EMEA Recruitment Podcast #107 - The Skills Needed for Success in Finance – David Lloyd

In this episode of the EMEA Recruitment podcast, we were pleased to welcome David Lloyd, the Vice President, Corporate Financial Controller and Treasurer at Greif.

“There is never an end of things to get involved in and develop an interest and some skills in; always be learning.”

Paul Toms, our Founder, spoke to David after a summer of travelling for his son’s swim meets. As life gets back to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, David explores how the culture at Greif has changed. As a leader in industrial packaging products, Greif was considered an essential business and never shut down during the period.

Although some employees were already using a hybrid working model before the pandemic, the number of staff on site has dropped from around 200 a day to just 15 to 20. So, how do you maintain relationships and a strong company culture with so many employees working from home?

David reveals the steps that Grief has taken to help people connect and feel part of the team while meeting virtually. He actually feels that he has a better understanding of who everybody is personally through these exercises. 

Although David has had a highly successful career, VP of Finance is not a role he ever expected to be in. After becoming a partner at PwC, David expected to stay in public accounting until the end of his career. After moving into industry, he realised that he could broaden his skillset, and develop a better and broader understanding of how the Finance function works. 

We dive into David’s early career, from realising he couldn’t spend all day in a basement lab as a Chemical Engineering major, to taking inspiration from a professor that piqued his interest in Accounting. He immediately switched his major and hasn’t looked back since.

David’s Finance abilities and interest in problem-solving is a great combination for success, but he puts his achievements down to his continuous development and learning. In private industry, he’s seeing huge changes in the fundamental operating models within Finance, from artificial intelligence to machine learning.

Paul questions how business intelligence and data will impact Finance roles of the future. It breaks David’s heart to admit that the number of subject matter experts that focus on compliance and technical accounting will be “fairly small” in ten to 20 years’ time, although he does reveal which skills will help those entering the profession stand out in the market.

He has also found that, as a business, you need to offer something different to staff in order to attract high quality applicants.

Listen to the end of the episode to find out how David ended up playing at the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre and which lockdown purchase makes him smile every day…

To find a particular part of the episode that interests you, use the timestamps below:

01:05: Where in the world is David?
01:57: How Grief adopted hybrid working
04:36: Keeping a great culture while WFH
08:56: Helping the team feel more connected
10:35: Why David never expected to be VP Finance
14:58: Finding his love of Accounting
17:32: The skills that have enabled David’s success
20:22: The best piece of advice
22:07: How will BI & Data affect Finance?
25:45: How Finance professionals can stand out
28:41: Being competitive as a business
34:33: David’s hidden talents
38:25: The last thing that made David smile
40:19: How to reach out to David

Visit David’s LinkedIn profile if you’d like to connect with him: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidclloyd1/

 

The EMEA Recruitment podcast is brought to you in partnership with our good friends at Operation Smile. We’re hoping to raise enough money to create 100 new smiles through this partnership. Please donate anything you can here: https://www.emearecruitment.com/operation-smile 

 

This episode was hosted by Paul Toms, Founder of EMEA Recruitment, and Rose Jinks, Senior Marketing Executive. 

Find out more about our professional global recruitment services, including in the Finance & Accountancy sector, through our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/ 

You can also follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emea-recruitment-limited 

If you’d like to connect with Paul, visit his profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paultoms/ 

Or, you can follow him on Twitter:

 

Do you have any suggestions for the EMEA Recruitment podcast? Email Rose: rose.jinks@emearecruitment.com 

 

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