1 00:00:05,550 --> 00:00:06,680 Welcome back to Count Me In, 2 00:00:06,680 --> 00:00:10,680 IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. 3 00:00:11,470 --> 00:00:12,960 This is your host Mitch Roshong, 4 00:00:13,140 --> 00:00:16,480 and you are now listening to episode 159 of our series. 5 00:00:17,310 --> 00:00:21,110 Today's featured guest speaker is chief financial officer at Synovus, 6 00:00:21,510 --> 00:00:24,060 Jamie Gregory. In this episode, 7 00:00:24,580 --> 00:00:28,060 Jamie talks about strategic initiatives and leading through change during a 8 00:00:28,061 --> 00:00:33,020 tough economic environment. As an example, he is a part of Synovus Forward. 9 00:00:33,610 --> 00:00:37,860 Synovus Forward is a revenue generating and expense saving initiative that began 10 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:42,770 in late 2019 with the goal of achieving top quartile performance and 11 00:00:42,771 --> 00:00:47,410 an annual 175 million pre-tax run rate benefit by 12 00:00:47,411 --> 00:00:52,410 2022, as well as best in class experience for clients, employees, 13 00:00:52,630 --> 00:00:56,130 and shareholders. Keep listening to hear more about this initiative, 14 00:00:56,390 --> 00:00:58,810 the role of innovation and adapting to change. 15 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:08,000 Jamie, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. 16 00:01:08,001 --> 00:01:09,560 We're so glad we could have you on, 17 00:01:09,561 --> 00:01:13,480 and we all know that the last 18 months have been really hard for many, 18 00:01:13,481 --> 00:01:16,680 many businesses. Some shut down other ones, you know, 19 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:19,840 have struggled going forward and companies have to be strategic. 20 00:01:19,841 --> 00:01:22,000 And something I was reading about is Synovus Forward, 21 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,430 an initiative that your company, has put forth recently. 22 00:01:25,431 --> 00:01:27,390 And can you tell us a little bit more about that? 23 00:01:29,380 --> 00:01:32,070 Yeah, absolutely. Adam first, thanks for having me today. 24 00:01:32,071 --> 00:01:34,510 I look forward to this discussion. Synovus Forward 25 00:01:38,631 --> 00:01:41,430 has been transformational for us. 26 00:01:41,431 --> 00:01:46,420 It all started back in 2019 when we looked at our long term 27 00:01:46,700 --> 00:01:51,420 plan our multiyear forecast and thought about how does that 28 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:53,980 relate to our objectives to be a top quartile performer. 29 00:01:53,981 --> 00:01:55,260 And so we looked at that, 30 00:01:55,261 --> 00:01:57,740 we looked at where we expected the industry to be and our peers to be. 31 00:01:57,860 --> 00:02:01,660 And we realized we had a little bit of a gap there. 32 00:02:01,661 --> 00:02:05,970 And so we took a step back and looked internally 33 00:02:06,470 --> 00:02:09,130 and we realized that we had opportunities to be better. 34 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:12,130 We had ways we could improve, we could, 35 00:02:12,290 --> 00:02:15,690 improve our delivery, to our customers through enhanced processes. 36 00:02:15,691 --> 00:02:20,650 We could look and then ensure that we have the right physical infrastructure. 37 00:02:20,651 --> 00:02:24,600 We realized that we had opportunities to improve, 38 00:02:25,060 --> 00:02:26,440 some of our third party, including, 39 00:02:26,441 --> 00:02:30,600 the partners we choose to help us deliver Synovus to our clients. But then, 40 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,040 you know, as we progressed, the world changed on us. 41 00:02:34,041 --> 00:02:38,440 We started Synovus Forward in late 2019, and the first quarter of 2020, 42 00:02:38,441 --> 00:02:42,040 the whole world looked different. And so we had to reassess. 43 00:02:42,060 --> 00:02:47,030 And so it changed our outlook of what was required, to be top quartile. 44 00:02:47,031 --> 00:02:51,670 And we pivoted from there, but Synovus Forward started off as an initiative. 45 00:02:52,090 --> 00:02:56,350 It became a bigger initiative and now it's becoming just a cultural mindset of 46 00:02:56,351 --> 00:02:57,350 continuous improvement. 47 00:02:58,130 --> 00:03:01,880 So I think that's a great example of, you know, seeing the economic environment, 48 00:03:01,881 --> 00:03:05,480 seeing the environment around you and adapting, you know, not just, taking, 49 00:03:05,481 --> 00:03:09,480 taking the initiative as you first saw it, but adapting as you went along, 50 00:03:09,570 --> 00:03:12,360 are there some major lessons that you can share since implementing. 51 00:03:14,070 --> 00:03:17,880 Well, you hit the nail on the head. The first thing is being willing to adapt. 52 00:03:17,881 --> 00:03:22,830 So you have to always be stepping back, looking at, you know, 53 00:03:23,010 --> 00:03:26,590 the impact in your vision and how does, 54 00:03:26,591 --> 00:03:29,790 what your outlook for the company, what that outlook is, 55 00:03:29,791 --> 00:03:32,070 how does that relate to your objectives? 56 00:03:32,071 --> 00:03:34,830 And so we're really clear on what our objectives are. 57 00:03:34,831 --> 00:03:37,630 And so as the outlook evolves, 58 00:03:37,660 --> 00:03:40,860 our tactics to achieve our objectives have to evolve. 59 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:42,620 And so that was a piece of it. 60 00:03:42,621 --> 00:03:46,700 And that's what we were assessing in early 2020. 61 00:03:46,701 --> 00:03:49,700 But other lessons we learned is that there are win-win scenarios. 62 00:03:49,701 --> 00:03:52,340 If you're willing to really dig in and look for them, 63 00:03:52,341 --> 00:03:54,380 there are ways that everybody can be a winner. 64 00:03:54,381 --> 00:03:58,220 When you think about our key stakeholders, we have, you know, our shareholders, 65 00:03:58,221 --> 00:04:00,450 our team members, and our clients, 66 00:04:00,750 --> 00:04:05,730 and all of these can benefit through improvement. And so, you know, 67 00:04:05,870 --> 00:04:08,010 that was a big lesson that we've learned. 68 00:04:08,070 --> 00:04:11,690 And the last thing I would say is you do have to be persistent. 69 00:04:11,990 --> 00:04:13,170 Change can be tough, 70 00:04:13,630 --> 00:04:16,890 but you have to be there to support your team members and monitor the progress. 71 00:04:17,590 --> 00:04:19,970 And to see the initiatives through, to the finish line. 72 00:04:21,500 --> 00:04:22,920 Change is definitely tough, 73 00:04:22,921 --> 00:04:27,440 especially when you're looking to kind of be agile and move and adapt with the 74 00:04:27,441 --> 00:04:32,400 environment and financial and accounting industries. They're highly regulated, 75 00:04:32,401 --> 00:04:35,640 whether it's it's banking or taxing, all that stuff, 76 00:04:35,641 --> 00:04:36,920 everything's highly regulated. 77 00:04:37,420 --> 00:04:40,480 How do you continue to be agile in those types of environments? 78 00:04:42,310 --> 00:04:45,430 Yeah. First and foremost, you have to have a strong control environment, 79 00:04:45,650 --> 00:04:48,750 just to ensure that as you evolve, 80 00:04:48,751 --> 00:04:53,110 you're evolving from a place of strength, you know, but agile is, 81 00:04:53,330 --> 00:04:55,310 you know, bringing that up is a great point. When 82 00:04:57,010 --> 00:05:01,780 you break larger initiatives into smaller components, 83 00:05:01,940 --> 00:05:06,460 it can actually help enhance your control environment because you're able to 84 00:05:06,461 --> 00:05:11,260 test as you go along rather than wait to the end of a large initiative, 85 00:05:11,290 --> 00:05:15,340 to look and ensure that you're maintaining, sufficient control environment. 86 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:20,300 So to me, agile is an important framework, as you think about, you know, 87 00:05:20,660 --> 00:05:24,690 maintaining and potentially enhancing your control environment as you go through 88 00:05:24,691 --> 00:05:25,524 these initiatives. 89 00:05:26,270 --> 00:05:28,970 So control environment, internal controls, 90 00:05:28,971 --> 00:05:31,330 how important having internal controls been, 91 00:05:31,331 --> 00:05:35,210 especially as most of the workforce went to, working from home. 92 00:05:35,211 --> 00:05:37,250 And then now back in the office or hybrid environments. 93 00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:43,880 It's absolutely critical. And you look at ways to enhance the internal controls, 94 00:05:44,030 --> 00:05:47,520 both through your processes, but also through automation. 95 00:05:48,060 --> 00:05:50,600 and we believe that, you know, one of the major benefits, 96 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:55,160 of automation is enhancing the control environment, 97 00:05:55,161 --> 00:05:59,960 reducing operational risk and trying to take human error out of 98 00:06:00,100 --> 00:06:00,933 the equation. 99 00:06:02,140 --> 00:06:03,080 That's very important. 100 00:06:03,580 --> 00:06:07,560 So taking human error out a lot of times involves things like innovation. 101 00:06:08,010 --> 00:06:10,920 We've talked about agile, but now let's talk about being innovative. 102 00:06:11,260 --> 00:06:13,720 Change is not far behind and how can leaders, 103 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:17,990 how can leaders guide their teams effectively through an innovative process? 104 00:06:19,500 --> 00:06:19,890 Well, 105 00:06:19,890 --> 00:06:24,750 first the first priority is ensuring you began with the end in mind that 106 00:06:24,751 --> 00:06:28,550 you had a long term vision, no matter what. So that way, 107 00:06:28,850 --> 00:06:33,710 no matter what short term changes or what tactical changes happen 108 00:06:33,850 --> 00:06:38,820 during the course of an initiative or a project that everybody's aligned on 109 00:06:39,020 --> 00:06:41,020 long term vision, so that, you know, 110 00:06:41,021 --> 00:06:44,020 your tactics may change and your strategies may change and the project may 111 00:06:44,661 --> 00:06:45,494 evolve, 112 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:49,900 but it's all driving you to the same endpoint and that's what's critical. 113 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:53,700 So that the team and anybody involved internally, externally, 114 00:06:53,850 --> 00:06:58,810 they can see that the progress towards the end, it remains the same, even if, 115 00:06:58,811 --> 00:07:02,090 how you're getting there may have changed from when you began the project. 116 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:05,250 Yeah. So do you have any examples maybe, 117 00:07:05,510 --> 00:07:09,810 of a time where you've led a team through that innovative change that you can 118 00:07:09,811 --> 00:07:10,644 share with us? 119 00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:15,210 Sure, sure. You know, I want to kind of go back to the Synovus Forward 120 00:07:17,580 --> 00:07:20,720 as you look at how that evolved. 121 00:07:20,721 --> 00:07:23,400 And so I mentioned that when we started this, 122 00:07:23,630 --> 00:07:24,760 we had a hundred million objective. 123 00:07:24,820 --> 00:07:28,840 This was to get us to top quartile and then the world changed. 124 00:07:28,910 --> 00:07:32,360 And the world changed, you know, when you have, 125 00:07:32,361 --> 00:07:34,280 interest rates declining, 126 00:07:34,350 --> 00:07:38,790 growth slowing uncertainty on capital liquidity, our outlook evolved with that. 127 00:07:38,910 --> 00:07:43,150 Now one thing that's interesting about our income statement is, 128 00:07:43,930 --> 00:07:48,670 that we are heavier on interest income, as a percentage of total revenue, 129 00:07:48,750 --> 00:07:51,830 than some of our peers. And so when you have that declining rate environment, 130 00:07:51,831 --> 00:07:54,390 it can impact us, a little bit more than others. 131 00:07:54,391 --> 00:07:58,070 And so when you look at what it takes to achieve top quartile performance, 132 00:07:58,751 --> 00:08:00,900 it changed. And that's what, 133 00:08:01,180 --> 00:08:05,580 resulted in us elevating our objective from $100,000,000 to 134 00:08:06,740 --> 00:08:10,820 $175,000,000. And so we pivoted then, 135 00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:13,420 but the team was immediately in line. 136 00:08:13,421 --> 00:08:17,860 The team was immediately understanding of how it evolved and how our 137 00:08:18,210 --> 00:08:22,170 goals increased because they knew what the long term objective was. 138 00:08:22,171 --> 00:08:26,690 They knew that we were all, you know, striving for the top quartile performance. 139 00:08:26,710 --> 00:08:30,970 And so that allowed the team to lock arms on the new 140 00:08:32,070 --> 00:08:34,930 objective fairly easily. And so that, 141 00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:40,010 that type of mentality of having that longer term vision really allows for 142 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:45,320 easier discussions as your strategy evolves when you're going through, 143 00:08:45,321 --> 00:08:48,120 change like we've experienced in the last 18 months. 144 00:08:48,900 --> 00:08:50,280 But you not only had it, 145 00:08:50,980 --> 00:08:55,560 you shared it with the whole team so that everybody could be on the same page so 146 00:08:55,561 --> 00:08:56,960 that when the change did come, 147 00:08:57,340 --> 00:09:01,400 the whole ship moved together as opposed to moving apart in a sense. 148 00:09:02,380 --> 00:09:05,560 That's right. That's right. And when you, 149 00:09:05,630 --> 00:09:08,320 when you have, increased objectives, 150 00:09:08,321 --> 00:09:13,040 increased targets for improvement, obviously these initiatives, 151 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:17,790 can be challenging and they're difficult. there's a lot that goes into them, 152 00:09:17,791 --> 00:09:19,070 there's a lot of, you know, 153 00:09:19,071 --> 00:09:22,190 give and take between internal and external partners. 154 00:09:22,210 --> 00:09:25,190 And so just having that long term vision, 155 00:09:25,740 --> 00:09:28,830 having clarity around where we are going, 156 00:09:28,831 --> 00:09:33,470 just allows everybody to be understanding of any potential sacrifices they may 157 00:09:33,471 --> 00:09:34,910 be making in that process. 158 00:09:35,950 --> 00:09:39,580 Definitely. So as we look into the crystal ball toward the future, 159 00:09:40,410 --> 00:09:45,340 what should accounting and finance professionals be focused on as we navigate to 160 00:09:45,341 --> 00:09:46,900 this new normal within the industry? 161 00:09:47,890 --> 00:09:52,420 Yeah. Yeah. Great, great question. I mean, for us, you know, we, 162 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:55,970 we had already been moving towards an accounting and finance model, 163 00:09:56,510 --> 00:10:01,490 more focused on service analytics and business insights, you know, 164 00:10:01,491 --> 00:10:04,690 so we can provide real time decision making capabilities, 165 00:10:04,691 --> 00:10:08,890 but the pandemic really put that aspiration into overdrive. 166 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:14,010 It wasn't just enough to provide a one 167 00:10:14,370 --> 00:10:15,730 single forecast scenario. 168 00:10:15,731 --> 00:10:20,280 We had to adapt quickly to the volatile environment and be agile 169 00:10:20,281 --> 00:10:24,680 enough to prepare multiple forecast scenarios while, you know, 170 00:10:24,681 --> 00:10:27,640 we're still in the process of enhancing, 171 00:10:27,641 --> 00:10:31,800 our technology to provide real time information. But the more, 172 00:10:31,801 --> 00:10:36,360 you know, traditional accounting and financials, are becoming more automated, 173 00:10:37,770 --> 00:10:41,510 and these responsibilities are shifting towards building enterprise value, 174 00:10:41,550 --> 00:10:46,150 pivoting from information delivery to analysis and performance 175 00:10:46,151 --> 00:10:50,630 improvement. And so that those are trends that we're really excited about. 176 00:10:51,210 --> 00:10:52,350 We are also, you know, 177 00:10:52,750 --> 00:10:56,910 spending a lot of time looking at how self-service centers 178 00:10:57,820 --> 00:11:01,620 could develop for internal business leaders so that they can gather their own 179 00:11:01,621 --> 00:11:04,740 data for any of their ad hoc requests. 180 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:11,380 You know, really allowing for a standardization of reports provided by, 181 00:11:11,500 --> 00:11:13,100 you know, 182 00:11:13,101 --> 00:11:17,460 the finance organization so that we can maintain 183 00:11:18,190 --> 00:11:19,130 efficiency, consistency, and information. 184 00:11:19,330 --> 00:11:23,570 And then also just increase the availability to provide value, 185 00:11:23,930 --> 00:11:28,690 add a strategic analysis and advice because the team is not overwhelmed 186 00:11:29,390 --> 00:11:32,890 with just providing information. So those are the, you know, as we evolve, 187 00:11:32,891 --> 00:11:35,490 those are what we are focused on, 188 00:11:35,491 --> 00:11:39,400 but we also see opportunities for us to get better. You know, 189 00:11:39,401 --> 00:11:42,720 we are continually trying to improve our own education, 190 00:11:42,721 --> 00:11:47,040 our own view on the outlook of, of the finance partnerships internally, 191 00:11:47,140 --> 00:11:49,840 and to expand our kind of our talent pool. 192 00:11:49,841 --> 00:11:54,480 We believe we have real opportunities to grow in our impact 193 00:11:54,510 --> 00:11:59,200 on this, on Synovus as a whole, to help us get better, help us achieve this, 194 00:11:59,260 --> 00:12:02,280 you know, top quartile performance above peer growth, 195 00:12:02,281 --> 00:12:06,360 all of these strategic initiatives that will allow us to outperform, 196 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:08,400 our industry. And so, you know, 197 00:12:08,401 --> 00:12:10,560 we believe that finance is right at the heartbeat of it, 198 00:12:10,561 --> 00:12:12,120 and we're pretty excited about, 199 00:12:12,121 --> 00:12:16,990 the evolution and the new normal as we pivot from information, 200 00:12:17,140 --> 00:12:20,950 providing information to being that strategic partner internally. 201 00:12:23,380 --> 00:12:24,710 This has been Count Me In, 202 00:12:25,340 --> 00:12:29,230 IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from 203 00:12:29,231 --> 00:12:31,630 the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard, 204 00:12:31,631 --> 00:12:35,140 and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance 205 00:12:35,250 --> 00:12:38,940 education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.