with why do I talk about movingbeyond certification. So right
out of college, they were likego for the CPA, I went for the
CPA. Then I wanted to do FPN Athat I go for the CMA I went for
it. So I went for everything.
People told me to go for that.
(06:17):
So I have so many letters behindmy name. And then I realized I
had all these letters, but I'mnot where I want to be in my
career. I'm reporting like Ihave yet to report to a boss, I
had that many letters behindtheir name. And yet, these
bosses are great. And I realizedthat it wasn't their
certification, they were so goodat other things. So while I was
(06:38):
chasing their certifications, Iended up isolating myself and
not developing all the otherstuff that my bosses have been
doing. They've been honing onthe negotiation skills, knowing
how to talk to different peoplein different department, they
know how to articulate theirimpact, right now just talk
(06:59):
about the tasks they did. Butthe impact they had. And I was
just focused on, you know,tasks, tasks, tasks. But as you
move up the ladder in anorganization, or as you just
have to start hiring, promoting,coaching, firing, having
different difficultconversation, you know, having
(07:20):
to do all these things, yourealize, well, technical
accounting, and those tasks aregreat, but they're not going to
be able to get me to the levelswhere I want to be. So that's
really how I started talkingabout beyond certification, my
website is called Beyondcertifications.com. Because I
want to make sure that weunderstand that we should be
(07:42):
focused more on just knowing thelatest excels tricks. Like when
you get to a VP level, youprobably have people working for
you to help you with Excel, orconsultant, there's other things
that your attention should befocused on. So that was the
first thing about thealternative vacations, then how
do you articulate your value?
When we are in accounting, wethink in terms of or close the
(08:06):
month, okay, what does it meanfor the business that you did
that?
Stephen McLain (08:12):
Right
Wassia Kamon (08:13):
If the if you come to a one on one, for example,
your managers, do you preparebefore you go on your one on
one, you just show up? Andyou're waiting for the manager
to tell you what's going on? Ordo you come prepared, ready to
explain? These are the things Idid? These are the problems I'm
solving. This is how I'm makingprogress. Or by the way, you
(08:33):
didn't ask about this. But Ialso thought we could do this.
So I come with a problem and aproposed solution. Or when you
join an organization, andthey're like, hey, introduce
yourself. Do you go Hi, I'm soso happy to be here. Or do you
go hey, I'm so and so. I've beenin this field for the past 15
years helping doing ABC. And I'mso excited to bring this onto
(08:56):
this company and helping thedepartment move forward? Do you
have a power introduction? Sobeyond even getting on LinkedIn,
it starts with how youarticulate your value, and how
you show up in whatever settingsyou are. And that's
Stephen McLain (09:13):
amazing. I really liked it. I love what
you're talking about. They'reemphasizing that value. Thank
you, you and you were talkingabout showing up to that one on
one. Not just waiting for yourboss to initiate the discussion.
But you coming in was showingoff the projects you're working
on? And how how you made it madea difference on a particular
(09:35):
project and how you solved aparticular problem. Yes,
Wassia Kamon (09:39):
you have to show up like a rock star. That's what
I pushed everyone in mycommunity to do. I'm like, we
you have to show up like a rockstar. You have to be your number
one cheerleader, because we'reelsewhere. Okay? Your managers
have their own set of trubtrials and priorities. If you
show up as one more burden, youNo is not going to work.
Stephen McLain (10:01):
Right? Exactly.
Because the senior leaders,managers want people who are
going to solve, take action andnot wait for you to tell them
what to do. Or you to step inwhen there's a problem. Yeah. So
that kind of goes against, youknow, some of the current trends
of quiet quitting. And like, I'mjust going to show up and do my
(10:22):
minimum, I'm gonna, you know,separate my work life, from my
after work life. And it stilltakes going that little extra
mile, in order to show yourvalue so that you can go ahead
and get that next promotion andnext upgrade opportunity. Yes.
Wassia Kamon (10:41):
And I think people think that you have to work
overtime to articulate yourvalue, or to do what's needed
and it doesn't, you actuallyable to do it by saying no, most
of the time. So let's say youhave, your boss comes in, and
you have three projects, theywant to give you two, okay? You
(11:01):
have that ethic of wanting to beknown as a personal brand of
excellence, you have to be ableto negotiate and say if I take
these two, these other two haveto be have to take the
backstage, so I can focus onthat. You have to be careful
with the kind of tasks you takeon, you're not just going to be
showing up. You're trying to bea VP and all you do during the
(11:24):
meetings taking notes. You'renot an admin, like what are you
doing? Are you doing the nonpromotable tasks are the
promotable task. So even within40 hours a week, you can show up
like a rock star, and get itdone?
Stephen McLain (11:39):
Oh, my gosh, that's incredible. You said
promotable tasks versus nonpromotable tasks. Are you a part
of this process? Are you justtaking notes? Are you part of
the solution? Are you justwaiting for somebody to tell you
what the answer is? i That'samazing. To continue to
communicate that, to the peopleout there, you know, what are
(12:02):
you doing to show up to showyour value? That's an incredible
message that you could continueto carry, which is what every
post that you do on LinkedIn, soI'm encouraging everybody out
there, find, find you and watchthe read your posts, and then
back to yourself and what you'redoing at work. I appreciate
(12:23):
that. Thank you. There's anotherthing that I wanted to ask you
today. And that's thattransition to FPN. A, if you're
an accounting professional, Ibelieve that to be ready for
senior leader roles in finance,we need well rounded
professionals. But moving onfrom accounting roles to
financial planning and analysiscan be intimidating for some if
(12:45):
the role of F PNA is verydifferent. For example,
financial analysts have to findroot causes from metrics and
KPIs that are not performing.
And it often takes looking atnot so obvious data. To do so in
partnering to dig into extremedetails. Please share your
advice for making thattransition. What skills do you
(13:05):
need to develop? And how do youmake that transition?
Wassia Kamon (13:11):
So I'll share first how my transition went. So
I was working as back then I wasAccounting Manager. And we don't
have a FP&A a department and asthe company grew, and that
became controller, it becameokay, you're doing 25% FP&A,
because you have to deal with abudget, and then you're doing
75% everything else. And so Istarted liking the FP&A part
(13:35):
because you get to talk topeople and I'm an extrovert, I
talk a lot. So I was like, Oh,this is so cool. And from then I
was like I want to do FP&A 100%And that's when I had I went on
to have my first full 100% FP&Arole. And I will tell you, the
first struggle is letting go ofthe mindset of he has to be
(13:57):
precise. See in accounting,everything has to tie you when
you present and you have aframework revenues goes on this
line expenses of that line, itgoes in this GL so you very used
to having structure and havingprecision, and then you get an F
PNA and it's about hey, what dowe think the numbers in the next
(14:20):
few years are going to be andyou're like what do I base it
on? Right? I so you startfeeling uncomfortable? Because
you don't have that exact Thisis an invoice the accrual is 50%
of it like you don't have thatprecision and so you can feel
uncomfortable around. Okay, nowI have to track this. Now I have
(14:42):
to take non financial metrics.
What is that? I'm used to justnumbers, what do you mean turn?
Like it's a lot of other thingsthat you have to be comfortable
with. And I think the first stepis embracing the fact that you
will be able to thrive in ancertainty. Once you have that
mindset, then the rest becomeeasy. Because you realize, okay,
(15:05):
now I have to connect withpeople. And that's where the
communication skills come handy.
Because in accounting, youtypically work with people
within your department, or whenpeople come to you is really
full, a saying the same type ofconversation, I need this
invoice old set of thesevendors. So your communications
(15:26):
are very structured, and theydon't go into Oh, this is a
strategic vision we have forthis. How do I record this?
Right? So you move from havingthe right mindset of dealing
with uncertainty, to thengetting into strategic thinking,
and then your communicationskill added to your
negotiations, right? Because youhave to push the business as
(15:49):
well as and make decisions. Asyou partner with them, you also
have to challenge them, right?
Because we can't just buythings, we have a budget, like
we can just do certain things,why are we doing this. So having
those soft skills, and beingable to also create report that
makes sense, because again,we're coming from accounting,
(16:12):
there's an ERP that spit out thesame report, we have the same
roll forward every month. Nowthat one dashboard, it has to be
cute, and presentations. And soyou have to start learning all
these other tools like Power BIis great, what FPN a tool other
using and how you going topresent that information in a
(16:33):
way that's easy to understand bynon accounting people.
Stephen McLain (16:39):
Absolutely, completely agree what you're
what you're saying what I alwaystry to advocate for if you are
working on the FPN a side, andyou are responding to that
particular metric, go find theexpert who's actually working
that particular metric. And yes,find out everything that he has
with that metric, let's say youhave to track what was spent for
(17:05):
a transportation company willtry to get all of the variables
that affected fuel price andfuel usage. And then you go talk
to that person. And then you gotalk to the person who sits next
to that person and try to digand dig and dig and try to find
all these root causes of whyfuel. Maybe a fuel usage has
(17:27):
gone high for the last fewmonths and suddenly drops down
to the lower. So the other thingthat I that I want you to talk
about is when you're going intopresent, like you said, it's not
precise. And you're going to bechallenged on your numbers. A
senior leader is going to lookat what you're presenting, and
(17:48):
they're going to try to pokeholes in everything you're
doing. So how do you respond?
How do you build up thatresilience when someone's
challenging you on your numbers?
Oh,
Wassia Kamon (17:59):
guys such a great question. So to me it start with
how you preparing thepresentation, okay, I like to
have meetings before meetings tounderstand who will be in
attendance and what matters tothem. And I poke holes in my own
presentation, I'm trying to doit from different viewpoints.
I'm trying to get otherviewpoints as well on how I'm
(18:20):
going to present. And at the endof the day, somebody will always
find something, right. And yeah,there will always be somebody
that like, Oh, I didn't likethis. Okay, I did my best. And
I'm comfortable with what I didwrite, and I have the backup for
and the assumptions for all thethings that I did. So when I
(18:43):
started, I always had like anappendix of other slides. So
people could also understand,okay, if you if you want more
info about this bar, you can goto appendix like, you know,
number 25. Somewhere, that I tryto not have too many slides in
the presentations, right? Butmaking sure that they
understand, okay, this is wherethe assumptions came from. And
(19:04):
really about confidence when youknow your numbers and when
they're coming from. It showsup. And he goes back to personal
branding, right? Okay, this ismy brand. I'm all about
accidents, I did the work, I didmy best.
Stephen McLain (19:18):
Absolutely. You have to have that confidence,
you have to know whatmethodology you use. You have
that backup information, youknow how you calculated the
number, and you can explain it.
And that's really what they'relooking for. And most of the
time is that how did you come upwith this projection? How did
you come up with, you know, theexplanation of why your metric
changed, you know, for the lastthree or four months and what
(19:40):
happened? And that's what thatbuilding that confidence going
and talking with everybody thathas to do with your metric,
getting all the backgroundinformation and coming in with a
fact or something that no oneelse knows that explains why
that number may have moved in acertain direction. So I could
talk FP and a all day long heldpeople Yeah. And it's, it's
(20:05):
quite a, it's quite atransition, I'm also have a
background in accounting, andgoing from that precise to the
imprecise and trying to explainhow, how something is happening,
how, how the business is beingaffected by this particular
metric. It's absolutely amazing.
(20:26):
And it's quite an opportunityfor someone to like, like really
get in and try to figure out andtry to support those senior
leaders in executing thatstrategy. So thank you so much
for that, for that background. Iappreciate you. Yeah. thing.
Yeah. One of the other things wewant to talk about is
leadership. You posted recentlyon LinkedIn asking if managers
(20:50):
were provided with leadershiptraining, before moving on to
their new role. Now, this is mybiggest passion, growing our
leadership skills. How do yousee developing leadership skills
as a way to advance your careerto more senior roles?
Wassia Kamon (21:06):
Yes, senior roles, it's all about leadership.
Because when you are startingout, your performance is based
on task. And your ability towork is the task you do as an
individual contributor. As youmove up, your work is done
through relationships, it's notdone by you is done by your
(21:27):
team, because you cannot do itall. Absolutely. So you have to
be able to move from okay, Icomfortable because I did it to
how do I get my people to becomfortable and do it the right
way? How do I motivate them? Howdo I coach them? How do I make
sure they have the tools to dowhat's needed, because now my
(21:52):
work is no longer just my workis our work. And unfortunately,
like many people like me, I wentfrom being a senior accountant
to be an accounting manager. AndI went from being by myself to
managing six people, and half ofthem were older than me. We
don't always talk aboutdiversity of age, we always
(22:14):
think about color or gender, butdifferent kinds of diversity as
well. So I went from being ableto do all my stuff. Now I have
to lead month in and I have toget people who's more
experienced than me, right tofollow, like where I want us to
go as a team, how do I take intheir input? How do we push in
(22:35):
push back? And I didn't have anytraining. So yes, it was hectic.
And I find it sad that a lot ofmanagers are thrown into
leadership that way. So manytimes, so many people responded,
it happened to me. And there wasa study that said that usually
people get promoted to theirfirst management role. By the
(22:58):
time they're 30. But they onlystart getting executive coaching
and training when they're in the50s. So you have 20 years of,
we're gonna figure it out. Andthat's how you get
micromanagers. That's how youget people being burned out.
That's how you have people likeme at some point, like, I don't
(23:18):
want my boss job. Please allpromote me, I don't want your
job. Absolutely, because we'retrying to figure out, and it
shouldn't be that way.
Stephen McLain (23:29):
Right. So the point is to try to get that
leadership training earlier onin the career. So they're
equipped with tools and exactlywhat you're talking about.
You're probably leading a teamthat's diverse, completely
different backgrounds from you.
And you're trying to motivateand inspire your team to produce
excellent work and how do you dothat? So that so that comes to
(23:51):
my next question is please sharesome of those leadership tools
that you use that a new FPN a oraccounting manager can adopt to
help lead their team when theyface so many requirements, and
lots of distractions each day.
Wassia Kamon (24:09):
For me, the first thing is having support. I can't
say that enough, becauseespecially the way things are
now and that's how I started mycommunity. People need support,
even as you go through becauselet's say you have the
leadership training, right, mostof those youth training is what
a two day off site. Okay, lifeis going on. 365 days. So,
(24:32):
right. It was great. I learnedgreat concept in the two days.
But unfortunately, companies arenot always keeping the
consultant on to you know, keepthat relationship throughout the
year. Oh, great, man. You havethe two days and the consultant
is gone. Okay, what do you dothe rest of the time? So finding
support is like to me the numberone thing, I have a personal
(24:56):
board of directors, people thatI lean on and I can call it go
What should I do? You know,having that support, whether
it's a personal board ofdirectors having a coach, in
addition to the traditionalforms of leadership training is
important. You're going to haveto read books to accelerate your
learning. I'm reading a greatone right now called the new
(25:17):
kind of diversity by Tim Elmore,all talking about, oh, it's
great, great book, it's talkingabout how we have four or five
generations in the workforce onteams, how do you bring them
together? Right? So you have tokeep educating yourself because
things change, like how we talkabout di today or not Di? Like
(25:41):
there are topics that were notin couple years ago, now they're
a thing, how do you adapt to it?
To me, you really need to havethat support, being able to make
lifelong learning a priority.
And understanding that you willall you will not always have the
the answer. Like it's that's notwhat leadership is about. It's
not like I know it all. I haveto know it all. But I have to do
(26:04):
my best to support the people Ihave. So part of it is
developing those soft skillssaying no is my favorite one
negotiation, people are alwayslike you like you like this,
too. I'm like, of course,because you come out of school,
you know how to pass an audit,you don't know how to negotiate
your fees. You don't know how tonegotiate your salaries, it's
(26:24):
all numbers. But if you don'thave that extra extra, how is
it? How are you going to makeit?
Stephen McLain (26:29):
Right, right?
Absolutely. So you talk aboutsaying no, and you said no, a
few minutes ago, too. So when itcomes down to working as a
finance and accountingprofessional, you're gonna get
requirements thrown at you everyday. And one of the things I
like to do is ask the priority,how important it may be
important to you, you're askingme for these numbers, or this
(26:50):
analysis, but I have to then fitit into the bigger picture
priority. And then I know I havea certain number of tasks there
to do over the next couple ofdays. Where does your
requirement fit into the bigpicture priority?
Wassia Kamon (27:07):
Yes. And how do I negotiate for extra help? That's
my The thing is, is how do Inegotiate not just for me, but
to have extra resources to havea better system implemented to
have a consultant helping me onthis? So a coach helped me go
through this. So that's why Ilove negotiation. Absolutely,
Stephen McLain (27:27):
no, that's a great, that's a great point,
that negotiating for help. Yes,we could talk about that
probably the rest of the day totry to figure out how to develop
that skill. I think this issomething that we all need to
really come back and look at ishow to negotiate for help the
additional tools. Like you said,it could be a consultant, it
could be another softwareanalytical tool, or it could be
(27:50):
somebody on the team could be anumber of number of reasons.
Some because because it takesmore than us sometimes to answer
the big picture question. And Ilove collaboration. Sometimes
people like to get in the officeand just kind of like, just sit
at their cubicle, and just workall day in an isolated position.
(28:12):
And you know, what the personwho might have the answer that
you're looking for might besitting right next to you. And
until you ask, you're probablynot going to get the answer,
you're gonna be frustrated allday trying to find an answer. So
no, I think that I think youmake a great point, that's a
great skill, that we all need tocontinue to grow and develop,
(28:34):
you know, the know, especiallywhen it fits into all the other
things we're trying to do. Andthen negotiating for help means
when to ask for another tool, ormaybe a piece of data, you may
be missing in your analysis. Sothank you so much, in that,
there's another tough topic thatI wanted to bring up before we
(28:55):
run out of time. Everybody'stalking about artificial
intelligence, particularlyartificial intelligence, when it
comes to the Accounting andFinance functions. There's so
much talking about it, and it'sreally shaping, you know, our
profession right now. What areyour thoughts on AI? And what
can accounting and financeprofessionals to do to prepare
(29:17):
for it? Is there going to takejobs away? Or is it going to
expand the profession
Wassia Kamon (29:22):
I think is going to change how we do accounting
because AI is truly fascinating.
And all the if I can call thederivatives right the things
that come out of it the factthat you can just type in a chat
and say give me the give me atrend of my last three months
like it's already in the it'salready happening in some of the
SDN a tool, because AI will gothrough get your actual data and
(29:46):
come in. There's two mainconcerns for me when it comes to
AI is one intellectual propertyand security of the data and or
the fact that people may befeeding confidential information
into it? How are we going to,you know, monitor that. The
(30:07):
second thing is replicating thethings we're trying to solve. So
if you looking at how peoplethink, because AI is just
bringing past, the way we weredoing something in the past, and
you still need the person tothink, Okay, what do I want it
to be moving forward? So if youask AI, for example, to give you
(30:30):
a picture of a CFO, and we'llgive you an old white male, for
example, right, we're trying toget more women to be CFOs. Okay,
so we are keep we It looks likewe can we will be again, without
the right intervention,repeating some of the things
that I want my daughter to belike, Hey, you can be all this,
if you pay. So these are my maintwo concern about it. But as far
(30:54):
as we'll replace our job, Ithink it's going to change how
we do things. And when you thinkabout it, with less people
entering the profession, we needto be more efficient. So if air
is going to help, I'm like,please come on. Because if
there's not a lot of people todo the work, right, let
technology elevate the work thatwe are currently doing with the
(31:16):
resources that we have. So Ithink there is value in AI, we
just have to be mindful of allthe other things that we should
consider as we implement it.
Right?
Stephen McLain (31:28):
And I think it can, it also emphasizes that
continued partnership with it.
Because your IT professionalsare going to be implementing the
technology, the algorithms, thesoftware, and then the hardware,
but also how are you buildingout those sets those datasets?
How's it? How's it evaluatingthe information that's coming
(31:52):
in? How's that? How's How'sthose tables arranged and
organized? And I think, I thinkthose are skills, we're going to
continue to need to develop andpartnering with the, with the IT
people what one of the thingsthat I continue to advocate, of
course, is partnership with it.
Yeah, even in even trying to youknow, this isn't necessarily an
(32:17):
AI related issue, but continuingto partnering with a with the IT
folks to build out your routinesolutions. Stuff that you can
continue to need to do. I want,you know, analysts and
accountants to move beyond yourroutine reporting, you can
probably, probably AI canprobably help in this in this
(32:40):
situation, where you automatethe routine. Yes, you spend more
time in analysis and problemsolving than pulling data and
developing a routine reporting.
Wassia Kamon (32:51):
Yes, cleaning data, reformatting, reshaping,
instead of doing the strategicthinking and all these other
great things we could do soyeah,
Stephen McLain (33:00):
right, right.
Absolutely. Again, AI is goingto continue to shape, you know,
how we view and how we grow inthis profession. And it probably
needs to be if it's not alreadyput in the university right now.
And how you start to adopt andsheep are, and how do you
implement AI and start workingin that kind of direction? So
(33:21):
another thing I wanted to askyou today, you work with the
nonprofit organization hopehelping other people be
empowered. Please share with uswhat hope does, what's your
role? Why does this organizationmatter? And where can we get
more information?
Wassia Kamon (33:43):
Oh, thank you. So hope is helping single parents
complete their educationdegrees. So a lot of our parents
come in and they have to do twothree jobs to provide for their
families. What we do is allowingthem to only have a full time
job while completing aneducation degree so they can
(34:04):
able to they can provide andhave and really boost the whole
community because it's kind of avicious cycle, right? You live
in a certain environment. Youcannot afford a home or a car
and then you don't have time tospend with your kids and then
you not have and then we keeprepeating the same cycle and the
government cannot do it all. Iagree. I'm currently on the
(34:27):
board. I'm the treasurer andmaking sure that we are able to
help people because a lot of alot of them just need a push. We
have single we have mom thatwere stay at home mom recently
divorced, didn't do didn't workfor like 10 years. And now they
in this situation then they gofrom I was living in a suburban
(34:49):
house to not fight in custodyfor my kids, right. I'm having
to reinvent my my you know, myskills have to work two jobs and
so We have lawyers that workwith us for on the pro bono
basis. So we able to at leasthave dual custody of the kids in
those time. While they're ableto work. It's not that they
(35:09):
don't want to work, right. Butthey just need help for that
season, it could be a year, itcould be two years, until they
become nurses are able to, youknow, go go do something else.
But it's really about empoweringthem and be that person that
will stand in the gap for themfor this difficult season of
their lives. And he has beensuch a rewarding experience. For
(35:30):
me personally, my parentsdivorced when I was 15. And I
saw how my mom wanted to be aPhD, but she had to switch she
had to take care of us. And so Iunderstand the struggle. It is
to be a single parent trying toprovide and having people to
come in and just help for thatseason makes such a big
(35:52):
difference. Oh, it
Stephen McLain (35:53):
absolutely does.
Now is hope, particularly inyour region where you're at, or
is it national, international.
So
Wassia Kamon (36:02):
we bring to other states but we mostly in Georgia,
but we starting helping peoplein different states.
Stephen McLain (36:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's such an incredible
organization, I took a look onthe website, I think you're
doing incredible work. I'm goingto put a link to the in the show
notes to hope. Thank you. And Ijust want to encourage everyone
who's listening to go look atthe website, go take a look. And
how can we take this samemission, what hope is doing into
(36:28):
every place to where we're,we're living and working. I
think it's an incredible work tohelp people give you a chance to
grow and build stand on theirown two feet. And I think you're
right, the government can't helpeverywhere. And hope is filling
a gap that the government can'tbe everywhere. And so I
(36:49):
appreciate the hard work thathope is doing. It's quite a
quite an amazing organization.
So thank you for doing that.
Wassia Kamon (36:56):
Thank you for sharing too.
Stephen McLain (36:58):
Absolutely. Hey, you mentioned the book earlier,
I wanted to ask you, what is abook that you recommend right
now for finance and accountingprofessionals? Oh,
Wassia Kamon (37:09):
none of them have to do with Excel. And, yeah,
there is a great book calleddata story by Nancy Duarte,
about storytelling with numbers.
One I love is multipliers by LizWiseman. So especially for new
leaders how you can grow yourteam. And then the one I'm
(37:30):
reading right now that I can'tput down the new kind of
diversity. And it's Tim Elmore,fascinating to hear like how
management is going to change asGen Z millennial coming to the
coming to place coming to power,quote unquote, and how we can
tap into the different strengthof different generations rather
(37:54):
than fighting. You asked me forone book I'm giving like three I
have taught. There is one Ialways recommend when you're
transitioning into a new rolethe first 90 days. And then if
you are moving into your firstexecutive role, I recommend the
(38:14):
leadership accelerator by AjitCampbell, he worked at Deloitte
and they were training newexecutives. And it's so
fascinating to go through thatbook. Because it shows you okay,
how do you deal with a personthat was passed over for
promotion? But that C suite?
(38:34):
Like it goes into the issues?
And you're like, Oh, I didn'tthink about that. Um, so great,
great, great book to read.
Stephen McLain (38:41):
Oh, incredible.
Love all those recommendations.
Thank you for those. I'm gonnago look and see if I have those
books. I don't think I've read.
I think I've read some of those.
But I'm gonna go back and findmy copies. If not, I'm getting
those copies. Yeah, thank you somuch. Thanks. So even so other
than work, and your passion withhope, do you have any hobbies?
(39:03):
What kind of what do you do forfun?
Wassia Kamon (39:05):
I eat. Okay, I love cooking. I love cooking and
I love cooking different foods.
So, um, at some point, I waslearning almost all Jamaican
recipes. And then he was Indianrecipes. And I'll call any
friends I have because I lovewhen I talk about diversity,
like diversity in my own life aswell. And I love trying
(39:26):
different foods, differentspices and yeah, I just have to
pair it with working out. That'smy struggle right now. But the
thing I do for fun is cooking.
And, and my husband does thedishes, do the dishes, so it
works well.
Stephen McLain (39:46):
That's good.
Yes. Love that.
Wassia Kamon (39:49):
Have you do some coaching? Uh huh.
Stephen McLain (39:54):
Where can we find your resources, your
website, coaching opportunities.
Wassia Kamon (39:59):
So The website is beyond certifications that calm.
I currently do like peer to peermentoring with a community
because I had so many requestsand my schedule can only
accommodate for so much. So weactually had a our monthly live
yesterday was awesome. And thenI have office hours. So I'll
(40:21):
come in. And if you want to joinme for a one on one, you feel
free to join. But that's how I'mable to share, you know, and
helping others in that field. Soyou can learn more about it on
beyond certification.com. I'malso a guest contributor. And
I've been a ghostwriter forpeople's LinkedIn post, which
is, yeah, so writing is one ofmy New Years, I need to get
(40:48):
better at writing. So I'mgetting all these requests to
write articles or to write postsfor people that like, he can
write four posts for me a month,I'll pay, you just do the full
post. I'm like, sure, I like totalk, I'll use your voice. And
so I've been able to do that aswell, which is critical. And
also sharpening my communicationskills, right. Because as
(41:10):
accountant, we think a certainway, but to be able to do
creative writing. And anaccountant is actually tough. So
I'm, I'm stretching myself thatway, and I'm really enjoying it.
Stephen McLain (41:20):
Oh, that sounds amazing. You have such a heart
for people. And I appreciatethat. I wish more people would
adopt that same philosophy thatyou're doing, trying to help
grow this profession, helppeople out there who need, you
know, a little bit ofencouragement, and then also
(41:41):
matching up resources to peoplewho needed to get a little help
to get a little Yes, starter outthere. So thank you so much for
being such a beacon of hope andhelp out there for all of us
that are out here. So Iappreciate you so much. Thank
you so much for joining thepodcast. It was an incredible
(42:02):
discussion. I wish you theabsolute best. And thank you for
everything you're doing. And I'mlooking for the next LinkedIn
post that you're putting us up.
Wassia Kamon (42:11):
Stephen, thank you so much for having me.
Stephen McLain (42:14):
All right. Take care.
Wow, what incredible insights Ireally enjoyed this discussion
with SIA shared some amazingadvice, and she has a real heart
for people. Now that isleadership. We all need to apply
the insights that we heardtoday. I can't wait to get her
back on a future episode. I hopeyou enjoyed the finance leader
(42:37):
podcast. I am focused on helpingthis community to become more
confident finance leaderscapable of transforming
organizations. You can find thisepisode wherever you listen to
podcasts. If this episode helpedyou today, please share with a
colleague and leave a quickreview. Until next time, you can
check out more resources atfinance ninja academy.com and
(43:01):
sign up for my weekly updates soyou don't miss an episode of the
podcast. And now go lead yourteam. And I'll see you next
time. Thank you
This week I am sharing my interview with Wassia
Kamon. Vice President of Financeand Corporate Controller of the
low income investment fund youwill see is an amazing leader in
the finance and accountingcommunity. And you can find her
sharing realistic actionableadvice on her LinkedIn profile.
Please enjoy the episode.
Welcome to the finance leaderpodcast where leadership is
(00:28):
bigger than the numbers. I amyour host, Stephen McLain. This
is the podcast for developingleaders in finance and
accounting. Please considerfollowing me on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, andLinkedIn. My usernames and the
links are in this episode's shownotes. Thank you. This is
episode number 119. And let'sget right to the interview with
(00:50):
with Wassia, please enjoy. I amjoined today by Wassia Kamon.
The Vice President of Financeand Corporate Controller of the
low income investment fund withWassia was also recently
recognized by practice advisoras a 40. Under 40 accounting
professional, she is widelyrecognized as an innovative
(01:13):
voice for finance and accountingprofessionals who want to grow
in their career. And I'm honoredto welcome her to the finance
leader podcast. Please tell usmore about you.
Wassia Kamon (01:26):
Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. It's
such a joy to be here. As yousaid, I'm Wassia and what Wassia
means something you cannot burnin my native language. I'm
originally from Ivory Coast,West Africa. And I came here
when I was 17. And it's been along journey. I started out in
accounting at Georgia StateUniversity and went all the way
(01:48):
up. Did public accounting didn'tlike it been in corporate
finance and accounting sincethen, as you said, I'm the
current VP of Finance andCorporate Controller at the low
income investment fund. We helpwith mostly affordable housing
and community development,something I'm very passionate
about. As I'm also passionateabout helping other
(02:12):
professionals, I always lookback and see. Okay, if I was
talking to me 15-20 years ago,what would I say? And it's from
that perspective that I post onLinkedIn that I write articles.
And then I'm also have acommunity called strategic
achievers, where we're able tohelp others in that journey.
Stephen McLain (02:33):
That's amazing.
I love your story. And I'malways looking forward to that
next post on LinkedIn. Yeah, soI appreciate everything you're
doing in this community to makemega all better. I appreciate
you so much.
Wassia Kamon (02:46):
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Stephen McLain (02:48):
One of the things I wanted to talk to you
today about is the future ofaccounting as a profession. The
Wall Street Journal reported inOctober 2023, that we are seeing
fewer students entering theaccounting field. And they
mentioned pay as a major reason.
Accounting is often a primegateway for understanding
business fundamentals. And alsofor advancement into senior
(03:10):
roles. It's easy to say, justraise pay. But why did
accounting entry level rolesfall so far behind and pay? And
what can executive leaders do toreverse this? And what advice
would you give youngprofessionals who are passionate
about studying accounting, evena starting pay has fallen
behind?
Wassia Kamon (03:31):
I think to me accounting as a profession, we
have that stigma, right? We wedon't have people don't always
see the value of what we bring.
And as we have not been able toraise our prices, as partners or
companies are able to show thatwe can do more than number
crunching and processinginvoices. We still in that view
(03:53):
of okay, you know, 50,000 isgood. When I started back in
2009. I think as a staffaccountant, the annual salary
was 45,000. I was rejoicing, butthen you look like how many
years later and is the samestarting salary. Other fields
(04:14):
are starting at 75 by 200. Andso for young professionals who
know like people in accounting,they see that the cost of
tuition is here. And so if mystarting salary is here, okay,
how do I bridge the gap? Andit's very sad. I saw a statistic
(04:36):
that said that there is a lot ofaccountants accounting students
saying that accounting is theirmajor when they enter college,
but only about 50% actuallygraduate in accounting. So they
get in and because we doaccounting, you have to be good
at a lot of things. And they seeother options and they end up
majoring in other fields.
Stephen McLain (05:00):
Yeah, that's tough for our profession,
because we want that continuingpipeline of, of young people
coming into this profession. Ithink it's something that we all
need to address as seniorleaders in this profession, and
work to figure out why that wefall so far behind and continue
to grow that passion. So thankyou so much for that. One of the
(05:24):
things that you do is try toemphasize your value. As you
move up in your career, you're avoice and advocate for middle
managers who want to run seniorroles. You're sharing a story of
trial and error, seeing yourvalue potential for more senior
roles. And you'll highlight notto chase more credentials, you
emphasize soft skills,especially, please share how you
(05:46):
can highlight your value toothers. So you get the
opportunity for more seniorroles. And let us know how you
use LinkedIn as a channel toshowcase your value.
Wassia Kamon (05:56):
Yes, that's a very packed question. So I'll start
with why do I talk about movingbeyond certification. So right
out of college, they were likego for the CPA, I went for the
CPA. Then I wanted to do FPN Athat I go for the CMA I went for
it. So I went for everything.
People told me to go for that.
(06:17):
So I have so many letters behindmy name. And then I realized I
had all these letters, but I'mnot where I want to be in my
career. I'm reporting like Ihave yet to report to a boss, I
had that many letters behindtheir name. And yet, these
bosses are great. And I realizedthat it wasn't their
certification, they were so goodat other things. So while I was
(06:38):
chasing their certifications, Iended up isolating myself and
not developing all the otherstuff that my bosses have been
doing. They've been honing onthe negotiation skills, knowing
how to talk to different peoplein different department, they
know how to articulate theirimpact, right now just talk
(06:59):
about the tasks they did. Butthe impact they had. And I was
just focused on, you know,tasks, tasks, tasks. But as you
move up the ladder in anorganization, or as you just
have to start hiring, promoting,coaching, firing, having
different difficultconversation, you know, having
(07:20):
to do all these things, yourealize, well, technical
accounting, and those tasks aregreat, but they're not going to
be able to get me to the levelswhere I want to be. So that's
really how I started talkingabout beyond certification, my
website is called Beyondcertifications.com. Because I
want to make sure that weunderstand that we should be
(07:42):
focused more on just knowing thelatest excels tricks. Like when
you get to a VP level, youprobably have people working for
you to help you with Excel, orconsultant, there's other things
that your attention should befocused on. So that was the
first thing about thealternative vacations, then how
do you articulate your value?
When we are in accounting, wethink in terms of or close the
(08:06):
month, okay, what does it meanfor the business that you did
that?
Stephen McLain (08:12):
Right
Wassia Kamon (08:13):
If the if you come to a one on one, for example,
your managers, do you preparebefore you go on your one on
one, you just show up? Andyou're waiting for the manager
to tell you what's going on? Ordo you come prepared, ready to
explain? These are the things Idid? These are the problems I'm
solving. This is how I'm makingprogress. Or by the way, you
(08:33):
didn't ask about this. But Ialso thought we could do this.
So I come with a problem and aproposed solution. Or when you
join an organization, andthey're like, hey, introduce
yourself. Do you go Hi, I'm soso happy to be here. Or do you
go hey, I'm so and so. I've beenin this field for the past 15
years helping doing ABC. And I'mso excited to bring this onto
(08:56):
this company and helping thedepartment move forward? Do you
have a power introduction? Sobeyond even getting on LinkedIn,
it starts with how youarticulate your value, and how
you show up in whatever settingsyou are. And that's
Stephen McLain (09:13):
amazing. I really liked it. I love what
you're talking about. They'reemphasizing that value. Thank
you, you and you were talkingabout showing up to that one on
one. Not just waiting for yourboss to initiate the discussion.
But you coming in was showingoff the projects you're working
on? And how how you made it madea difference on a particular
(09:35):
project and how you solved aparticular problem. Yes,
Wassia Kamon (09:39):
you have to show up like a rock star. That's what
I pushed everyone in mycommunity to do. I'm like, we
you have to show up like a rockstar. You have to be your number
one cheerleader, because we'reelsewhere. Okay? Your managers
have their own set of trubtrials and priorities. If you
show up as one more burden, youNo is not going to work.
Stephen McLain (10:01):
Right? Exactly.
Because the senior leaders,managers want people who are
going to solve, take action andnot wait for you to tell them
what to do. Or you to step inwhen there's a problem. Yeah. So
that kind of goes against, youknow, some of the current trends
of quiet quitting. And like, I'mjust going to show up and do my
(10:22):
minimum, I'm gonna, you know,separate my work life, from my
after work life. And it stilltakes going that little extra
mile, in order to show yourvalue so that you can go ahead
and get that next promotion andnext upgrade opportunity. Yes.
Wassia Kamon (10:41):
And I think people think that you have to work
overtime to articulate yourvalue, or to do what's needed
and it doesn't, you actuallyable to do it by saying no, most
of the time. So let's say youhave, your boss comes in, and
you have three projects, theywant to give you two, okay? You
(11:01):
have that ethic of wanting to beknown as a personal brand of
excellence, you have to be ableto negotiate and say if I take
these two, these other two haveto be have to take the
backstage, so I can focus onthat. You have to be careful
with the kind of tasks you takeon, you're not just going to be
showing up. You're trying to bea VP and all you do during the
(11:24):
meetings taking notes. You'renot an admin, like what are you
doing? Are you doing the nonpromotable tasks are the
promotable task. So even within40 hours a week, you can show up
like a rock star, and get itdone?
Stephen McLain (11:39):
Oh, my gosh, that's incredible. You said
promotable tasks versus nonpromotable tasks. Are you a part
of this process? Are you justtaking notes? Are you part of
the solution? Are you justwaiting for somebody to tell you
what the answer is? i That'samazing. To continue to
communicate that, to the peopleout there, you know, what are
(12:02):
you doing to show up to showyour value? That's an incredible
message that you could continueto carry, which is what every
post that you do on LinkedIn, soI'm encouraging everybody out
there, find, find you and watchthe read your posts, and then
back to yourself and what you'redoing at work. I appreciate
(12:23):
that. Thank you. There's anotherthing that I wanted to ask you
today. And that's thattransition to FPN. A, if you're
an accounting professional, Ibelieve that to be ready for
senior leader roles in finance,we need well rounded
professionals. But moving onfrom accounting roles to
financial planning and analysiscan be intimidating for some if
(12:45):
the role of F PNA is verydifferent. For example,
financial analysts have to findroot causes from metrics and
KPIs that are not performing.
And it often takes looking atnot so obvious data. To do so in
partnering to dig into extremedetails. Please share your
advice for making thattransition. What skills do you
(13:05):
need to develop? And how do youmake that transition?
Wassia Kamon (13:11):
So I'll share first how my transition went. So
I was working as back then I wasAccounting Manager. And we don't
have a FP&A a department and asthe company grew, and that
became controller, it becameokay, you're doing 25% FP&A,
because you have to deal with abudget, and then you're doing
75% everything else. And so Istarted liking the FP&A part
(13:35):
because you get to talk topeople and I'm an extrovert, I
talk a lot. So I was like, Oh,this is so cool. And from then I
was like I want to do FP&A 100%And that's when I had I went on
to have my first full 100% FP&Arole. And I will tell you, the
first struggle is letting go ofthe mindset of he has to be
(13:57):
precise. See in accounting,everything has to tie you when
you present and you have aframework revenues goes on this
line expenses of that line, itgoes in this GL so you very used
to having structure and havingprecision, and then you get an F
PNA and it's about hey, what dowe think the numbers in the next
(14:20):
few years are going to be andyou're like what do I base it
on? Right? I so you startfeeling uncomfortable? Because
you don't have that exact Thisis an invoice the accrual is 50%
of it like you don't have thatprecision and so you can feel
uncomfortable around. Okay, nowI have to track this. Now I have
(14:42):
to take non financial metrics.
What is that? I'm used to justnumbers, what do you mean turn?
Like it's a lot of other thingsthat you have to be comfortable
with. And I think the first stepis embracing the fact that you
will be able to thrive in ancertainty. Once you have that
mindset, then the rest becomeeasy. Because you realize, okay,
(15:05):
now I have to connect withpeople. And that's where the
communication skills come handy.
Because in accounting, youtypically work with people
within your department, or whenpeople come to you is really
full, a saying the same type ofconversation, I need this
invoice old set of thesevendors. So your communications
(15:26):
are very structured, and theydon't go into Oh, this is a
strategic vision we have forthis. How do I record this?
Right? So you move from havingthe right mindset of dealing
with uncertainty, to thengetting into strategic thinking,
and then your communicationskill added to your
negotiations, right? Because youhave to push the business as
(15:49):
well as and make decisions. Asyou partner with them, you also
have to challenge them, right?
Because we can't just buythings, we have a budget, like
we can just do certain things,why are we doing this. So having
those soft skills, and beingable to also create report that
makes sense, because again,we're coming from accounting,
(16:12):
there's an ERP that spit out thesame report, we have the same
roll forward every month. Nowthat one dashboard, it has to be
cute, and presentations. And soyou have to start learning all
these other tools like Power BIis great, what FPN a tool other
using and how you going topresent that information in a
(16:33):
way that's easy to understand bynon accounting people.
Stephen McLain (16:39):
Absolutely, completely agree what you're
what you're saying what I alwaystry to advocate for if you are
working on the FPN a side, andyou are responding to that
particular metric, go find theexpert who's actually working
that particular metric. And yes,find out everything that he has
with that metric, let's say youhave to track what was spent for
(17:05):
a transportation company willtry to get all of the variables
that affected fuel price andfuel usage. And then you go talk
to that person. And then you gotalk to the person who sits next
to that person and try to digand dig and dig and try to find
all these root causes of whyfuel. Maybe a fuel usage has
(17:27):
gone high for the last fewmonths and suddenly drops down
to the lower. So the other thingthat I that I want you to talk
about is when you're going intopresent, like you said, it's not
precise. And you're going to bechallenged on your numbers. A
senior leader is going to lookat what you're presenting, and
(17:48):
they're going to try to pokeholes in everything you're
doing. So how do you respond?
How do you build up thatresilience when someone's
challenging you on your numbers?
Oh,
Wassia Kamon (17:59):
guys such a great question. So to me it start with
how you preparing thepresentation, okay, I like to
have meetings before meetings tounderstand who will be in
attendance and what matters tothem. And I poke holes in my own
presentation, I'm trying to doit from different viewpoints.
I'm trying to get otherviewpoints as well on how I'm
(18:20):
going to present. And at the endof the day, somebody will always
find something, right. And yeah,there will always be somebody
that like, Oh, I didn't likethis. Okay, I did my best. And
I'm comfortable with what I didwrite, and I have the backup for
and the assumptions for all thethings that I did. So when I
(18:43):
started, I always had like anappendix of other slides. So
people could also understand,okay, if you if you want more
info about this bar, you can goto appendix like, you know,
number 25. Somewhere, that I tryto not have too many slides in
the presentations, right? Butmaking sure that they
understand, okay, this is wherethe assumptions came from. And
(19:04):
really about confidence when youknow your numbers and when
they're coming from. It showsup. And he goes back to personal
branding, right? Okay, this ismy brand. I'm all about
accidents, I did the work, I didmy best.
Stephen McLain (19:18):
Absolutely. You have to have that confidence,
you have to know whatmethodology you use. You have
that backup information, youknow how you calculated the
number, and you can explain it.
And that's really what they'relooking for. And most of the
time is that how did you come upwith this projection? How did
you come up with, you know, theexplanation of why your metric
changed, you know, for the lastthree or four months and what
(19:40):
happened? And that's what thatbuilding that confidence going
and talking with everybody thathas to do with your metric,
getting all the backgroundinformation and coming in with a
fact or something that no oneelse knows that explains why
that number may have moved in acertain direction. So I could
talk FP and a all day long heldpeople Yeah. And it's, it's
(20:05):
quite a, it's quite atransition, I'm also have a
background in accounting, andgoing from that precise to the
imprecise and trying to explainhow, how something is happening,
how, how the business is beingaffected by this particular
metric. It's absolutely amazing.
(20:26):
And it's quite an opportunityfor someone to like, like really
get in and try to figure out andtry to support those senior
leaders in executing thatstrategy. So thank you so much
for that, for that background. Iappreciate you. Yeah. thing.
Yeah. One of the other things wewant to talk about is
leadership. You posted recentlyon LinkedIn asking if managers
(20:50):
were provided with leadershiptraining, before moving on to
their new role. Now, this is mybiggest passion, growing our
leadership skills. How do yousee developing leadership skills
as a way to advance your careerto more senior roles?
Wassia Kamon (21:06):
Yes, senior roles, it's all about leadership.
Because when you are startingout, your performance is based
on task. And your ability towork is the task you do as an
individual contributor. As youmove up, your work is done
through relationships, it's notdone by you is done by your
(21:27):
team, because you cannot do itall. Absolutely. So you have to
be able to move from okay, Icomfortable because I did it to
how do I get my people to becomfortable and do it the right
way? How do I motivate them? Howdo I coach them? How do I make
sure they have the tools to dowhat's needed, because now my
(21:52):
work is no longer just my workis our work. And unfortunately,
like many people like me, I wentfrom being a senior accountant
to be an accounting manager. AndI went from being by myself to
managing six people, and half ofthem were older than me. We
don't always talk aboutdiversity of age, we always
(22:14):
think about color or gender, butdifferent kinds of diversity as
well. So I went from being ableto do all my stuff. Now I have
to lead month in and I have toget people who's more
experienced than me, right tofollow, like where I want us to
go as a team, how do I take intheir input? How do we push in
(22:35):
push back? And I didn't have anytraining. So yes, it was hectic.
And I find it sad that a lot ofmanagers are thrown into
leadership that way. So manytimes, so many people responded,
it happened to me. And there wasa study that said that usually
people get promoted to theirfirst management role. By the
(22:58):
time they're 30. But they onlystart getting executive coaching
and training when they're in the50s. So you have 20 years of,
we're gonna figure it out. Andthat's how you get
micromanagers. That's how youget people being burned out.
That's how you have people likeme at some point, like, I don't
(23:18):
want my boss job. Please allpromote me, I don't want your
job. Absolutely, because we'retrying to figure out, and it
shouldn't be that way.
Stephen McLain (23:29):
Right. So the point is to try to get that
leadership training earlier onin the career. So they're
equipped with tools and exactlywhat you're talking about.
You're probably leading a teamthat's diverse, completely
different backgrounds from you.
And you're trying to motivateand inspire your team to produce
excellent work and how do you dothat? So that so that comes to
(23:51):
my next question is please sharesome of those leadership tools
that you use that a new FPN a oraccounting manager can adopt to
help lead their team when theyface so many requirements, and
lots of distractions each day.
Wassia Kamon (24:09):
For me, the first thing is having support. I can't
say that enough, becauseespecially the way things are
now and that's how I started mycommunity. People need support,
even as you go through becauselet's say you have the
leadership training, right, mostof those youth training is what
a two day off site. Okay, lifeis going on. 365 days. So,
(24:32):
right. It was great. I learnedgreat concept in the two days.
But unfortunately, companies arenot always keeping the
consultant on to you know, keepthat relationship throughout the
year. Oh, great, man. You havethe two days and the consultant
is gone. Okay, what do you dothe rest of the time? So finding
support is like to me the numberone thing, I have a personal
(24:56):
board of directors, people thatI lean on and I can call it go
What should I do? You know,having that support, whether
it's a personal board ofdirectors having a coach, in
addition to the traditionalforms of leadership training is
important. You're going to haveto read books to accelerate your
learning. I'm reading a greatone right now called the new
(25:17):
kind of diversity by Tim Elmore,all talking about, oh, it's
great, great book, it's talkingabout how we have four or five
generations in the workforce onteams, how do you bring them
together? Right? So you have tokeep educating yourself because
things change, like how we talkabout di today or not Di? Like
(25:41):
there are topics that were notin couple years ago, now they're
a thing, how do you adapt to it?
To me, you really need to havethat support, being able to make
lifelong learning a priority.
And understanding that you willall you will not always have the
the answer. Like it's that's notwhat leadership is about. It's
not like I know it all. I haveto know it all. But I have to do
(26:04):
my best to support the people Ihave. So part of it is
developing those soft skillssaying no is my favorite one
negotiation, people are alwayslike you like you like this,
too. I'm like, of course,because you come out of school,
you know how to pass an audit,you don't know how to negotiate
your fees. You don't know how tonegotiate your salaries, it's
(26:24):
all numbers. But if you don'thave that extra extra, how is
it? How are you going to makeit?
Stephen McLain (26:29):
Right, right?
Absolutely. So you talk aboutsaying no, and you said no, a
few minutes ago, too. So when itcomes down to working as a
finance and accountingprofessional, you're gonna get
requirements thrown at you everyday. And one of the things I
like to do is ask the priority,how important it may be
important to you, you're askingme for these numbers, or this
(26:50):
analysis, but I have to then fitit into the bigger picture
priority. And then I know I havea certain number of tasks there
to do over the next couple ofdays. Where does your
requirement fit into the bigpicture priority?
Wassia Kamon (27:07):
Yes. And how do I negotiate for extra help? That's
my The thing is, is how do Inegotiate not just for me, but
to have extra resources to havea better system implemented to
have a consultant helping me onthis? So a coach helped me go
through this. So that's why Ilove negotiation. Absolutely,
Stephen McLain (27:27):
no, that's a great, that's a great point,
that negotiating for help. Yes,we could talk about that
probably the rest of the day totry to figure out how to develop
that skill. I think this issomething that we all need to
really come back and look at ishow to negotiate for help the
additional tools. Like you said,it could be a consultant, it
could be another softwareanalytical tool, or it could be
(27:50):
somebody on the team could be anumber of number of reasons.
Some because because it takesmore than us sometimes to answer
the big picture question. And Ilove collaboration. Sometimes
people like to get in the officeand just kind of like, just sit
at their cubicle, and just workall day in an isolated position.
(28:12):
And you know, what the personwho might have the answer that
you're looking for might besitting right next to you. And
until you ask, you're probablynot going to get the answer,
you're gonna be frustrated allday trying to find an answer. So
no, I think that I think youmake a great point, that's a
great skill, that we all need tocontinue to grow and develop,
(28:34):
you know, the know, especiallywhen it fits into all the other
things we're trying to do. Andthen negotiating for help means
when to ask for another tool, ormaybe a piece of data, you may
be missing in your analysis. Sothank you so much, in that,
there's another tough topic thatI wanted to bring up before we
(28:55):
run out of time. Everybody'stalking about artificial
intelligence, particularlyartificial intelligence, when it
comes to the Accounting andFinance functions. There's so
much talking about it, and it'sreally shaping, you know, our
profession right now. What areyour thoughts on AI? And what
can accounting and financeprofessionals to do to prepare
(29:17):
for it? Is there going to takejobs away? Or is it going to
expand the profession
Wassia Kamon (29:22):
I think is going to change how we do accounting
because AI is truly fascinating.
And all the if I can call thederivatives right the things
that come out of it the factthat you can just type in a chat
and say give me the give me atrend of my last three months
like it's already in the it'salready happening in some of the
SDN a tool, because AI will gothrough get your actual data and
(29:46):
come in. There's two mainconcerns for me when it comes to
AI is one intellectual propertyand security of the data and or
the fact that people may befeeding confidential information
into it? How are we going to,you know, monitor that. The
(30:07):
second thing is replicating thethings we're trying to solve. So
if you looking at how peoplethink, because AI is just
bringing past, the way we weredoing something in the past, and
you still need the person tothink, Okay, what do I want it
to be moving forward? So if youask AI, for example, to give you
(30:30):
a picture of a CFO, and we'llgive you an old white male, for
example, right, we're trying toget more women to be CFOs. Okay,
so we are keep we It looks likewe can we will be again, without
the right intervention,repeating some of the things
that I want my daughter to belike, Hey, you can be all this,
if you pay. So these are my maintwo concern about it. But as far
(30:54):
as we'll replace our job, Ithink it's going to change how
we do things. And when you thinkabout it, with less people
entering the profession, we needto be more efficient. So if air
is going to help, I'm like,please come on. Because if
there's not a lot of people todo the work, right, let
technology elevate the work thatwe are currently doing with the
(31:16):
resources that we have. So Ithink there is value in AI, we
just have to be mindful of allthe other things that we should
consider as we implement it.
Right?
Stephen McLain (31:28):
And I think it can, it also emphasizes that
continued partnership with it.
Because your IT professionalsare going to be implementing the
technology, the algorithms, thesoftware, and then the hardware,
but also how are you buildingout those sets those datasets?
How's it? How's it evaluatingthe information that's coming
(31:52):
in? How's that? How's How'sthose tables arranged and
organized? And I think, I thinkthose are skills, we're going to
continue to need to develop andpartnering with the, with the IT
people what one of the thingsthat I continue to advocate, of
course, is partnership with it.
Yeah, even in even trying to youknow, this isn't necessarily an
(32:17):
AI related issue, but continuingto partnering with a with the IT
folks to build out your routinesolutions. Stuff that you can
continue to need to do. I want,you know, analysts and
accountants to move beyond yourroutine reporting, you can
probably, probably AI canprobably help in this in this
(32:40):
situation, where you automatethe routine. Yes, you spend more
time in analysis and problemsolving than pulling data and
developing a routine reporting.
Wassia Kamon (32:51):
Yes, cleaning data, reformatting, reshaping,
instead of doing the strategicthinking and all these other
great things we could do soyeah,
Stephen McLain (33:00):
right, right.
Absolutely. Again, AI is goingto continue to shape, you know,
how we view and how we grow inthis profession. And it probably
needs to be if it's not alreadyput in the university right now.
And how you start to adopt andsheep are, and how do you
implement AI and start workingin that kind of direction? So
(33:21):
another thing I wanted to askyou today, you work with the
nonprofit organization hopehelping other people be
empowered. Please share with uswhat hope does, what's your
role? Why does this organizationmatter? And where can we get
more information?
Wassia Kamon (33:43):
Oh, thank you. So hope is helping single parents
complete their educationdegrees. So a lot of our parents
come in and they have to do twothree jobs to provide for their
families. What we do is allowingthem to only have a full time
job while completing aneducation degree so they can
(34:04):
able to they can provide andhave and really boost the whole
community because it's kind of avicious cycle, right? You live
in a certain environment. Youcannot afford a home or a car
and then you don't have time tospend with your kids and then
you not have and then we keeprepeating the same cycle and the
government cannot do it all. Iagree. I'm currently on the
(34:27):
board. I'm the treasurer andmaking sure that we are able to
help people because a lot of alot of them just need a push. We
have single we have mom thatwere stay at home mom recently
divorced, didn't do didn't workfor like 10 years. And now they
in this situation then they gofrom I was living in a suburban
(34:49):
house to not fight in custodyfor my kids, right. I'm having
to reinvent my my you know, myskills have to work two jobs and
so We have lawyers that workwith us for on the pro bono
basis. So we able to at leasthave dual custody of the kids in
those time. While they're ableto work. It's not that they
(35:09):
don't want to work, right. Butthey just need help for that
season, it could be a year, itcould be two years, until they
become nurses are able to, youknow, go go do something else.
But it's really about empoweringthem and be that person that
will stand in the gap for themfor this difficult season of
their lives. And he has beensuch a rewarding experience. For
(35:30):
me personally, my parentsdivorced when I was 15. And I
saw how my mom wanted to be aPhD, but she had to switch she
had to take care of us. And so Iunderstand the struggle. It is
to be a single parent trying toprovide and having people to
come in and just help for thatseason makes such a big
(35:52):
difference. Oh, it
Stephen McLain (35:53):
absolutely does.
Now is hope, particularly inyour region where you're at, or
is it national, international.
So
Wassia Kamon (36:02):
we bring to other states but we mostly in Georgia,
but we starting helping peoplein different states.
Stephen McLain (36:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's such an incredible
organization, I took a look onthe website, I think you're
doing incredible work. I'm goingto put a link to the in the show
notes to hope. Thank you. And Ijust want to encourage everyone
who's listening to go look atthe website, go take a look. And
how can we take this samemission, what hope is doing into
(36:28):
every place to where we're,we're living and working. I
think it's an incredible work tohelp people give you a chance to
grow and build stand on theirown two feet. And I think you're
right, the government can't helpeverywhere. And hope is filling
a gap that the government can'tbe everywhere. And so I
(36:49):
appreciate the hard work thathope is doing. It's quite a
quite an amazing organization.
So thank you for doing that.
Wassia Kamon (36:56):
Thank you for sharing too.
Stephen McLain (36:58):
Absolutely. Hey, you mentioned the book earlier,
I wanted to ask you, what is abook that you recommend right
now for finance and accountingprofessionals? Oh,
Wassia Kamon (37:09):
none of them have to do with Excel. And, yeah,
there is a great book calleddata story by Nancy Duarte,
about storytelling with numbers.
One I love is multipliers by LizWiseman. So especially for new
leaders how you can grow yourteam. And then the one I'm
(37:30):
reading right now that I can'tput down the new kind of
diversity. And it's Tim Elmore,fascinating to hear like how
management is going to change asGen Z millennial coming to the
coming to place coming to power,quote unquote, and how we can
tap into the different strengthof different generations rather
(37:54):
than fighting. You asked me forone book I'm giving like three I
have taught. There is one Ialways recommend when you're
transitioning into a new rolethe first 90 days. And then if
you are moving into your firstexecutive role, I recommend the
(38:14):
leadership accelerator by AjitCampbell, he worked at Deloitte
and they were training newexecutives. And it's so
fascinating to go through thatbook. Because it shows you okay,
how do you deal with a personthat was passed over for
promotion? But that C suite?
(38:34):
Like it goes into the issues?
And you're like, Oh, I didn'tthink about that. Um, so great,
great, great book to read.
Stephen McLain (38:41):
Oh, incredible.
Love all those recommendations.
Thank you for those. I'm gonnago look and see if I have those
books. I don't think I've read.
I think I've read some of those.
But I'm gonna go back and findmy copies. If not, I'm getting
those copies. Yeah, thank you somuch. Thanks. So even so other
than work, and your passion withhope, do you have any hobbies?
(39:03):
What kind of what do you do forfun?
Wassia Kamon (39:05):
I eat. Okay, I love cooking. I love cooking and
I love cooking different foods.
So, um, at some point, I waslearning almost all Jamaican
recipes. And then he was Indianrecipes. And I'll call any
friends I have because I lovewhen I talk about diversity,
like diversity in my own life aswell. And I love trying
(39:26):
different foods, differentspices and yeah, I just have to
pair it with working out. That'smy struggle right now. But the
thing I do for fun is cooking.
And, and my husband does thedishes, do the dishes, so it
works well.
Stephen McLain (39:46):
That's good.
Yes. Love that.
Wassia Kamon (39:49):
Have you do some coaching? Uh huh.
Stephen McLain (39:54):
Where can we find your resources, your
website, coaching opportunities.
Wassia Kamon (39:59):
So The website is beyond certifications that calm.
I currently do like peer to peermentoring with a community
because I had so many requestsand my schedule can only
accommodate for so much. So weactually had a our monthly live
yesterday was awesome. And thenI have office hours. So I'll
(40:21):
come in. And if you want to joinme for a one on one, you feel
free to join. But that's how I'mable to share, you know, and
helping others in that field. Soyou can learn more about it on
beyond certification.com. I'malso a guest contributor. And
I've been a ghostwriter forpeople's LinkedIn post, which
is, yeah, so writing is one ofmy New Years, I need to get
(40:48):
better at writing. So I'mgetting all these requests to
write articles or to write postsfor people that like, he can
write four posts for me a month,I'll pay, you just do the full
post. I'm like, sure, I like totalk, I'll use your voice. And
so I've been able to do that aswell, which is critical. And
also sharpening my communicationskills, right. Because as
(41:10):
accountant, we think a certainway, but to be able to do
creative writing. And anaccountant is actually tough. So
I'm, I'm stretching myself thatway, and I'm really enjoying it.
Stephen McLain (41:20):
Oh, that sounds amazing. You have such a heart
for people. And I appreciatethat. I wish more people would
adopt that same philosophy thatyou're doing, trying to help
grow this profession, helppeople out there who need, you
know, a little bit ofencouragement, and then also
(41:41):
matching up resources to peoplewho needed to get a little help
to get a little Yes, starter outthere. So thank you so much for
being such a beacon of hope andhelp out there for all of us
that are out here. So Iappreciate you so much. Thank
you so much for joining thepodcast. It was an incredible
(42:02):
discussion. I wish you theabsolute best. And thank you for
everything you're doing. And I'mlooking for the next LinkedIn
post that you're putting us up.
Wassia Kamon (42:11):
Stephen, thank you so much for having me.
Stephen McLain (42:14):
All right. Take care.
Wow, what incredible insights Ireally enjoyed this discussion
with SIA shared some amazingadvice, and she has a real heart
for people. Now that isleadership. We all need to apply
the insights that we heardtoday. I can't wait to get her
back on a future episode. I hopeyou enjoyed the finance leader
(42:37):
podcast. I am focused on helpingthis community to become more
confident finance leaderscapable of transforming
organizations. You can find thisepisode wherever you listen to
podcasts. If this episode helpedyou today, please share with a
colleague and leave a quickreview. Until next time, you can
check out more resources atfinance ninja academy.com and
(43:01):
sign up for my weekly updates soyou don't miss an episode of the
podcast. And now go lead yourteam. And I'll see you next
time. Thank you
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