Episode 34, Fabian Kuehn, Group CFO, Orro

Fabian Kuehn is the Group CFO of Orro, Australia's platform enabled secure network and digital infrastructure provider.

Starting as a graduate at Unilever, Fabian has worked in three continents and has a track record across business partnering, performance management and financial control.

He is passionate about driving change in value improvements and has helped grow businesses profitability by driving growth programs, leadership, business collaboration, controllership and change management.

To contact Richard Holmes please call 0403 513 720 or reach out on richardh@hprconsulting.com. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardholmesfinancerecruiter/

Transcript

Please note that this has been transcribed by AI/Bots so there may be typos and the occasional strange things happening.

Richard Holmes

0:03

Welcome to the numbers people Podcast where each week we're going to be speaking with some highly regarded senior finance professionals and create experts looking into the ins and outs of what makes finance people and their teams bright. The podcast is proudly sponsored by HPR Consulting, a leading executive finance recruitment agency. I'm your host, Richard Holmes. In today's episode, we welcome Fabian Kuehn. Fabian is group CFO of Orro, Australia's platform enabled secure network, and digital infrastructure provider mentioned his career as a graduate of Unilever. Fabian has worked in three continents and has a track record across business partnering, performance management and financial control. He is passionate about driving change in value improvements and has helped grow businesses profitability by driving growth programs, leadership, business collaboration, controllership and change management. Hi, Fabian, how are you doing?

Fabian Kuehn

0:59

I'm really well, thanks, Richard. Thanks for having me.

Richard Holmes

1:01

Yeah, no problem. They have pleasure in what we've known each other for a number of years now. And I think Fabian’s career is actually really interesting as well. He's worked in multiple countries. So I think he's got a really good story to tell you guys, you want to take it away? Yeah,

Fabian Kuehn

1:16

thanks. So I started my career at Unilever, which I joined them on their finance graduate program after university and it was, you know, for me, it was the best place to really start my career. That was a business that really invested in me as a as an individual, both through the mentoring, the coaching, the training that I was offered, but also in terms of the breadth of roles that they allowed me to do. So I started out in the UK, they put me through business partner in performance management controller jobs. And I did that in the UK for the period of last seven years. through that journey, I really found that I really enjoy big transformational roles, where you can really look back at the last few years, and you can really put your finger to a tangible difference that you've made. And so I asked for more in that vein, one day, Unilever turned around and said, Well, look, we've just made the entire finance team in southern Africa redundant, was actually dismissal for fraud. And so I was asked to go out there and re hire a team of 30. And really set up basic processes. From a financial control point of view, accounts payable, accounts receivable month ends from scratch while recruiting a team at the same time. So I did that for a few years. That got me out to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, a little bit in East Africa as well. That was a fantastic couple of years. That was around the time that Brexit, the Brexit vote was happening. And Unilever wanted me to go back to the UK. But at that point in time, I really didn't fancy it, my wife actually found a job out here in Sydney. And so look that felt like the right time for me to to leave Unilever so I packed my bags, and arrived in Sydney, having never set foot in Australia without a job, but to some extent without a plan kind of fell into a financial controller role for specialty fashion group as a as a maternity cover, which kind of bought me the time to look around and see what else I wanted to do. So I spoke to a whole bunch of recruiters at the time and just said, Look, find me the most interesting, most exciting, most transformative job that you can find a job at allied Pinnacle came about, which was a PE back business, Allied Mills being the flower business and Pinnacle bakery, being the baking business. And that job was really about bringing to finance teams together, merging to AARP systems, and figuring out how that business needed to run as one. through that journey. With our Pinnacle, we went through a trade sale. So obviously being p owned, they look to sell the business, they ended up being to a Japanese multinational. And so after that sale, I decided to take 12 months off. After what was two years of extremely heavy lifting, I was exhausted and burnt out. And that kind of coincided with the birth of my first son. And so I decided to take 12 months off to allow my wife to go back to work, like I spent 12 months as primary carer. And if I'm honest, it was Yeah, my son was three months old when I started to take care of him by myself. And it was really the first time I met him. so busy being the time allied Pinnacle, that 12 months also gave me a chance to think about what I wanted to do next. It really boiled down to me really, really enjoying those PE backed businesses because of the pace of change and the fact that you can make a really tangible difference within a couple of years. I was absolutely He sets on my next role being a piggy bank business. And I felt that the time was right and, and I backed myself to take my first CFO role. So my focus when I was looking for the next job, was all about a p backed CFO role. So after a couple of months of looking, I was offered my current job about 18 months ago. Alright, auro is Australia's platform enabled secure network and digital infrastructure provider, which effectively means that we provide outsourced cloud network managed services and security products. In the last 18 months, we've tripled the size of the business through a combination of acquisitions and organic growth. We've recently signed Australia Post's healthscope and Salvation Army. And we're about to announce two huge new customers. So it's, it's definitely been exciting. For the finance team, the focus has really been around investing for growth, integrating the new acquisitions, consolidating er p systems, and moving towards the creation of one finance team. And given that were p owned, where we're doing all quite some pace. So it has been exciting will continue to be really exciting. So obviously a good movie. Yeah, definitely. Look, it's, it's been the exciting job that I wanted, it's been fast paced. And this job gives me the opportunity to do more than anything else is build something that will last 20 or 30 years. So really excited about that. You leave

Richard Holmes

6:34

it obviously on your great kickstart for your career. And I can imagine you look fondly on that experience. And tell us a bit more about that opportunity in South Africa, how that came about, because I think you touched on it with some fraudulent activity. So worth people were dismissed to go in something like that. Okay, what's your where do you start? I mean, what a what a game changer for you.

Fabian Kuehn

6:54

hands down the most challenging job layering on the levels of complexity on top of each other being, you know, I've never done a financial controller role before, obviously, cultural challenges, the fact that there was no team that I could just rely on, you know, there are certain fiscal and statutory requirements in some of those African countries that you would have never expected or experienced, you know, coming from a Western European background. It was hands down the most challenging job I've ever I've ever taken. And look, the only way that I knew to go about that was was just to prioritize, solve one thing at a time, fix something and then move on to the next problem called the character building dummy. Absolutely, yes. Resilience building.

Richard Holmes

7:41

So what advice would you give to someone wanting to pursue a career like yours?

Fabian Kuehn

7:45

It might sound a little bit cliche, but fundamentally, there's no blueprint for a successful career. You can't look at my career or anybody else's career for that matter, and say, Look, I want to do exactly that. I wouldn't be able to have my career. If I was starting again. Now, thinking about the journey that I've had, and looking at the careers of other people I've worked with, I do think there are a few universal truths, a few characteristics, I guess. So particularly in finance, I'd say, get a breadth of experience is absolutely essential. You need controllership experience, you need business partnering experience, you need performance management experience. I'm always slightly concerned when I talk to people within finance that say, Oh, no, you know, I'm a controller for more often than not now, I'm a business partner, that's all that I do cuts out so much that you just need to understand, particularly if you want to be senior within finance one day, you have to have that breadth of experience. Secondly, I'd say there's no substitute for hard work, you cannot have a very successful career without putting the effort in. Yeah, I think certainly there's a, there's a fallacy around, you know, saying, Look, I'm going to just work my eight to four, it just doesn't work like that, in my experience. And then finally, I'd say actively seek out jobs that scare you jobs that actually don't know how to do that certainly being true. You know, for me, the fastest I've ever developed is in those jobs, where I actually didn't know what I was doing. And you just got to take a leap of faith.

Richard Holmes

9:30

I love the point about having that breadth of experience. I have been speaking to a few people recently in the bowl, kind of given that advice that don't specialize too early. And it is a bit difficult because I think when you're at the start of your career, it's it's hard, isn't it like see if you get approached to be in tax and until you're a tax specialist, I guess it's just having that self awareness, build your own creative train and do a bit more. But what I like about you Fabian is that the experience you've had in credit to Unilever, as well over 40 years, those experiences where you've never done it before. Just go ahead and making it yourself. And look, you've made a success from it. They just show you, doesn't it? Talking about advice? What's the worst bit of advice,

Fabian Kuehn

10:06

ask for a pay rise? is the one piece of advice I wish I'd not followed by my experience is completely the wrong question to ask, you can only ever ask your boss or, you know, your mentors, so much. Asking for pay rises, just creates a problem for that person. Whereas if you're asking for the right development opportunity, the right next role to help further your development, if you're asking for the right new projects that, you know, introduce you to the right people, and get you to develop skills that you that you know, are a gap on your CV, by following that line of questioning, the money will follow, you know, you'll get the right experiences and the money will come later.

Richard Holmes

10:54

And he touches on that self awareness. Doesn't it be good to think well, how can I differentiate myself? How can I get further without worse piece of advice? Did you go through that yourself where you were obviously a bit younger? And you ask your boss or want to pay rise? Did you actually

Fabian Kuehn

11:06

have that experience? Yes, I did. And I regretted it, it's the other good piece of advice I've been given is try to solve problems for your boss. You know, if you're asking for a job that you know, that's just come available, that you know that they're having problems feeling, you know, if that works for you, in terms of the career that you want to have, you know, that's solving a problem for your boss, as opposed to Yeah, I want an extra 20k, which just gives your boss a headache. Yeah, it's completely the wrong way of looking at it.

Richard Holmes

11:41

It's about positioning yourself in the best way that you manage it through your career. Fabiana. I know you've achieved a lot, what's been your biggest failure? What did you learn from it?

Fabian Kuehn

11:49

So you asked me before about my time in Africa, I'm going to go back to that. So the job that I took in Africa, I wasn't ready for that job. And it was by far and away the most challenging job I've ever had. Because at the time, I had such limited financial control experience, I didn't understand the implications of getting a three way match wrong in accounts payable, or the implications of not reconciling this balance sheet account properly. I went out there, threw myself at him, work through the nights on countless occasions, work through the weekends, for about six months, it wasn't enough to bridge that experience gap that I had at that time. And there's nothing that can prepare you for you know, having been successful through school successful through university successful through the first years of your career, to all of a sudden being dragged on to the call with global Unilever's CFO to explain why the factory shop because it doesn't have raw materials, because you couldn't pay suppliers. And you go from feeling fairly, I guess slightly cocky about your own abilities to feeling about yay big. But, you know, I was very, very fortunate to have at that time, a line manager and and also his line manager who could see what I was trying to build and could see what I was trying to do. And actually said, You know what, Fabian just needs a bit of time. And you're sorted out. So I burned through all of my credit in that time, but very fortunate to have some very understanding and very supportive managers at the time that two years in Africa was poorly worth 10 years in the financial controller role in a developed market. I'm very grateful to have had that experience and to to know what can go wrong. Without adequate control.

Richard Holmes

13:49

I can imagine when you reflect as stressful as it was, it's kind of good, but you've been through it in terms of new development. And when it's put, it's like every person should try and do that, such as why when you were talking earlier about just the different regulatory requirements and how it works in in Africa. But you probably never expected to anything I can imagine you were you were thought you're on top of it. And then something else comes up. Like

Fabian Kuehn

14:10

and I'll tell you a funny anecdote, right? It's just to give you a sense of the type of problems you encounter. So at the time, Zimbabwe's currency was the US dollar. And so in our bank account, we had $20 million for Unilever's Zimbabwe. I couldn't use the money to pay suppliers. A lot of our raw materials were coming from outside Zimbabwe to make the payment from a Zimbabwean bank account to a supplier. The Reserve Bank needs actual US dollars, which they didn't have. So I had to go to the Zimbabwe and reserve bank probably about once a month and begged for real US dollars, which they only got when when tobacco exports were happening and they actually got real US dollars to back up the money. that we had in our bank account, try explaining that to global Unilever Treasury, you just can't get it into your head. So yeah, those are the kinds of experiences that we had

Richard Holmes

15:10

going to the bank to actually get get bags of cash. Knowing you for a while, Fabian, you seem to really enjoy what you do positive optimistic guy. What's the favorite thing?

Fabian Kuehn

15:21

I'd say the very nature that a finance career can give you, I'm blessed to have had the breadth of career that I've had, you know, across, you know, controlling performance management, business partnering, you know, my career has taken me across three continents, mainly fmcg. Now technology, different ownership models, you know, ASX listed multinational p owned, the one thing I'd say is, you can never do it yourself. I'm so grateful to, you know, the line managers in the recruiters that I've met along the way who've been willing to take a punt on me. That's a good point

Richard Holmes

16:01

as well, I think sometimes we want to do it all ourselves. But just reaching out and getting that support, Raji certainly makes a difference, isn't it? You touched on it before Fabian, like the stress you would have experienced, especially in Africa, I mean, you come across is a pretty chilled out guy. Like when you feel overwhelmed these days? What do you do about it?

Fabian Kuehn

16:17

When I feel overwhelmed, I guess it's all about prioritizing, you have to make a decision about what you're going to do. And more importantly, about what you're not going to do. Things just have to then stop. And the other thing is, you know, you've just got to work hard. There are times and there are moments that matter where sometimes you just have to work through the night, you have to work through the weekend to make stuff happen, prioritization and working hard,

Richard Holmes

16:42

the most important things get it done with known you for a few years in again, your experience over in South Africa. I know we're talking about that a lot. But you've done a lot of recruitment over the years. And this look, this podcast isn't about recruitment. But when you do recruit, what's the most important thing you look out for?

Fabian Kuehn

16:56

I'd say, mindset and aptitude are way more important than experience. There's a few exceptions to that, for example, where you, you know, whether it's really technical role, like tax, for example, other than that, my experience, and there are some recruiters, not you, I should hastily add the ask, what kind of experience do you want? What kind of relevant experience and I actually tend to say, I'm actually not that fussed about the experience, it's about having that desire to want to grow and develop, you know, it's that gleam in your eye. You know, the desire to go above and beyond to make things happen is way more important than the experience I have in the past hired on the basis of experience. And I've learned that the best you can get doing that as a three out of five, the very, very best people want new experiences and want to grow and develop

Richard Holmes

17:57

their recruiting over the years as well. I think those ones he really wanted and want to make a name for themself, they always smash it, they always do well, I find a recording where it's 15 ticks in the box. It's just very rarely work. So you get someone who's just doing exactly the same thing as what they were doing and you get bored in a short period of time, I always question Why do you want something exactly the same as what you had kind of thing for you? It's, but everyone's got their own opinion of it. It's, you have to value that and it's sometimes question people, but it's a personal preference is nearby 100% agree having that mindset, aptitude attitude, it makes such a difference. I keep on recalling that Richard Branson quote where if you get offered a role in your example of it, just take it and figure out what to do when you get there kind of thing. And most of the time people make it work. And tell me something not many people know about you.

Fabian Kuehn

18:46

And not many people know that I'm a qualified pilot. So whenever possible, I I take a play now and I fly over Sydney and yeah, look, that's my get away from reality in the real

Richard Holmes

18:58

world. 45 like censuses, things like that.

Fabian Kuehn

19:02

No single single engine cessnas. Yeah. And then to fly when I was out in Africa, where it was relatively affordable. The longest trip I've ever done was a week around New South Wales. So that was fantastic.

Richard Holmes

19:13

I remember a place that 100 years ago now, maybe 15 years ago, he said, I really appreciate what you do for the rich. I didn't tell you I've got a pilot's license, go play and he took me out and this is the first time you get one of those things Jewish. It's just a little metal door with a mic of this. Like it just likes clinking pink In short, and you say wow, but it's it's fantastic. I think that's the thing. I think a lot of people would love to do it. Just the affordability. Especially in this country. It's just a bit too expensive, but that's a great skill to have. And I take it with a pilot's license. That's an international just an international thing is one license for every country.

Fabian Kuehn

19:50

your license is relevant to the country that the aeroplane is registered in. So if I'm flying in Australia and registered aeroplane I need an Australian pilot's license. So I had to convert my license when I moved to Australia,

Richard Holmes

20:02

you think there'd be one kind of standard, as with all things, it

Fabian Kuehn

20:07

changes just slightly, depending on where you're flying. And generally what makes you happy. It's going to be a bit of a cliche again, but definitely my family. They're the reason I work as hard as I do. And look, spending time with my two and a half year old and my 10 month old, puts things in perspective and pick them up from daycare. Most days, and, you know, the unconditional smile and run and hug that I get from my eldest every day is what makes it all

Richard Holmes

20:39

worth it. Fabian, if you have one message to tell the world, what would it be?

Fabian Kuehn

20:43

Be kind, I guess, I think the pandemic has made that more relevant than ever, like you never know, particularly in a professional environment. You don't know what the other person is dealing with either at work or at home. And look, we got to take what you're doing every day. We're all passionate, we all want to move things forward. But it's important that you not just professional but also kind.

Richard Holmes

21:07

It's true, isn't it? You just got to treat everyone with respect and how you want to be treated yourself and that's great, but But hey, Fabian, I think you've been a great guest real pleasure to have you on the show. And I'm glad to hear all these going well with our Oh, it sounds like a really interesting business and, and hey look, I really appreciate your advice and insights and hopefully, it's value valuable to the listeners and we'll have to catch up again soon.