What ignited this article? I was talking with some upcoming college graduates from a similar background as myself. They were looking to go into corporate finance/financial planning & analysis (FP&A) after graduating from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. I shared with them lessons I learned from 10 years in the finance game.

The CEO walks into the CFO’s office and says, “You need to take more ownership of the customer experience and the professional development within and beyond your team. Even a few years’ ago many CFOs would have thought, and some still might think, is that the beginning of a joke?

A definition of quality is “a distinctive characteristic possessed by someone.”  The work of FP&A practitioners focuses on thinking and learning about how financial activities – earning revenues, incurring costs, generating cash flows – affect organizations.  The thinking and learning about this relationship require a mindset that creates results.