Modernizing Finance Without Losing the Human Element

We're not always going to know the answer, but if you can be flexible and be supportive. As we're trying to understand data, we're trying to understand information, trying to understand how we're going to spend money and be comfortable being a little uncomfortable. That to me is a real key as success on the teams that I try to build. Welcome back to CFO Weekly where we're talking with financial leaders about how to build efficiency in their teams, create time for strategy, and ultimately get results. This podcast is brought to you by personiv, the trusted leader in finance and accounting outsourcing for over 30 years. See how Persaniv's customized solutions can help you streamline your operations with teams that start as small as one. Visit the website@personiv.com to learn more. I'm your host, Megan Wiese. Let's jump right in. Welcome back to CFO Weekly. Today I'm joined by Jill Howe, Chief financial officer at LineageCell Therapeutics, a biotech company developing innovative cell therapies for conditions including spinal cord injury, age related macular degeneration. Jill brings more than two decades of leadership experience across biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations with deep expertise in building operational infrastructure, scaling finance organizations, and partnering with executive teams to execute long term strategic vision. In this episode, we'll explore how finance leaders can modernize their teams through technology while also investing in talent and organizational growth. We'll discuss how automation and AI are reshaping finance operations, what skills modern finance teams need to succeed, and how leaders can balance innovation with the human side of transformation. Welcome to the show today. Jill. Thank you so much for including me in the podcast today. Happy to be here. I'm excited about this topic. So as you think back earlier in your career, was there a moment when you realized that building a strong finance organization was just as much about developing people and processes as it was about managing numbers? Absolutely. I think that the people side of our business is really important. Without the teams that we build and that we cultivate, not sure what we're doing here. Right. Obviously technology is very important, but I view it as a tool. And so yeah, very early on in my career as I had the opportunity to be brought into the sector and really raised by some phenomenal people in my career, it was very evident that the investment in people is the key to really driving innovation and success, whether you're in technology or biotechnology. And when companies talk about modernizing finance, what do you think that they often get right and what components do they often underestimate? I think, look, it's about finding the right system and application for your company. I think that companies that can analyze that and appreciate this for purpose, what size are they really developing for the tools? And I think that what can be underestimated is when you have tools that overwhelm what you're trying to do that actually run you rather than being a tool for you. I've seen that happen in many cases. You get excited about this new opportunity with technology and suddenly it's bec more of a burden because you're maintaining the system rather than the system becoming opportunity for you to have bandwidth in other areas of your role. And before we go any further, let's just take a step back. Tell us a little bit about your background, where you've spent your career and where you are today. I really had the phenomenal opportunity of growing up my career in the San Diego biotech sector. And you know what's been phenomenal about that is I really started out as an accountant. I had my sights early on to be a CFO and I had just phenomenal companies to be a part of phenomenal management teams and really very vocal about wanting to learn how to run a business, be part of the decision making process. And so I had a great opportunity of being part of companies like Receptos that was purchased by celgene back in 2013 for multi billions of dollars. That led me to an opportunity to be a founding employee for Gossamer Bio. I helped build that company from six of us to over 200, over 18 companies and a multiple plat setting. And that led me to where I am today at Lineage Cell Therapeutics, where I've been the CFO here for almost four years. And I partner with the management team to really innovate the cell therapy that we are working on through our current indications. And I'm just curious, but for people who are listening, who are aspirational CFOs, that's where they want to eventually, what advice would you give them? Was it that you were vocal and made known what you wanted to do or you took chances or a combination of that? I think all of that. Right. I think also learning what is the role of a CFO and I think appreciating that once you get to that seat, what that role entails sitting in these seats, it's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of teams that you're supporting and managing. It's also the external component of it. And I think that I was vocal about it. I was Observant. But I also built my network and worked really hard to make the connections across industries so that I could really be plugged in. But I also felt it was very important that I understood operations and that way that as I'm overseeing and supporting the teams that are supporting other parts of the organization, specifically within finance, I have a really good handle on what they work on because I was probably in that seat at some point. And for me, I think that was really important. And I think it's really interesting people that are operationally minded would be interested in that path because for me, I felt like it was a very valuable path to have a confidence in the breadth of understanding all the different parts of the business that way. I feel like as the role of CFO is evolving, that operational component and understanding it becomes more and more important. I mean, I'm not sure I would have heard that 20 years ago that you needed to know the operations like you do today. Well, and I think specifically in biotech, there's two different distinct phenotypes of CFOs. So because a lot of what this role entails is raising money, there's a theory, let's bring in a former banker. And a lot of times those, although very talented in what they're able to do to be strategic and thoughtful and fundraising, oftentimes don't have the operational background. And interestingly enough, part of my career path, I was partnered with and paired with a couple CFOs that were former bankers. And so I really got to support them through operations. And it was a real win win to be able to, hey, teach me the capital markets side, I'll teach you the business side. And it worked out really well in a couple instances of my career. And how do you evaluate which technologies or systems are truly worth investing in versus those that may just create more complexity than value? I think the number one way to handle that is I can't be the one making that final decision. I certainly will make the final decision, but I can't be the one that is evaluating it along the way because I probably won't be using it as much as the rest of the team members will be. And so I think it's important that they're in on the process. It also makes it the adoption of it, I think a lot more likely if you've got the team that's in there that's choosing the ideas because they understand what pain points that they have that they're working through that this should be solving. And I think back to the point earlier, it's again just reminding the team, let's not oversolve for something, let's not solve for the edge case. Let's solve for what we're really trying to allow the system to do for us. And I think that to me is really important that just really understanding that there's multiple stakeholders within that process to adopt and evaluate a system so that it works for everybody. And I think then you have a better likelihood of people using the system. Right. As opposed to, well, I've been forced to use it, I hate it. So I'm going to triple my work now because I'm going to do it the way I used to do it, but then run things through the system. So I think it makes the adoption a lot faster. If you bring everybody else in, the key stakeholders that would be really the ones that would be advocating for it within the organization. That's great advice. Really gets buy in right from the start when people are solving for their own problems. And in healthcare and biotech organizations, where are you seeing the biggest opportunities for automation and AI, specifically within finance functions? I think finance is so integrated within the rest of the organization, so to say specifically within finance. I mean, I think a lot of things need to run through finance. We have all of our regulatory controls as a public company, we have our internal socks tracking workflows, et cetera. But I think what that means is that working with the rest of the organization. So I think where there's areas of great opportunity is in working with the folks that are in the lab that are procuring their equipment and their ppe, things like that, all the way to folks that are doing more contract nature work like in clinical, so that we're not the ones holding up the process for them to be processing their purchase orders or their contracts. It's really a user interface system. It's almost like Amazon. They go in and they order their supplies and that integrates back into our systems. And I think that's where there's just a great evolution that I've seen occur over the last several years and I think has a lot more more opportunity as these teams build that automation within how they're ordering their supplies or getting their contracts. And it just becomes eventually more of a background information that's happening in the systems as this as the business process is working. So that allows the team members to do what we really want them to do is use their big brains to solve problems and to be innovative and to work through solutions as it comes to the clinical trials. Or how they're working on the bench and the label and for things like finance and AI. I think when I started this podcast six years ago, it felt to me like CFOs and finance in general were always kind of slow to adopt new technology. Although the longer I've done this podcast and the more AI and automation are playing roles, it seems like they're almost on the forefront of this kind of stuff today. Just wondering what your view is on that. I think we've been forced as a community to ensure that it's in line of sight of how we're running our businesses. I think it's really important that we, we stay cutting edge because, you know, for example, I was at Gossamer Bio and we had, As I mentioned, 18 companies there, but I had one AP person because of the way we were able to adopt and develop the technology so that there was a lot of the systems was doing a lot of the processing. And I think that was really awesome opportunity for me to see, okay, we can design this, we can build this. And so as I think about how do operate that same opportunity within Lineage, it's because we have a much leaner ability to use our cash. We're in a really tough fundraising environment that we've been in for several years. And so, you know, I have to be very thoughtful about every dollar and how it's spent. And in particular I need to drive and create value. So to do that, it's not going to be by putting in redundancy and processing type roles. I want to be able to put in, like I mentioned before, I want to be able to put in people in the organization that are really problem solving and innovative and driving the science forward. Which the way to solve that is to bring in the technology so that it can do the easily repeatable work that will be less likely for human error and allow that consistency so that we can use up dollars for really developing the science and developing the medicine for the patients. And how do you balance introducing new technologies while making sure that your team feels supported rather than overwhelmed or scared by change? I think that's hard. It's a hard balance. And so it's definitely as I've introduced new technologies and new ideas of technologies, I will admit I do think the team sometimes catches their breath because we are lean. We do have a lot on our plate as we think about being a public company and maintaining all of that rigor around the timelines. As I mentioned earlier, it's about bringing the key people in so they can see the opportunity that it will provide to them to take certain things off their plate once they can get it installed. And in particular I don't think you can take an approach. We're going to come on Mondays, on Monday we're going to wipe everything out and by Friday it's going to be in place. These are sometimes 12 to 18 to 24 month initiatives to bring in the technology and to really evaluate what is bringing that modernization into the organization. And what skills do you think that finance professionals need to develop now if they want to stay relevant in this more technology driven environment that we're seeing today? I think you need to be remain open minded, right? I think that change is scary, change is hard. But I think the ability to be open to other ways to run a company or to use a tool I think is going to be very important because I mean, I think that allows the development of teams. I still think it's in human technology is incredibly important and necessary and desired. And so I think that to be able to be comfortable, that technology is migrating, it's evolving, it's changing and to be able to allow that to happen in a way that certainly we have other threats, right? We have cybersecurity threats, we have all of these things. And so it's about managing what's the right fit for purpose for your organization, what problem are you trying to solve? And I think having that availability in the way you're processing and thinking I think is very necessary for existing and future systems and others. And open mindedness. When you're thinking about who you're hiring for your own teams, what skills are you looking for, what makes someone stand out? I think the ability to really be flexible. So for example, I want team members that can come in and just be in my organization in particular, very entrepreneurial. Look, we're going to be doing exciting things. It's not always going to be comfortable, we're not always going to know the answer. But if you can be flexible and be supportive, as we're trying to understand data, we're trying to understand information, trying to understand how we're going to spend money and be comfortable being a little uncomfortable. That to me is a real key as success. On the teams that I try to build, and you've spent years building operational infrastructure inside growing organizations, what have you seen that separates finance transformations that succeed versus those that struggle or stall or fail altogether? I think sometimes politics, right, can certainly be stifling to that advancement. And so I think it's about the tone at the top and Having support throughout the organization around innovation, around people management, and really ensuring that there's cohesive capability for the teams to continue to move forward. In my industry, in particular, focusing on what's the right outcome for the patients and how has technology changed the way that finance partners with other parts of the business, especially in highly regulated industries like biotech and healthcare. I think what I've seen it allow it to do is stronger lines of communication. So the better the technology is, the faster we can get information to other parts of the organization so they understand what their budget constraints or budget capabilities are as well as they are again, working through science. Anytime you set a budget, it's instantly wrong. Right. And so we have to be able to be flexible and fluid and move money around and make it available to understand what are the right areas to redeploy capital. And I think that advancement of information and how quickly we can move that around makes it. I can give an answer to my teammate in three or four days as opposed to three or four weeks now because of the way we've developed the systems to support that information. And as the cfo, how are you developing relationships with leaders in the other departments? I've heard the CFO oftentimes referred to as the cf. No. So how do you prevent the role from being looked at like that? Someone that's just there to say no. I really appreciate that commentary. I hope that that's not how I viewed and viewed within my organization. I really tried to say, look, I can always find the money. So if it's important enough and it's necessary enough, I can find the money. You know, we have a very lean team. I'm involved in a lot of the core team meetings as we work through. So I'm aware of what's coming. I'm aware of where there may be pain points, where there may be areas that we are going to be required to deploy capital that we weren't expecting. And so I really do to try to find the money. I always tease that my mother taught me to bury money in the checkbook, which is also known as contingency funds. And so I certainly always keep that really well in mind as we're working through the budget process. Because if I can't be a tool for the team, I don't want to inhibit them from their ability to fix things. At the same time, I do ask, is this necessary? Is this required, or is this just curiosity that we're chasing? And so I think fortunately we have a very strong team, very high respect for the roles, everybody's operating within the organization and I think that makes us work really well together. But that does allow me to not be the cfo. No, but maybe the cfo. Okay, she's going to work with me. And it feels like technology has come a very long way in the last like two or three years. Do you ever see a point where AI and automation totally replace a finance and accounting team? Or will these roles just continue to evolve and be more problem solvers? I think that's a really interesting question. I think it's a hot topic and I think you could probably get answers that say much more deleterious. The whole team is going to be wiped out and it's all going to be machine managed. Personally, I don't think so. I think we don't understand what it's capable of yet. And I think we're trying to figure out how do we adapt and evolve and put policies around these new tools so that we protect ourselves and we don't leak private confidential information. But I look at it like the Industrial Revolution in some ways that was new and scary and machines were entering into a world they really hadn't to that point. I think this is no different. It's just moving faster. So again, change is hard, change is new. I truly think that these can be very useful tools. We just have to figure out capabilities and how we work them into our day to day lives. But I don't believe that our jobs are going to go away. We have very, very talented people and very smart people. And like I said at the beginning, my goal with technology is to do the mundane work so that the team, I can have really high caliber employees which of course we do that use their big brains that can think that solve problems in a way that I don't believe a machine ever would. I love that comparison to the Industrial Revolution and I'm fully in agreement with you. I think new roles are just going to pop up and things are going to change, but people will always be necessary. I think it's going to look different. Lee Right. But that doesn't mean that it's bad and job changing. Even over our careers. I would say that there's been some evolutions with the tech booms and a lot of those same nervous commentary came out. And again we've evolved, we've changed and this one just feels like it's moving a little faster. But maybe that's because I'm older, I don't know. And looking ahead, how do you see the role of CFO evolving over the next three to five years, what new skill sets or mindsets are going to be required? It's interesting. Do you think technology is going to be always going to be important? It's always been important. I think it's going to continue to be important. I think having the mindset to appreciate that there are going to be bad sides of this as well. So how do we protect our organizations? And I think the other part of that is cultivating and really teaching and bringing up the next generation of employees all the way up to the C suites. I think it's going to be integral into how we continue to evolve and grow the next generations. Especially as we think about not only is technology is changing as they're talking about from a tech status, I also think the biotechnology is going to advance because of the capability of AI and the ability to unlock things that we haven't been able to do to date. And I think that's going to be pretty important that we have the right people in place to support that talent. Coming through. Jill, thank you so much for being my guest today. I appreciate you taking the time to share your insights and experience with us. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the invitation. It was wonderful to speak with you today and to all of our listeners. Please tune in next week and until then, take care. You've been listening to CFO Weekly presented by Personiv. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcast to hear all of our episodes. Want to learn more? Check out personiv.com thanks for listening.