Evgenia Elezova, Head of Regional Finance, Lindström joins us to talk about FP&A and finance transformation at the 175-year old textile giant. Helsinki-based Lindström is one of Europe’s leading textile service companies employing over 5000 people in Europe and in Asia with turnover of 496€ million in 2022. Elezova herself has transformed the finance function during 14 years, during which time she’s driven M&A initiatives, to leading finance projects. Highlights include a two year development program for business controllers at Lindström, designed to move finance from back office roles to strategic co-pilots for management.
In this episode:
- Being responsible for M&A Due diligence and integration
- Experience in successful M&A
- Business Partnering at Lindstrom
- Focusing on future scenarios
- HowControl assists strategy at Lindstrom
- Our two-year long finance training Lindstrom Finance Business Development Program
- Moving from back office in finance to having impact on business
- Lindstrom’s approach to budgeting/target setting
- Core KPIs in a global textile company
- Seeing change in controller work
- Coaching finance leaders
Connect with Evgenia at https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgenia-elezova-513ba12/
Glenn Hopper:
Welcome to FP&A Today, I’m your host, Glenn Hopper, and today we have an incredible guest joining us Evgenia Elezova is the head of regional finance for Southeast Europe at Lindstrom, one of Europe’s leading textile service companies With over 175 years of history. Ev Guinea has been with Lindstrom for 14 years, during which time she’s worn many hats from driving m and a initiatives to leading transformative finance projects. Her expertise spans everything from business partnering and global finance processes to spearheading development programs that elevate finance professionals to strategic business leaders.
One of, if Evgenia’s most notable achievements is the creation of a two year development program for business controllers at Lindstrom, designed to transition them from back office roles to strategic co-pilots for management. Her vision focuses on developing both soft and technical skills, empowering her team to not only provide insights, but also shape the company’s future through impactful decision making. In today’s episode, we’ll dive into of Evgenia’s journey, her approach to transforming finance roles and her perspective on the evolving landscape of FP&A, including her aspirations for leveraging AI and technology in finance. I know this conversation will inspire and offer practical takeaways for finance professionals everywhere. So let’s dive in. Evgenia, welcome to the show.
Evgenia Elezova:
Oh, thank you, Glen. Very happy to be here.
Glenn Hopper:
So I’m super excited. I really want to talk about your training program, but, um, before we dive into that, I’m gonna, we need to lay the groundwork a little bit. So if you could just start us off by, kind of walk us through your career journey, highlighting, you know, how you came to your current role at Lindstrom and your background leading up to today.
Evgenia Elezova:
My career started in Finland with the company named Kona. I received the summer internship there, and it was so exciting for me to be the in treasury department and accounting department during the summertime that I’ve been actually going around different departments, different people, and asking them, what are you doing? I, I’m so interested to know, to learn. I was so curious that maybe my approach was a little bit different from ary. And that’s why I was invited again to KONE to work for one year. It was a position to replace somebody on maternity leave, but then it was in the group reporting. So it was also very exciting to work in the group reporting team. That was the first year actually, they were implementing care for s there. So, great. Absolutely experience. And then after that, again, <laugh>, after one year, there was no open position to continue, but then form a subsidiary of K Valtra.
Uh, this is the company producing tractors while RA incorporated, it’s part of ACO Corporation, the American company. So basically business controller from there wrote me and asked, would you like to join us Assistant Business controller? And I was so happy about that. I, I really would wanted to continue this journey in business controlling and reporting. So I started with reporting there. I was, uh, working with subsidiaries, working with soc, working with internal audits as well, and mostly concentrating on the closings. But of course, my passion was always lying more in the analysis, how to impact the business, how to predict maybe the future for the forecasts and so on. So I spent five years in Valtra. And then, uh, due to personal reasons, I wanted to move to Hels in Quebec. And I have found Job and Lindstrom, and you have already spoken a little bit about the company, so I do not need to introduce, but it was, I, I came as a business controller for subsidiaries.
It was completely different company. Completely different than the company I’m working today. I started with the subsidiaries business control. Then it went more with development because I’m really interested in development and transformation, any kind of finance projects, development. We were implementing, for example, forecasting process back then, we didn’t have really forecasting before and Okay, it was almost 15 years ago, right? So the systems were very old. And then at that time, we were implementing forecasting, implementing all this new systems then. And it was very exciting. And then my path went more to M&A and development of m and A process. I really enjoyed that part because every Monday project is different from one another. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It was always something new. You know, it was always, um, if you are there from the beginning, like from then you have the list of target companies.
Then you go into negotiation stage, going into the valuation, preparing the business case, going into due diligences. And then I was also participating in integrations as a finance team lead or as a integration project manage manager in the end. So very interesting, exciting, the whole process. But they understood that I’m much more about this transformation, about development, about really impacting the business, about also processes and optimization of the processes. And, uh, day in M&A, maybe I have learned one of my most important principles in life, you know, in m&A one plus one is not two, it’s more than two always <laugh>. Yeah. There should be, uh, edit value. If two companies are joining together, there should be edit value created. Yeah. And then I think it’s like basically working everywhere in life, right? This one plus one is more than two. And then if you create, for example, the team of people who are working together, there is some added value always created if the person would be working alone and so on. So this was my finding, and this is one of my principles that I really like to work with the team and like to work with people together and create value together.
Glenn Hopper:
I love the idea of, you know, in an, in a successful merger, <laugh> one plus one is more than two. ’cause, you know, there are so many mergers that, um, best intentions I think of, you know, there’s a million business school case studies out there. I think of Kraft Heinz, and, uh, the other ones that were, and you know, there, I think that there’s, you know, historically, and if you don’t do it right, a high percentage of mergers actually end up destroying shareholder value because they, they make all these promises. They say there’s gonna be these synergies, and then they fail to achieve them. So the fact that you were doing due diligence and also on the integration side, I love that. And because that’s similar to my own background. Mm.
It’s nice for if you, you know, if you’re gonna make these assertions about the synergies of merging the two companies and then being able to follow through and do the integration. ’cause that’s the hard, I mean, due diligence is hard. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But nowhere near as hard as actually doing the merging and integrating of companies. So if you’re working in that people, systems, processes and all that, that’s where the real value comes from. And that’s where the, the real skill is. Um, so it’s, it’s great to hear your background with working on both the, you know, before the merger and then after actually going through and doing the integrations.
Evgenia Elezova:
And this is, this is also interesting because you can focus on the right things during the integration project, right? Because you’ve been the person working together with the team on, uh, synergies, uh, evaluating those, how much we should get from where, and like how, how we can really make this work in this one plus one more than two. And then you can follow this up. And I think this focus is one important thing. And second one is, what I have found out there is communication is the key for successful integration in many ways, apart from this, whatever plans we are doing, processes, uh, you need to communicate it very well. And the, of course, people aspect cultural differences, understanding one another, even even understanding language wise, because you might have different vocabulary in the companies. This is something which is creating the difference, making things working together. It’s a little bit always more difficult aspect than processes from my point of view. Yeah,
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, well, so you’ve been at Lindstrom a while, but you know, the company 175 years old, it’s amazing when companies endure for, for that long. And it’s, there’s not a lot of ’em that have, have been around that long. And it’s, it was super interesting when you, you mentioned, so you’ve been there 14 years now.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Glenn Hopper:
And talking about when you started out doing forecasts and that they weren’t doing forecasting before. So I imagine <laugh> that Lindstrom has probably undergone some pretty significant evolution just in your time.
Evgenia Elezova:
Exactly.
Glenn Hopper:
There. Exactly.
Evgenia Elezova:
Um,
Glenn Hopper:
What are some of the changes that you’ve seen in like transforming the role of, you know, business controllers to become those business partners and sort of the changes that have happened around you at Lindstrom?
Evgenia Elezova:
Yeah, then I came into business control in Lindstrom. It was more or less controlling was, um, concentrating on reports creation and maybe a bit of analysis. But now it’s really, really getting to this business, partnering to creating, adding value, working more with the team, like with country management team, for example, if you country business controller or, uh, like, it’s more about looking into the future. So not backwards, of course, you need to understand how you worked out this month, but then it’s more important to understand what you are planning to do. Conclusion section plans, and this is what our management is looking from business controllers, some kind of advisory role, more concentration on the future scenarios. Understanding the ba the base, of course, is important. You need to make sure that there are proper controls in place. The processes are running well. But then it’s coming to, uh, analyze this forecasting, really advising there is huge role nowadays of controlling strategy as well.
Now we were creating the new strategy 2030. And then I remember like quite also many years ago, I was participating in one program, one Finnish university for business controllers for development of business controls. It was also something like, uh, maybe 10 years ago, and I remember there was CFO of very big Finnish company, international company, but head office was in Finland. And then we had the project and we were delivering the results of the project. And the project was about the role of controller in strategy. And then the CFO of this big company was like telling that I actually do not see how controller should be involved into the strategy process, CFO. And nowadays you can’t even think about that, right? Nowadays. Yeah. Like evident that you need to have controls and will day, you need to have this kind of scenarios future use. Understanding KPIs developed, I think in our con in our company also control, assist supporting strategy by steering really on the direction overlooking KPIs and keeping the focus.
So this is what we are looking into over days. So like I can see huge difference, what it was before. And of course, what it is now much more focused on the future, much more focused on scenario thinking. And I’m looking forward to what really AI will bring to us, because I think AI will change, first of all, our just working day, how it’ll be structured. Because it’ll be, uh, we won’t spend so much time with, uh, like ordinary activities, like, like reading emails. We can already create some kind of action plans. And please tell me what are the action points from the emails? What, what are the most important things to be done? Yeah, that’s already there. But then thinking also for the future, what kind of possibilities we have, how much quality there will be in our work, and how much we can gain from there. This is, this is something incredible. So, and I believe that Lindstrom has been taking this role of foreign in many processes over days. Like I have seen the huge transformation in, in the company. And I think that we are really getting there <laugh> as a foreign.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. That’s great. So I, I really, I wanna dive in to your, your training program. However, since you mentioned ai, I want to touch on that quickly.
Speaker 2:
I know, but
Glenn Hopper:
I’m, you’re pretty well, Facebook, <laugh>, <laugh>, you know, I’m talking to companies a lot now that they’ll come to me and they’ll say, oh, we, we need to incorporate ai. And we always start with an assessment before they could even, most companies could even think about ai. We need to make sure that they have bi, you know, make, make that they have data, that they have analytics, that they, you know, are, that they have a good FP&A system. Because if you, you know, you can’t just wave the, uh, magic, uh, AI wand over something and make it turn into Yeah, just magical solutions. But I think there are a lot of things that even if, even if it’s not fully integrated into your systems yet mm-hmm <affirmative>. There are some things that companies can do, forward-looking companies can do safely to experiment with ai. And I’m wondering if in your department, are you and your team using any AI tools right now? Do you have policies and guidelines around it? Or sort of a focus on the future with it? What are you guys doing?
Evgenia Elezova:
Well, we basically, first of all, you started with data and the analytics here, and we have the data and analytics team who are taking care of, uh, our data, our data warehousing. But then we have also the person there who is actually concentrating fully on AI and development of AI within the company. And I think if I would look to the last two months, I think there were at least six or even seven sessions about how to use ai. What are the latest developments there are in different tools, like in teams, for example, how you can use it or how you can use it. Like, let’s say our guys were looking how, how you can use it in Excel. Of course, it’s maybe dragging a little bit behind other, after all in Outlook, how you can use AI and so on. So you can really and very practical way use the tools.
Yes. So companies creating for you all the possibilities for this transformation. And, uh, we have, I think our communications team is also very, very good in that they are recognizing this kind of, I do not rem do not remember exactly how it’s name, but it’s like a kind of a coffee break. There are 15 minutes people are gathering together, and then they are also looking how to create with the help of AI posts in social media, for example, something like this. Really very useful tips and very, um, practical ones as well. So it’s all about practice in the end. And of course, following up about the development, what’s the latest development, what’s been lately developed and what, how we can utilize it.
Glenn Hopper:
I’m glad they’re, I’m glad they’re doing, uh, proactively leaning into it and, and giving the training and all that and, and giving, you know, areas where, okay, this is where you can use AI today and, and focused on the future. So that, and, and the fact that you guys have an analytics team and all that, that’s a, you’re, you’re in a great place set to kind of ride the AI wave. I know there’s a lot of companies I talk to, especially, you know, if you have an older, more traditional company, a lot of times they’re just very, they’re very slow to change and they don’t wanna mm-hmm <affirmative>. You know, rush anything. So to hear that you guys are taking a proactive approach, that’s exciting. Okay. So I really want to hear about this program because I think the fact that the program is two years long really sends a message because we, I’ve worked at a lot of great companies where they’ll do, they’ll offer training and there’s reimbursement for training that people do on their own.
And maybe, you know, there’s company-wide training, but it’s all his, mostly what you see, it’s kind of like throwing darts and it’s, okay, we’re gonna do a session on this today. We’re gonna do a session a couple months. We may not do one for three months, and then we’re gonna do another one. But the fact that you have a program that is two years long, and then it’s very orchestrated, that speaks so much. And I, I imagine, I know we talked before the show, you know, you’re, you’re good ways through it now and you’re starting to see results. But I guess without me just yammering on about it, <laugh>, I want to switch and let you tell me about the program and where it is now and where it’s going. I wanna hear all about this.
Evgenia Elezova:
Yeah, of course. I’m happy to tell about that because I, I really, I’m waiting also for our graduation of our guys and results, results, what they can bring to the company. But this is, I can tell about that a little bit later. Yeah. But, uh, about the program, maybe I should, um, start a little bit about also transformation. We had generally in finance, and we have created, uh, we named this project finance for R and then, uh, some years ago we decided that, okay, it’s, it’s good to create this, uh, specialized, uh, center for basic processes. And we created it in Helsinki. Uh, so that invoicing, for example, the purchase invoice management accounting, it’ll be in one place handled. So the basic process is handled in this, uh, centralized finance center. And then same time in the countries, we have much more business support. So there are business controllers in countries, and then they are not handling this kind of basic things.
They are concentrating on, uh, uh, financial planning and analysis. Then we have defined it and started this transformation. Second part of this project was about, okay, what is the actually business controller’s role? And what is basic role and what is advanced role and how to take business control is from this basic to advanced. Yeah. Because advanced, it’s already this kind of role of advisory being some kind of like, let’s say reading the map, helping to management to drive the car, right? So being part of the team and through the means of numbers help to navigate the business. So we started with defining this, and then we thought like, okay, we really need to develop people. And I was in charge of that part then. And then I was very much interested, it’s like, how fast to take controls from the A to B, how to transform from this basic reporting or this kind of back office role. More to the frontline, our controller nowadays, even like, let’s say also visiting the customers together with the sales. Helping with sales seven. Yeah. So they’re very active. They’re not sitting anymore <laugh> somewhere on the, in the back office, but they are also having very active role in business.
Glenn Hopper:
And that’s such a part of business partnering. Now. It’s, I think, you know, I’ve been doing this for a million years, and when I started in finance, it really felt like we were in this sort of protected bubble, like away from the rest of the company. And we just sat there with our spreadsheets and just crunch numbers mm-hmm <affirmative>. And did things and you didn’t get out and, you know, work with sales and work with operations and work. So I think that you’re kind of riding the wave of, of just like with, with ai, of sort of seeing how your teams can be more effective and getting them out with, not just in operations not, but actually going out and dealing with customers and seeing, you know, these widgets that I’m counting actually, here’s the impact and this is what they do. I, so I love that part of it as well.
Evgenia Elezova:
And of course, of course it requires not only like business controller going around, like, I can help you, I can help you. There should be support from management. And of course we need to support developing the role, explaining to the management what related value we can provide. Yeah. And now I believe our management really sees the value, really understands what business controllers can provide, and then requirements as well are growing, growing and growing. But this is very good. That means that there is really understanding of, of the value we can provide. Yeah. And, uh, this program we have created, first of all, I’m not alone. Yeah. I’m like <laugh>, let’s say leading this up, but then I have a team of people helping me and we thought it would be nice to have people from different backgrounds, different functions. So basically, uh, there are also country business controllers in the countries then, um, supporting this.
Then there is also communications manager, HR supporting, and also controllers from head office. ’cause we have head office functions as well. And it’s, uh, we have group business control in Helsinki, and they’re concentrating on more like, uh, this competence center support, like, for example, HR support operations. And so, and basically the program, we started it in May, 2023. Yeah. So it’s like about one and a half years, a little bit longer for now lasting. And, uh, idea was like really take our business control to the next level to create business partnership in all levels in the organization. That was our target. Yeah. And idea behind how to structure the program was that we will do it in very organized way. We will have monthly sessions, and this sessions will be very practical and the sessions will be also helping them in everyday job. Yeah. So we are not going to give any salary or we are not going to like, let’s say, speak about how certain tools are working.
They should know that already they, they’re going to the advanced role. So we are concentrating more on the business cases to understand the knowledge. We are creating quizzes. We are making this exciting decisions every session, exciting and interesting for them. They’re really looking how to get the, uh, most of the session because, you know, usually if there is some education is ongoing, and then there is a session, somebody’s talking very long, and then you are sitting there, and if it is especially in line, you might be doing whatever they want the background. So how to make people really get involved. And we’re doing it, of course, through also making this breakout rooms, uh, that they have to do some tasks together. So it’s really very interactive and it’s helping us also to build up this business controls community. Because we have 24 countries and there are people from different countries together.
They do not see each other very often. This, uh, program is helping them also recognize this community and to ask questions. If, for example, they would like to know something or to get help, they can always go, like our UK controller would go to our controller in Sweden or like to, to, to get some expert advice. So it’s very important for building community for them to work together. And one of the ideas was that we will mix them there. We usually have for this monthly sessions, pre-work or homework, and it’s usually done in the group. So in pairs, we do not do too much of the individual tasks so that we can mix people from different countries and make them work together as well. They can train their communication skills and soft skills. Yeah. And of course, we are putting the sessions, of course, there are sessions about very important topics in finance, which are more like, of finance, hard skills like pricing, or maybe we are looking to scenario planning or we are looking into reporting systems and how to utilize the reports. Like really sharing the experience, what reports you are using for what purposes. Because nowadays there is a lot of information, vast amount of reports. But then like what, what’s the best, what are the best reports to utilize? How to modify those, especially for your purposes, share the experiences, how they are following the data, how they are looking into the future, and so on. So it’s like maybe level up from this basic trainings, then you’re explaining what has to be done, how the tools are working, and so on.
Glenn Hopper:
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I didn’t think about this before, but the idea that there’s not individual work that’s, that’s really smart because I think so many finance and accounting people, we get into this because we’re maybe naturally introverted and we, we, we like to go off and get lost by ourselves working in a, in a spreadsheet versus having to do that interaction and communication with people. So if, you know, if you send everybody off doing the homework on their own, sure they’ll do it and they’re getting what they would out of the assignment. But when you pair ’em up or put ’em in groups, I, I like that better because it’s just driving home more and more. That partnership and that communication, that relationship. And especially you, like you said, you guys are in a couple dozen different countries and you’ve got, I’m assuming, remote remote workers as well. And so people that don’t interact a lot, so driving them to work together, I think this, that’s just great. Yeah.
Evgenia Elezova:
And then during, we, we structured so that there are monthly sessions, and then at least we decided that at least, uh, three sessions will be about soft skills development, because hard skills are important, but then soft skills are getting to be much, much more important nowadays than, uh, there is much more interaction communications, how to present, how to tell the story. So we are training these skills also. And, uh, at least one session per year, we told that, okay, we will put people really together, physically, face-to-face. And, um, actually we had two sessions like that. Those both were in Helsinki, but, uh, those days were really interesting, fun. And there was also some possibilities for networking, spending time together. So I think those were really, really great sessions. Like, like a bit like control less days, but very, very much oriented to soft skills development.
The first, uh, session was about communication skills with very practical tasks on presenting and communicating. And last session was, uh, beginning of September, and it was more about leading and leading the project also in project management, because on the second year we thought, okay, these monthly sessions, those are good, but then we would like actually on the second year create the value more for the company. I think we already creating value by this, giving this home, uh, homework or tasks which are actually related to their everyday business work. Like create the scenario or like, let’s say support, like let’s say pricing, uh, methods and so on. But we decided that, okay, people should work together. We put five teams together. And this last year of BPA Business Partner Academy, they’re working over the projects. Yeah. And by the way, one project is about AI and finance.
Glenn Hopper:
You may tell them I have a book recommendation for them. You know, <laugh>, I might be able to get a discount too. Just let me know. Yeah, <laugh>. Alright.
Evgenia Elezova:
Alright. That’s very good. Yeah. And then, and then rest. This is, this is very interesting project. And then there are formal projects and there are oriented to our also new strategy and support to the strategy. But then they’re related, for example, to benchmarking or to sales support, or like one project is related to certain area of pricing, how to develop high value pricing. So I believe that those are very, very much needed and they’re adding value for, for the whole Lindstrom group.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s great. It’s an interesting approach to do it that way because it’s, it’s part of the academy, but it’s also doing, you know, sort of extra work for the company and it, but it’s changing their mindsets, um, and giving them a new way to think and having these group projects, and maybe if it’s people from different subsidiaries and all that, I could see
Speaker 2:
On this much more fun. Yeah,
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, you mentioned all the, the sort of the hard skills that they’re working on, but also the soft skills are so key and it’s, it’s great to see a company because people maybe they’ll go on their own and figure it out. They’ll get a certification, they’ll figure out, oh, these are some soft skills I need to work on. But having the company giving that training is really great. Because again, thinking back early in my career, I would joke that the reason I was able to be promoted quickly in some scenarios was, one, I was very good at Excel, and two, I was very good at PowerPoint and I didn’t even know the notion of storytelling back then. But, you know, I, I would say that kind of jokingly. But now looking back, being good at PowerPoint means you’re able to sort of tell a story and who care.
You can do all kinds of, you could build incredible models in Excel, but if you can’t distill them down to that information, the storytelling to kind of get your point across, then the, it’s all for naught. So I think there’s a lot of people mm-hmm <affirmative>. Especially early career where you see it, you’re deep in, you understand all the numbers, you’re doing the analytics, but then you have to convey it to people who aren’t as deep in the numbers and who maybe are not statisticians and they’re not, their background is not fp and a, there are other management functions. And being able to explain to them how you reached a con con conclusion and you know, and why you’re making the recommendations you are, that’s such a, an important part of the job.
Evgenia Elezova:
That’s right. And actually, I, I wanted to mention two things more. First thing is that, uh, for every session we always try to invite people from the business. For example, last session we had about, about our strategy and one of the strategic programs we are implementing currently. We invited two senior vice presidents of the region to the round table. And we were discussing what are the expectations from controllers, from their controllers, from their countries, uh, in this next strategy period, how they see, for example, in 2030, what controller would be, how they will support the country management team, what is their dream controller, for example? And it was very interesting to listen. Yeah. And it’s important for the controllers also to listen how, how the top management is perceiving them and what are their recommendations for development. That is one of the principles. Also, there is always people from the business and they business partners invited for those sessions
Glenn Hopper:
Doing this training with your teams, just scattered across, you know, all, all throughout Southeast Europe. And then you’ve got the centralized functions in Helsinki, like everybody working together. How, I just think of, you know, you’ve got your individual personalities and, and probably even though you wanna standardize as much as <laugh> as you can, there’s probably processes in the different subs that are slightly different. How does orchestrating and coordinating all that work to, to take all these subs and roll them up into the, the corporate function?
Evgenia Elezova:
We, we have pretty much, the company has standardized the processes pretty much.
Speaker 2:
That’s good. Yeah.
Evgenia Elezova:
Basically we are running same business lines in different countries. And then, uh, like let’s say it’s always, you know, that finance is covering the business in the best possible way where support is needed. That’s, that’s where we are trying to focus always. But I think that having the centralized processes and process development in head office, but then in the countries, then actually the frontline development utilizing like, let’s say concentrating on the growth, but then the head office will collect the best practices, the best support, and coordinate those processes that will help to optimize those. Yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
And thinking about, you know, since we just got through budget season, one of the things that I, I always think about when there’s, when you’re dealing with so many subsidiaries and, and budgeting, you know, there’s the top down approach or the bottom up approach. And then thinking about how you deal with it in the subs. Like, so doing your, your forecasting and financial modeling, um, how much comes from corporate and then how much comes in from the sub? How do, can you walk us through the, the, uh, budgeting and forecasting process, how that works? Yeah.
Evgenia Elezova:
Uh, getting call from this budgeting, of course, we call it budgeting, but it’s like target setting for us for the next year. Yeah. Uh, so our forecasting is rolling forecasting. We have 16 months rolling forecasting, and we are updating it on monthly level. And basically it’s coming from the countries. Of course there is steering from the top. Yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But it’s always coming from the countries. They are on monthly level updating the latest developments. They’re doing it to their best knowledge. Yeah. And then I would say it’s more down top approach than top down in our way. So it’s coming from all the organizations, from subsidiaries, from cost centers, owners, they’re making the forecast, and then we see the big picture.
Glenn Hopper:
Gotcha. Yeah. It’s, it’s gotta be, um, just getting everyone to coordinate and, and work together and get those inputs and all that. And then you’ve got the steering and you know, where the goals are, everything,
Evgenia Elezova:
But
Glenn Hopper:
You also need to build practical.
Evgenia Elezova:
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Uh, what is good about our business, like we have rental textile services, so it’s pretty much predictable. Yeah. We have long contracts, long-term customer relationship is one of our values. And then, uh, the predictability is much better than in some other businesses. So in this way, in the long term customer relationships, you can, uh, vary. Well predict. Yeah. Unless there is some, uh, unexpected events coming, like covid and this kind of, the world is getting more like, let’s say unpredictable. So of course we have to build scenarios for, for some events, but at the same time, with our business, I think you can really, uh, create very, very close reality forecast, at least for the next half a year. Yeah,
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that’s, um, we talked to people from so many different industries, and whenever I talk to people, I do, we, we haven’t talked about what Lindstrom does in being in, in the textile service industry. And if you could maybe, um, just because I think about all the, our listeners from all, all the, uh, different organizations and industries and, you know, everything from e-commerce to, to textile mm-hmm. And CPG and, and all the businesses they’re in, in the textile industry. Are there some really important KPIs that you monitor that might be different than other industries? Or what are some unique challenges and opportunities, uh, doing leading fp and a in, in textiles,
Evgenia Elezova:
Uh, textile rentals? So, yeah, good question. Actually, I think it’s important. Efficiency KPIs are very important for us because we are having this kind of big commitment for ate economy, sustainability, and sustainable solutions in our company. And of course, we need to optimize the usage of textiles to make sure that, that, uh, these promises are fulfilled to the customers. Yeah. And I believe, of course, we are looking to the growth and we are growing <laugh> steadily and, uh, to profitability. But again, in the long term customer relationships, you have to take of course, actions for the price increases or like, let’s say for pricing actions or for recalculating price lists. But in the end of the day, you can keep the steady profitability level as well. So I think from that point of view, rental services is pretty stable business if you steer it right. Of course.
Glenn Hopper:
You know, thinking about 175 years of, of business in Lindstrom account, and thinking of how much historical data you have now, I know the company wasn’t al you know, we weren’t doing data and analytics, uh, 175 years ago, but just the, uh, it would be interesting to just watch over time, um, you know, the, the tied to macroeconomic changes and yeah. Industry changes and inflation and mm-hmm. Technology and all that. It would,
Evgenia Elezova:
Yeah,
Glenn Hopper:
It’s a probably a pretty fascinating history to see how it’s
Evgenia Elezova:
Growing
Glenn Hopper:
Over that time. It’s,
Evgenia Elezova:
We’re getting more and more knowledge and more and more understanding how better to run, uh, the business because we are looking to different industries as well, which we can support. For example, with work wear rental, it can be absolutely different industries supported. And we can look and focus on the growing industries, on the industries and the future, which will, uh, the forecasts are very positive as well. So, uh, diversify as well our offering. So that’s, that’s what we are doing already as a company.
Glenn Hopper:
And it’s great. I mean, and that you, you know, for a company to be around that long, it’s gotta, I mean, have generational turning over leadership and all that and, and stay forward thinking and not just rely on what’s happened in the past. And it sounds like with everything you guys are doing, that you really are evolving, you know, with the current times and everything. And I just, one of the biggest takeaways for me though, is that training program. And I guess, um, I, I really, I, if you have any advice, um, for other finance leaders who are here in this and they’re thinking, wow, that’s, I mean, that’s a real commitment to be able to train the team. What advice would you give finance leaders who were, were looking to implement like a similar business controller program in, in their organization?
Evgenia Elezova:
I think it always starts with people. You need to find somebody who is very interested to drive it. I’m very much personally committed because it’s like, I enjoy seeing the change and think the change, especially in, uh, the, um, quality of controller’s work. Yeah. If we, I can see the value added through the program, then for me it’s like the best, the best I can get out of there. So I’m very excited about that, and I’m excited to drive it. Same time, I receive a lot of support from my management. Our CFO was like, yeah, let’s do it. And this is one of the, uh, very important things Yeah. To get this support and to have this, okay, you have this great idea. Well let’s do it. Just start it. Let’s see how it’ll go. And, uh, after all, what is good for internal programs that you can really create something great, and you do not need to invest very much into that.
Yeah. And then, you know exactly, if you have long experience in the company, if you know what exactly is needed, you can make it tailor made Exactly. For your company. Yeah. You know, what is needed to be done. Yeah. So I think that’s, that’s all again about people, individuals, and support. I get so good support from our communications manager, <laugh>, her name is Annie. She’s absolutely great. And by the way, in this program, we, this is what I was telling to you about, it’s the general path. This two years, monthly sessions, four hours, monthly sessions, and this face-to-face sessions. But then we have created also personal development paths for, for people same time during these two years, we are supporting them in personal development, and they, what they’re interested about, they can ask for mentoring support, coaching support during this whole two years. They can come to me and say, Hey, I need support with developing this skill. And to help them to define these development areas. We do 3, 360 ways for them. Then they can ask people with whom they’re working about the soft skills and how they are doing and other, some areas their colleagues can recommend for them. And that’s only for them. If they do not want to share it with anybody, it’s okay. It’s just for, for their personal development. So now we had, we are running the second survey, and the last will be then, then the program will be finished.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s great. And I would imagine that the, uh, a benefit that it may be isn’t as loud as, as some of the others. Mm-hmm. But a real benefit has to be employee morale to see that the company’s investing in them and giving them these opportunities Yeah. And giving them collaboration opportunities. I I, I bet that leads to, you know, it’d be interesting to see surveys and, and see morale of, of the employees that are going through all this versus, uh, some who don’t have programs like that.
Evgenia Elezova:
I think our We care culture, we have this V care culture, it’s really supporting this mentoring and coaching support, because you can receive this coaching from top management as well. You just need to go and be brave enough to tell that this is the area that I needed and this is what I need to understand, learn from you, and this is where I need help. Yeah. Because it’s always responsibility of the person. Your development is your responsibility. And then as well, I would say how much you can take out of this program. You can take really a lot, or then you can take little, yeah. The participation level is important. And for example, we are also running small groups coaching for communication skills and for influencing skills. Now, there are group of five, six people within the program. So we found out that there were more than like, let’s say more than five people interested in developing, communicating skills and developing influencing skills. And then we created the small groups so that they can also work together, develop those share. And I, I believe that those groups were working for the last eight months.
Glenn Hopper:
Well, this has been just fascinating, um, hearing about everything that you’re doing at Lindstrom and, and about your career progression and about the training program there. I do, as we wind down the shows, there’s, there’s two questions that we ask all of our guests. And, um, uh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna throw ’em out to you here. And, uh, they’re, they’re, I’m gonna put you on the spot with these because <laugh>, uh, because we were talking before and, uh, we didn’t get you the questions beforehand. So I’m gonna go ahead now, uh, and ask you, what’s something that, um, not many people know about you? Something maybe that they couldn’t find just by Googling you or something like that?
Evgenia Elezova:
Sometimes, maybe not lately, because, uh, I have daughter of three years old and I try to spend my free time with her mostly. But before that, um, I actually finished the music school and we have the huge grand piano downstairs in the office. And after the office hours, very often I was just going there downstairs and playing piano and enjoying, because I really
Glenn Hopper:
Oh, that’s great
Evgenia Elezova:
Music, classical music. And that was, that was something which is also my kind of way of meditating and release mm-hmm <affirmative>. From the emotions. So that is something maybe not too many people nowadays. No, because last three years with, because of my daughter was very little, and, uh, now she’s free. I wasn’t doing that. But before that, it was very often then I was just sitting there enjoying the music. I know that some people were listening to it because usually it was after office hours, but then they were coming to me to say like, oh, you’ve been playing piano again, and so on. It was, it was fun and nice.
Glenn Hopper:
That’s great. Well, now you can have your daughter sit on the bench with you <laugh> and you can, uh, you can play together. You can <laugh> start her out with some chopsticks and move her on up to <laugh>. Yeah,
Evgenia Elezova:
I can, I can teach her. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah, play piano. She is actually singing very well. I have noticed at the age of three, she, she’s really getting, getting the notes correctly. So maybe we can start that, that I’ll be playing the piano and she would be singing, let’s see.
Glenn Hopper:
Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. <laugh>. Alright, now, now for the, uh, the hard question.
Evgenia Elezova:
Yeah.
Glenn Hopper:
What is your favorite Excel function and why <laugh>
Evgenia Elezova:
You really, uh, that’s, that’s a difficult one for me because, uh, of course I’m using Excel quite a lot, but lately we are having quite a lot of reports, um, in, uh, Tableau and Power BI lately. But, um, like I would say maybe if I’m using Excel, it’s vlookup.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. So, and vlookup, so, you know, I was, before I took over as host of the show, I was the guest on the show. Yeah. And I said, and VLOOKUP was my favorite. And when I said that, um, or I’ve, I’ve talked about it a lot since then because we always ask this question, but someone told me that that was the best way to date yourself and show how old you are. Because people who came along later, you know, there’s V lookup and X lookup and then Index Match, and now there’s Power Query and all that. So just, and I said, you know what? That when I started out, that was my go-to. And, um, I still, it’s, I, I understand that the other ones are more powerful or whatever, but VLOOKUP is gonna be my default. So I’m right there with you on <laugh>. <laugh>. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I guess just the last question, if, if any of our listeners wanted to, uh, connect with you on social media or, or follow up, how can our listeners connect with you?
Evgenia Elezova:
I think they just can write me in LinkedIn.
Glenn Hopper:
Perfect. Perfect. And we’ll put, we’ll put your profile in the show notes too, so they can Yeah. Wonderful. Reach out there. Wonderful. Yeah. Well if Gua, thank you so much for coming on the show. This was, uh, really enjoyable. I’m, I, I love what you guys are doing and uh, keep up the great work.
Evgenia Elezova:
<laugh>, thank you very much. I have great support also from the company to do all this, so I’m really happy to be there. Thank you.
