Ep. 43: Hiten Keshave - Who is a Disruptive Leader? | CFO Mindset

Contact Hiten:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitenkeshave/
"Defining a Successful Disruptive Leader":
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/defining-successful-disruptive-leader-hiten-keshave-ca-sa-mba/


For more information, visit his website at
www.theunconventionalca.com and subscribe to his newsletter.



FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)


Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. Our guest for episode
43 is Hiten Keshave CFO, entrepreneur and established leader in
finance. And it's conversation with Mitch, Hiten shares his
perspective relating to automation, job creation, innovation, and
the overall mindset of a successful finance leader. Let's hear
his insights now. 


 


Mitch: (00:33)


So I know looking at your LinkedIn, one of the things you have in
your title is mind shift leader. So in your opinion, when it
comes to accounting and finance or just business in general, you
know, how do we need to shift our mindset when it comes to
artificial intelligence and the disruption that it has caused in
accounting and finance. 


 


Hiten: (00:52)


The key aspect from a finance individual versus artificial
intelligence. Now there's been a whole talk about it being a
replacement of individuals and the current roles that people
play. And so people are going to become obsolete in the work
place. I don't think that's necessarily the case. What will
actually happen is there will be a transition, the change of
roles that individuals will play in business. The mindset will
change to how am I going to stay relevant? What this transition
of technology that comes in. And I use the example of, Excel, you
know, and accounting back in those days, the general ledger is
all done on paper. Those big 80 size books. And then, the
introduction of, Excel came in and things just started to be done
electronic, but the individual didn't become obsolete. All they
did was they changed the skillset to become more relevant with
time. So I think that mind shift aspect is, stay away from the
negativity that, indulges around the environment and focus on
well, how you can in and make yourself relevant. 


 


Mitch: (02:08)


Besides helping, you know, really in my opinion, I think the
automation helps the accountant today. what other further
positives do you think this automation, artificial intelligence,
RPA has to offer to the profession? 


 


Hiten: (02:24)


Look, I think a RPA in itself is going to, besides efficiencies
and productivity, it's going to come ultimately to a bigger
business perspective from a decision making as big, you know, you
will have information readily available for you to analyze, make
better decisions from, look at analytics, you know, descriptive
analytics, predictive analytics, using artificial intelligence
based on historic data that's set in your, if you have a
technology with old one to have a customer or revenue later data,
you know, it extracts a extrapolate storage movement to use some
prediction going forward. And you can then apply commercial
acumen to that to say, you know what, okay fine, this is what's
happened in the past. But going forward, things actually changing
autonomy wise. So I think it's going to make businesses more
proactive rather than reactive. 


 


Mitch: (03:29)


Well, I know making business more proactive and I told you before
this call, I enjoy following you on LinkedIn and all your
articles and posts. One of the things I saw was the “disruptive
leader”. So is that something that you coined yourself or is that
something you picked up from somebody? 


 


Hiten: (03:47)


I've tried to coin as many of these things myself, but there
might be others who described the message in their own way. 


 


Mitch: (03:56)


Well, I think it's right in alignment with what you're talking
about here and you know, being able to take these insights and
lead the business through. So can you just kind of explain to our
listeners here what you actually mean by a disruptive
leader. 


 


Hiten: (04:10)


Look, in context to the AR, RP, RPA side? You know, I look at a
disruptive leader, someone who's going to be visionary and old
thinking, you know, someone who is going to look, you know, what
can I do better going forward rather than, what is it that I need
to do now? So thinking in the future rather than thinking in the
present moment only. So, you know, often we get told to live in
the present moment. But that's not only enough now with
technology coming in and especially if you're a technology
company, which is where I play, you know, we always have to think
what is it that we can do better for clients in order to keep our
business and product more relevant in that instance is do we have
to introduce artificial intelligence in our own product itself
that we deliver to our clients to make their lives easier and to
make ourselves more relevant? You know, those are the type of
aspects that, you need to look at it. So as a visionary leader,
you need to look both internally but also externally in terms of
delivery to your customers as well. 


 


Mitch: (05:15)


And now how does this, it kind of changed the benchmarks or the
measure of success of the finance team when everything is not so
internally focused and you know, looking at the right now, but
more in the future, how do you measure that? 


 


Hiten: (05:33)


Look, I think there'll be certain basics that the finance team
will still need to do deliver in terms of what they do today or
where I think the key aspect will come in is what is finance now
able to do with day financial data to make business decisions
more effective from an operational aspect and a strategic aspect.
How does a financial individual uses commercial acumen and
strategic acumen, but improve a business other than being a
backend office person, only be an office person who able to add
very in a proactive manner in a strategic, a general of the
business or in an operational one. So you know, there's this old
term about finance business partnering. It's a big buzzword
that's going around. Essentially the crux of it is don't sit on
your laurels and only thinking of finance aspect. Start thinking
broad based on a whole business perspective. And I look at it
these, you know, if you're a CFO and you want to transition into
a CEO role. You actually need to know your business holistically.
And I think that's the role ultimately, that the CFO and the
finance individuals will start playing. 


 


Mitch: (06:55)


So leading into my next question right there, I know, the role of
the CFO has changed and there's a lot of talk about that. You
mentioned business partnering. So in your terms, you know, who
really is the modern CFO and what can we expect from that role to
change even more as the industry continues to progress. 


 


Hiten: (07:19)


Okay. Your modern CFO for I would say is a copilot or a CEO or
managing director over the business. Essentially that individual
for me in the future or even currently needs to ...