Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez, an recognized and respected Board Member and Chief Financial Officer for large & mid-cap companies has been a finance leader in sectors including e-commerce, technology, gaming ad tech, and online hospitality. She says: “Each sector really presented its unique financial challenges and strategies.”
Learn invaluable lessons about FP&A from Maria who has served more than 20 years at blue chip companies:
- How I grew as a finance professional at Amazon and the launch of Amazon Prime and Amazon Europe was created
- Acquiring of Booking.com by Priceline
- Azerion growth from 200m Euros to 500m Euros in only two years to IPO and Belin’s Brand Group ended up with a leveraged buyout
- From law to finance and my finance career
- Core KPIs and metrics across diverse businesses
- Getting the “finance footprint” from a CEO before I join
- Flexibility and adaptability in fast-growth companies
- Customer obsession at Amazon vs the 80/20 principle at Booking.com
- My approach to financial modeling
- Levering analysts with historical data at C&A
- Implementing BI tools and justifying the investment
- Why AI in finance is a phenomenal opportunity and my role as Board Member for Women in AI Netherlands
- Kickboxing and karaoke
Connect with Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariadeldadoalonsosanchez/
Full blog post and Transcript
Glenn Hopper:
Welcome to FP&A Today, I’m your host, Glenn Hopper. Our guest today is Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez . Dado is the former group CFO at BBG (Berlin’s Brand Group) pioneer in the direct to consumer business and has an impressive career spanning roles at Azerion, Naspers, C&A Netherlands, Booking.com, Amazon Europe, and Siemens. She holds multiple advanced degrees and certifications, including master’s degrees in both law and business administration, A CAC, and a corporate governance certification from INSEAD. She’s also a distinguished professional speaker, a member of the IFAC, professional Accountants and Business Advisory Group, and an advocate for women in AI. Let’s dive into your incredible journey and insights on the future of finance. Welcome to the show.
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Thank you for having me, Glen. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Looking forward to diving in today. You’ve got a, an impressive track record of, of companies you’ve worked for before. Can you kind of walk us through your career journey, maybe highlighting the key roles and types of work that you’ve been focused on?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Well, look, my young actually starts in a very small town in, in traditional northern Spain, in Leon. I, you know, with, with two degrees under my belt, I went to Germany in sales of opportunities, and I have over 20 years as pr, as finance professional in blue chip companies, over 10 of them as finance director as CFO.
My first job at Siemens was as business finance finance controller. And since then, I actually learned to grow into different facets of of the function. I actually considered that I grew as finance professional in a, in Amazon. I was actually privileged to work in Europe, Europe, Amazon, when it went through a significant transformation. At the time that’s when Prime was brought into Europe actually, and Amazon Europe was created. So you can imagine what was the type of energy and good spirits that we had over there.
Then in booking. You know, I was actually involved in a period where booking.com had just been acquired by Priceline. We had started attacking the market, the US market, and we had actually expanded into housing vacation market. So also very, very transformational moment. And I would say, you know, another pivotal experience in my career was Azerion. This as, as Syrian was was a company that operated in gaming and online advertising, and it grew actually from 200 million euros to 500 million in almost two and a half years. And you know, very dynamic. We acquired 15 companies, we raised two bonds, and ultimately, you know, it was phenomenal because we actually went, floated in you know, in Amsterdam stock exchange. Finally, as you well mentioned, you know, I was formerly the group CFO at Berlin’s Brand Group. It was private equity you know, backed by bank capital. I was leading the e-commerce group. But you know, we, we actually ended up in a leveraged buyout. So as you can see, my career is has been nothing more than than transformation moving, continue moving. And yeah, I cannot wait to dive in in the new exciting challenges that come to me
Glenn Hopper:
When I talk to guests who have such a, a broad range of experience. I like to talk to ’em about kind of what initially led you to finance and how your passion for FP&A has evolved over time. And I think this is especially interesting as a question for you, because I know you also studied law before going into finance. So could you kind of tell me about your your interest in finance and how you’ve, how it’s evolved over the years?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
I studied two, two degrees actually simultaneously, that was law and, and, and finance business administration. It was always in my desire to explore always new horizons, right? And for me it was always like, the bigger the challenge, the, the more motivated I get.
So that was that, that scared, I guess, I guess that is part of my personality. When I was studying really business controlling seemed to me the perfect role for me. You had, and I, that was what I was thinking, right? I had the, the luxury of the wide scope and business understanding. I had also the exposure to strategic and tactical roles from a very, very starting in the career and and very important matters for the company, right? So you can actually influence quite a lot through insights and advice. You know, I cannot, I cannot hide it. I like power to influence and and, and to create change. So that’s how, you know, there’s passion for, for continuous learning and also for finance and in particular for FP&A and business partnering.
Glenn Hopper:
And I, you know, it’s, I don’t, it’s, it’s, I almost don’t know which companies to pick to talk about first because it’s so many interesting companies, and I know like the, the KPIs across companies are gonna be different, the metrics that you’re tracking, and I guess I, I don’t know mean I’ll just, you know, say as is group CFO at BBG or at Azerion. Could you tell us a little bit about the main KPIs and metrics you focused on at, at those companies?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
And you have actually said it very well, depending on the company you are in and the industry that company is operating, actually the KPIs, the metrics that you track are slightly different, right? But all in all, there are some common metrics that you track in every company, right? Where you are talking about revenue growth, revenue growth rate, gross margin, operating expenses, ebitda, and free cash flow. I mean, I would say those are the common metrics that you always track. Then actually, depending on whether a company is more on the leverage side or not, then you can also start tracking some depth metrics. But those are in general the metrics that you typically track. Now, if we talk about Berlin Brands, group, BBG which was an e-commerce business, or Azerion n, which was actually operating in digital entertainment, obviously, I mean, they are following, and they, we, we used to follow different co different metrics, right?
In Berlin Brand’s, group e-Commerce, as I said, inventory was very, very important. So in that case, we were tracking inventory turnover, so how many terms we were given our inventory, inventory, healthiness, the, you know, the aging of the inventory, you know, we could drill in many shapes and forms how the inventory was formed and, and so on. And then obviously the return rate, right? I mean, monitoring the percentage of products that are returned, the customer service information, that, that, those were also very, very important to, you know, to make sure that, that our trading would be as healthy as possible in as Azerion actually, you know, the type of metrics that we were tracking were a little bit different, right? I mean, we were talking about a company that was operating in gaming and in ad tech. So practically the, the, you know, the metrics that the KPIs that we were using were daily active users, monthly active users average revenue per user return, u average returned revenue. So practically revenue, I mean, metrics that are actually linked to the users, to the revenue, and the, you know, the very, very top line type of metrics, right? So, yeah, I mean, depends, as I said, so depending on the sector, depending on the industry, you, you tend to focus on one or the other metric.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And I guess a, a a follow up question that I hadn’t considered on this before, you know, moving from industry to industry, can you tell me a little bit about how, I mean, when you come into an industry, you sort of know the industry metrics that, that you’re looking at, but when you’re trying to establish yourself in this new industry, like what do you look at and what do you look for to help define those metrics and to get a better understanding of what you need to be tracking by those businesses?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
First thing I do is is to get actually my finance, let’s say I call it finance footprint, right? And this is kind of like the, the, the small contract that I signed with my manager, typically the CEO, right? And, and with that, I get quite a good understanding of where the situation of the company is, right? So what are the challenges? What is the strategic mandate? What is practically, you know, the positioning of the company and how we want to track operationally the delivery and the, and the results, right? Starting from that business insight, that’s where I start thinking about, okay, so what should be the metrics that we should track, right? I’m always looking at metrics that are, you know, that are very, very close to operations, because I think that building that link between operations and finance is the best way to create in insights that are actionable, and that is kind of a positive flywheel. So it gives information to the business of how to improve results. And it also positions finance in at the table, right at the decision table, because we, we go there talking kind of the same, same, you know, the same language
Glenn Hopper:
Bouncing from <laugh> from those two companies. I, I can’t imagine how, what the environment was like at booking.com or Amazon Europe at that point in time, rolling Prime out in the EU. And sometimes we learn a lot from these, you know, maybe in hindsight they’re, they’re pretty stressful times when things are just moving that quickly. So I’m wondering, being at the, at those places, at those big companies at important times in their evolution how did your experiences there shape your approach to financial leadership? What kind of lessons and takeaways did you get from that?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
To say short, they were phenomenal, right? So I can elaborate a little bit more, of course, but they were phenomenal. I love a very dynamic and fast and fast paced environment. That’s where I thrived. And, and I like the energy. I like positive energy. I like when you have teams that join together to build something, you know, and that’s, I think, something that you, it’s a, it’s a positive energy that you get in these type of environments. So in this case, booking and Amazon, they were, as I said, very, very dynamic and fast paced. You know, I, I I can only say that both experiences really you know, kind of lend, the, the importance of agility. So being fast and being and being, being quick in whatever you do allows you the possibility to fail also very quick and learn very fast from your, from your mistakes, right?
So this is very important in, in a, in a fast growing environment. And the other thing that I learned very fast, <laugh> and by need was actually adapt adaptability. So you need to keep yourself flexible in you know, finding that middle way to find your way and get you know, things done and progress and continue progressing, right. In Amazon in particular you know, I learned the meaning of customer obsession. I know this is one of the, of the Amazon principles, like right, leadership principles, but I, I can assure you, customer obsession is the first principle. And everybody from the first you know, from the CEO to the associate in the fulfillment center, really, you know, feel very, very strongly the, the power of customer obsession in in the case of booking, there was one, there was one thing that was very powerful, right?
It was the 80 20 principle, and it was around this pato principle, 20% of the effort to kind of tackle 80% of the need. And, and that was when, you know, when you are in an environment that is growing very fast, you know, being very aware of not investing too much time on getting the, you know, kind of cold plating the results, that’s very important because it allows you to move much, much faster. So, I, I, I would say this pragmatism and the customer-centric approach, those have been really vital in in, in, in how I approach finance.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, great point on that. And I think people in finance and accounting, we are risk averse, so there’s always the, you know, measure twice, cut once and, and slow down. And, but it’s, it’s hard to do that when you’re also <laugh> trying to grow a company really fast. You can’t have finance and accounting be looked at as you know, the someone that’s slowing the company down. So you have to sort of find that balance between move fast, but also be right, because people have to trust the numbers. You know, you have so much experience in, in direct to consumer business. And I’m wondering if the nature of that, and, and maybe the, the pace of growth, but the fact that you’re dealing with the with, with so many clients at and the direct or, or you know, so many customers in that direct to consumer business, were there challenges and opportunities that you think come out of your experience working with that group?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Absolutely. I mean, my, my experience in direct to consumer was pretty much in Berlin Brand’s group, right? My last meta role, and what you need to understand, or, you know, the audience also needs to understand is Berlin Brands Group was you know, let’s say $400 million revenue business and and was operating, you know, over 8,000 SKUs of products, right? Selling through different channels and also through our own stores, online stores. So in, in that con in that context, what, what happens is you have practically the whole complexity of having to deal with consumers directly, but also in a, with a very, very complex footprint in terms of channels, right? So that is, that is what made it very, very difficult because or challenging because in a way, you need to learn very fast that you know, how not to cannibalize your own sales depending on the channel, but at the same time, you are very much exposed to everything that is going on in the market, right?
In the case of Berlin Brand’s Group, when I joined, that was in in summer 2022. And summer 2022 actually was the, the summer, it was the e-commerce downturn in Europe. So practically the majority of the markets were really suffering from the post covid hype in terms of e-commerce, that required a very, very deep readjustment. So if you add all that complexity deep readjustment, and you put that in combination with a very fast growing company where initial investments are not you know, done properly, or they are done fostering the growth, but not necessarily the back office and, and support functions, that’s practically what what makes it you know, the perfect combination for a challenging environment. <Laugh>
Glenn Hopper:
Makes sense. And I think, you know, going from e-commerce to technology to retail, I mean, what do you think, would you say there’s differences in, in financial strategies across those various industries? Or how would you, how would you explain the similarities and differences between them?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah, I mean, you have said, right, I mean, in my career, I have, I have had the privilege actually to work across different industries. I worked e-commerce, technology, gaming ad tech in online hospitality. And each sector really presented its unique financial challenges and strategies. They were actually tailored pretty much to the business model and, and the market dynamics. So, for instance in Berlin Brands Group and Amazon, both e-commerce companies, the focus was on scaling operations and optimizing supply chain efficiencies, right? In those companies, dynamic pricing, inventory management, and significant in investments in technology were actually the strategies, the key strategies to improve user experience and, and increased conversion rates. If I think about Azerion on the gaming and ad tech sector, financial strategy was centered around user acquisition and retention, diverse mon monetization models continuous innovation, substantial budgets were actually also allocated to marketing campaigns and research and development to stay ahead of the, of the evolving tech landscape. So yeah, depends on a little bit what, what is the, what is the environment at that point in booking and price line, you know, we highlighted the importance of global footprint. So in that case, global expansion and the metrics that were, and challenges that were, that were linked to that were more important. So that’s, as I said, so in my experience across the different industries yeah, the industries triggering also a different position in and a different approach towards the strategy and the challenges.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. And when you mentioned the global environment, I, I think about how difficult it can be to do financial modeling in, in forecasting even in a a B2B or a, you know, a, a a software company where you have long lead times and all that, but in a global e-commerce, everything changes so quickly, and there’s so many things that are exogenous factors that are outside of your control. And I’m wondering, what was your approach to financial modeling and forecasting in, in the, in the global eCommerce space?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Global eCommerce space, as you can see from Amazon, Amazon experience was over 10 years back. Berlin Brands group has been my last experience, right? So it has pretty much accompanied me throughout my career. I would say my approach is actually quite, yeah, quite pragmatic, right? First and foremost, you know, investing in, you need to invest in the creation of the right database. You need to ensure that you have strong data and governance is really essential. While this involve actually defining clear and consistent metrics you need to talk to, to other stakeholders, you need to have a common language across the company. And by doing so, you can create actually the solid foundation for reliable data that afterwards, everyone in the organization is gonna be able to use and trust. Once you have that reliable data and that infrastructure in place, then that’s cool, right?
Because then you start democratizing the access to this data, and it becomes really the priority. Once you democratize the access to the data and the data is accessible to all relevant teams, when then happens is that, that fosters a culture of innovation of of inter interchange. And actually it empowers the employees to deliver insights, you know, that drive better decision making. Once you have, obviously this, well-known state-of-the-art financial systems it’s also a critical component, you know, for the strategy. So you add the financial systems, you add the data, you have the foundations, and you know, leveraging all these three components, then you build and you have in fact you know, a robust and flexible and dynamic you know, starting point to build financial models. So that is that is absolutely crucial in the, in the e-commerce landscape at the moment.
What we are actually doing now, looking ahead, because I mean, in this, in this function, you always need to be, you know, one with one foot to the, in the today, but the other foot needs to be in the tomorrow, right? So we are actually very, very conscious that you know, machine learning and Generative ai, and in particular, the combination of those two together that will be practically the new, the new standard, right? Machine learning for forecasting for dynamic pricing and generative AI for everything that has to do with summarizing and and, you know, writing the comments, commentaries,
Glenn Hopper:
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I love that you are addressing generative ai, but also referring back to machine learning. And I do see, you know, so many people are just talking about generative AI right now, ’cause this is maybe their first exposure to it. But combining the new, what we get out of generative AI with you know, sort of democratization and not having to be able, you know, not having to write Python or whatever to be able to access data. And then but then also referencing back to machine learning, which has been used to, you know, Amazon and booking, I’m, I’m sure many companies where you’ve worked have used machine learning, even if, if not fully in the finance department, they used it in their, in their operations, and certainly plenty of appli application for machine learning and finance as well. And I think I always I really think, and I, I expect we’re gonna see more crossover with this, but the idea of FP&A analyst, business intelligence analyst and data scientists, there’s the Venn diagrams where they all exist, have a lot of overlap in them. And I think that it’s impossible today to talk about FP&A without talking about data and analytics. So the fact that you referenced data and analytics maybe give me a little more detail about how you’ve leveraged data and analytics to drive decision making in, in your forecasting and business strategy in some of the roles where, where you’ve been before.
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah. The reality is, for me, I think I have always seen data as absolutely core for, for finance and for finance to be in the decision making and to be a co-pilot. That’s something that I have seen from the very beginning. In fact, when I was actually in, in booking, I had a mathematician in my team. I hired two mathematicians afterwards and a technical person, you know, and that was part of my team in business controlling, which was quite a quite unique, right? We are talking 10 years back. So that’s that’s, that’s, that’s to say that, yeah, for me, data is actually essential, right? And the beauty of data is what I mentioned before, right? So it democratizes the decision making. And with the, with this data insights, when they are available to everyone, it is actually much easier to balance the power and to balance the influence of within the companies, which makes everything much more challenging in a way, but much more, you know, equal in another way, right?
So then you don’t have that department in finance that is monopolizing the, the access to information. You don’t have either the teams in commercial that actually are figuring out new numbers that do not tie to anything, right? Where actually the the end of the day, you end up with meetings where people, instead of talking about what, what really matters and the issues in the business, they are actually talking about whether my, my data is more accurate or the other data is more accurate. And then you waste time, right? You know, coming back to your question and seeing how, how do I leverage data? Let me, let me share with you one example in, in C&A, which is not, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s the typical examples of, of a company that is technology driven or very much technology driven or, or, or digital, right?
So C&Ais it’s a retail company. It operates in the fashion industry, and it’s you know, I mean, if you, if you think about h and m, it’s a similar, you know, H&M would be a competitor of CNA, right? And it operates in Europe. So during my tenure in, in CNA Netherlands you know, the typical, you have the typical structure, you have the headquarters, and you have the regions, right? And in Netherlands, we didn’t have the visibility, any visibility to key data. So the unit economics or profitability, that was all lacking, and we lacked insights. And that lack of insight really hindered our ability to make sound decisions. So the first thing I did was actually, you know, when I was hired, I hired also a business analyst because you know, and this was very, very unusual for the company, right?
They were actually saying, yeah, why, why do you need this role? I mean, what is that person gonna do, right? So I said, no, this is I mean, I started the company, I need a business fi a finance analyst, right? And well, I, I hired this person. I empowered him to find ways to improve, you know, the country decision making potential. So I gave him a broad kind of mandate, and we had kind of regular, regular meetings. So to tackle this challenge, actually, the business analyst first built a strong relationship with different teams, both in the country, but also in the headquarters. He had actually to understand the various different types of data and decisions and what systems they were using in the center in the country. With that, we actually created a local database, a data system that could allow us to understand the economics, right?
So the economics of the garments, we were selling this, the processes, how it end, how those gar garments ended up in our shop floors. And the system actually would track crucial metrics such as size, powers, landing prices, expected discounts, time of arrival, and many more, right? As you can imagine, there were quite a lot of obstacles in, in executing this project, right? It was challenging build kind of the connection with the teams, and many of them were actually quite resistant of this change, right? And that was a challenge that I had to tackle myself. So practically, the, the cultural change that is something that I had to, to push for the reality is that we were able to create some quick wins. We created reports showing products that were over overpriced and we’re about to land in our stores.
We created overview to show stock and create by creating this actionable insights. Actually, the, the teams started collaborating, right? So that, that broke kind of the glass, and and then we, we started scaling that, and that was phenomenal, right? And by integrating this information with historical data and also with past trends, and by product, by region, by even by city, right? So we were able to generate insights that enabled us to, to, to analyze how future collections were likely to perform and to make proactive adjustments far before the products were coming to the country. So that was also helping allocating accountabilities where they should be allocated, right? What I can say is that with that we could influence pricing strategies, optimizing sizes, managed batches and deliveries up to 12 months in advance. And yeah, and that was much more you know, it allowed us to, to make decisions much earlier. The reality of the matter was that this project was actually a success, had really a transformative impact, and not only improved our visibility and controlled the business, but actually, you know, very soon all countries wanted a business finance analyst and, and also a tool similar to this one. So the tool was developed and and became highly sought after. And the role of the, of a finance analyst was pretty much standard.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s great. You know, it, what I’m, what I’m hearing here, and I hear this a lot when I talk to finance leaders, when you’re an individual contributor, and when you first start your career out, you know, okay, I’m, I have to get really good at FP&A and I have to be really laser focused, and these are the things I do. But as you move up in your career, you have to know what your mission is and sort of the why of what you’re doing and what the end goal that you want to achieve. So you have to sort of branch out from just doing what’s in finance. And then, so I think a, a general business degree probably helps some in that too, but it’s also what you learn along the way, because you talked about, you know, hiring a position that the company thought, what are we, why are we hiring this position?
But you knew the mission and where to go. And I think that another thing that we have to do as finance people a lot is how much we’re crossing over with IT and software. And so we can’t just know the metrics and what we wanna get, and we have to start having understanding of, of data and the systems. And I know before the show, you and I, were, were talking about implementing BI tools, and we don’t have to talk about specific brands or, or, or not, but I’m, I’m thinking about you know, <laugh>, I’m the finance person, and suddenly I have to figure out how I’m gonna implement this BI process, which BI and finance, again, a lot of similarities, but they’re not the exact same role. So I guess sort of continuing out what you were just talking about talk to me about implementing BI tools and how you’ve, how you’ve approached that.
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah, so it’s funny actually that you asked this question because really, literally since the beginning of my career, I have been involved in implementing BI tools. In principle, implementing BI tools typically requires a very, very significant investment, right? In terms of time, resources, and effort. So it’s something that you, you cannot just decide in finance, it is a strategic decision. And, and once once you have the, the company buying into the idea and buying into the need of having a BI tool, then you know, the journey can start. And I can, I can assure you the journey is challenging, unquestionably painful, but I can assure you that well implemented BI tool can really improve decision making in h operational efficiency and also drive the daily growth. You know, as I said, so I have, I have really literally implemented several BI tools, but let me just focus perhaps on the example in Berlin Brands Group, because I think that is the, the closest in my, in my experience, right?
When I was CFO, I mean my, in my tenure in, in, in Berlin Brands’ group, I had the opportunity to implement this advanced business intelligent tool. And, you know, initially Berlin Brands’ Group used a power BI tool, right? So we had it already, as you can imagine, this is a company that was already operating in e-commerce for 10 years. We had one, but the reality was that this BI tool was linked to operating systems, and it was actually not very, well, you know, from an accuracy point of view, it was not very good, right? So it had been created as many as, yeah, by need, you start adding one piece of information, a system comes to the, to the, to the database, then we just start creating several metrics. And at the end of the day, you have metrics. They all give some sort of, of data of information.
But because you don’t have that governance around the data and you don’t have governance around definitions, what happened was that the results could be up to 10% deviations, right? Could bring up to 10% deviations. So we are talking about a database that was actually the core of the business, right? So you would decide whether to sell a product in a particular country or not, whether you would drop or in, in increase a promotion in a, in a particular product, right? Or whether you would invest more or less marketing in a particular product because you were expecting a profit contribution that was above 5% or lower, right? So it, it was a very, very critical tool in order to make really operational decisions, right? So happened was that we all recognized the critical need for reliable and consistency data. And what happened, yeah, we said, okay, let’s, let’s work with a partner that is very reputable.
We were working with Quantum Black. This is the company from, I think from McKinsey, and we worked with them for over a year to build a comprehensive business warehouse, right? And this initiative actually involved the whole company. So it it involve establishing creative data, defining metrics, you know, and very robust governance process. I think that is very critical. And, you know, once it was finished, right? So the new database really provided faster and most flex more flexible data. We were actually able then to access information around profit contribution, insights by product, by SKU, by country, by channel, all automated and all very flexible and dynamic. And, and really by, by ensuring that these data and the insights were consistent across the teams, we actually increased and improved the accuracy and the reliability of our analysis. What I was really, you know, mentioning before, right?
So you go into a meeting and then you already start talking about what matters, and you just don’t disagree about the numbers, you know? So that’s, that was very, I mean, not only, you know, a waste of time, but also very frustrating, right? Because it’s very easy that you start into the finger pointing type of situation, right? So the impact of all these improvements was very, very profound, right? So decision making became much more efficient, and we could actually much, much better monitor project execution. The fact that we had consistent and accurate data it actually enabled us, as I said, to make better informed decisions. And, and even what I, what I mentioned, right allowed us to, to introduce a dynamic pricing tooling. So I can only stress, you know, I mean, if you can can’t afford, you should think about implementing a robust business intelligent tool, because that opens a whole bunch of additional opportunities that without this robust business intelligent tool, you will, you will not be able to, to harvest.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, great point. And I think you know, what, so many companies maybe who have been behind on, on sort of digital evolution I think that they may be not even, they may not even be where the, I’m, I’m thinking more of the smaller companies, hopefully the enterprise, but there are companies that still need to advance their data maturity. But I think you have to get to BI before you can even think of AI. And it sounds like with your background, and, you know, you sort of understand or not sort of, you definitely do understand that the foundation of being able to use AI is to have this BI in place and to have a, a solid data foundation. And I know that you’re passionate about where the industry is going and where the or where the profession is going. And so much so that you’ve joined the advisory board of women in AI Netherlands.
And I think that, you know, I, for, again, classical machine learning, classical AI we’ll call it, I know companies have been using that for years, but more and more people are interested now in generative ai. So tell me about you know, your desire to, to be at the forefront of this and how you’re seeing, and if you, if you get out your crystal ball here and are predicting the future, how do you see the, again, what we can talk about both of ’em, we can talk about classical AI and generative ai, but how do you see AI in general transforming what we do in finance?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah. I mean, look, I, I, I really view the advent of AI finance as a phenomenal opportunity. I’m I mean, don’t, don’t think I’m crazy, right? So I, of course, I’m aware of the risks I’m aware of the ethical risks of the royalties and attribution issues. I’m aware of the bias, I’m aware of hallucinations. I’m aware of all those risks, right? And, and that’s why we need to be aware and we need to know how to use the tool. Then, for me, nonetheless, artificial intelligence represent a phenomenal opportunity for finance. Because the way I think about it is it’s actually eliminating a little bit the barrier of entry into everything that has to do with data. In the past, in order to access data, you needed actually to know how to program, and now perhaps it’s not so much needed, you need to know just a tiny bit, but with that tiny bit, you can actually find your way, right?
So for me, AI really represents a journey of evolution of innovation and possibilities. I’m sure that we will benefit from digital transformation in terms of both professional and personal growth increasing our productivity and sizing unforeseen opportunities. So I don’t know anybody that does not know, or that is not using today ChatGPT t, right? So for personal use, so I, the way I think about it is I see machine learning and, and general AI as tools, right? And depending on the use case that you may think of, then the finance professionals we use will use a different tool. So we will use most probably machine learning for forecasting. We will use gen AI for summarizing, we will use the, you know, robotics RPA and gen AI in combination for finance operations. So, I, I, I guess what I’m trying to say is the more we understand the tools, the more we will be able to think about use cases that will be suitable to be solved with the use of these tools.
So according to Gartner data, we finance professionals, we are actually quite optimistic and quite positive toward, towards artificial intelligence, right? However, it doesn’t seem really that we have started using these tools widely yet. And and I say it is really important to adopt this new technology and get started because you know, even McKinsey is foreseeing the adoption in four to five years. Yes, let’s think about it, right? So normal technologies take around 15 years to be fully adopted. So Gen ai, artificial intelligence machine learning, it’s going to be accelerated. The, the adoption is gonna be much, much faster. So you know, in my, in my view, no finance professionals should be left behind because this is a great opportunity if we are, you know, fast in, in getting into it.
Glenn Hopper:
I think in finance, we never want to be on the bleeding edge of a technology. I think leave that to sales and marketing, and maybe to some extent on the, on the product side, but for us, you know, we want to be, we don’t wanna be laggards, but we’re gonna let other people go and get the bruises because we’ve gotta have the, the numbers right. Again, I, I’m, I’m right there with you though. I’m super optimistic. I’m trying to find ways to use it today. We still have a lot, you know, there’s still the hallucination and bias issues that you talked about, and I think that we’re the, the tech companies are, are working through that. But I also, along with that, I feel like the entire industry right now is saying, yes, I understand it’s coming. I don’t know what I should do. So I guess, you know, from, from your vantage point, what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for these fp and a pros in the next five to 10 years? You know, if they really, if, if, if Gartner is right and we are gonna be fully adopting the generative AI in the next five, where do we, where do you see these opportunities and challenges coming for us?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
I mean, short term, the biggest opportunities rely in harnessing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and data analytics, combining machine learning, Gen AI and automation. I really think it will shape the future of the profession. What was you know, a niche qualification master in data analytics now is somehow essential. So I, things I’m as, as, as you will said at the very beginning, I, I’m part of the International Federation of Accountants, right? I mean, one thing that we, that we look for is, okay, how is the future of the profession gonna look like? And for sure, artificial intelligence, the new technologies is actually very, very much in the top of our agenda to see, okay, so how should the finance profession look like? So how should the university studies and the curriculum look like in order to accommodate these new you know, technologies and these needs that will actually shape the professions profoundly. So, yes, I mean, very important. If we think in 10 years, ru look, I mean, the most crucial skills most probably will be around cybersecurity, digital collaboration, digital ethics, digital literacy, you know, how do you use these tools and remain being human? So how do you build on critical thinking, on emotional intelligence and on social skills?
Glenn Hopper:
If you were giving advice to someone just starting out in finance, or if you were working on reskilling and upskilling your team, what would you, what advice would you give to the kind of the, the more junior personnel or really any, at, at any level, if they’re looking to build their career and keep up with the times, and it doesn’t have to just be around ai, but what, what advice would you give?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
That’s quite difficult, right? I mean, it, it really depends on each individual, how, how each individual defines success. Okay? So for me, success meant climbing the ladder and, and having the opportunity to do what I, what I thought it was necessary to influence and create value. And in that definition, one key aspect is hard work, but it is important, obviously, to know that many people work hard. So the true differentiator is not only hard work, but it’s also your commitment to continuous growth, inner motivation and, and, and be a little bit better every day, right? On a personal level I can say that being bold helped me, especially being a woman. Young pro professionals need to master the courage to speak up, especially in the field of finance, right? And remember in finance, we need a team to be able to think out of the box. So everything that that helps you you know, critical thinking and and, and use your head and not only your hands is, is super critical, right? So the, my advice is clear, work hard continuous learning. Be bold in pursuing what you want, express your aspirations, stay positive. And look, if things don’t always go perfectly well, that’s okay. Have a long-term aspiration. Work hard for it, invest in it. Do not despair. Continue trying. This is a marathon. It’s not sprint.
Glenn Hopper:
Before we wrap all of our shows, I do like to take a moment and and learn a a little bit about you know, the kind of the who’s behind the, the finance leader character. So one of the questions we always ask is what’s something that not many people know about you? And I typically will throw on the caveat of something that we couldn’t just find by Googling you really quick.
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Not everybody knows that. I like kickboxing, I do kickboxing with my son, and that I enjoy karaoke. I, you know, long karaoke sessions with my family. Oh, that’s
Glenn Hopper:
Great. <Laugh>, all the things
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
I love.
Glenn Hopper:
So I was trying to figure out how you could combine the karaoke and the kickboxing, I guess if there were critics in the audience, you could put ’em in their place, <laugh>. So, all right. That’s, that’s great. And one that, it’s everybody’s favorite question, and it’s funny, I think it’ll be 20 years from now, and we’ll still be asking this question, but <laugh>, because I think no matter what other technology is out there, it’s going back to Excel. It’s just, it’s sort of, it’s sort of our comfort zone. And so we always ask what is your favorite Excel function and why?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah. So I mean, of course know, hardcore functions, I love ifs SUMIFs and VLOOKUPs, but, but the more you know, the one that I really use the most is the pivot tables. They are super flexible. You know, they, they, they allow for multiple types of analysis, creation of new metrics. I still use them in the old look and look and feel. So I guess for some like me you know, the new, the new, the new things come a little bit too many at once. Yeah, <laugh>. But but yeah, pivot tables are the ones, yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
So I lo I love pivot tables too, and I and I also still go to the old view of ’em, and I know people do all kinds of crazy stuff with slicers and you know, ways to do it, but it just, a lot of times I’m doing pivot tables just for my, you know, because I’m not frontline FP&A reporting anymore. If I’m looking at something, I’m trying to find some answers. So I love going in and you know, I’ll just take my data and start pivoting it and, and looking at it in different ways so I can get a good, good summary of it. So I’m, I’m in agreement with you there, so that’s great, <laugh>. So well this has, this has been great. How can our listeners connect with you and, and to learn more about you, especially your involvement in with women in AI and, and your other organizations?
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Yeah, I mean, well I’m, I’m in LinkedIn, so you can, you can follow me there. I try to be active and, and, and share things that inspire me. So that would be one, one way I would recommend you not to, to connect and follow also women in ai in general, but also in the organization in Netherlands that will I mean, it will give a little bit of an idea of what is the progress in raising awareness of aid of tech and AI in womens and minorities. And finally, obviously, I mean, if you, if you want to be abreast of you know, what’s going on in finance, you know, I mean, follow the International Federation of Accountants website to be, you know updated and to keep yourself updated on AIC matters that affect our profession.
Glenn Hopper:
Great. Alright, well thank you Doto for being on the show.
Maria del Dado Alonso Sanchez:
Thank you so much, Glen.
