Ep. 112: Miguel Molina - How has Finance become an Accelerator for Change?

Contact Miguel Molina:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miguelmolinaprofile/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMitch:
(00:00)
 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 today's conversation will cover the topic of
leadership and how finance leaders accelerate change. In episode
112 of our series, Miguel Molina, CFO at Avocados from Mexico
talks about his career journey and what he has been able to
overcome and accomplish through effective leadership and change
management. Stay tuned as we listened to his conversation with
Adam now.
 
 Adam: (00:41)
 So Miguel, can you tell me a bit about your career
journey?
 
 Miguel: (00:45)
 Sure, Adam. Well, I'm the son of Carmen and Hector, and
Carmen, my mother was a visionary woman and, my father was a
successful entrepreneur in southern, Mexico. I'm a first
generation going to college. Actually my, my mother was the one
who convinced me to go to Northern Mexico to pursue a degree. And
even she said, look, who knows, maybe you may end up working in
the U S. And so I did my undergrad in accounting in northern
Mexico in one of the most prestigious university in Latin
America, which is Monterey tech. I graduated with honors in
December, 1994. 1994-1995 was a difficult years in Mexico. There
was years of economic and political turmoil. Mexican economy
style deficits rose. Politics became unstable and even some
politicians were assassinated. And after 75 years, the PRI to the
main party in Mexico, lost government control to another party
after 72 years. But, so despite all these changes as a young
student, I always wanted to represent Mexico and work for an
international company in the US. So I've quickly realized that I
needed to improve my skills, Adam. I decided to sell my car both
to Canada, I spent three months to improve my English skills.
Vancouver, Canada was a great, great experience, but also my last
year in college, a teacher of mine, actually a corporate
executive and one of the largest tortilla corn meal companies in
the world invited me to join Mission foods here in the U.S., and
I did. and I started, I started internal auditor. I had been
fortunate to travel to the U.S, and I spent a fantastic 18 years
careers at mission foods. And I took a position in Southern
California as a sales and distribution accountant. Company gave
me a full region moving from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho,
Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Eventually our corporate offices
were moved to Dallas, Texas, and we relocated in 2003 and they
gave me all U.S. responsibility for the sales and distribution
accounting. Then in 2009, as all we know the U.S. experience a
great recession, and also needed to improve my skills. So I
pursued an executive MBA at Southern Methodist university, and
graduated with honors in 2011. Around 2014, the former VP of
marketing for Mission foods moved to Avocados from Mexico, as his
precedent and CMO, and he invited me to join Avocados from
Mexico.  I  accepted, and now I'm at the CFO, one of
the most exciting and successful problems, marketers
organizations in the U S Adam.
 
 Adam: (03:39)
 That's great, and I'm a consumer of avocados from Mexico.
So that's very exciting to talk with you today.
 
 Miguel: (03:47)
 Excellent. You'll be surprised that eight of every 10
avocados consumed the U.S. come from Mexico. And just as a
trivia, you need to know that avocados is a berry it's from the
same family of a berry.
 
 Adam: (04:01)
 So you have a quite, quite a journey that you've come from,
you know, where you grew up in Mexico, all the way to where you
are today. What leadership characteristics have enabled you to
get where you are?
 
 Miguel: (04:12)
 Well, there are a few topics that I can see in my career.
I'm borrowing some items from the leadership tools begin with the
end in mind. I think that that is very important. Be resilient
and lead by example, and yes, some, some good old luck, Adam. Let
me tell you a quick story about, about that. When I was in
college, a classmate, invited me to spend a spring break with him
at his house. He is from Queretaro, a state located in central
Mexico. And during his family dinner, he talk about his plans. I
remember him saying that he wanted to finish university, pursue
his master's degree at the University of Michigan, go back to
home to his hometown, and became the mayor of his hometown and
then become the governor of his state. I was in awe. So wait a
minute, here's a guy, my same age, same age, education level,
both  were doing very well at school. With such plans
unbelievable because until then my goals was to go back to my
hometown and work for my father and my family. But I have to say
that that made that night, my life change, I dare to dream. I
decided to do well with school, learn English, pursue an MBA and
work for an international company. So beginning with the end in
mind, I think is, is important, be resilient, be consistent and
always lead by example, Adam.
 
 Adam: (05:46)
 Definitely, and you know, I'm sure as time has gone on your
job role has changed as an expectation changes. We're in the
middle of a pandemic still, you know, how have you been able to
develop your change management skills and make everyone aware of
the necessary changes as you've gone along?
 
 Miguel: (06:02)
 Change is always being consistent, and I follow an author,
Yuval Noah Harari, and he wrote one of the best sellers book,
Sapien. And he's an extraordinary philosopher, historian, and
storyteller, highly recommend to you and your audience to look
for him, Yuval Noah Harari. So he makes an interesting analogy.
He says, Hey, listen, in the past, we were thought to have any
strong and deep foundations, it was very important, right? So
like a house, if a hurricane or a strong wind passes, that
foundation will keep you grounded. Well, today he says the
knowledge is different. We need to have a mentality of a tent.
Yes, like a camping tent and be ready for significant changes on
a strong winds. So when that happens, now, what we need to do is
to pick up a tent and move to another place. So let me say Harari
talks about the most successful skills in the future will be the
capacity to that capacity to change, right? Including the
psychology of change, because in our lifetime, we need to
reinvent ourselves so many times. I'm sure you Adam, me and all
of us, your audience have we need them force or to reinvent
ourselves. Right? So during my career, I've been very fortunate
to work with great leaders, Adam, and it gave me the freedom and
the confidence to make changes. So over the years, I have
reinvented my position many times, I expanded my responsibilities
to other areas, including technology, and continue process
improvement, and I'm upstairs. We've improving processes and
finding efficiencies and  changes come with risks. I have
some battle scars for sure by that. However, if you're prepared
to business case and take a small risk to test your ideas, you
gain confidence and that the company where you're working with
also begin building that trust in you, Adam.

Adam: (08:00)
Definitely trust is a huge factor, in, in any type of change
management. Is that what you use to kind of get buy in from your
stakeholders in your organization as you made those
changes?

Miguel: (08:14)
Yes. Yes, Adam, listen, I would like to talk about a time when I
failed and I failed badly. I was working for my previous company.
I convinced your management that we needed to invest in a trade
promotion application. I created a vision, tackle it...