#299 What It Takes to Become CFO by 33 Audrey Lagresle CFO, Automobile En Direct

Speaker A: I'm 35, so I haven't been CFO for a long time. It's been two years.

Speaker B: CFO at 33, that's quite a quick journey.

Speaker A: The CFO role now is more about creating value for the business. It's more about growing the business. It's about being the CEO, have the decision making with financial um, data, uh, understanding operation. Whether it's AI or any technological project, as CFO you have to keep control of it. You, you have to make sure it's creating value for the business.

Speaker B: Grow CFO is where finance leaders grow together. Join thousands of like minded professionals using Grow CFO to access the combined knowledge and experience of the finance leader community. You can join us today growcfo.net. hello and welcome to the Grow CFO Show. I'm your host Kevin Appleby. And uh, today I've got with me Audrey Lagrelle who is the CFO of Automobile on Direct. Audrey, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you Kevin. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: This all sounds very French, but you're not in France, are you?

Speaker A: No, I'm not. I'm in Montreal, Canada. But the province of Quebec is more French.

Speaker B: So CFO of Automobile on Direct. What does Automobile on Direct do?

Speaker A: So Automobile Indirect is a small, medium sized business within the automotive industry in the province of Quebec in Canada. We are a uh, used car retailer. So it was founded in 2001 by our President and we're still the founder, owner president. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. That's fun. But we are selling used car basically so purchasing used car on um, wholesales or anywhere in Canada. We are reconditioning cars and then selling through our branches. We are also exporting some of it in the USA and basically we are selling over 14,000 cars a year. So it's quite a lot of volume. We are number one in Canada who are selling only used car. Of course there are big groups who are new dealerships who are selling used car. But we are only focused on the used car market and it's quite a big, big company in.

Speaker B: Brilliant. So Audrey, tell me a little bit about you. How do you get to be CFO of what is quite uh, an exciting growing company in Canada?

Speaker A: Yes, it's a short, long story because I'm 35 so I haven't been CFO for a long time. It's been two years.

Speaker B: Still CFO at 33. That's quite a quick journey.

Speaker A: Yes, exact. I think I had a variety of experiences within the finance function in a very short period of Time. And I think it all started very early, if you allow me to maybe uh, mention that, because I was born in France in a very entrepreneurial family. My parents had a small furniture business and uh, my brother and I literally grew up in the business. It's fun fact, but my father built an apartment in the warehouse of the shop. So since birth, until 8 years old, we live in the business. And I think it's important to mention that because it allowed me to understand how a business operates as a whole. And then later on I had experiences in the multinational where I learned a lot, but everything is so divided and fragmented in bigger organization. So I think early on I was exposed to how a business works and um, it really helped in the future. So that was when I was younger. But then I study of course finance, corporate finance. I have a bachelor degree. I immigrated in Canada for my studies, so I studied corporate finance and I have a master's in strategy. So the combination of both and then I joined a, um, multinational. Bombardier. It's a big company in Canada. I don't know if you know, but

Speaker B: yes, they operate in the uk.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: One of my former bosses was also in Bombardier. I'm well aware of. In the construction field.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, we have a plant in Belfast actually I went there. So Bombardier was a great uh, experience for me. So I started working there after my studies and I did many things. For the first year I was working in basic accounting and between you and I, I didn't have a lot of fun. I applied internally to work on in a pricing team more so then very early in my career I was exposed to do some modeling, financial modeling, using data from consumer project, geography, economics to price different aircraft parts packages for our customers. So I touched data and analytics, uh, that were not only coming from the books. Very early in my career, I think it helps too. And then at the time in Bombardy they set up what they call the finance transformation team. So what was this team about? It was the objective, the aim was to optimize and reduce the cost of the finance function. So at the time we're talking about a multinational with 60,000 employees worldwide, just the finance function, it was more than 1,000 employees, 414 finance VPs, you know, it was huge. And the goal really was to reduce the size of this finance function. And lucky me, I was one of the two analysts that were hired to be part of this internal team. And so during four years, function by function, we had different projects and we started with account, uh, receivable, account payable, general Accounting. We centralized all our accounting offices from different plants in wherever in the world in three different, what we call Financial Shared Services Center. So fss. So we opened one in Costa Rica for the Americas, one in Romania for Europe, Africa and one in Philippines for Asia. And so at that time I got to travel a lot. I was more focused on the opening in Costa Rica, but I got to travel a lot in Mexico, usa, Canada, to close our accounting offices within plants and to move the job to Costa Rica. So a lot of training, process mapping, change management. I was not doing accounting or FP&A at the time I was more in project management. But I got to understand really how a, uh, finance function works in such a big organization. So that was a great experience.

Speaker B: And think about those shared services skills. Audrey, how much of that have you then found useful? Later on night you're doing a CFO role.

Speaker A: How it is helpful for my role now? Yeah, of course a lot of things because as I mentioned at that time it was more like project management. So we get to build a new site, select a site somewhere in America, then supervise the building, hire the new people, train people, do some process mapping, set up a new system to communicate with all different manufacturing plans. So throughout these experiences you develop a lot of skills that are helpful now, like people management, change management, risk management. So even if it's not really finance, I was not doing finance at that time, but I got to understand the relationship between those accounting teams with operation. Now you're moving away finance, operation, accounting from manufacturing plants to an off site site in another country. How does it work? How like uh, I think it's all

Speaker B: the people skills that surround doing that, the change skills that are the key things for the cfo. And you don't really need to understand how to put the numbers together anymore. You've got a head of finance to do that. No, you need to be there interpreting the numbers, making the changes happen, leading the business on. And the set of skills that you're describing there coming from Bombardier are just brilliant for the role.

Speaker A: It lasted four years in this transformation team. But it really paved the way for me very early in my career to touch a lot of things because then we implemented a system for the FPNA functions which was called SAP BPC Business Planning and Consolidation. So then I got to touch FP and a consolidation, then I worked within the cost accounting team. So labor and overhead, bill of material, cost accounting, all of this to again centralize. Because Bombardier grew by acquisition, so they were acquiring business, but they never standardized centralized Simplify. So in each plants in Belfast, in Mexico, in Wichita, in the us, in Toronto, in Montreal, they had different way of doing the same things. So at some point become important to sit together people who were doing the same thing and then simplify, try to standardize and it's not easy, it is

Speaker B: so important to do that. And one of the companies that I was involved in, Michel, had a similar acquisition growth policy. Acquired lots and lots of different businesses and exactly the same thing, had loads of different ways across the company of doing the same thing. The unfortunate thing, Audrey, was that nobody got around to simplify it until it was too late. The company was in severe financial trouble and we had one customer essentially which was UK government. And suddenly 2010 came along and government stopped spending money and um, we had to cut cost. So one of the things that we did was shared services. But it was too late, we couldn't make the changes and cut the costs out fast enough as the top line was falling away. You had the luxury there of doing it when times were good, by the sound of things.

Speaker A: Yeah. But at the same time it was not easy for the company at that time because they invested so much in new aircraft program and put the industrialization behind the development of new program. It was very expensive and that's why it's all started trying to reduce costs in finance and more administrative department. So it was not an easy time for the company. But then I moved to M and A in the corporate team and we were selling different parts of the business. So Bombardier at the beginning they were selling commercial aircraft, business aircraft aerostructures, but also trains. And by the time I was there the company sold all the commercial aircraft trains to Alstom, um, in France. And um, they really refocused on um, what was their core business at the beginning but business aircraft. And actually now the company is doing very well on this side. So it's always a journey. There are some ups and downs, um, and whether it's ups or downs, there always have opportunities for us to grow again.

Speaker B: A great piece of learning for a future CFO role. What goes on in a merger? What goes on in an acquisition? Learn it firsthand.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And it was quite big once I had the opportunity to work on the. Because Airbus in France, both we call the C series, so it was a commercial aircraft developed by Bombardi. And I had the opportunity to work on um, post merger integration or carve out activities with Airbus and Bombardier. It was a lot of things, financial things, but also operational things.

Speaker B: And uh, that's folk think that the acquisition or the merger is the hard bit. I don't. I think it's the post merger or post acquisition integration that's the hard bit. That's the bit that, where you make the mistakes.

Speaker A: Oh, that's right at the beginning it's a uh, negotiation, but when it becomes real and you have to migrate stuff or carve out stuff, it's a hell of a work.

Speaker B: So we still haven't got you to cfo. Audrey, how did the move to CFO happen?

Speaker A: Well, you know, so I learned a lot in Bombardier and then in 2020 I decided to move to a smaller medium sized business because, because it's closer to my core values and what I wanted to do for the future. So I moved in the automotive industry and a growing company and at the time the company was growing so fast. But there was the finance function was accounting basically there was no budget forecast, business cases, cash flow planning, stuff like that. So I was hired to develop really the FP and a side of the finance function. So during two years I really set up whole budget forecast, cash flow planning, treasury policy. We also work closely with operations as I built monthly financial reviews so that the leadership team, but also operation like general directors could understand the impact of their actions on financials but also introduce them to the concept of building budgets, comparing roles to budget, standard stuff for us in finance, but for our uh, operations it was new. So I spent a year and a half working on that. And I love that it's not always that you have the opportunity to build something from scratch. It was really from scratch at the time. So I got to work closely with operations and um, at the time the company was also growing. So we acquired a business in the marine industry. We opened a new, new rental business. So a lot of things were happening and I was involved in every project in Bombardier. I was working on um, different functions one at a time. We were optimizing one finance function at a time in automobile and direct. I was doing a bit of everything. So it really uh, helped me very different challenge. Yeah, it's the opposites.

Speaker B: You got involved in a grow, ah, cfo. CFO program. Tell me a little bit about that. Why did you feel it was necessary to do that?

Speaker A: I think because first of all I'm, um, a young cfo. I had an education when I was at the university in finance, but then I always learned through my different experiences. But then I wanted to get additional training or just something to make sure I was on the right way, in the right place. And it was fantastic. I had Catherine Clark as a mentor during the program and it really confirmed to me that I'm at the right place at the right time. The program is structured in the way that we're talking with different people from different countries, they are working in different size of companies and we're reflecting on finance, on um culture, on um financial education for the organization, how to approach the board, how to represent the board, business, how to create value for the business, all relevant themes. It's all stuff that I was doing for Automobile on Direct that just confirmed that yes, I think CFO today is no longer what it maybe used to be in the past, like in a more traditional way. And it's funny because earlier this week I participated in a study with Grant Thornton and Asha Simon Real and it was about the role of the CFO in 2030. So like in the near future I think I was the only one that who is not a chartered accountant who had no background in audit or purely accounting. So I felt like the exception in the role. But at the same time the CFO role now is more for me at least or my view is more about creating value for the business. It's more about growing the business. It's about helping the CEO make clear decision based on have the decision making with financial data, understanding operation. It's not just closing the books and um, working on compliance.

Speaker B: I think most of the skills you need to be CFO they never taught you on your accounting exams. So it's probably no disadvantage at all not being a chartered accountant.

Speaker A: Exactly. While working in finance project management in MNE at Bombardier, I was doing board presentation, quarterly earning course presentation work with investors relations. At the end, even in my FP and a role working with operations, looking opportunities to open new branches, acquire a company. It's more stuff that CFO are doing now rather than looking at. Of course you have to understand your P and L and your balance sheet, but you don't have to learn that through um, uh, an accounting standard accounting path. I think there are different ways to become cfo and I took a different path than most of us.

Speaker B: Audrey. A lot of strong CFOs tell me that when they first took the job on, they suffered from imposter syndrome. Is that something you can relate to?

Speaker A: Yes. I think it's also maybe the reason why I wanted to follow the grow CFO program, the CFO program to make sure am um, I equipped for the role, am I ready for that? But at the same time, just two years before, maybe the two Years before I became cfo, I started being very involved in the strategy. So I have a master's in strategy. So I've always been interested and involved in the strategy side of the business. I was leading annual strategy planning off site. I set up a corporate governance. And um, at some point there is this moment when you realize you are not just analyzing the business or presenting numbers, but you're truly influencing the business. And it happened to me before becoming cfo. So in the past I've always been a strong, strong executor. And um, there was this turning point where I felt like I had a true impact on the business and I became more like an influencer. The relationship between COO and CFO is very important. And in automobile and direct, I feel like we trust each other and we are very complimentary. And then also, if I can mention, the year before I became CFO was a tough year because in the used car market during COVID everybody made a lot of money because it was a lucrative market because it's offer and demand. So during COVID all manufacturing plants closed or capacity were lower. So there were less new cars on the market. So used car prices went high, profit were high. It was like, we have a lot of money, we are crying businesses, we are doing a lot of stuff. But then guess what? Two years later, what happened is that price went down.

Speaker B: Yep. What goes up must come down. Basic law of physics.

Speaker A: So we had to set up and execute on a divestment plan. So we sold two minority businesses, we closed one, we continue growing up the core business by opening a new branch. But there was always a lot of things at the same time happening. And maybe that's the difference between a multinational with a medium sized business. Medium sized business, it's just, it never stops. There is always a project, whether it's up and down, always something's happening. And I was involved in all of it. And when I become cfo, my day to day didn't really change. To be honest, I was already in it. So it's just like, I'm ready, that's what I'm doing. Am I doing enough? Is that okay? What should I do differently? I was reflecting of this role, but I was already doing it. That's the truth.

Speaker B: I think that there is this thing that you've stepped out of, the multinational, where you were, uh, a member of a team, you had peers, people you could talk to, people you could share with, people that you could bounce ideas of, step into the CFO role. You're there, you're number one in finance now, there is nobody above you in finance. Yes, you've got your CEO, but the sorts of things that you talk to the CEO about aren't necessarily the things you've got to sort out within finance background. Uh, so where now or would you go for support if you want to talk something through or you need some help on something? What's your support structure look like?

Speaker A: Within finance, you mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, within finance.

Speaker A: Yeah, of course. So I have a very strong corporate controller. And that's important because if you want to focus as CFO on, um, the growth, on creating value for the business, you work closely. I work more closely with the CEO. CEO, VP of operations and operations done with my finance team, actually. Except FP and A maybe. But accounting, I have someone taking care of all accounting payables, receivables, supporting the sales and closing the book. So I have someone taking care of that. She's brilliant, she's really good. And that's really important so that I can focus on different things. I have someone who is doing the budget forecast, everything I built when I joined the company. So someone took over that role and is working closer with me. I have someone working managing the treasury and financing because of course we have hundreds of millions in financing. So I have someone managing this aspect. And, um, that's pretty much it. In finance, we are 19 employees.

Speaker B: You've got a great support structure from the point of view of doing the finance work. And you'll send as though you've adopted a policy of create it and hand it over so that nothing that you've created has actually stayed with you. Which is brilliant.

Speaker A: Exact, yes.

Speaker B: What about, uh, you don't have that kind of peer group support within the company. Have you got a network of other CFOs that you can talk to?

Speaker A: You mean CFO who don't, um, have the same inside structure?

Speaker B: It's really just meaning do you have a CFO network that you can go and share problems with or things like that?

Speaker A: Well, the growth cfo, it brings a network so you can exchange with who follow the same program than you. Of course.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that's the cohort on the program you went through with.

Speaker A: Exactly. But, uh, other than that, not really CFO focus, but women leadership groups. For instance, on Friday I'm going to, uh, an event in Montreal where it's all about women director, uh, and up who are involved with AI. So it's more like around leadership and women groups that I'm part of rather than purely CFO groups. Yeah, brilliant.

Speaker B: Brilliant. So you mentioned that dreaded word there, AI. How's AI impacting you, Audrey?

Speaker A: Of course I think it's impacting a lot of us and it's a good reflection because for me it's part of the CFO role to embrace this change and to uh, regulate that within our organization. Because now we are hearing AI everywhere in every department. And when I took over the CFO role I actually thought about what are our major risk and obstacles to our growth, what are opportunities? Of course, AI is one of them. I launched an internal AI committee within the organization. It includes the leadership team, but also our uh, developers, data, uh, experts and um, it. So it's internal, it's, it's really does not come from external consultant or whatever, but the goal is really to understand what our AI capabilities, train our employees, educate them, define a strategy for the business, but most important, prioritize and make sure we are investing in AI technologies that have a positive ROI return, uh, on investment because it's easy to spend a lot of money, but you have to make sure in the end the return on investment is positive for the company. I think it's key in our CFO role, managing risk and wanted to make sure that the company wanted to create value for the company.

Speaker B: So is it making a difference yet to the headcount that you're employing?

Speaker A: Headcount. We created a new role, Director Technology and Innovation, which in a medium sized business may. I don't know if it's becoming usual or not, but we had a very small IT department with three people and we created this role and the ISD was to really manage all the goal that I just mentioned about this AI committee, it's to lead that committee and make sure projects, uh, are implemented properly with a good return on investment. So yes, we have one additional headcount to play that role. But then we thought a lot about this structure and we decided that because AI in marketing, let's say, is very different than AI in finance, than AI in recondition. And let's say we have AI technologies to recondition our vehicles. So you take pictures and the system like the algorithm tells you what you have to do on the car. But it's not the finance person or the IT person who can handle this project because he doesn't know anything about cars. That's why we have this AI committee. We have the leadership team. So marketing vp, operation vp, sales vp, they are all involved and they are all responsible within their department to find what are uh, AI solutions that could help then As a team, we analyze, prioritize, make sure it's worthwhile, and then we decide to go on and they are leading the implementation. They can have support from the Director of Technology and Innovation, they can have support to our data, uh, expert, to our developers. But it's not them, I, um, mean developers, data expert or IT, who are managing the project. They are just support and it stays within the operations.

Speaker B: That's really interesting that you're talking about AI helping you do more and helping you do better. You're not talking about AI cutting costs by reducing loads of heads. When I said what's the headcount implication? First thing he said is, yes, we've recruited somebody.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, not yet at least. I think AI, IT help us do things differently, but we are not yet at the stage where it's reducing headcount. We still have a lot to learn. We just went through an um, ERP replacement. It's a huge project, maybe one of the hardest in my journey because it touches everything, operation, accounting, it's connected to multiple systems, so it's really at the heart of the business. But anyway, could be the subject of an entire podcast, I think.

Speaker B: I dare say it could be. Yes. And, um, that could be. Actually, I might take you up on that, Audrey, and we'll come back and talk about changing an ERP system at some point.

Speaker A: It was something we're now with Microsoft Business Central. So it's very open system API connected with all our other system and it really changed our life. But whether it's AI or any technological project, as CFO you have to keep control of it. You have to make sure it's bringing creating value for the business. And that's the most important. Then whether it reduce headcount or not, as long as it create values, it's either helping you increasing the top line or reducing headcount to control your cost. But on our side we are more focusing on increasing the top line.

Speaker B: Yeah, for me a lot of it is being able to do things that possibly I didn't have time to do before you get a contract in from a, uh, new customer and you think, well, do I accept this, what I challenge? No, no. It might take you a day to read through it in the old days and perhaps you don't have quite the legal background. ChatGPT, have a look at this contract, please. What should I challenge them on? That, to me is the difference.

Speaker A: It works very well with all contracts, like, uh, comparing contracts. Nowadays I use IT in my day to day, I use AI in my day to day, whether it's for helping me redacting something or analyzing contracts or comparing stuff, asking, looking for data on the market. So a lot of things, I'm using it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Likewise, it's in everything that we touch. It just speeds things up. It allows you to do more. It allows you to do things better. I don't think yet. I'm particularly seeing in anything that I'm doing the opportunity to replace people. It may well have prevented us hiring somebody, but it certainly hasn't led to us removing anybody.

Speaker A: No. And, um, you still have a lot of control to. So maybe it will change a little bit the way people are working, but you still need to control a lot. What's the results coming from AI? You can't just take it for granted and go away with what comes out. I agree with you. We are not there yet.

Speaker B: Audrey, thank you hugely. You've been a really good guest on the Grow CFO Show. Thank you very much.

Speaker A: Thank you, Kevin. It's my pleasure, Sam.