I recently went one-on-one with Michael Walling, former CFO of MetLife Pet Insurance Solutions.
Adam: What compelled you to study accounting and pursue a career in accounting?
Michael: So I actually started off thinking that I was going to be a great marketer, and a great entrepreneur, and I had started a business with a business partner of mine, and I drew the short straw to do the books. So as we were going through and running our business, I would do the books, and I’m like, oh no, I guess I should probably learn something about how to do this and how to do it well. So I took a few classes, and I thought to myself, gee, you know, I actually like doing this. This is something I’m good at. And then as time went on, the business kind of went under, so to speak, and I just kept going in the accounting world. And as I said, I liked it, I was good at it. So I got my bachelor’s in accounting, and said, well, I’ve come this far. Might as well get my CPA license, and that’s why I got my master’s, to get the hourly qualification. So I just kept going until I became a CPA.
I think accounting gives you the nuts and bolts of how you keep score in a business, because that’s really, in accounting, what you do initially; you’re good at keeping score, and it gives you the nuts and bolts of that in the bachelor’s degree. And then as you work on your master’s, you kind of tighten things up a little bit, and you kind of explore more difficult and complex issues in accounting. And really, the master’s degree is designed to prepare you to get that CPA license and to pass that exam. So it gets you really more under the hood into accounting. And then getting your CPA license is obviously the largest achievement for someone who wants to be an accountant.
You know, I actually never stayed or served in the public accounting realm when I was getting my CPA license. They just switched the rules so that you could have a mentor for a year who is a CPA. So I was able to stay in industry the entire time, but it gave me a really, really good foundation to be able to build on as I continued and went more into the finance side of the business, but still maintain that accounting background and my accounting chops, because those were critical to be able to launch that.
And the advice I would give to people who are thinking of going down that route is that it’s a great route. Just as you’re going through it, always, always think of the why and the outcome. Think, all right, I’m learning this, but why am I learning this? How can I apply it? And hopefully the teachers and the professors and the mentors that you have going through the whole process will kind of teach you that why, because to me that’s the most important thing. Because once you get out into a business setting, people are going to want to know why, and that’s really an important skill set to have.
Adam: When does and doesn’t getting a Master’s in accounting make sense?
Michael: So it really, it’s kind of, if you think of it as you’ve got your undergrad, you’re in Accounting 1, Accounting 2, Accounting 3, and each one just kind of goes a little step further and deeper into the accounting world. The master’s degree was like the four and five-level courses on there, just kept going a little bit deeper and deeper into more on combining financial statements and consolidated financial statements and public accounting, financing, and governmental accounting, and kind of a little bit deeper into that.
And honestly, to someone who’s thinking about getting a master’s, I think you really have to think about what you want to do with your career, because a lot of master’s programs out there are really preparatory for the CPA exam, and I really enjoyed it, and it really helped me get ready for the CPA exam.
But the world is kind of changing now, and if you look at a lot of the real-world job postings and what employers are looking for, especially as you grow in the field, they’re looking for a lot of MBAs. So I would encourage people to consider what it is that they want to do with that CPA license, if that’s something that they want to get, and just weigh for themselves, would it be better to have an MBA and get the hours for your CPA license that way, or to go through the Masters of Accountancy to prepare for the CPA exam and then move forward?
So I guess if you want to stay in the accounting world and you want to maybe go to a firm and go through the partnership ranks, you know, that’s great. But if you want to go more into the private sector right now, I think a lot of organizations are really leaning more on the MBA than they are the master’s in accounting.
So, from the MBA and all of my master’s in accounting coursework, several of the classes were shared with the MBA program. And the MBA program teaches you more of what I would call business knowledge, more of how to run a business, how to manage a company, those sorts of things. Where a Master of Accountancy just, once again, builds on your accounting knowledge.
So, to me, do you want to do the master’s and kind of stay in an accounting lane and maybe go through a controller path, or do you want to maybe go into more of a finance side and help strategically to run a business and be able to have that background where you don’t necessarily have to learn that on the job?
Adam: What were the keys for you in rising in your career?
Michael: Sure, so one of the best lessons that I had was fresh out of school, and I was working for a gentleman as a staff accountant, and the owner of the company asked me for a report. So I bring the report to him, and I lay it on his desk. And I remember to this day, he doesn’t look up or anything. He says, okay, so what does it say? And I kind of slid it a little bit closer to him, and he goes, what does it say? And I’m like, what do you mean, what does it say? He says, I can hire an intern to give me reports. If you’re going to succeed as an accountant, a controller, or CFO, you’ve got to tell me what that report says. So you have to know the why behind the numbers.
And he ingrained this into me that first time, that the numbers tell a story, and as a finance person, it is our job to be able to relay that story. And I’ve built upon that through my career, but that has always stuck with me, that you’ve got to know the why, and you’ve got to be able to figure out the story that the numbers are telling, or else you can be replaced by AI, which can just print a report.
Adam: How do you do that?
Michael: Well, the first thing is that you have to learn the business to be able to know the why. You’ve got to understand the drivers and the nuts and the bolts behind what makes a business tick. How does a business make money? How does a business spend money? How is the business profitable? How does it spend its cash?
And as you’re learning and you’re coming up through your career, you should always want to be able to know that and to become greater than just somebody who can print reports. So that’s one of the things that I’ve always done, is just try to dig in and understand the drivers behind the business. That way, when you look at reports, or you’re building a budget, or you’re looking at variance analysis, you can say, oh, okay, we expected A to happen. Well, B happened. Why did B happen? Is it a timing issue? Is it something that is systemic? Is it something that we really have to course correct, or is it something good that we can leverage?
But a good finance person has to know that, and in any situation I’ve been in, that’s always been my goal, to be able to understand that and to help and partner with the business, to be able to look around the corners, because from the finance chair and the accounting chair, we see everything within a business. We see how operations is doing, we see how sales is doing, we see how revenue is doing. We see how we’re spending money on capital projects.
So it’s really important to be able to absorb all of that, to be able to be that true partner with the business, to really help guide them going forward.
There were some really tough times that we had. We had an economic downturn in 2008 that really put a strain on the business. And from my seat, and I made it to the CFO role at that point, to be able to go through some of those really, really bad situations where you’re on the phone with the bank at 4:15 in the afternoon on a Friday afternoon, trying to get them to honor your payroll, it puts a different perspective that you can take with you through the rest of your career. It allows you to put things in perspective and help to maintain a level of composure and calmness when things aren’t going great, because you’ve been to the really, really worst part of it, where you’re almost having to tell people who live paycheck to paycheck, perhaps, that you’re not getting one this week because the bank wouldn’t honor our payroll. So having to go through those negative things, and to be able to use those as perspective builders, and to come through them successfully, those sorts of trials really make you stronger going forward.
And then some of the good things, I remember, I joined the company that we sold to MetLife, and our job was to grow this company to be able to sell it to someone. And when we finally got an offer sheet and went through diligence, seeing what a Fortune 100 company, what they think about, and how they think about things versus a small entrepreneurial company, and just kind of those things that, at the time you don’t really get to take them in. But when you have a chance to sit back and reflect, it’s like, wow, that was a great experience.
Adam: What are those things?
Michael: So you go through it, and you realize that, hey, I’m here at PetFirst, we did a great job. We really grew the company, and somebody wants to buy us, and we’ve positioned ourselves well.
And then you go into the diligence process, and you see what questions these people, who our company would be a rounding error of a rounding error for them when they first purchased us, you see how they’re like, hey, this is great. But in this, kind of see how those people who deal with multi-billion-dollar companies and organizations, how they think about things.
It really is a fresh perspective that you can say, hey, I’ve been really focused on this and this and this. But you’re right. What if we think about it this way, and we think about it without the financial constraints that we had?
So just being able to get other people’s perspectives and then to fold them in, and not be so much, hey, we did a great job. This is what we’ve done here. It’s like, oh, that’s a great way of looking at it. We should continue to figure out how to fold that in as we go forward.
So being able to take those kinds of moments and internalize them and grow from them is really important as you get bigger, and allows you to scale and allow you to serve the company and have the company scale at the same time.
Adam: What were the most important skills that you developed to allow you to rise within your career?
Michael: I think the most important one is the skills that you kind of developed to be that strategic partner, to be able to partner with a CEO or a founder or a board or whatever, to really help them to be able to see around corners and to interpret results.
Being able to take that story that the numbers tell and be able to convey it to people throughout the organization, people who may not be finance, people who may not understand it, to be able to convey the story and what’s happening to people so that they understand their impact on the success of the company.
So to be able to make sure what you’re presenting is consumable, digestible, and actionable. So I think that’s the largest and most important skill that I gained, and as I’ve gone on in my career, is that focus on being that strategic partner and being able to make sure that you’re providing information and the right information that’s timely, consumable to everyone within the organization.
Because, like I said earlier, as finance folks and accounting folks, we see everything, and we can see potholes before we hit them sometimes. And that’s really what a good finance person can do, is help you avoid potholes or find an open lane where you can go faster.
Those soft skills and being able to communicate, that is huge, especially if you are fortunate enough to work with a company like MetLife, where you’re in this huge organization, because the universe of people that you have to be able to provide information for that’s useful grows exponentially.
And people, even outside of your own business unit, who may not have the experience with pet insurance, for example, MetLife has group benefits, but they had to learn what is this pet insurance business that we just bought? So there are a lot of times where we’re presenting information to people, and we have to teach what it is that we do here.
And then eventually they learn that if you’re able to communicate well, then they’re able to take their subject matter expertise that they have and apply it. And that’s how you scale, and you’re able to grow.
But yes, being able to communicate, and communicate the right things too. As I mentioned earlier, my first inclination is, all right, I have to tell the why behind the numbers.
And one of the things that I’ve really added on to that is that there’s also now a so what. Okay, well, these are the numbers. This is a story. But what does it mean? What is it telling us?
And I’ve really worked with people on presentations and such that they’ll put something out there, and I’m like, okay, so what is this telling me? What’s my takeaway from here? Why are you telling me this? Why is this important?
So focusing on the why is really important, and then being able to communicate that, so what. But you have to have that technical background to be able to do that.
Adam: How can anyone develop those soft skills?
Michael: I think a lot of it is experience, and failing, and learning from where you haven’t communicated as well as you possibly could.
Some of my first presentations were terrible, and I was fortunate enough to work for and with some great people who didn’t mind giving feedback in that regard. So take that feedback and incorporate it into the next one.
But first of all, having a really good understanding of not just what the numbers are, but what drives them. Because if you’re comfortable and you know the story, then you’re better able to convey the story.
So I think just learning from your mistakes. If you have a chance to take communication classes, public speaking classes, pay attention when you’re in presentations, and see what works and what doesn’t work. So I think there’s a mishmash of opportunities out there to be able to hone those skills.
I mean, nowadays it’s funny, when I’m working on a presentation, I will almost sometimes storyboard it out to be able to say, this is what we want people to take away from this meeting. And then, does this slide support that story? Does this slide support that story?
And then if there’s something specifically on a slide that we want to make sure it gets pointed out, if somebody is going to pre-read this early, we either highlight it and actually spell it out at the bottom, or if it’s a number on a chart, there’s a big arrow pointing right to it.
You have to know who you’re talking to, who you’re communicating to. And then if you want a specific point to be brought across, you have to put the neon flashing sign around it to make sure that they know it.
Adam: What advice do you have for anyone interested in becoming a CFO?
Michael: So I think the really key differentiator between someone in an accounting role and someone in a CFO role, going from a controller to a CFO, is that a lot of the accounting side of the world, and a lot of the controller side, really looks at what happened. It’s kind of backward-facing. It’s like, all right, this happened, we can explain what happened. This is what happened on the finance side of things.
Good finance folks are, this is what might happen. This is what we think is going to happen. This is, if we do this, what will happen, or if we do this, what will happen. It’s like, these are our risks.
So it’s very much a forward-looking role versus more of a backward-looking role. And some people feel much more comfortable in reporting out and saying, hey, this is what happened. This is why it happened. And that’s great.
I was always more interested in, how do I help the companies I work for? How do I help them look forward, see around the corner, and look at, be able to gauge opportunities and say, hey, that’s a good opportunity if X and Y happen, or it’s not so good if A and B happen. And just being able to be that strategic partner versus, hey, we’re making sure our books are closed. Everything’s right. We’re ready to pass an audit.
So once again, backward versus forward, kind of looking. Strategy versus accounting and GAAP regulation.
Adam: How do you develop the skill set that allows you to excel in strategic finance?
Michael: I think really, it’s almost you have to build on it. And you have to take that baseline knowledge that you have that makes you a good accountant, a good controller, and then ask yourself the question of, all right, this is what happened. Why did it happen?
And then being able to assess why something happened, like I kind of mentioned earlier. It’s like, what are the drivers that cause our business to make money? And diving in and understanding how business works, I think that’s how you make that transition.
A controller and an accountant can understand how the business makes money, but a good finance person kind of goes that next layer down to understand that, oh, these are our leading indicators. These are our lagging indicators.
It’s just a different focus on being able to say, what drives the company, what helps us make money, and then what are our assumptions? How do we build out those assumptions? And then constantly monitoring, are those assumptions correct? Is what we thought about three weeks ago or three months ago, is that still correct, or do we need to course correct?
Or, hey, we’ve got this new opportunity coming up. How does that fit in with what our overall strategic plan is? So really helping to look under the hood and being able to dive in and really assess what’s going on.
So almost like a CEO junior kind of role. You’ve got to just elevate your knowledge into that kind of role, whether they expect you to or not.
Adam: In your experience, what are the keys to successful leadership, and what can anyone do to become a better leader?
Michael: So you know, that’s a great question, because I think we’ve all been with people who are great leaders and some that aren’t great leaders. But going back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, I think the key to a great leader is communication. Transparency, honesty, really caring about what happens with your team and your teammates.
And also being able to convey the why and the what for to the people on your team, so that if they understand, oh, I’m doing this task, or I’m producing this deliverable because of this, and this is the end user, and this is what they’re going to use it for.
And you empower that person to say, hey, I think this process is a little wonky here. Maybe we should look at changing it. And then working with them, if it’s a good idea, if it’s something that can be changed, to say, hey, let’s do that.
But being able to empower your people by letting them understand what role they serve and how they impact the business, and what their deliverables and what their actual roles are impacting, being able to make them a part of that really empowers them and gives them ownership of their role, and giving them a voice and how it’s done, or being able to make improvements, because that’s where improvements really come from. It’s from the person who’s working on the task.
If I’m not working on AP, I can’t come in and say, hey, we need to totally change our AP process to do this, this, and this. It may or may not work, because I don’t know really what’s going on.
Adam: What are the differences between working and leading in smaller, more entrepreneurial companies and in large companies?
Michael: So it’s really all about how you can make an impact, because that’s what really matters. And in a small, entrepreneurial, fast-paced company, it’s great. You can have everybody come together and make a decision within 20 minutes if you need to. Chances are, your teams are a lot smaller, so you can make more of a direct impact. But you’ve got a lot of constrained resources. You don’t have endless resources to be able to go out and acquire a lot of new customers and such.
Whereas when you move to the big Fortune 500 company, the universe of people that want something from you changes drastically. Your more overall strategy, and you’re in meetings about meetings, but you’ve got some really good subject matter experts who have been doing it a long time on a large scale. And you also have a lot more resources.
So it’s two totally different worlds, although you’re trying to do the same thing. And it’s really about, how can you make an impact in those different worlds?
When with the small company, I’m presenting to our board and our founders. In the Fortune 500 company, there are executive teams, and there are also other types of teams throughout the organization that we’re presenting to. So it’s varied, and some people like the fast-paced entrepreneurial side, some people like the larger companies. And I think they both have their merits and their drawbacks.
I think you just have to figure out what you want.
I think as in the smaller environment, people are more generalists. I think in the smaller environment, there were times where I would go out and go visit customers with our marketing teams, where, if I was at a conference in a city and we had a customer, I would go visit them.
Whereas there are a lot more people to do that in the larger companies. So you become a little bit more closely defined, aligned on what the expectations are. So there are not nearly as many generalists in the larger organization. So you can definitely be defined and graded a little bit differently based on that. So you kind of have to adapt to whichever one you’re in.
We had a couple of members of our executive team on our smaller company that just really didn’t gel well into the, it was still fast-paced, but the kind of slower pace of the larger company where they weren’t able to make as much of an impact as they really wanted to. So they left and went back to kind of smaller companies.
But you’re so right that different people thrive in different situations, and you really have to figure out what it is that drives you and make that decision.
Adam: What were the best lessons you learned from transitioning from a fast-growth, private company to a Fortune 500 organization?
Michael: First of all, put away your ego, because when you go from the smaller company to the larger company, there are a lot of people in this larger company who have been doing it longer than you have, probably, and know more about the overall function of the business than you do. And you should always be learning.
I forget who said it, but I always love that quote that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. You need to be in a different room, because you always can learn.
So you have to check your ego, because you were great, we got it sold. You guys wanted to buy us. We’re obviously great. And then, as I mentioned a while ago, it’s like, oh, okay, you look at it that way, that’s really good. I never thought of it that way. So I think that is critical.
And then I think, once again, it goes back to being able to communicate what is going on, and to be able to communicate what it is that you need, and sometimes to be able to communicate, no, I can’t do that. I’ve got other priorities.
I think going from that small to the large, prioritization becomes a huge skill that, honestly, I was not great at at first, and still probably not as good at as I should be.
But being able to communicate that, look, hey, this isn’t a top priority, because you’re working with so many different people now.
I always joke that in a smaller company, there were maybe five people that wanted something from me, and then when we got acquired, it’s probably 150 to 200 people that wanted something from me. So just being able to communicate your priorities and why they’re prioritized the way they are is critical.
Adam: How do you believe AI will impact the world of accounting, and what advice do you have for anyone in the field on AI?
Michael: I think, personally, I think AI is going to definitely, in the accounting field, be able to really automate processes. And I think there’s a lot of time that people spend on just doing non-value-added tasks, that I think AI is a perfect tool for.
And I know that it will always be learning, but I just, I can’t ever see, at least in the near future, companies relying on AI to make decisions. It may be able to hunt, to spot trends. And it may be able to, I think, take a lot of data, and be able to maybe spot trends in seconds or minutes that it would take a human a week, two weeks, a month to spot.
So I think there’s some really good uses for AI that can help drive efficiencies, and I think that’s where we’re really going to see the next wave. I know that a lot of companies are already starting to implement as much automation as possible. I think that the AP process is low-hanging fruit for AI. And I think processes like that will be the first to really gain wide approval.
But I really think the benefit is going to be in analyzing huge amounts of data faster than humans can. I think that’s probably where we’re going to see the next really big push, as a non-AI expert.
Adam: What tools and systems are most important to you as a CFO?
Michael: Excel is huge, but Power BI and those kind of data tools are becoming more and more important. Being able to create dashboards that are usable and are quickly updated, to be able to kind of democratize data so that anybody that you want can quickly pull up a dashboard and be able to see critical data points and be able to dive into those and dig down into them.
I think those are, right now, the biggest tools, because businesses run on data. And as a CFO, I really want to make sure that I’m providing the right information, the right data, and the right KPIs to the business as a business partner. But being able to automate those tools and have dashboards to where somebody doesn’t have to ask me a question that they would normally ask, I think those are going to be the biggest tools that we’re going to benefit from here in the near future.
Adam: What do you look for in the people who hire, and what are your best tips on the topic of hiring?
Michael: I want people who have the right skill set and are strong from skills and fundamentals. But beyond that, I like curious people. I like people who want to know, and I keep coming back to this. I like people who want to know why. I like people who want to know how things work, or how they can improve, or how they can make the processes better.
You have to do it in the right way. You can’t come in and be like, hey, we need to do this better. But I love people who want to see, not constant change, but constant improvement, continuous improvement.
And those are the people that I look for. As I’m a partner to boards, executive teams, and CEOs, I want the people on my team to be my partner. I want them to be able to help me do what I need to do, and I can help them do what they need to do. And it’s a good exchange of ideas and exchange of goodness, so to speak, between the two parties.
I don’t want somebody who’s just going to hand me a report like I did the first time to the gentleman. I want somebody who can tell me what it means. And they may not know it right off the bat, but they at least want to know and learn.
Adam: How do you assess that in the interview process?
Michael: Honestly, a lot of it comes in that period of time when you say, so, do you have any questions about the company that I can help you with? And that, to me, is where you really find out about the person that you’re talking to.
Obviously, you can look at resumes and assess skills and such, but through the conversation, then when you ask that question, if someone says, no, no, I saw everything on the website, okay, that’s strike.
But if somebody asks some really good questions like that, they’ve actually done their research, and they’re like, huh, you know, I was wondering about this, then that to me. And it’s not just questions about, hey, how much vacation time do I get? It’s like, have you really looked at what we do here? Not expecting them to ask, so what do the forecasts look like next quarter? Nothing like that, but just basic curiosity questions.
Adam: I do a little bit of teaching at UCLA, and I’m not big on rules at all, but there is one rule that I set, and it’s a rule pertaining to asking questions. I bring in a lot of guest speakers to my classes, and my rule is that students are only allowed to ask questions that they genuinely want to know the answer to. If you don’t want to know the answer, then you’re not allowed to ask the question. And I think that that rule should apply in every facet of life. If you’re in a job interview, don’t ask questions that you think the person sitting across from you wants you to ask. Don’t ask questions that you think are going to make you look smart. Don’t ask questions just for the sake of asking questions. Ask questions that you genuinely care about. Ask questions that you genuinely want answered. If you want the answer, then it’s a good question. We’ve heard over the years, there’s no such thing as a bad question. There are bad questions. The bad questions are the questions that are being asked because you feel like you have to ask something, or because you try to impress someone. But if you want the answer, there is no bad question, and that is true in a classroom, that is true in a job interview, that is true in every setting.
Michael: That’s great advice. And I really like that. I like how you phrase that. Because I think we’ve all been in meetings where someone, and most of the time, people are notorious for it, will ask a question. You just kind of shake your head, like, okay, you’re trying to sound smart. Well done. I think we’ve all been in those meetings.
And to your point, you can make yourself look silly in certain situations. But you’re right. And that shows also, if you really want to answer that question, then that shows a genuine curiosity that we were talking about.
Adam: One of the speakers who I’ve brought into my class a few times shared that what changed things for him in his career was when he realized that asking questions is a strength and not a weakness. And all too often, we think that if we ask questions, that’s going to mean that we’re stupid, we’re ignorant, we’re unprepared, we’re less worthy. And what he realized is that when you ask questions, it’s the exact opposite. It means that you care. You want to know, you want to learn. You’re signaling to the person across from you, this matters to me, and I actually am interested, and I want to get to the truth. I want to get to the answer. We don’t know everything. We don’t know most things, and the only way we’re going to learn, the only way we’re going to get the information that we need, is by asking questions.
Michael: That’s exactly right, and I think too, that we also need to, in certain circumstances, this goes back to what you had mentioned about knowing your audience, asking questions the right way can be important.
I think depending on who you’re talking to and your level of comfort with them, saying, why are we doing this, versus, hey, have we thought about something else. Basically, the way you phrase the question, depending on your audience, is important.
Adam: Michael, is there anything else you’d like to share?
Michael: I think we’ve had a great conversation. I think we’ve covered a lot of really good topics, and it’s been a blast.
