How Finance Professionals Can Transition to Strategic Roles with Steve Rosvold

How did you go from being a CFO of conagra to starting your own business? How did that happen?

Well, yeah, you know, I'd spent 22 years in the corporate world a bunch with Cargill and then with ConAgra for four years as the. As the CFO of their molting company. And conagra and the other owner of this joint venture decided they wanted us to move from Vancouver to Omaha. So they removed the headquarters office from Vancouver. And we had kids in high school at the time, and Pat and I started talking about it, saying, you know, this might be a great opportunity to get out of the helter skelter of the multinational and try something my own. So my entrepreneurial bent was kind of a. I was pretty excited about that. This gave us the opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to kind of test that. And so when we moved the office, I didn't move and I stayed here in Vancouver and. And the rest is history, let me put it that way.

I agree, and we'll jump more into that, both CFO University and some of the consulting you've done. But I want to go back to your days in corporate. You know, you worked in corporate, worked your way up, and eventually becoming a cfo. I'm curious, what was the hardest part of making that adjustment from, you know, being a team member to being over the entire function to being that cfo?

Yeah, you know, I'd spent my career in accounting and finance with these multinational companies, which can be their own career paths. Right?

Sure.

And so when I became the CFO at conagra Mall, I think that the most difficult things for me were becoming strategic. So all of a sudden, the tactical pieces where I'd been really successful with certain areas, whether it was, you know, division in Cargill's grain department, or whether it was in our. Our energy department, where I kind of ran some old logistics, I didn't have that strategic. And so that was a big shift where all of a sudden, you know, you have to really not get caught in the weeds. So I had to pull myself up from the weeds. I think another area was working with execs from really directly with sales, sales and marketing, with operations, with some of the logistics people and making sure that we worked together with them. In the past, I could do a lot of things on my own and come up with ideas, and it really didn't impact them as much. Now the decisions I was making was going to impact them. And I think the third area, when I was, I never had treasury operations. So at cfo University. We consider finance, accounting, treasury, and leadership as the four pillars of the cfo. And at my Cargill days, Treasury was centralized. And so I never had that cash management fundraising experience I got thrown into as a CFO at the conagra joint venture. And so I think for me, that was very specific, a technical area I didn't have skills in. But I think the more strategic and the more being able to work with the executives from other departments and making sure I saw how they saw the business, because that was my. My biggest transition was I thought I was the smartest in the room. And I very quickly learned that was not the case and I better be able to work with these people and learn what they're all about. And so those were kind of the three big shifts I made when I became a cfo.

Yeah. And I want to dig into one of those. And that's the first one you mentioned of that becoming more strategic and also being able to see big picture versus being in the details, in the weeds. Because I think that's a common challenge FPA professionals have in general. I know it was a real challenge for me. I had to work on is okay, they don't need all the details. My boss doesn't care. He doesn't want them. He wants the strategic and the big picture. But how did you make that adjustment?

Well, I think one of the things that helps a lot as a CFO is you have a team to help you do that. So you still need somebody in the weeds, somebody to do all the hard. That heavy lifting. And so that. But being able to manage them rather than wanting to do it. So, you know, and especially finance and accounting, you know, we're used to delivering results. We're used to doing the work. We don't mind hard work. And so, you know, if you kind of enjoy that part of your role, all of a sudden, all that detail you're getting in, where you're creating those insights from all that, you know, somebody else is going to start doing that for you or you're not going to be in that CFO job very long. So I think for my background, it was being able to accept others are going to do great work, and I just need to be able to lead them and nurture their great work and use it more strategically than tactically. And so that was, I think, kind of the biggest framework mindset change for me was others are going to do the work. So it's not so much that you don't do the work or the group doesn't do the work. Just that you're not doing the work. Right. As much gratification as that used to come, when I'd get that big project done, you kind of have to step back from that.

Makes total sense as a cfo. What if you're in a role where you're still pretty hands on, but you're managing or were not managing, but you're supporting high level people who want the big picture. Any advice of how you make that transition or focus on making things high level? Right. Because you have to get into the weeds. But the people you may be supporting don't want you in the weeds. They want that big picture. And I know for me, it was difficult to make that adjustment or that switch. It took a lot of practice.

That is such a great question. And I still to this day, you know, people look at a PowerPoint presentation of mine, they say, how come there's so much on there? So I have to consciously think, remove, remove, remove. Because my background, give, give them all that work I did. Because it's great detail.

Yeah.

So you really have to step back from that and say what's really important. And one of the best ways you can do that is to, you know, find some mentors to test with. And so what I would do is I had. My CEO at Conagar was great at this. But even other people that you're not necessarily presenting to, go over your presentations with them. Here's my message. And you'll get that great feedback. So that's one way to get real life feedback on. Here's what I was going to say and let somebody kind of say, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, that is way over the top. I just need the executive summary. And that really helps. Will help you.

Yeah, I think that's great. To get feedback from others. I. I've told this story many times on different podcast episodes. I had a boss that was extremely detailed. So he got along great because I'm very detailed. He wanted everything. Then all of a sudden they let him go through a reorg. And I had a new boss that wanted everything high level and she didn't like me. And it was pretty apparent. It was like, he does good work. Just give him time. There are people, you know, telling her that when she complain. And one guy would literally, on meetings, he would DM me on the sides, like, bring it up. You're getting too detailed. And he would. We had an agreement. He would always tell me. And that was something that forced me to start thinking more big picture because I would want to get so much into the weed. So it was definitely a hard transition for me.

Yeah. And I think it's something you have to consciously think about. And especially, again, finance and accounting people, we love the details. That's partly, you know, a lot of us have the roots where we. The deep analysis is kind of what we, you know, bringing something new to by looking at things very carefully is kind of in our DNA. And so there's all this tension to say, well, now I want you to know all the work I did, and I think that's what you got to steer away from. You know, don't worry. That's the sunk cost. Figure out what they need to know to do their jobs, and that's when you can hit gold nuggets for sure.