Special Ep: Sales, Finance and the Long Game | Chris Tucker & Piyush Mittal, SC Johnson

Speaker A: Do you want to become a CFO and take control of your career? Our AXR podcast series From Go to CFO will give you unique insight into what it takes to become a successful cfo. Hosted by myself, Dave Goldbach and my colleague Kunal Gupta from AXR Recruitment and Search, we speak to inspiring and successful CFOs from our network across Australia. They share their career journeys with us and with you. The closest thing you're going to get to delving into the mind of a cfo. We hope you enjoy it.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another episode of your future in sales and marketing. I'm Andrew Canuck. Um, I'm a specialist sales recruiter here at AXR Recruitment and Search. And today I'm joined by Dave Goldbach, my equivalent on the finance side and host of From Go to cfo. We're joined by Chris Tucker and Piyush Mattel. Chris is sales director. Piyush is finance director of SC Johnson. Will explore their unique career journeys, their, uh, business today and where it's going and what effective collaboration looks like between sales and finance in an FMCG organization. We hope you enjoy today's episode. Piyush, Chris, thanks both for being here.

Speaker C: Thanks so much for having us.

Speaker B: Looking forward to getting stuck into this one. Should be fun. We'll start with our normal icebreaker question. Chris will come to you first. What's your favorite brand and why? Can't be one that you've worked on?

Speaker C: Yeah, so the one that I immediately went to, Andrew, was Adidas and for two reasons. One, as a child, I was a big soccer player and all the best clubs and best players wore Adidas. So that's, I think, what initially drew me to the brand. But then thinking about it in a business sense, what made me think about it most recently is the journey that they've been on since the controversy with the Kanye west partnership with Yeezys and the issues that that created not only from a, uh, brand reputation point of view, but also the logistical issues of having all this stock of sneakers that they couldn't sell. They had a new CEO, uh, come in, Bjorn Goulden. I think I'll probably have that announced incorrectly, but. And he basically got back, brought them back to their core and understood that they were a sneaker business and would focus on the core. They were lucky, I think, in terms of where the trend was going in terms of sneakers. But that idea of focusing on your core and really driving that has want them m a lot of fruit.

Speaker B: So, yeah, they really did make the Kanye thing feel Like a blip. Hey, almost forgotten that happened.

Speaker A: I know I forgot to.

Speaker B: Yeah, well recovered indeed. Piyush, same question to you.

Speaker D: Yes, my favorite brand for last 15, 17 years now is Apple. Yeah, uh, first of all I, I really appreciate them for the innovation that they did in terms of the phone design. Like it was so hard for anybody to think uh, outside of the QWERTY keyboard. They came out, looked at it very differently and then something that kept me with them for so long is also the confidence that I get with them about the security. Like Apple gives you so much security features over Android. Being a finance person I'm very skeptical about privacy.

Speaker B: So yeah, I can hear the Android users clutching their weird little phones. Very good. Two very good. So let's explore both of your career journeys which look quite different. Chris, give us the summary of how you got to this point in your career and what were kind of one or two moments that really shaped your journey.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think I was lucky early in my career to have a relatively linear sales career path. Account exec, account manager, business manager. And that was predominantly at PepsiCo, which was a wonderful company to sort of begin my career in like in terms of the support and development opportunities and not only formal development but just like exposure across the business in terms of senior leadership and things like that. So at that time at PepsiCo it was a really fun place to work as well and I really um, learned to understand how business works in a lot of ways because I hadn't had a lot of experience prior to joining growing Pepsi. So that was a fortunate experience not only from the, from the business relationship point of view, but also personal relationship. So there's a lot of people that I'm still very close to from that time at Pepsi who have gone out into various companies in the industry which is really my network and a lot of that network began at my time at Pepsi. So I'm, I feel very fortunate for m that experience.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And I would say that leads me to one of the career finding moments which was leaving Pepsi actually which was a really tough decision to make because I genuinely love the place and the idea that I could continue to grow my career outside of Pepsi was kind of a little bit daunting at that point in time, but it felt like the right opportunity to move to scj. But I would say that first year was really tough. Not so much from a day to day point of view like that was fun, like learning new categories and taking on more responsibility and things like that, that was fine. But it was Pepsi felt really comfortable in a really good way. And that first year was tough. And I remember having to lean on Kurt Hegbold, who was the sales director of SDJ at the time, who brought me across from Pepsi and tap into his advice around how to change my frame of mind around working for a really big company. Now, uh, while SCJ is a big global organization, certainly not as large in Australia as it is globally, so that idea of moving from a large, you know, Pepsi is one of the biggest companies in the world and all that that brings to a smaller organization was a real inflection point in my career and it probably did take me 12 months to kind of get my head around that. But.

Speaker B: But yeah, it's a really common point. People that kind of come up through those big multinational tier ones, they've reached that point where they kind of take the leap out of it. What was behind the decision? Were you thinking it might be time to do that or was it Kurt's approach that opened your eyes to something outside?

Speaker C: A bit of both, I would say. Yeah. I think it was certainly the opportunity to move onto a bigger account which again back to that point around being a linear path at that time it was, well, if I can get managing Woolworths then that's the big game. And that was the opportunity because my last role at PepsiCo was heading up the independence business, which again I loved. But uh, it was career development. But then also the opportunity to come across and work with Kurt again was a big part of it too.

Speaker A: And Piyesh over to you then in terms of your career journey and what were one of those sort of one or two moments that really changed your career path?

Speaker D: See I've been with SC Johnson 23 years now, almost company man.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker D: I worked with an Indian multinational before that for a year, short tenure of an year. Happened to join SC Johnson in the India started like as Chris said, very linear progression over time. Started as an accounts officer, worked up my way through line by line, function by function. Largely stayed in commercial side of the business. But yeah, I think the changes started happening or the opportunities started opening up when I. When S.C. johnson decided to open up the Asia Pacific headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. Right. Prior to that we didn't had any other headquarters outside of Racine. And I happened to raise my hand, got, went through the internal process, got selected and made that life changing decision of leaving my comfort zone not only into the commercial finance, moving into supply chain, but also changing countries, different place, different culture, moving out of a joint family system to A Nucleus family system. Yeah, that was interesting. And I really appreciate S.C. johnson for that matter, actually giving me that opportunity. And I guess that I would say was one of the biggest inflection point that changed a lot in my, both professionally and personally. I mean it gives you a complete perspective change when you move out of your comfort zone and uh, changing country actually, and getting into entirely different culture compared to India, um, makes you learn a lot.

Speaker A: Well, what were some of those key learnings?

Speaker D: I guess, I guess one is obviously you start appreciating a lot more different perspectives. Right. Because if you are in your own comfort zone, you are mired with that understanding of what's just happening around you once your dynamics changes and you start really appreciating that, yes, there are different ways in how cultures have survived or ways of thinking or doing things differently. And you, when you see that up and close while you are in there, like you start appreciating them more. And uh, unlike when you were just watching them from sidelines from way too far, not really experiencing them, I think that that changed a lot about how you see things.

Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense.

Speaker B: And Chris, you had an overseas stint with SCJ as well? Yeah, in the U.S. yeah. Well did he get from that?

Speaker C: That was probably the second kind of huge inflection point in my career. Not only from a career point of view, but also personally. So being able to have the opportunity to take my family and live in the US for nearly three years was an amazing time, uh, for us as a family. But from a career point of view for me, it was my first step out of traditional sales and that was probably the big driver. I mean the international experience was certainly something that I'd had on my career development plan with SCJ for a long time. But the opportunity to step outside of account management sales roles into this global customer marketing function was a huge carrot for me. Because in an organization like scj, which is so driven by its brands, to really understand end to end, how brand campaigns are created and then executed in a variety of markets was fascinating for someone who had only ever really done sales roles. And also helped me really understand how SDJ works as a business, which I think still there's lessons there that I still lean on now in my current role, even back in Australia.

Speaker D: M hm.

Speaker A: And so piyush, then you moved to Australia and the CFO role. So tell us a bit about that, that decision, how did it come up? And then, you know, what did you do when you first moved into the big seat?

Speaker D: Again, similarly, I was Actually tapped on the shoulder again simply given an opportunity, went in through the internal process. Exciting opportunity absolutely. Because I've had my stint in India on the commercial side of the business and then had my uh, stint in Malaysia entirely looking at the back end side of the business which is the supply chain, logistics planning, manufacturing side. I guess that prepared me, you know from an end to end perspective of a business. What did change? Something that Australia is though, it's part of the APAC system within SC Johnson. Uh, Australia, New Zealand markets are very different compared to the rest of. Rest of the markets are very traditional trade oriented whereas Australia is very matured in terms of market, customer, uh, concentration and things like that. So I think it is not easy for anyone from the Asia background or Asia market experience to immediately settle down in a market like Australia. So it took I guess that was my first biggest challenge and let's say my focus area to try and really understand that market up and close to really see how to manage that differently than how you would have experienced so far in life in managing traditional trade markets. Mhm.

Speaker A: That makes sense.

Speaker B: And so Piyush, you're 23 years SCJ so we'll stick with you for this question because no one would know the company better than you. Give us a snapshot of the SC Johnson business. What is the business? Where are you now? Where are you heading?

Speaker D: SC Johnson is almost 140 years old, family owned business, fifth generation managing the business right now, sixth generation getting into the business already now and already making some holding some good positions. SCJ over period of time has developed so many well known brands almost finding a way into every single household especially in markets like Australia, New Zealand, US and probably some European markets as well. I would doubt if there is any household who's never had any SCJ product in their house ever in their life. So I guess that makes it very different compared to any other family owned business. I think what, what, what I have enjoyed so far with SC Johnson is uh, being a family owned business and purely privately held. There are no immediate pressures on making short term knee jerk decisions. Company takes a lot more time to understand and make decisions which have far more longer impacts and not really, not really pacing behind any immediate short term gains. Mhm.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah. And Chris, maybe you can give us a bit about the brands themselves for those who don't know.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So we operate in five key categories within Australia so in home cleaning, air care, pest control, home storage and toilet. Toilet uh, always struggle with the fifth one. But then the key Brands which most people would know would be Duck Glade, Raid, Ziploc and Drano, Windex, those sort of cool home cleaning brands as well. So very much in the home cleaning, specialty cleaning segments. But then as an organization touched on this, there are some areas in which we are expanding into, into what we call lifestyle brands. And one of those within Australia is in the sun care space which is in the brand. Sunbum is a relatively small niche surf orientated sun cream business which. So as a business it's evolved from the 1800s as a wax, a parquetry, floor wax company into um, a business that's incredible in terms of its breadth across the portfolio of categories in which it operates.

Speaker B: And Piyush mentions there the dynamic of working in a privately health business in a function like sales, which is so much about hitting the number, it can often be short term focus. Does it feel any different for you in your role as a sales director from how sales felt at PepsiCo? Is it much? Is it, is it much the same?

Speaker C: Not a significant amount of difference. I think certainly from a day to day sales point of view, you know, there is no less pressure to deliver the number every month than they would be at a public company. Even though we don't report to ASX or Wall street or anything like that, there is still the required amount of pressure to deliver our results every month and every year. So from a sales point of view that doesn't change. Where I'd say the difference is some of the broader decisions that the business makes. In terms, especially when you think about something like the sustainability journey that we're on, we do make decisions that potentially will play out in the longer term and not necessarily from a financial point of view. So decisions around packaging and things like that, where from um, a P and L point of view they may not make the most sense, but in the longer term, for the betterment of the environment, for the betterment of the future generations, SDJ will tend to make those sort of decisions that potentially other companies may not. That would be the key difference. But in terms of a sales function, no, very much, very similar.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: On that last point around the sustainability, is that something that you play on or in terms of your hiring process, um, and finding people who are passionate about that, does that impact who joins the business?

Speaker C: I would say broadly it, uh, wouldn't be something we specifically focus on necessarily around sustainability, but what we do look for in new candidates is someone that can come in and really want to respect and cherish what makes SCJ special and that and that, that sense of it being a family company, you know, like our tagline on all our advertisements is SJ Johnson a family company. So that needs to be really respected and as I said, sort of treasured while still wanting to bring people in a sales function, wanting to bring people in who want to perform and want to deliver the number and all the great things that are up in sales. So it's, it's less about specifically are you interested in sustainability? Although if you are, that's great. It's more about how do you fit in with the culture that is I think relatively unique, which we, we value, but also wanting to make a difference and deliver the result.

Speaker D: Great.

Speaker B: And so this is the first time on the POD that we've had a, ah, sales director, uh, and a finance director, uh, in the same room for the conversation. And I think we catch you at a really interesting time because at the time of recording you closing out a financial year. So quite timely. I'd love to get an answer from both of you on this. How do you describe the relationship between sales and finance in an FMCG business? Piyush. Why don't you take this one first and then we'll get Chris's view.

Speaker D: I guess it's, they're both very important functions for the overall uh, performance of any, for any company. And I would say the single word that comes out to me is business partner. Like how do you strengthen the partnership to continue achieving the common objectives and goals of the organization that you're working for?

Speaker B: Very good.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, absolutely agree. I think the minute that sales and finance departments feel as though they're in some sort of conflict or operating in different objectives businesses is really not going to succeed. Because the sense that, know the sort of, I guess the stereotypical sense would be that sales is focused on the top line and finances on the bottom line. I think what we try and embed within the team is a sense of ownership across the whole P and L in both departments. And I think that's where, that's where the partnership comes in. Because ultimately we are working towards the same objective of the company success. M and, and the development of our respective teams. And I think that development comes through giving them exposure to each respective function as well. And that doesn't come from just sitting at your desk and working in a silo. It comes from solving problems together. And I think that's one thing I'm particularly proud of in terms of the relationship between our two functions is it really does feel like a sense of partnership. Which as Piercio pointed out, so critical.

Speaker B: And you mentioned the conflict point within there. So the audience listening to this will be a lot of salespeople and a lot of finance people. And they'll be thinking, uh, it's not always pally, pally between two. Where are the areas where you two in your roles would occasionally have disagreement or tension? And how do you work through that?

Speaker C: I'll let Piyush answer first.

Speaker D: Wise, very wise how I see it. And I think Chris kind of touched upon that. Traditionally sales is more top line focused, finance more bottom line focused. But at the end of the day there are many more metrics in your business that are important to be taken, uh, along with. Right. In terms of creating a long, uh, a strong foundational business for the long term success. There are times definitely when one of us gets too myopic in terms of looking at a situation, focusing too much on one particular KPI and not probably taking a more broader, uh, perspective. I guess that's one easiest way for me to describe when the conflict actually happens.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Sometimes a bit of healthy conflict goes a long way. Right. And, and I would think pushing each other often leads to.

Speaker C: Yeah, I wouldn't use the word conflict in a negative sense at all, to be honest. Maybe tension's a better way of putting it rather than conflict. But that, that tension between the KPIs of pious talking about is something that we, we lean into in a way because getting that balance right is, is where the business will ultimately succeed. Because there are elements of decisions that in isolation, you would look at that and go, well, that's the right, right call to make. But then when you take that broader perspective which comes from the sales and finance departments and, and marketing and, and supply chain, all the departments within the business bringing their perspective to the table, that's when you, you kind of work out the best path. And I think, uh, certainly there are times that he and I would disagree quite passionately about an approach to take. But I think what we do try and do is as best as we can, the team may disagree, but as best as we can, we try and keep those conversations behind closed doors. And then while we may not agree, we certainly align and move forward.

Speaker B: Very good. And what would, what would you say Piyush does specifically that makes him an effective partner to you in your role?

Speaker C: I would say. And Piyush touched on this obviously from his journey from working in Asia and coming to the Australian market, which is relatively unique I think certainly within the Asia Pacific context. I think Pyush's greatest strength from uh, my perspective is really understanding that there are metrics that will never find their way onto a PNL that are absolutely critical to delivering the result in the P and L. And I'm thinking things like customer relationship and whether that be the advantage survey school for example which we talk about how we bench ourselves and as an example the relationship as I said with our customers, how critical that is and their strategy and how we work internally to advocate for our customers to help them deliver their strategy that will never appear as a line on a P and L. And as a finance director I appreciate the fact that he has that understanding of the importance of those other metrics on delivering the results. So there will be times when a proposal will come across our uh, desks that will not necessarily measure up against all the key financial. But through the conversation I'm able to help him get to a point where he can respect that there is relationship aspects to it or commitments that have been made that we have to deliver against for the longer term success of the organization. But I think where that uh, it's incumbent upon me then is to demonstrate to him that that's not just a hypothetical future. Like there will be a return eventually. Even though if this one project or decision may not necessarily stack up on paper.

Speaker A: Yeah that makes a lot of sense. And then I guess from your side Piyosh, in terms of what Chris does that makes him a great business partner and how you two work together.

Speaker D: Well I guess my answer would be somewhat similar to how Chris framed it but a bit. But from a other side of the table, which is more about at times you tend to get too much focused on um, one of the KPIs. And profit definitely remains the top important focus for finance. Right? Top line growth is important but then how do you balance the profitable growth options to just make sure that the whole P and L stacks up healthily in totality. So that's where I guess when we get into discussions and Chris does brings in those other aspects around and uh, what makes me actually feel happy is when we are in specifically talking about a proposal that in isolation doesn't make sense. He's already got his plan B's and plan C's, like an idea about what particular non financial benefit does this particular proposal brings in and how he's already thought through one or two or three next most steps to then leverage that particular action to then find offsets or to showcase that this will eventually become a win win situation. I guess that's what make Me feel confident and comfortable that this is not a nice action in isolation or plan in isolation. We're just focusing on one KPI of getting around uh, the top line growth because there are already action in sequence, action in series. Once you took them, take them into a collective viewpoint, you then realize that yes, everything, if all options stacks up well on one on top of each other, you are looking at a much more sustainable decision making metrics.

Speaker B: And the working relationship that you two have, which we spoke about, seems to be a healthy and productive one. How much of that is because you guys have fundamentally kind of understood each other and kind of clicked and how much uh, has it been a learning process of how best we work with each other?

Speaker C: Oh look, it certainly doesn't hurt that we, we get on like, I mean like that's of course it sounds really obvious but you know to, to be able to have you know, uh, a friendship as well is really important because that can get you through some of those, if nothing else, that enables you to be really honest with each other as well. So I think that that's super important. But yeah, I mean it's, it's about understanding I think the motivations of the other individual and, and, and what they're trying to achieve. And I think that's relatively easy in a director level because you do get the whole picture. So we, every month we'll sit down and look at the complete business health metrics. And so that makes it so, so so much easier to be able to understand uh, that rather than okay, I'm just working in sales, I'm worried about net sales and I'm worried about trade spend and I'll just squirrel away and worry about those two things. Being at, at the, the uh, on the executive team enables us to have that full picture which I think makes it a lot easier. But certainly, yeah, I mean the, the, the personal relationship is, is critical to that I would say.

Speaker A: And it's obviously this point in time as we, as we record this, a pretty difficult period of time in the, in the FMCG world with lots of headwinds obviously, you know, high oil prices and free interest rate increases and a federal budget which we won't get into politics, but it's obviously a pretty difficult time. So you know, uh, is the relationship tested even more now? Uh, is, is there something that you need to, you know, with all that complexity really push harder on at the moment? Or how, how are you two, or how is the company dealing with all the headwinds?

Speaker C: I think the first thing I'd say is I don't remember when there has been an easy time in fmcg. It would be, I mean in the time that I've been in the industry, it's a, it's a fantastic industry. There's a lot of fun to be had, but there's, there's never an easy moment, I would say, I think so. It's not foreign, I don't think to be under this, in this sort of environment. But I think this is where it comes back down to what we're talking about earlier in terms of really being understanding all of the, the metrics and the KPIs and the motivations of individuals or the strategies of the customers and things like that. Because I think if you can align against what you're trying to deliver, which ultimately is growth and that can take a few forms, but ultimately what we are, we want to be next year and the year after and five years, 10 years down the track is a bigger business than we are today. So I think if we lean into where those opportunities are, uh, you can kind of balance out some of those pressures. But those pressures, yeah, at the moment it's fuel. Next year it could be something different.

Speaker D: But yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would say no year feels any comfort, any better or worse than the one that just went by. Uh, the shape and the form of the challenge may differ year over year.

Speaker C: We're being very pensive here at the end of the financial year. Just taking a moment to reflect.

Speaker D: Of course.

Speaker B: Yeah. Which you don't often get in many industries especially FMCG is notorious for that nature of you're on to the next thing. Right. One financial year ends, but the other one's already in full swing. Piyush. There were two things that Chris mentioned. One was the advantage of being at your level and having visibility of the big picture, making your decision making process a little bit more aligned. And also when you do have those disagreements, having those conversations, getting alignment before, you then present more united front to the teams. But you both look after functions, you'd be interacting all sorts of different levels.

Speaker D: Yep.

Speaker B: What are the things that you do with your team and then, and Chris with yours to foster uh, a productive working relationship between your functions, not just you as individuals.

Speaker D: See, I, I would say that it's not always, you know, funny and you know, even within, among ourselves. Right. I mean as much as we say we understand each other very well, there are moments, passionate moments in certain discussions where we don't come out of the room fully aligned or convinced which either this point of view over a period of time, I guess we build that rapport among ourselves that at times if we feel that one of our proposal may not cut through the other one very soon. Very easy, you know, you kind of have some pre conversation try and share your perspective in advance to really see where are you what, where are you exactly coming on in from that point of view and why you feel that particular proposal is more important even if it's compromising on some of your KPI versus leaning on one or two um, substantially now when your team sees you actually walking that line and kind of making sure because essentially sales is definitely responsible for the top line of the company and top line does drives the most of the growth. Right. But I choose to add one more word there which is profitable growth. I see finance as more of like a uh, enabler. Right. The job of the finance is not to counter every proposal that comes from sales but then more of an enabler like helping them out where exactly to focus more or is there anything that they might be missing out while looking at a particular proposal or in cases of choices whether that's the best choice to be made as something being biz out of the perspective. I guess once somebody in finance does understand that you are not playing against the sales, but you are like part of the same team. You are not on the front field, you are not part of those 11, but you are part, you are the 12th or the 13th man outside in the field who's very important to make sure that the team wins. The moment you get into that mindset, I think the game becomes easy for you.

Speaker C: So here might be a moment live where we disagree because I don't think that finance aren't part of the starting 11 because I think we're fortunate enough at SCJ because as I said earlier, big global company, but we're a relatively small organization in Australia that means we're a relatively small team. So therefore it's not hard to make sure that everyone has representation at the table at the beginning of some of these conversations we're having. So what I encourage, and I know Piyush does as well that if something has been worked on then finance need to be in the room at the start. It's not. They're not just a check of the work that someone else has done. Does the P and L make sense? Is your formulas correct? It's a lot of the great commercial outcomes that we've been able to enjoy recently. The ideas have come from the finance representative because they understand the business and they understand the portfolio, they understand the customers, and they're able to say, well, hang on, there may be a way around this if we cut it a little differently. And I think that alignment comes from everyone being in the room at the beginning of the journey rather than finance being seen as a, uh, okay, yep, you've got your finance approval, so off you go once you've done all the work. And I think that's, that's really critical.

Speaker A: I think that, I mean, that's music to every finance person's ears because I know every, every finance person out there wants a seat at the table and not just be the bean counter behind this. What, what I would be also interested in on those, those situations. And there's always a, a situation where there isn't a clear roi, there isn't a clear payback. You can't sit there and see a number that says, I'm going to get X back in X years. And you have to make more of a, a qualitative call on something. Some brand can be like that, you know, as opposed to, you know, a specific discount or action. And so how do you, how do you, do you move through those situations where there isn't necessarily an objective number that gets to an outcome?

Speaker D: I guess most of the times see everything will have an ROI or has to have an roi, But I think the point is whether it's directly visible on your P and L in a very short term or not, but every investment has to have some sort of roi. I think that that's, that's important to understand, right? If there is something that's got no impact on your whole P and L, and it's not just about money, it's even about time, right? If not now, maybe tomorrow, maybe day after tomorrow, but if none, then I guess it's not worthy of even spending your dime or time on it.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker D: So I think that's where I have that philosophy in my mind. Question is at times when you are comparing your scenarios, what most of the time people forget is that what is the cost of doing nothing? Because at times what you see, ah, I've got two scenarios in Excel and one is like what we were doing in past versus what we want to do. I think the important factor is what if you don't do anything? The cost of doing nothing is absolutely something that people forget in, uh, evaluating proposals. Because what you have done or delivered in past doesn't necessarily mean that you're important reference. Because world around you is constantly changing, happened in the past. May not be necessarily true of your performance reflection if you do nothing.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: I think that's particularly pertinent at the moment. There's a lot, lot of changes happening within, particularly within the grocery business that mean that what last year looked like is probably irrelevant. And so being able to clearly articulate what, what the possible futures could be depending on which path you go down, I think that's really critical.

Speaker D: Hmm.

Speaker B: To what extent do you think the. Because both your career journeys are quite different, but the common denominator is the breadth of experience that you've had, whether you've had it in one business or you've had it across a couple. To what extent do you think that breadth of experience is important in helping people as they navigate their career have a bigger picture view and be able to relate to other functions and think about the total and holistic impact of, of initiatives?

Speaker D: Uh, absolutely. I would say a lot frankly. First 10, 12 years of my experience was purely commercial focus. Just looking at sales and marketing side and probably a bit core into accounts and finance. That's probably the glamorous side of the business most of the time. What we tend to forget is about the other side of the business, which is the one getting you the products that you're selling, at least in the uh, FMCD sector. That did an amazing elevation in my whole perspective when I spent that those six, seven years in the supply chain side. So obviously at times when we are into decision making, it helps to understand like if what may look great from the supply chain point of view may not be a great sales outcome, whereas what you may look at as a great sales outcome may not be feasible or even practical from supply chain perspective.

Speaker A: And you got manufacturing experience as well in Malaysia, didn't you? So if I think about FMCGs in Australia, almost all of them are a sales and supply chain function of a large multinational where you've manufactured offshore. How much do you think actually learning the manufacturing side has impacted your view here now that you're focused more on the sales and supply chain?

Speaker D: See, it does helps me actually a lot because at the end of the day, the product has to be made somewhere and delivered to your market, which is ultimately a supply chain job. But while you're framing your requirements, somebody has to still do the job. It may not be directly into your local business's domain because you're importing that product and making it, but it is important to understand what it would pose up for the backend and the asks while you're finalizing your business proposal to make sure that what's. What is, whatever is being asked, is it even practical? Will cut through well or not.

Speaker A: And it sounds like Chris, from your end, you obviously had the three years overseas in the U.S. yep. How, how critical is that again to, to you know, do your job now? And would you obviously then recommend that to someone else who hasn't had that opportunity to spend time in the.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. I think where the criticality comes for me of that experience was understanding our organization. Unfortunately get to spend an awful lot of time, as much time as I'd like anyway with our, uh, customers. Most of the conversations that I have are internal. So what that means is to have that sort of innate understanding of how the business more broadly operates internationally makes it really useful for me to be able to then uh, assess our ability to deliver against our customer commitments. Like as I said earlier, the, the being involved in the creation of brand campaigns and things like that in the US Gave me a huge, completely different perspective on the marketing function within sdj. And that's unique to the how SDJ operates. And that was really, really crucial for me, I think in terms of that experience. The other point I'd make as well, around something like supply chain, if you can get the direct experience of working in manufacturing or supply chain, fantastic. But not everyone has like I've never had that opportunity to work, to have that on my title as I'm working in supply chain. But I think it's really important to be really curious and involve yourself in those conversations because you can just learn a lot from listening and being around those conversations rather than saying, well, that's supply chain's problem. I don't really need to get involved in that or that's marketing's problem. I'm gonna let them worry about that. Taking the opportunity, even if it's not in your job description necessarily to expose yourself to those conversations and understand what the pressures are that they're facing and why they may be making decisions that they're making that ultimately will impact the sales function is really crucial.

Speaker B: And to close us out. If you could go back in time and give your younger self some career advice, when you were early career, what would you say? What would your advice be?

Speaker D: I think one thing that I can now look back easily is try and get the breadth of the experience across outside of your function, early in your career stage. The faster you start getting that perspective, it helps you a lot while you are in the room discussing a business proposal. I would say in a very biopic way. Mhm.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and if you can do that early in your career, it certainly makes it a lot easier and also then gives you the options to be able to make a career path that you may not have necessarily envisaged. I would say if I were to give myself some advice, and I don't. It's not that I. It didn't happen for me, I think probably because it did happen for me, that I've been so lucky, so it'd be less advice around doing something differently for me, but just to reinforce, surround yourself with good people. Like, if you have the opportunity of working in a team that's dynamic and makes coming to work enjoyable and you're striving for the same thing, but you can enjoy yourself along the time, that makes it such a more rich experience because by being surrounded by smart people who you can learn from, to get even early in your career, at every level in your career is just so crucial. And then certainly never take the approach that you're the smartest person in the room, because you really are for advice.

Speaker B: Chris Piyush, thanks both so much for coming on. It's been a really good conversation and we really appreciate your time.

Speaker C: Thank you very much for having us.

Speaker A: Thank you for having us. Uh, thanks, guys.

Speaker B: We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Our purpose is to help you make great career decisions. If anything we discussed today got you thinking about your own journey, reach out to me or one of the specialist team here at axr, uh, Recruitment and Search. See you next time.

Speaker E: 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. Uh, if you're looking to make the next move in your finance career or build your team, um, get in contact with the team at AXR Recruitment and Search today. We're passionate about building careers. Not jobs, teams, not just hires. If you enjoyed the episode, hit the like button and subscribe today. See you next time.