Ep. 134: Karri Callahan - Preparing Finance Leaders for Success

Contact Karri Callahan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karri-callahan-5219676a/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch (00:00):


Hey everyone. Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about
all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your
host Mitch Roshong and this is episode 134 of our series. In
today's conversation, you will hear from Karri Callahan, CFO of
global real estate company, Remax. Karri spoke with my co-host
Adam about the role of the CFO and shared some tips for finance
leaders. From strategy and technology to diversity, equity and
inclusion, Karri has great perspective on many topics business
leaders should be aware of. So to hear more, keep listening as we
head over to their conversation now.


 


Adam (00:47):


So Karri, thanks so much for joining us and as you know, the role
of the CFO is become very multifaceted and how can aspiring
finance leaders better prepare themselves for providing a
strategy and insight?


 


Karri (01:00):


Great, thanks so much for having me Adam, I appreciate it. And I
think there's a couple of things to consider. First and foremost,
I think it's important that you always keep learning, making sure
that you continue to build your network, connect with peers and
think about joining the right organization for you so that you
can hear from different speakers and industry leaders on a
regular basis, I think is really helpful. Some organizations that
you can consider and that I've found helpful include Financial
Executives International or FEI, and also the Association of
International Certified Professional Accountants, so the AICPA.
Since I've been the CFO of a publicly traded company for the last
five years or so, I've also found, NIRI or the National Investor
Relations Institute, a great resource, they offer some fantastic
certification courses and trainings and have just a tremendous
library of events and programs that they offer. So I think that's
also another resource for you. And then of course, last but not
least, IMA definitely I know you all have a lot of resources to
help professionals. I think the last thing I would say is just
read things that are of interest to you, so that you can stay
current either on recent economic trends, trends that might be
impacting your business or your industry, or just business
leadership in general. But I think some of the best advice I've
gotten is that it's important and critical to really be
intentional about how you spend your time. Your time is truly
invaluable and making sure that you get the most out of every
minute is critical, but if you keep really absorbing information,
learning from others, the better prepared you're going to be as
life and your profession throw you curve balls.


 


Adam (02:53):


Yeah, definitely. So, you know, speaking of time, we know that
time, technology takes a lot of our time and technology has
changed how finance and accounting operate with how, many routine
tasks or many, many routine tasks are now automated, freeing up
professionals to focus on higher level tasks. How well acquainted
should today's accounting and finance professionals be with
technology like intelligent automation or RPA?


 


Karri (03:21):


Yeah. So it's a great question. Remax LLC, president Nick Bailey,
who I work closely with, he oftentimes tells our agents that if
you know that technology won't put real estate agents out of
business, but agents who don't embrace technology will put
themselves out of business. And I think that advice is applicable
to so many other professions, including mine and accounting and
finance. And so I think as you think about technology and as all
professionals really think about technology, it's important that
we're always learning and evaluating and studying new trends from
a technology perspective, that makes sense for your company and
the finance and accounting operations within your organization.
Our teams are constantly evaluating how to incorporate new
technologies and software into our routine accounting and finance
processes and the reason why that's so critical is because it
frees up our team's time to really help analyze trends within the
business, evaluate business opportunities and really work
strategically with other leaders within our organization so that
we're contributing to strategic growth initiatives. And so
technology is a key point to that, you know, as part of that
transformation within our business, our company now has more
in-house technology expertise and firepower than we ever have. We
have now about 50% of our workforce that's directly involved in
technology and we've recently announced an organizational change
to really create one technology team comprised of all of those
professionals so that we can really maximize collaboration, focus
on our customer and end user experience and operate with purpose,
passion, and excellence from a technology perspective. And I
think what that does over time is, you know, we expect it really
will benefit the entire corporate team, including everyone from
an accounting and finance perspective, as well as other services
function by really enhancing the delivery and supportive
technology and data to all areas of the business so that we can
continue to drive the business forward.


 


Adam (05:28):


Definitely. It sounds like Remax is doing some wonderful things
to, be a leader in the industry. So what do you do to stay ahead
on the technology curve?


 


Karri (05:39):


Yeah, great question. So I think, you know, fortunately the piece
of change in the real estate industry, it's incredibly exciting
and incredibly dynamic and because of that, our leadership team
has really a front row seat to the latest technologies as we
implement our MNA strategies as well as just continue to focus on
our organic growth as well. For example, you know, despite a
global pandemic in September of last year, we announced the
acquisitions of Gadberry Group and Weenlow. Gaderry Group
specializes in building best in class products that help clients
solve geospatial challenges through accurate and precise location
data. Weenlow is a Florida based startup that is reshaping the
mortgage loan processing, process within the mortgage brokerage
channel and they have developed the first service cloud for
mortgage brokers effectively combining third-party loan
processing with an all-in-one digital platform. And so those are
just two really exciting opportunities that we have been able to
execute upon as we really look to stay ahead of that technology
curve. You know, we're always assessing the latest technologies
and innovative companies with in, in the space and in our
business pursuits because we are the worldwide leader and we want
to make sure that Remax, stays in that position from a real
estate technology perspective is clear. That mission is hugely
beneficial to my knowledge of what's currently out there and what
the space is, is truly lacking. It sounds simple, but another way
to stay ahead of the curve is really by surrounding myself with a
healthy mix of like-minded individuals and people who really
stretched me beyond my own constraints. We have a fantastic
network of about 140,000 real estate agents, more than 600
headquarter employees, and we operate in over 110 countries and
territories globally and I'm so fortunate to be able to work with
and network alongside people who have very similar core values
and yet challenge each other to continuously improve and
innovate. And I think that collaboration really transcends across
our headquarters organization because I think staying connected
with leaders on the technology side is really important. I have a
standing weekl...