Looking ahead to 2025 and the Year of Transformation

As we close out 2024 and look at the dawn of 2025, I wanted to share some reflections on the year and what new things are in store for me professionally in 2025.

I’m sharing the two focus areas that will dominate my horizons for the next five years as I close out the decade of my 50s—and possibly even achieve my biggest, hairiest BHAG of all time!

I’d love to hear where you are and what your plans are as you prepare to move into the new year ahead.

Watch my video below to know more:

Wrap up of 2024 - what have you learnt from the past 12 months as we head into a new start

I love this time of year when we can take some time to reflect on what has happened (or not) over the past 11 or 12 months. I always write down my achievements every month with a business focus, a personal focus and a family focus. This year I have landed my most important one yet, as a Grandmother and that has really cemented a theme for the year in my mind of Trust...

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Insights from our Future Finance Thinkers October Session

Here’s a quick look at our recent session:

We explored sustainability’s role in finance, tackling the challenges of aligning varied stakeholder views—whether sustainability is a strategic priority or a compliance task. With Future Value Global, we introduced a model guiding companies from basic compliance to a purpose-led approach that goes beyond Net Zero for true regenerative impact.

I also attended the Coralus Conference and ASFI Sustainability Day, where insights on Indigenous and female-led businesses and updates on environmental legislation were shared. Looking forward to what 2025 holds as our community grows!

Watch my video below to know more:

Debriefing and Consolidated Thinking from Better Futures Forum Conference Sep 2024

At the recent Better Futures Forum, I was reminded of the urgent need for business leaders to take responsibility for their climate impact. Australia is in a unique position to lead in climate action, but this requires proper funding for net-positive solutions.

Key ideas, like “public luxury” and connections with networks such as Climate 200, highlighted the need for systemic change. With over 60% of Australians already affected by climate disasters, it’s clear that sustainability must become a priority for businesses.

The time to act is now—for both our planet and our future.

Watch my video below to know more:

Where are CFO's and Business Leaders at right now when it comes to sustainability?

Following many conversations this year with CFO's I am concerned that our community who can shape the future are stuck in today with a huge sense of overwhelm.

Whether this is not knowing where to start or waiting for post year end before making a start, surely we can have a conversation about the frameworks, standards and some real questions that might help to focus the mind and aid action taking within your business.

Watch my video below to know more:

What are some of the Challenges that SME's face when implementing sustainability initiatives?

In a series of short videos I'm addressing some of the challenges that SME's may face as the mandated reporting of Climate and Sustainability launches in 2025.

Common challenges I have found are:

1. Where to Start

2. How to Create a Sustainability Strategy

3. Where to look for guidance and/or inspiration

Watch my video below to know more:

CFO & Executive Coaching Reflections Part 2

Building on my earlier reflections on the benefit of having a coach. I now dive deeper into three areas that might be roadblocks or speedbumps on a CFO's journey.

Imposter Syndrome - a reframe on what this might mean for you

Permission - tackling perfectionism, allowing each person to start where we are

Resistance - removing blockages that might hold us back from success

Are any of these topics of interest to you? I know they have been with me on my 15 year CFO journey. Perhaps I can help shift your mindset and create a reframe that resonates for you.

Watch my video below to learn more:

Accounting for good, what is true financial leadership, Sydney Climate Action Week 2024

Talking about the need for business to go beyond sustainability, net zero is not going to be good enough.

How do we think about creating new systems, new measures and new thinking. when I say new systems I don't mean just new accounting/ERP systems, I mean the fundamentals of how we do business and our economic models that need disruption.

Working in a system that drives endless growth is not one that will serve our business world. I used to think that without growth we are dying, now I know the opposite is true, growth is killing us.

What can finance professionals do to support a better world to do business. How do we rebalance, restructure and renew our systems to ensure we start to regenerate rather than extract and exploit.

We cannot wait for the regulators and finance system to enforce change upon us, we need to empower ourselves to drive better outcomes within our organisations.

Asking our Board, our executive and our leadership the hard questions. What metrics are our decison making focusing on and how do we breathe new life into our spreadsheets. I am certain that if our spreadhseets do not change then nothing really changes....

Watch my video below to learn more:

Episode 02 – Money Jungle – How Do We Move Beyond A Finance System That Serves Only Apex Predators?

Such a wonderful opportunity to talk with Cindy Forde on this episode of her Awakenings podcast. Exploring the narratives as to how we have landed in the current systems, which is confronting history with disturbing events.

The real opportunity from here is how do we navigate a different pathway that recognises the exploitation and turns systems, metrics and language on its head. Challenging what we have come to know as the status quo and asking ourselves how do we do better in business for the benefit of all stakeholders.

From my perspective, how does the Accounting Profession and all of the financial professionals in the world stand for delivering good. Which may mean challenging the very system in which we operate, hold our business to a higher standard, one that ensures we do not continue to feed the system of exploitation.

Breathing fresh air into our balance sheets and ensuring our spreadsheets include the impacts we have on all of the stakeholders in the system in which we operate.

Huge gratitude to Cindy Forde & Jane Sydenham-Clarke and the team Foundation Nova Diem for bringing this podcast to life.

#climate #accountingforworldgood #challengingthesystems #beyondsustainability

Episode 02 – Money Jungle – How do we move beyond a finance system that serves only apex predators?

What is the value of coaching...?

There are three areas that I would like to cover in my analysis today:

1. Breakthrough Moments - times when something really lands for you

2. Incremental Build - small moments that add over time

3. Ecosystem & Network - stretch your thinking and sphere of influence

When you have a coaching experience, whether it has a 3, 6, or 12 month duration, the value outlasts the time spent 1:1 with your coach.

Often we do not recognise the value until long after the coaching assignment has completed. So how to capture the value and really leverage that for you as a coachee or mentee.

Take time to review what are the key areas in which you have developed with your coach. Here is a list of questions/areas for reflection that you might find useful to recognise the value you have received:

• Have you considered the sphere of influence in which you operate, what are the dynamics and personalisies of that small inner circle.

• Have you completed your stakeholder mapping exercise where you consider the 5 most important people in your network and worked out their pain points.

• What are your 3 key messages for your audience, what do you stand for, what is important to you in your professional and personal journey.

• How do you frame up stories that support your values, or support the message that you are delivering to your audience.

• Have you considered the Rule of Three - a good story always three parts, the beginning, the middle and the end.

• How do you take your audience from its current state to the future state...?

I have lots of tools and frameworks that cover each of these points above. If you have worked with me before, why no review these and let me know how you are going with them.

If you havent worked with me before and would like to hear more, I would be happy to have an obligation free conversation.

Watch my video below to know more:

Where and How to make a start on Sustainability Reporting

In an increasingly noisy and busy world, where does the finance professional and/or business owner get the time to think and plan the pathway to a sustainable future in your business?

Watch my video below to know more:

Asset shared here is from Chartered Accountants Worldwide, check it out to have a better understanding.

What Does Financial Leadership Mean to You?

In the business world where tension mounts between stewardship and leadership, what are your views on how the finance professional can lead or allow room to show the way?

• Innovation vs Cost Optimisation - what is our approach to innovation across the whole ecosystem of our business?

• Redefining Success Measures - surely it's not just a financial world in which we operate. How do we consider alternatives and how do we sell those to our Board and Leadership Team?

• People - how do we become the beacon of light to lead the way, including our people and our Board/Investors?

A short conversation to challenge our thinking...

Watch my video below to know more:

AAN Lyceum | Disrupted Business Models with Paula Kensington

Held on Tuesday, March 12th, this was a discussion with Paula Kensington around Disrupted Business Models - an exploration into what might be possible in a world that needs business to be better.

Paula is navigating the world of doing business differently. As a Corporate CFO of 30 years experience, she is aware that finance professionals need to work within current structures and frameworks in order to bring about systemic shifts. How do we make this earth-critical transition for small, medium, and large enterprises?

Meet Our Guest: Paula Kensington, Business Strategist | CFO | Mentor | Global Community Builder, PK Advisory

Paula is an award-winning CFO who has over three decades in finance in ASX technology companies in both Australia and the UK.

She served for 6 years on the Council of ACCA (the global body for professional accountants) and has completed a four-year term as chair of the Australia/NZ members panel. Paula has dedicated the latter part of her career to using her experiences to inspire and empower others via her consulting practice, PK Advisory.

An unapologetic business futurist, Paula’s eye is never far off the horizon, anticipating what transformations could be game-changing – for both businesses and individual clients alike.

Paula’s specialty is harnessing her extensive business knowledge and experience to share how we can learn from the past and re-shape the future. Through her passion and vision, she is able to empower and unite other CFOs and professionals to share common ground to forge a new, sustainable, ethical direction in financial business management.

She believes in the power of teamwork and knowledge-sharing which has led her in the past 5 years to establish and grow ‘CFO conversations’ – a successful online community which enables CFOs to connect and to support each other and offer inspiration, encouragement and connection with their peers on their professional journey.

In her own CFO consulting practice, PK Advisory, Paula has brought together her extensive experience to provide coaching, training and mentorship for a wide range of individuals and organizations. She is a board member of CoE and founding investor with CoELAB – a regenerative business that works in partnership with organisations to design operating systems more closely aligned with nature. Paula is passionate about the planet and its future. An eternal optimist but also a realist, she firmly believes there is a new way of CFOs to do business that can herald a new era, where the people and the planet are placed before profit.

Download the Green Papers mentioned in this video:

https://pkadvisory.com.au/regenerative-green-paper

Join us at the Accounting Alchemy Network:

https://accountingalchemy.net/

How accountants can help establish circular business models

“Accountants sometimes see themselves as the back-office support function, without the power to make businesses better,” Paula Kensington, CFO and founder, PK Advisory, says.  

“But a mindset shift is needed. We can drive change – and should.”

In fact, accountants are in the ideal position to help achieve circularity. 

“They can see across the whole business, which you can’t really do in most other departments,” Kensington says.

Accountants should be part of the solution from the very beginning – Kensington warns against business leaders getting deep into a strategic plan before bringing in the CFO.

CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #5: Reimagining the future in a planet positive way

“I think if we start to put changes in place, I did a bit of research for my green papers and I think there's something like 334 million businesses in the world, and if all of those businesses could just do something small in terms of the impact, think about the impact that they're having in the world, we could potentially buy ourselves another 300 years of life as we know it in this planet. And, you know, people talk about global warming and the climate crisis and, you know, how the survival of the planet. The planet will survive, that's not the issue. It's whether the planet survives in it's way that the humans can actually survive on the planet is the challenge. So if we can all make a small difference, I feel like we could buy ourselves another 300 or 400 years in the way that we think, you know, in this beautiful planet that we have and the way that we do business.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below:

CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #4: Turning current business models on their head

“I think business models that we are currently using today have been in circulation for, you know, tens of years and decades of of business experience and I think they're no longer serving us because we can't bring everything into the business model. We can't bring all the costs of doing business into these business models. And what I mean by that is there's decisions made outside of these business models that just aren't getting reflected.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below:

CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #3: Latest legalities around ESG reporting.

“What's come out just in the last couple of months is the new Global accounting sustainability standards from The Institute of Sustainability Standards Board which is a new board that's been established by IFRS. So the people that  are watching this will know exactly what IFRS  is and they've come up with a new board that's now come up with these two new standards. So what has happened now, in simple terms, is that we've  moved from a voluntary disclosure and reporting requirements to now mandatory. So that means  everybody, you know, the world over has now got to think about the impact that their business is having on the environment in which it operates and not just think about the impact but actually  measure the impact and report on that impact. Now that's going to be quite a big step for a lot of businesses that have not even thought about this.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below:

CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #2: The realities and the complexities of aligning profit with purpose.

“I think there's so much change in the world and in our business world that I think some of the things that are stopping the CEOs and CFOs is actually the overwhelm, the amount of change because we've got change from disruption, and innovation, and digital, and how do we think about, you know, moving through and upgrading, and optimizing all of our digital platforms  and I.T. issues. We've got staff issues, we've got marketing issues, you know, everything's changing and now we're adding on this additional request around how do we be more sustainable. So, you know, it's probably just another thing that the CFO for sure didn't really have time for and now it's like, you know, one more thing which is huge. It's not just a small additional thing to  tack on to the to the everyday life of a CFO. It's fundamental to changing the whole of our business.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below:

CFO Conversations with Deb Ivison #1: Are businesses going far enough or is greenwashing becoming the norm?

“It kind of worries me  because there are big entities, big companies  out there, big global companies that are now being accused of doing this and when I'm  reading in my research for thinking about how to do better business, these companies are still there  on a pedestal saying that these companies are doing the right thing, yet we know now that, you  know, some of these companies are potentially not doing the right thing. So it does worry me that  we're kind of, you know, having that tick box exercise and in some ways,  I think some of them early starters, some of the early adopters  potentially, you know, have been sort of playing on the surface. And what I mean by that is looking  at what some of the small things they can do or, maybe not so small, but what things can they do  and still churn out you know the profitable returns that the stock market and the  shareholders were expecting rather than going like really deep in their business and working out  how do we change our operations from the grassroots rather than just trying to overlay  from the top and I think that to me feels like there's a little bit of the green washing going  on where you've got top down approach rather than a bottom-up approach that actually changes the way  that actual business gets done.

So I'm concerned and with these news Accounting Standards coming  out in January 2024, there's talk in some media that it might encourage more entities just to  do the tick box because people don't know how to make the fundamental shifts in their business. So  I think it potentially is a problem that might even escalate in the next 12 to 18 months.” - Paula Kensington

To watch the full interview, check the video below:

Bridging the gap between profit mentality and sustainable business practices

The biggest challenge that we have in the business, is that we still have this profit on a pedestal mentality. There’s profit at the behest of everything else and this really aligns with my 35-year career. I feel like in my whole journey it’s always been about chasing targets, delivering to targets and then reporting on why we miss the target. And that feels like a cycle that needs to be broken. I think that’s how it feels for me in a business world, we can’t keep going on the same way that we’ve always been. I think there’s this reality gap between what’s going on at a CFO level and what’s being said at a wider mainstream level around the investment community. You know we hear things about the investment community have got 20 billion dollars of money to invest in green assets and then we’ve got the flip side of that where the CFO Community is saying “but I can get funding with the business that I want to create that’s actually giving back. So there’s real mismatches of what’s being done and what’s being said and there’s this kind of reality Gap.

Be at the forefront of change with our paper on the regenerative economy—a roadmap for businesses. Secure your access: https://pkadvisory.com.au/regenerative-green-paper