S3, EP3: Leadership at the Intersection of Strategy and Change with Gareth Sprainger, CFO at V2food

Do you want to become a CFO and take control of your career? Our podcast series from Go to CFO will give you a unique insight into what it takes to become a successful cfo. Hosted by the three amigos at AXR Recruitment and Search, myself, Greg o' Shea and my colleagues Kunal Gupta and Nick Constain, we speak to inspiring and successful CFOs from our network as they share their career journeys with us. It's the closest thing you're going to get to delving into the mind of a cfo. We hope you enjoy it. Welcome to today's episode of Go to cfo. I'm Nick Constein, Associate Director at AXR Recruitment and Search and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Gareth Sprenger, CFO of V2 Foods. Gareth began his career in chartered accounting straight out of high school, studying while working full time. He then embarked on a 12 year journey at Coca Cola Amateur across multiple divisions, including a joint venture with SAB Miller that saw a $120 million brewery buil from the ground up. He then took a leave of absence to work in London where he led a major finance transformation in Europe at Monster Worldwide. Upon returning to Australia, Gareth had a variety of commercial roles at Coca Cola. Gareth later stepped into a senior finance leadership role as Finance Director at William Grant and Sons and ultimately into a venture capital backed CFO seat at V2 food where he now spans finance, legal, property and operation as the business scales. This episode blends hard earned lessons in resilience, adaptability with transformative leadership and shows why staying curious amid change is a true competitive edge. Thanks for joining us Gareth. How are you doing today? Thanks for having us, Nick. I'm great. So to kick things off, where'd you grow up? I grew up in the hills district of Sydney. Classic Australian childhood. Lots of time in the backyard in the pool, playing lots of team sports and yeah, attending school with the neighbours. So it was great. Yeah, fantastic. So from a professional standpoint, do you want to give us a little bit of a high level career summary? Yeah. So after I left high school I had the plan to become an accountant and I took up a traineeship in a mid tier firm in Parramatta in chartered accounting and started my university just down the road in Western Sydney University, you know, long days in audit tax compliance, working a variety of different small medium large enterprises in the greater Western Sydney area where I grew up, which was really cool and yeah, completing my studies at night. So it's pretty hard work but it was a really good foundation to learn the principles of accounting, you know, working with a wide variety of people and stakehold and businesses and yeah, really enjoyed that. And, you know, speaking to an old neighbour of mine who I grew up with, who'd made the transition from PwC over to, you know, corporate finance world, you know, commercial finance world, there was a role going at Coca Cola Amateur, which she had loved working for for the last few years, and an FP and a role, foundational role, and I really got to understand the whole of the Coca Cola Amateur business and meet huge amounts of stakeholders and people and I really grew a fondness for the brands and the excitement of commercial finance was just a very different environment. After a few years there, I joined a joint venture which was formed between Coca Cola Amatul and SABMiller, who were the second largest brewers in the world. And they had the ambition to be a major player in the Australian beer market that was dominated by two very big players who still have huge influence in the market today. We built a brewery from the ground up. I was working for the CFO and working with every single function of the business across Coca Cola, Amatul and SABMiller and that really gave me a taste for what, you know, a CFO is like, particularly in a scaling and growing business. And then I took a leave of absence to head over to London and decided to, you know, work and travel. After some travel through Central America, ended up in London and found a role at a company called Monster Worldwide, which, Nick, you'd probably familiar with online job boards. Yeah, it's the seek of America. Seek of America, that's right. And they wanted to be the seeker of the world. Still a business that's part of, I think, part of the major recruitment industry still. But that was a fascinating business to go from something that's very tangible in Coca Cola, a brand that everyone knows and can see and can hold and touch, to, you know, an intangible, intangible product. And understanding that product life cycle and how to invest with it and how to grow that business and even how to sell it and apply revenue management principles to is really fascinating. That was a really interesting role. It was around trying to transition the team from financial accountants and finance operations into commercial finance business partners. And that was a really exciting project that I got to touch on leadership skills, finance controllership skills in terms of compliance, audit and tax. And then really getting into the commercial finance world and applying my knowled knowledge there a couple of years and Coca Cola amtool thankfully had me back and were Very excited to have me back in Australia. And I got to take on a variety of commercial roles across the Emerging Alcohol division, which was still growing some time in the Woolworths account, which is Amatil's largest customer across the entire group, supporting the commercial delivery of that business for a couple of years. And then I went back into beer because Amatool decided they wanted to have another crack at the Australian beer market and they formed a joint venture with John Casella who built the Yellowtail Wines brand which is very famous overseas and he's an amazing Australian entrepreneur and he wanted some to try and, you know, tackle the Australian beer market as well. So it was a match made in heaven in that respect. And I joined there as the finance and operations controller. But it was really a CFO role that ended up. I ended up being a contract brewing salesperson to try and fill the brewery up, work with the board, managed all aspects of finance and even end up leading the brewery team through a brewing qualification to really fill the brewery up in a significant way. So really, really broad role and really cemented my passion for broad finance roles and wanting to be a CFO one day. And then in the first few months of COVID I got a call from a recruiter around a job at W.E. and Grattan Sons, one of the famous spirit companies in the world, a Scottish based whisky company and an opportunity to join as the finance director for Australia and New Zealand. And that job was a really natural kind of transition out of amateur because it was the drinks industry with great brands, great people and culture. And it felt like I was going to a similar company but it was smaller and wanting to grow and that really allowed me to develop as a CFO and a finance director again. Really I didn't have the safety net that I had at Cocal Amateur with lots of huge network and lots of experts everywhere. We were in another time zone from the center on the other side of the world and it was around running the business there and being responsible as a statutory director and the local subsidiary board and really end to end finance and also supply chain as well. So that was a lot of fun. And then after a few years there, which I really loved again, my network at Amatul connected me with our CEO at V2 Food. I am now Tim York and he was looking for a CFO with a broad skill set and I managed to tick a lot of boxes there. And I thought this is a really fascinating world in venture capital and plant based main and something that's definitely going to Be part of our future, you know, sustainable future food chains. And I'm like, I want to have a go at growing something again. Yeah, yeah. And I've been in there just short of two years. It feels a lot longer. Yeah. But it's been an absolute ride and I've just absolutely love every day going to work. It's, it's been amazing, you know, nearly two years now and that's a fascinating journey. And I, and I agree with the William Grant and Son's connection. It seems like such a logical next step to leave CCA out of, to do something like that. So I just like to go back to the role at cca. When you first started, what was it like for you or what was your biggest challenge? Going from a structured public practice environment to a more dynamic kind of Coca Cola environment? How did you find your feet? Yeah, I mean when you're in a chartered accounting environment, particularly in I guess more junior structured roles, you think about every six minutes how you're spending your time and you've got very clear plans and an audit schedule or a client schedule or a group of clients and their tax returns come out of every year. And you've got lots of structure. You get to Coca Cola and it's a bit. While the structure and routines, like in any well run commercial business, it's still a little bit more open and the culture and environment is very different. You're working with all functions of the business together as opposed to primarily, you know, accountants. You're surrounded by accountants every day, uncharted. Whereas you get to commercial environment, you're talking to marketing people, salespeople. Yeah. Different kinds of stakeholders. And it was just a, it was a bit daunting at first, but I just thought let's, I've made the jump, let's stay curious. Let's learn about the business and learn the context behind the numbers as well as, you know, learning about the organization and doing the job well. Yeah. And you had a very successful start at Coca Cola and marked as a high performer from very early on. What, what advice would you give to someone who they're about to walk into their first commercial job? What, what steps would they, should they take to, to stand out? I think learn about the business because that helps you give context to the numbers that you're working with every day and just try and meet people and learn from them and ask for help and ask for support. Amateur was excellent at people development. It was a massive focus. So they wanted you to succeed and they gave you all the tools and the time to succeed. And I think take that opportunity to get feedback, ask for help, whether that's technical or personal development, because people generally want to help. And if you allow people in to help and support your growth, you'll go a long way. Yeah, I agree with that. That's an interesting piece of information there. And so then early on in your career, you stepped into the commercial manager role and building a brewery. From growing up, I'm keen to see what that was like, because when we caught up, you spoke about not only finance, there's so many. There's so much more to it. What was that like, that journey? Yeah, so it was a very, again, a little bit unstructured because it was a strategic growth area of the business and they had a vision and you had two shareholders and I was a. I was an employee from one shareholder trying to work across both businesses. And I was sitting amongst marketing people every day, working with them on their, you know, their plans to invest, to grow the business ahead of, you know, invest ahead of the curve. And then we've got experts at brewing and packaging and supply chain and procurement flying from all over the world to come to Australia to help us to develop and set up this brewery. And at the same time, we're trying to work out how to commercialize beer, which has its own nuances and supply chains and, you know, regulations, et cetera. We didn't even have equipment service on how you service the keg market and putting draft, you know, draft equipment into. Into bars. So we had to learn about all of that and learn about value chains and kegs versus six packs versus 24 packs. It's a very different sales model. And then you had to really work with a lot of stakeholders to get a little bit of their time because it was so impactful to helping us achieve our mission. So you really had to work with a huge variety of stakeholders and build trust and credibility and maybe beg for help sometimes. Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. And whatever it takes at that point. I mean, what I think. And that's probably where I wanted to ask, because JVs often start with all the best intentions in the world and everybody's aligned. Yeah, without a question. You know, they start to diverge at some point or may have conflicting views on particular topics. How do you manage the competing interests? I think where I had the most experience was the second joint venture I was working in, because the first one was two large global corporate organizations and there was a lot of similarities, but ultimately they had their own different strategies, but lots of Similarities. In the second joint venture, you had amateurs, a large public listed FMCG corporate organization. And you had John Casella, who was very entrepreneurial, long term thinking. He's like, how do I set the business up for 10, 20, 50, 100 years of success? And their timelines for delivery and their strategies were very different at different times. I had to make decisions that had commercial benefits for both shareholders. So sometimes it would benefit one shareholder and sometimes it benefited the other. But I think through, you know, working with the board who had those key shareholders on there, it was about being, you know, good governance processes around transparency with the board and outlining wider decision is beneficial for both the core business, the joint venture business I was working for, and also the shareholder and then finding other opportunities to, I guess help balance the scale and find commercial opportunities and support the other shareholder in different ways. So I think if you can show transparency and intent and, you know, trying to drive commercial outcomes for everyone, I think that's always a win. And you, you will succeed in the end. Yeah. And I think that's a really difficult position to be in. I think you're almost getting squeezed from both sides. So you're the mediator to some degree. And I think the topic about providing transparency around the decision making process kind of alleviates that to some degree. Yeah. And CFOs, you have this obligation always balance governance compliance as well as the commercial agenda. Yeah. And you're often the, I guess, the right hand person to the CEO to help them navigate that path and work with the board also to navigate that path successfully, which there's no book that tells you how to do that, there's books that give you ideas, but you've just got to practice and learn and ask for help and support and just be really transparent with your thinking. And ultimately how do you make the shareholders successful in the end. Yep. And so then at that point you had made the decision to go to the uk. Yeah. And so what drove that decision and then what was that experience like? Changing to the other side of the world, something I'd always wanted to do. I wanted to go and work overseas, like being a chartered accountant or a cpa. You get the opportunity to take your skills overseas and apply it to different businesses, which is a unique thing about being in a qualified finance role. And I had a British passport, so that made it a little bit easier. Yeah, that'd make it much easier. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I just took the opportunity to do a little bit of travel, go to London and find my own way I had the opportunity potentially to work within the Coca Cola network. I just thought, no, I'm going to try something different. And the key advice I got from the CFO I was working for and the joint venture at the time, he said, gareth, you'll learn all the technical stuff over time. You've got to picking things up. Just go. And you need to lead people. You need to show people you can lead a team of people and you should just find a job that gives you that opportunity. So that was my focus and it was one of the best pieces of career advice ever got. And I've really developed a passion for leading people now and I've had lots of great experiences, not just in leading finance people, but supply chain IT operations, salespeople. I've had a real variety of leadership roles. So, yeah, that was one of the best pieces of advice I think I've ever gotten that led me over to the uk. Yeah. And I guess going in as the new man, how do you build trust in a new market, a new company, a new industry, which you probably never even had a look in on. What was that like? It was a bit daunting at first. Yeah, it was my first leadership role. So you had to really take that first step from being the doer all the time to working out how you delegate things and how you manage workflow and how you get things done while not doing it yourself. So I found that really tricky. But I also had to learn new business, a new industry, a new country. A lot of the team members were older than me and, you know, they'd worked in the business longer, so that was a bit daunting. But I think I just took the same approach I've taken in most roles is be curious, learn about them as individuals and people and show that, you know, I'm interested in them as much as, you know, the workplace and asking questions and, you know, there's no such thing as a stupid question. I definitely believe in that because you just want to learn first and then you can work out how with your skills, how you add value. Yeah. And that would have been a good two year stint to be able to kind of work out the kinks, maybe the first few. Because it's hard, right? It's not. There's no playbook on how to manage the variety of different personalities that we see every day. No, definitely not. And I'm so glad I did. I went outside the comfort zone of, I guess, the Coca Cola network, which I knew to try something different and it just gave me confidence to take up roles that were a bit out there, a bit different and allowed me to, you know, progress my career in lots of aspects. And it's still, those experiences are still helping me to that. Yeah. And I'd love to talk about the Woolworths role because huge responsibility, as you said, the biggest customer, without a question. What was that like, stepping into that role? Yeah, it was a more, I've gone from, I guess a less traditional FMCG role or, you know, commercial finance role back into that really core fmcg commercial finance. Woolworths is the biggest customer in lots of FMCG companies in Australia. So it was very high profile. There was, you know, negotiations every week, sometimes every day. There's a lot at stake for both, you know, Coca Cola and Woolworths, but a lot of growth and lots of importance in the category. So it was high focus. It went all the way to the board at times in terms of different decisions and meetings and definitely to our CEO and it was hugely impactful to the amateur results. So providing the right guidance to the, to the sales team and the commercial team and the leadership team of the amateur business on where we're at and how to get the best outcomes was, yeah, a really great experience. Yeah. And you mentioned when we caught up that there's this kind of philosophy that you would call the Triple Win, you know, philosophy. Can you share or explain what that means? Yeah, I think I put a name to it before I realized I was actually using that as a, as a way to deliver outcomes as a commercial finance leader. And the Triple Win is around making sure that if customers, consumers and the brand or the company you're working for win out of it, then it's usually a great decision. And our MD at William Grant and Sons was a big proponent and really put a label to a lot of the thinking and it paid great dividends in delivering great commercial outcomes both at Amatool, at William Grant and Sons and even everything I do today. So it's a great way to balance a decision making process. Yeah. Because I think the perception of any of the large players, Coles, Woolworths, whatever you, whoever you want to call, they want to maximize their ability to make money and so do the respective consumer products business. So it is hard to balance where it becomes a win win for everyone or at least it' perceived win win for everyone. Yeah. And I think if you always think about that, that you make sure everyone's winning out of it and more often than not is the right outcome and the right decision. Yeah. And so interesting timing to move to William Grandsons as Covid was going on. What was that like? I guess you're getting a phone call. Were you actively looking at options or. We just kind of approached you and it just sounded like a great opportunity. Yeah. It's more the second one, I think. You know, I knew I was clear kind of on the pathway at Amatol and I thought it's going to take me a while to get to a CFO role there because there was just lots more learning to do. And it's a very massive company. And I thought I need a smaller role where I can kind of sink my teeth in. Because I think about the joint ventures that I was in, I just learned really fast. I think in the two joint ventures I worked in, I learned about 10 years of experience in about two years or three years each time. It really compresses everything. And I thought, I need another opportunity like that to accelerate my growth and continue my career trajectory. And when it came up, I just, I heard the role profile and I knew about the brands and the people. I'm like, that's just the one I knew straight away. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. From the outside looking. And you'd go, yeah, of course, yeah, Correct. And it just extended my, you know, development and it allowed me to take more boxes that I had on there that I wanted to get to achieve on my pathway to becoming a cfo. Yeah. And you talked about the relationship between CEO and cfo, and I'd love to get your perspective on what type of CEO has gotten the best out of you. And kind of what does that dynamic look like when it's firing on all cylinders? I've been fortunate to have a lot of good relationships with CEOs, general managers, MDs that I've partnered with. I think maybe I've just been fortunate working for the right ones. Great businesses that you've worked at. So it makes sense. They hire good people. They do, they do. I just think trying to be, again, it's about that transparency and giving them choices and options. Often in the finance role or CFO role, your role is not always to make decisions for the business, but you lead a lot of decision making. You're a business leader with a specialization in finance, I like to put it. That's a good way of putting it. And that's how I think the MD at William Grant and Sons, Colin Rochester, he was really big into that. It's more that you are that specialist in finance, but you're an executive leader and you're part of this executive team and you're here to lead the business. And I think that focus in working out how I make decisions every day with a triple win in mind as well as he always provided that support where I needed to step in from a governance or compliance process, process that had to take priority as well at times. And just being transparent about the choices, the implications, you know, what did making these decisions mean or how I spend my time on things? The great leaders that I've worked for just listen to me and help me make that decision and always provide me feedback. Often when I've asked for it and more importantly when I didn't ask for it, they gave me that feedback. Yeah. Which is almost more critical to some degree. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And so the move to v2 different dynamic. Obviously venture capital backed, high profile board. Yeah. Very interesting people on your board. Yeah. What was that first 30, 60, 90 days like in comparison to starting at some kind of other larger multinationals or you know, William Grant or cca? Yeah. I mean we talk about change in large organizations and making change happen in large organizations is a huge undertaking, but it is relatively slow. But there's a lot at stake and there's a lot that goes into it. And I reflect on how much change management takes now that I'm out of the really large corporate organization. And I just have huge respect for the leaders who put that successfully into place. In a venture capital business, change is daily. You have to be really comfortable about having a strategy and within days it could turn on its head for different reasons. And you need to really balance long term and make change quickly to make sure you can take advantage of opportunities that exist now that will really propel you towards your strategic outcome as a business. And you think about cash, cash every day, every waking minute, every sleeping minute. Yeah, yeah. Cash is king. And it'd be even more important, you know, if you're involved in transactions or different things happening. Like it's a massive undertaking to manage that. Yeah, there's no rest. You got, you gotta deliver the day to day. As a finance team, I'll also look after the IT function. When I joined I had to integrate an E commerce business that had just been acquired before I started and bring them on, you know. I decided to bring them onto an ERP system. I've never done that and I'm like, I'm just gonna do this cause I think it's the right thing. And I had to meet a whole bunch of people I've never worked with before and convince Them this is a great idea. And integrate them from both a corporate culture environment, build out their development plans and objectives as well as bring on the ERP system and get a crash course on E commerce at the same time. Yeah, that's a lot to take in right there. And so how do you go about the change management piece and what would you suggest people to do? I think is change management, like you said, in a large organization is steering a large ship around. It's very challenging in a more nimble environment. What does the decision making process look like? Decision making process is faster. I was the CFO and everyone was looking at me going, what should we do? I'm like, okay, I've just got to make a decision here. And I think the principles are exactly the same though. You need to engage people and give them a vision and give them a why, like why are we doing this change? And they need to buy into that why. So you just need to really work hard to understand and talk to people and tailor the why to them as individuals, which you can do in a smaller company than you can in a larger one. But it's the same principles. People have to understand why and commit to that. So you've looked after supply chain, legal property, technology. So what's your strategy to working with like say you get a new division that you've never covered. What's your strategy to manage that? Yeah, look, it is challenging to step outside what, you know, in terms of finance people, leadership, but you know, really understanding the strategy of the business and what those roles and those functions are there to do and what they're there to achieve and then understanding them as individuals and what they want to achieve from their career, I think if you can find ways to build, you know, plans and you know, teams together that have got aligned goals that matches to their personal and strategic goals of the company, I think that's a really good way to do it. And I think just getting to know them as people is another way. Yeah. And do you think managing multiple functions like that and I would say finance and technology for, as an example. Well, that gives you a better leverage point in terms of being able to drive strategic outcomes for the organization. Yeah. Because yeah, you really understand, you know, their reason for being, what are they here to do and what, how can they deliver the day to day work and how do they can deliver the strategy? I think as a CFO you end up being a cfoo, which is like the chief finance and operating officer in lots of ways. Yeah, completely. Yeah. And you become often the right hand person or right hand role to the CEO or the md. And I think learning to think like a CEO helps you then work out, you know, how you lead broader teams and you observe how they lead multiple functions. And it often comes back to strategy and people. And if you get those two right and you operate in a similar manner to a CEO in lots of respects, you can find ways to adapt your leadership skills from finance into other functions. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. So when you have a high profile investor group, you know, Jack Cowan, Michael Buchanan, these are all big, big names. What's the interaction with the board like? Yeah, it's really interesting because I've got a very broad set of stakeholders on the board. They're directors from all types of businesses, whether it be investment banking, sustainability, impact funds, you know, Jack Cowan from Hungry Jacks, you know, qsr, you know, world. They're not all FMCG directors and leaders. So you get a real diverse range of thought on how to solve problems and how to win at strategy and what direction, you know, that the business should take. Really sharpens your focus. Again, like you're dealing with smart people. Smart people. So you need to prepare really, really well, but not prepare too much so that you're open to feedback, open to questions, open ideas. That's one of the learnings I got from one of the directors on our statuary board back at William Grant and Sons. And some of the feedback was you should prepare for board meetings, but don't prepare too much because then you're close to what could be. So I really try and take that learning into how I work with the V2 board. Yeah, that's a great point actually, because you don't want to, you don't want to close off the opportunity. So. Yeah, that's, that's a great way to put it. And throughout your time and throughout your journey, you mentioned that as an example, you mentioned the RAW V2 came up because of your network. Yeah, Coca Cola. So what impact have mentors had on your career? Because it sounds like you've had a fantastic group of leaders to help you. Yeah, I mean, I think about all, all the different leaders I've had in my career and a lot of them from amateur, I spent so much time there. They're all successful CFOs of FMCG or adjacent industries or in senior leadership roles, even outside of finance as well. And it just so happens that three of them happened to speak to the CEO Tim, who was looking, my CEO Tim, who was looking for a role and said, you should speak to Gareth. He's got that skill set. And I think it's just through building good networks, relationships, et cetera, just organically, it wasn't deliberate. It's ended up, you know, having either being referred into roles that are really great, interesting, or just having great people to pick up the phone to who are have trodden the path, or maybe not trodden the exact same path, but can really help me understand my thinking around whether to take a role or what's the current work challenge I'm facing, et cetera. And I feel really fortunate that I've got a very big Rolodex of numbers and people to call who are always happy to help. And I just think about, I always try and pay that forward. One of those same people said, I said, how can I pay you back for helping me with all this? And they're like, don't pay it back to me, just pay it forward to someone else. Yeah. And so how do you. Have you developed that relationship? Yeah, yeah. I spent a lot of time supporting the finance graduate program at Amateur for probably about 10 or 11 years. I really love that experience. And a lot of those people I still talk to today to help them with their career decision making, and I really enjoy that. And yeah, really paying that back to people and, you know, providing mentorship to people because it's been so valuable to me in developing my career. And I just want to make sure that I pass it on and encourage that culture that they pass on to the people on their team or people they work with as well. How funny is it to think about that whole network that you built and all those experiences and all the time and all the thing that you spent and it's your neighbor working there. It's crazy to think about how the chain of events and then the reality and then how different your career could have been. Totally. And I still speak to that person regularly as well for career advice about life. Yeah, they're still in my life and they're a great source of support and also just a great friend. And who would have thought you would have grown up next to the person that propelled your career? That's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And so I guess in this kind of section, like to talk a little bit more about advice for the future generation. I think the large portion of our audience are people who have either started and have maybe 8 to 12 years type experience from start to maybe 12 years experience. And a lot of them, the feedback that we get is, you know, what advice would you give a finance person about stepping outside of the comfort zone. Like we get asked all the time, should I do an operations role? Should I partner with sales? What are your thoughts on stepping out of your comfort zone and doing things like that? Have a bit of an end goal in mind. Weirdly, when I start a role, I'm always already thinking about what the next role looks like because this role should help me deliver on development objectives or areas I want to grow and develop in to help me, you know, my future career. So understanding what maybe a one, three and five year plan might look like, that can be pretty hard if you're starting from scratch. But I've always thought that way again, organically. I don't know why I started thinking that way, but it's really helped me think about how does that role set me up for my longer term plan? What skill set does that help me fill out? Yeah, I think if you think like that, you can really make good decisions about your career and you might fall into non finance cross functional roles. And that's also a great thing and there's no right or wrong way, but. But making sure that it fits your path and your plan that helps you work out if it's a great role or not. Yeah. And that's probably a good way for my next question, which is what skills do you think people would need outside of, you know, your technical finance for stepping into a CFO role today? I think people leadership is a skill generally. Not people management, people leadership. People management is around delivering certain outcomes and getting work done with people. People leadership is about engaging people, inspiring people, helping them to be the best version of them that, you know, they're meeting their version of success. And if you can do that and context of why they're doing their role every day you achieve great outcomes for both yourself and that person and the individual. So it's a bit, it's another version of triple win, I guess. Yeah. And it's a good way to balance it out as well. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And so obviously you're busy. We talked about, you know, things happening daily and transactions and different things. Yeah. So how do you manage the life outside of just your professional career? Yeah, I think as you grow in seniority and get more complex roles, I mean, I've done a lot of work this year, M and A work including acquiring business in the US and you know, then divesting one locally as well. So those processes I've learned are very erratic. There's no structural timetable to it and then you still have to get home and pick up the kids from school and everything. And I think it's just around trying to think ahead as best you can and plan, but making sure. Available for family and making sure you're there for the key moments. And yeah, just when it's tough, you know, think about the fun you're having, what you're learning, what you're developing, and you just try and find some balance. I definitely haven't got a formula for it. I don't think anyone has. But it's hard. But I'm finding a balance. Okay. At the moment. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Well, it's hard, I guess, because a transaction can take you down the rabbit hole and then all of a sudden you're realizing you're working a lot more hours and maybe some of the balance is slipping a bit. But I guess it's important to be reminded to keep. Yeah, I think don't try and do be. Don't be perfect. Just, you know, when there's a space, use that space to build some balance back in. I think that's. That's always key. Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today, G. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having us, Nick. Thanks for tuning in. And we hope you enjoy the insights from our network of inspiring finance leaders as they share their journey from Go to cfo. If you're looking to make the next move in your finance finance career or build your team, get in contact with the team at AXR Recruitment and Search today. We are passionate about building careers, not jobs, teams, not just hires. 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