Conversation with TF

A large part of the reason I raced in Glasgow was because my ex boss TF – my third and favourite CFO at the company I’m working at – was coming to Edinburgh from the US for work. Since the Glasgow race was just the weekend before he was due in Edinburgh, I thought I would race, and then stay on a couple of days and meet him Edinburgh.

He was the best of the four CFOs I’ve had at my current company, with a profile most similar to mine. He was very supportive of me, and willing to mentor and coach me. With him at the helm, I thought we had a chance to fulfil the potential that the company had. I was gutted when he left and went back to the US. So I was really happy that he was in town, and we could catch up.

When I walked him through what transpired in November last year, prior to my M&A closing – the context, the comms, my takeaways and reactions – he was shocked.

I said that the person who was hired to take over a large part of my role was younger, has a worse background / pedigree… but I still gave him the benefit of the doubt… until he joined the company. And I quipped that “The only thing that he legitimately has that I don’t, is a penis!” TF looked dramatically scandalised in his super American way. 🙂

I explained “You know that I wasn’t taking the piss right, I was working all hours of every day trying to close this. And I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to add this pressure on me, and the complete lack of EQ, or if they are emotionally retarded.. with the messaging, and the way it was communicated, when I’m trying to close a multi million € transaction!”

He said “I hate to say this, but you gotta get the fuck out of there”. He asked me if I am making time to find a new job, or if I would be devastated if I got made redundant. His perspective was that I could probably do with a break, and focus my energies on the job search.

I told him “No, I wouldn’t be devastated. But I’m Asian, so I don’t like not having an income. Not having an income, and visibility on when I’ll get a steady income again, would stress me out.” I’m sure he understands that my situation is different from his. When he was between jobs, his family had a secondary income from his wife, who is a successful partner in an architectural firm in her own right. I don’t have that risk diversification profile. And I said that I’m very motivated to get a new job. I’m even interviewing for jobs out of London, that would require me to spend 50% of my time out of London, and not even the type of role / experience that I’m specifically looking for. I’ve interviewed for a job which required me to spend 50% of my time in Paris , one where I would need to travel to Berlin – both of which I’ve been dinged for, and now I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for a job at a company headquartered in Buckinghamshire (!!). So yes, I am motivated.

He suggested that I should consider a role in bigger corporates, where I could learn “what good looks like”. Interestingly, my first CFO (who hired me), also thought that I would probably lack the appetite to work at another small company / scale up. But when I said that I would never get a look in, because I don’t have FP&A on my CV, he said that I definitely need to fully rewrite my CV, and don’t focus on what I haven’t done, but just focus on what I have done. Really good advice. Because I have done so much, and what I have done which is relevant to the area I am applying for, is actually relatively a small proportion of my entire experience to date. But actually, in volume of hours… and the level of experience… is actually probably comparable or competitive. It’s just that those items only take 2-3 Iines on my CV right now, and I probably need to expand them to being half a page or more.

Different facets of TF

When I was chatting to one of my team members, she asked me if I had heard about what happened with BT before he left. She said that there was a Weekly / Monthly Review type call in the late afternoon with the exec leadership, the day before BT was due to be informed he would be fired, and the entire exec team knew this. But this ex boss of mine, TF, kept asking him questions about his presentation, and additional analysis after additional analysis. She said it was quite mean, and kind of weird, and the situation got really uncomfortable, because everyone knew BT was going to be fired, and didn’t know why TF was grilling him and asking to do all this additional work. I was really surprised to hear this, because I’ve never seen the mean side of TF. And I suddenly wondered if he was extra mean to BT because of me. He knew that I didn’t really rate most of our ‘leadership’ and colleagues, but I largely left it alone and didn’t really make people-specific comments. The only two people I was very outspoken about, and regularly called out was the Commercial SW, and BT, his sidekick. Back in the day, I was also really bitter that BT got promoted by his friend SW even though his role was largely analytical in nature, which I could do, and he didn’t do very well; and he was also an arrogant little shit. And TF knew that and agreed with my assessment of BT. Maybe he was defending me (or attacking on my behalf) in a situation where I felt helpless.

It’s funny how each person can be perceived so differently to different people – I guess depends on individual context / background of the perceiver, as well as the actions / behaviour of the ‘protagonist’. Lots of people tell me that TF was really impatient. I was really surprised, because I thought he had the patience of saint!! I often railed at how everything was wrong, and done so poorly, and why weren’t we fixing things fast enough. And he often seemed to be stoic and patient, when I was frustrated and impatient.

When TF reached out a few weeks ago, I mentioned I was looking for a new role, and asked him to pass on my name if he heard of anything. TF had asked me to reach out to our ex CHRO CJ to see if he could help connect me with folks who are looking to hire, because he said that CJ is well connected, and liked me. When I met up with him I said I had reached out to CJ but haven’t heard back from him, and I told him “I don’t think CJ liked me. I think you liked me, and he was a bit scared of you.” TF was like “Oh.” Bless… sometimes he’s so funny / unaware.

Status quo

This morning, I had a meeting with exec leadership of my company where to review and discuss a paper I wrote on market / competitor review. I thought it was really not a particularly good use of my time for me to be doing work that I could have done as a first year analyst. Nor is it super interesting or motivating for me to be doing the same thing as 40+ year old, that I did in my first year out fo uni. But hey, as long as I’m paid a salary, I’m perfectly happy to do work. And I had the help of my team member, for whom this process of analysis and story telling is new. So, whatever.

After the call, I caught up with her to discuss her thoughts on the meeting. She commented “At least the CEO still likes you”. If the CEO doesn’t like you, there will be all sorts of weird and irrelevant comments, such as the font size, or the formatting, regardless of how well the paper was written. I reflected on that, and think that she is probably right on that. The CEO doesn’t like me enough to promote me, clearly. And I got a bad year end review. The hiring of the new M&A person is another sign that, for whatever reason, he lacks confidence in me. But I do get the impression that he still kind of likes me or rates me well enough – he often has a kind of benign, slightly indulgent smile when I pipe up. I just don’t entirely understand why. Is it because of the Board (who knew me from the M&A update days, albeit I had one bad meeting)? Or because his current Chief of Staff and my boss are kind of supportive? (Although I think they are pretty fairweather folks) Or because I am competent, and always have a defendable and thoughtful answer to his questions? Or because of my personality, which is a little bit no nonsense, and occasionally snarky, when I forget to keep a tight control of my face, and my personality accidentally slips out at work? A couple of my ex bosses said that I’m best when I let my personality show through at work, and that I come across as being pretty scary / intimidating when that happens. Funnily enough, I tend to rein in my personality as much as possible, because I think it’s not sufficiently corporate and would rub people the wrong way.

My team member and I were also surprised that my boss suddenly invited my annoying peer AC to the meeting this morning, when he made zero contribution to the work so far. My team member speculated that maybe it’s because the CEO got fed up with him. Although I’m still not sure why he would then be invited to my meeting? Maybe because my boss – who brought him over from his old company – was hoping he would benefit from my halo effect?? So weird…

Regardless of whether my CEO likes me or not, I am actively looking anyway, because I have lost confidence in the CEO and management’s ability to navigate through the shoals. I have had a number of doubts about the CEO’s senior exec hires, although my job with my IR hat on, is naturally to spin things positively…. But I still gave him / them the benefit of the doubt. But after the way I was treated last November, and decisions since then… just mind boggling! TF speculated that the CEO might be out of a job by this time next year if he doesn’t turn things around. And my team member was also speculating if my CEO was on his way out, because he didn’t seem very engaged during the meeting. I don’t think he is on the way out quite yet, but I have just lost patience. We were talking about data quality problems in yesterday’s Finance QBR, as if these were new discoveries, when I was thinking in my head: “Guys – this is not new news. I highlighted it TWO years ago!! I wrote a whole paper about it, and even called out these specific examples! And then you create this new Data role, and gave it to a girl who is not very smart, not at all analytical, has poor attention to detail, and ZERO experience and affinity with data!!” THE FUCK.

I really hope my interviews next week with my most (only?) promising job prospect goes well. Life is too short to be wasting my time with incompetent, all-talk-no-action, cowardly, self-serving people, in a deadbeat company that is going nowhere.