FinPod

Meeyeon (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of CFI's Member Spotlight where we sit down with the members of our global CFI community to unpack their career journeys and the lessons learned behind them.

Today I'm joined by Albert Lee, CPA and an FP &A leader, Chicago Booth MBA candidate and founder of Axiom FP &A Partners, where he works at the intersection of finance and AI.

Albert (00:11)
Sorry.

Meeyeon (00:25)
Albert started his career at PWC before moving into regional FP &A leadership roles across APAC. And now he's building solutions that help finance teams become more strategic and tech enabled. Albert, welcome. I'm really looking forward to our discussion today.

Albert (00:42)
Thanks, Meeyeon, thanks for having me here. Actually, I'm a CFI member back then in 2020, and then it's six years already. mean, six years passed very fast, and then time flies, and then I'm really excited to watch the evolution of CFI

Meeyeon (01:01)
I can't believe we celebrated our 10 year anniversary recently. So your profile released it out to me. There's one aspect of it that released it out to me is that you have been an entrepreneur at some point in your career that we could talk about later. But the question that I want to open up our conversation is how did you get your interest in finance? You clearly have a demonstrated path in your career.

but did you have a family member that worked in the industry where you influenced by pop culture or media? How did you get your interest in finance?

Albert (01:34)
Actually, none of the above reasons. ⁓ Back then when I was studying in HKUFT, ⁓ I chose Accounting to be my major, Finance to be my major, because ⁓ I had a crush on the poor studying Accounting. So I figured out maybe I should look into that too. So ⁓ this was not a very concrete ⁓ career plan, but after I joined the HKUFT Accounting and I joined PWC, found that

Meeyeon (01:37)
Ha!

Albert (02:02)
it's very fascinating to look into the numbers, verify and make sure the figures are accurate. And later afterwards, I even joined the FP &A fields because I find that, wow, ⁓ finance is a common language to affect or impact the business decision making. And I find this very interesting. From the beginning, I chased a girl and then afterwards I chased the cash flows. Yeah. Yeah.

Meeyeon (02:28)
I'm like, my gosh, I love this. This is an answer that I wasn't

expecting, but I love it. Now, so I know what initially drew you to PWC, but going through audit is not an easy process. After you kind of get into it, you go through the busy season, not once or twice. It is very time consuming. is very stressful. it is, I would say from, I personally have never been in audit. I didn't go down the CPA route. I went through the investment banking route.

Albert (02:33)
Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Meeyeon (02:57)
but I have several friends that went through, you know, PWC, Deloitte, EY, et cetera. And the audit hours and just like the whole, you know, starting to pursue your designation is very all consuming. ⁓ What drew you to this apart from that chase? And once you got into audit, did you enjoy it?

Albert (03:18)
I guess no one would really enjoy a very intensive workload at Peter Price Waterhouse or Big Four. But I need to say, Price Waterhouse and ⁓ Big Four really give me a concrete path and a stable path that I leverage much afterwards because it is all the foundation that I can get the other jobs that are in the career and then I climb up the career ladder and it helps me a lot in the career.

And then would say PWC was the gold standard for accounting graduates. Like when you study or when you learn martial arts, you must ⁓ enter the Shaolin temple as first, right? So I guess I studied accounting in ⁓ HKUFT and started the audit at Big Four firm. It's a very good choice and right choice for me. I just wanted to learn the discipline of how the numbers tie together before moving into a strategic role in the FP &A field.

Meeyeon (04:12)
And would you say like a couple of months down the line or a year, at what point did you realize that you wanted to move beyond audit and accounting and into more of a strategic finance role?

Albert (04:23)
Hmm, good question. Honestly, I think it's a gradual transformation because in my early career I was an auditor at Pricewaterhouse and then I worked on a listed company engagement teams and then all of my engagements are actually listed companies My job was to make sure all the numbers are correct and then make sure verifying, testing and make sure all the stuff are with compliance and fairly stated But afterwards I find the same thing is that

I spent a lot of time to dig into the company's financials and by the end of engagement, I probably know more things or more about the operations than some of the staff, I guess. Then my world stopped at like, these figures correct into something more interesting for me, like ⁓ what do we do with the numbers? How can we impact the decision-making? And then the turning point is that the strategic finance tells

us what to do next instead of what happened just now. So that's what pulled me into our FP &A field and eventually into some work that I'm doing now and I helped the finance team to think beyond the figures.

Meeyeon (05:34)
And like to me, it sounds like you have sat in that seat of a leader in FP &A for quite some time, but I get the sense that you've done a lot of growing and maturing in that seat. And I'm wondering, did you have any key, you know, like mentors or moments in your early years in FP &A that helped shape the vision that you have today? Because to me, you just sound like a very mature, level-headed and even keeled FP &A professional.

that has a lot of experience. But as you said in the beginning, you you're overanalyzing things, you're maybe stuck in the weeds a little bit. And I'd love for you to share with our listeners how you got into kind of the position and space you are today.

Albert (06:18)
Actually, I have a mentor in my very early life, two mentors. One is Saffronio, one is ⁓ Mingo. Saffronio is my supervisor. He is a business development controller at a large real estate firm ⁓ at Hong Kong. And then after I left Johnson Electric, ⁓ I entered into Wolf China Estate Limited to be the assistant manager. then actually, ⁓ he gave me the eight people team for me to lead.

And then he trusts me, he gives credibility and authority to me. He gave me a lot of confidence because this is my first managerial role in my corporate life. He trusts me a lot and then he trusts me to lead a big team. then he tells me how to inspire myself, how to trust myself, how to believe in myself, my competency and capabilities. So he always tells me a lot of things to boost up my confidence and even give me the chance to...

presents to ⁓ a person called Christina, which is a director in, I guess it's director in the Wolfchannel as they submitted back then. And then this is my first mentor. The second mentor is Ming-Gou Zheng. He's a, ⁓ I guess, a branding developer in Hong Kong, one of the Hong Kong's insurance team and insurance company. And then he always asks Albert to keep grinding, keep grinding, just keep your great work and then...

you will be the best and then you just live for the best version of Albert Lee. And then if you live to the best version of Albert Lee, then there is no regrets, no matter what the performance you will do. So I really appreciate these two mentors to give a lot of inspiration to me.

Meeyeon (08:01)
And when you were in your ⁓ leadership role where you led a team of eight people, that's a lot of people. How did you find that first experience and how did it contribute to your professional development? Because lots of people go down the path of constantly being an individual contributor and that's where they enjoy most of their work. That's where they find they excel. But I find that leading teams often helps really develop you professionally in a way that ⁓ just like,

taking off your checklist, doing all of your individual contributor activities does not. ⁓ So I'm wondering how you felt that experience has contributed to your career.

Albert (08:39)
⁓ It's a very great experience. I mean I have never lead a team Not even seen a large team as an H person before so you need to because I'm a supervisor that's certain to be ⁓ externally coming from the other firms to Wolfchina Athletics Limited. I think ⁓ people may have not enough trust as my competency or capabilities at the very beginning

And then some of them are even at similar age as me and then the supervisor and then the senior officer may have questions of who is Elvis Lee? I don't know who is Elvis Lee. Why should I listen to him? And then I have a lot of challenges of leading such a team before and then in the world channels. And then I remember that after I lead the project of a BI projects that's built all the things like I use Power Query to do a lot of

data cleaning to massage the data and combine the data from three different data sources like from the rental system, from the ⁓ dynamics or from the Oracle and then from Excel and then to massage the data in a kind of semi-automated way and then ⁓ it's earned trust of the others or me and then some of them may not know how to deal with the BI, Power BI or Taboo. ⁓

teach them or advise them how to do the stuff and then eventually they trust me more and then Saffronio has given me a lot of tips too. So I guess it's a big challenge but I learned how to grow myself and develop myself during the hard time during the leadership team of of eight.

Meeyeon (10:23)
can kind of reminisce about an experience that I had. I've mainly been in kind of like individual contributor roles in my career. I'm in portfolio management, investment banking. It's very kind of individual contributor based. But I did have an offshoot into a general corporate company. It's a large US company. And I did have to manage a team at some point. And I found that was one of the most, ⁓

I don't know if formative is the right word, but I think it's one of the most influential portions of my life where I got to learn about myself, how I want to be treated through how I treat others. And a lot of that lesson learning came from managing people who are, you know, a very different age groups. This was a large company that did lots of acquisitions. When they integrate the companies, the cultures don't necessarily work well, but

For example, I would be managing someone that is, I would say either my age or maybe like two or three years older, is much more specialized in the field. There were other teams where you'd have like a 30 year old that all of a sudden has a direct report, so to speak, who is like 55 near the end of their career. And to understand that work is a place that we all go to, generally, like if you're very independently wealthy, that's good, you're very lucky there, but most people have to go to work and you wanna make the...

Generally people wake up and want to do the best that they can. And as a manager of a team, I think it's just your responsibility to try and bring out the best in people, allow people to enjoy what they do, to feel valued. And everyone has a different way of feeling that. Some people really like to just be told that, you know, like, I think you're doing a great job. And...

weight and then just figuring out ways how if they're struggling they can improve but doing it so in a very gentle way. Whereas some people really just prefer it straight on. ⁓ But all that to say, think it sounds like that was a very important part of your career and how it's contributed to you being able to found your own company, ⁓ Axiom, because not a whole lot of people found their own companies.

But you did, I wanna give you a shout out because you are pursuing your MBA at Chicago Booth, which I think is a fantastic school. ⁓ How did you decide that you wanted to pursue your MBA? And ⁓ what do you feel like you've of gotten out of it so far? It's for, I'm sure everyone listening knows, know, MBAs are not a cheap endeavor. And so you wanna make sure that you're going there for the right reasons and you're getting as much out of it as you can. ⁓

Albert (12:45)
Thank you.

Meeyeon (13:04)
Why did you decide to go and how has the experience been for you?

Albert (13:08)
Actually I decided to go ⁓ into ⁓ MBA. decided to, if you are going for the MBA, you need to go for a top ⁓ MBA, just a decent MBA or a fair MBA. need to go for the M7 at least for myself, want to go for M7 MBA like Chicago Booth. Because at that point, when I joined the MBA of Chicago Booth program, I had already been in the middle level roles for several years and then...

I think I was ready for the next chapter and then I kept hearing that an MBA is a career accelerator. Then I looked into the data from US News and from Financial Times. I find that the graduates outcome, the ROI is really back that up. So I want to expect the ⁓ degree to help me to land in a more senior position back then. And then after I actually joined Chicago,

it was just far more valuable than I think of It's not just a cellular pump or not just another external title increment or external promotion but it's more like the branding the networks and the relationship because if without the alumni network of Chicago Booth I do not think I can open as many doors as I could right now or even find a startup firm like Axiom FP &A it's just

It's just too good to be true, I mean, yeah.

Meeyeon (14:37)
I'm so glad to hear that. I often find that whenever I talk to people about their MBA experiences, always hear it was the best chapter of my life. Lots of people say undergraduate was so much fun, but you're more mature generally. You have some work experience before pursuing an MBA. And I often find that people say, no, that was the best. That was the best chapter of my educational life so far. So I'm so glad to hear that, particularly given how expensive those endeavors are.

Albert (15:04)
Yep.

Meeyeon (15:05)
I would love to also just

Albert (15:06)
Quite.

Meeyeon (15:06)
hear about how is Axiom going? What made you found the business? And it certainly brings its own challenges. You I've personally never founded a company. I'm not an entrepreneur currently. ⁓ And I would just love to hear about how that experience has been ⁓ starting Axiom.

Albert (15:25)
⁓ studying ASEM I think is a quite a big challenge for me because I've never been in a consulting entrepreneurship before and then I decided to ⁓ open a startup or create a startup like ASEM is because I think I kind of have entrepreneurship ⁓ spirit in my blood in my ⁓ thing because my father yeah yeah I have a family business and then my father is an entrepreneur of ⁓ F &B ⁓

Meeyeon (15:46)
You have them from your family business, right?

Albert (15:53)
series stores in the end and then he has opened several restaurants in Hong Kong back then in around 2000s I guess in the in the time of his own and then ⁓ I guess I just I love entrepreneurship because you got everything to because everything you are lose by yourself or you're winning by yourself ⁓ you create something on your own and then this is going to impact a lot of people and a lot of different kind of stuff because you

when your entrepreneur or your startup grows up, you will hire a lot of people, guess. actually, I am still struggling in finding the first customer for my product and my service. But I want to give a shout out to our finance, AI finance club because the founder Nicholas Boucher has helped me a lot during the entrepreneurship experience. Like, ⁓

The major service I provided right now is ⁓ being a coach in the AI Finance Club's Accelerator program and then work along Nicholas and then Christian Martinez and also other senior finance and AI leaders, someone like David Fortin who is a Microsoft's MVP and has trained 10,000 professionals. I mean, it's a very strong team and I'm proud to be a part of it. And then what we do is very hands-on. We work on the real problems, not just buzzwords.

not just theory-only sessions. For example, we help people to do some AI assisted workflow to cut their month-end closing analysis from days to hours. And I think it's really impactful to find the sweet spot between the AI and the finance. And I think the thing that is most valuable is that it's not a one-way street. Like we coach the CFOs and senior finance leaders, over 50 CFOs to...

our senior finance leaders, we do not just teach them or coach them, but they coach us as much as we do. Because about the career navigation and how finance actually operates at the executive level, they do know a lot. And that makes me a sharper finance professional, not just a better coach, I would say.

Meeyeon (18:06)
And you started Axiom almost like yesterday. It's like you've started it very, very recently. So I can only imagine that it is taking an inordinate amount of your time to get it up and running. And it is going to be really interesting for you to maybe listen to this podcast, you know, like three years from now and five years from now and to be kind of like future Albert and see Look into the past of what you were thinking. ⁓ I'm curious, where did you find CFI during your career?

Albert (18:30)
Yeah, you did.

I found CFI in my total years and then back then I was a junior I was a senior financial analyst in a manufacturing MNC in Hong Kong I found it's very useful because it has a lot of Excel libraries, Excel case analysis and I'm not sure if I recall correctly it should be having a case study on Amazon I guess not sure but yes yes yes yeah it's very difficult it's a very popular case study yeah and then fmva is just

Meeyeon (18:59)
Yes, yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. We always get that as a very popular case study.

Albert (19:07)
⁓ not only providing the Excel, the financial modeling stuff, it also has millions of learners back then in 2020 already and now it has even more learners ⁓ nowadays. And it's a very famous and reputable credentials. Yeah, but it's the truth. I mean, it's the facts because I saw the reddit, I saw the testimonials. Many people have very high compliments on CFI. That's why I choose CFI and...

Meeyeon (19:21)
And I'm always so glad to hear that.

Albert (19:35)
choose to learn here. And then I equipped a lot of different Excel skills like ⁓ Monte Carlo simulations or scenario analysis, how to do the financial modeling, the free financial statements models. And that is really equipped me with a lot of different weapons on my podcast and I become more capable and confident on my capabilities, guess.

Meeyeon (20:01)
And if there's someone that's out there listening to us today and they decide to Google Albert Lee and look at his LinkedIn resume and that person aspires to have a resume like yours one day, but they're not quite there yet. What is a tip that, or not necessarily a tip, what is a thoughtful ⁓ nugget of advice you might give someone that hopes to achieve the career outcomes that you currently have?

Albert (20:28)
⁓ I would say the only advice I would give to the more junior staff or the youngsters, would say our young people or even myself in the past, I would say ⁓ I want them to be more patient. I would say you need to be more patient on your corporate life because I see in the others commit the same mistake as me and I've lived in myself before. ⁓ I'm so hungry for the next promotion.

because I want to rush past the fundamentals I made mistakes early on in my corporate life and corporate journey because I was chasing titles instead of just focusing on compounding my skills and what I've learned is that sometimes the hard way is this if your impact is real and then your ⁓ competency is visible the promotion and the title will just follow because you don't need to chase it really the analysts who grow the fastest into the

FP &A roles or strategic roles are the ones who stop obsessing over the latter and then start obsessing over the quality of their work. And then this is my most important piece of advice that we give to the youngsters and the young people right now.

Meeyeon (21:42)
And I also get the sense that would you say that you are an overall positive person?

Albert (21:49)
⁓ Not really, actually I'm quite a negative person but why do you think that I'm positive?

Meeyeon (21:53)
It's not funny because it's

very positive.

Albert (21:57)
Yeah, because like, ⁓ you think that I'm very positive because I have a lot of good people or kind people to help me, just like what I mentioned before, Saffronio as Wolf China and then Mingo as the insurance company who also graduated from Hong Kong UST from Mingo. And then a very important person in my life is my current girlfriend. She gives me a lot of confidence and the competency that I have right now because why do you think that I'm very positive? Because

when I'm negative, I have her being or back me up or having my back because like actually at the first two months of ⁓ ACM created or ACM establishments, I've not even one client. I did not close any deals in the first two months. And then my bank is running out and

Meeyeon (22:44)
Ooby, it's so hard to

do, that's so early.

Albert (22:47)
Yeah, my bank is running out, I need to ⁓ have dinner and then spend some money ⁓ with my girlfriends, ⁓ make the on the streets, on the restaurant, but you just have no money. Then how should I do? Should I go back to corporate life again and then back for a job? And then my girlfriend said, by the way, her name is Joyce, and then Joyce said, ⁓ no, you should not go back to corporate life because I have the faith in you.

you should believe in yourself and then you should keep grinding and then keep working hard on closing the deals, finding the other customers. If you could not close a deal within one year, and then let's call it an end of day after that, then, if you can close a deal within several months, you should try keep grinding and try your best efforts to do the business and then to close the deals and then to find more customers. And then if I am financially, ⁓

not capable enough, she will take care of the expense on her side. So I really appreciate my girlfriend. She just choose me when I was nothing or when I have nothing to be proud of.

Meeyeon (23:58)
Joyce, that sounds like a smart woman.

Albert (24:01)
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank I would tell her anyway, yeah.

Meeyeon (24:03)
And honestly, it's

the same with finding another job. So at CFI, we're always helping find whether it is the situation that someone is a current or aspiring professional in FP &A, investment banking, whatever it is, all we want to do is support those people in that, in where they are today. And oftentimes, when someone is looking for a job and they either currently don't have one,

or are at the end of their ropes in one, the reality is that you only need to find one job and get one job. You don't need two or three. And finding that first one, the one that accepts and things work out is quite challenging. And I think it's the same for, although I haven't been an entrepreneur, I think it is similar. I think it's a lot more challenging, yes, because you have to put so much into it financially, mentally, emotionally, but it really does kind of take one.

like one client and that sort of accelerates one after the next. And I just feel like you are, you I think very positive, hardworking, smart person. And all it takes is finding that first client to really accelerate the path and find, and before you know it, you're going to be turning away clients because you don't have the bandwidth.

Albert (25:24)
Thank you, you're very kind to say that. I mean, you're just very kind, yeah. ⁓

Meeyeon (25:28)
And then now I have a fun portion of our podcast. And I think people really enjoy this just because it allows us to get to know you, Albert, in a very different capacity. So this is the rapid fire round. And I'm just asking you fun questions for us to get to know you better. ⁓ What is one show that you are watching right now, whether it's on Netflix, Disney, Hulu? ⁓

Showtime, HBO, et cetera. What is one show that you're watching right now and that you recommend?

Albert (26:02)
⁓ Could I say it's finance related? Because I do not watch a lot of TV shows right now and then I usually I watch the episodes from the ⁓ guy called FP &E guy, know, know FP &E guy? Paul Barnhouse, yeah, I always watched his episodes and I learned a lot from Paul. I even he is a mentor of mine as well. He gave me a lot of advice and gave me a lot of ⁓ tips and then how to

Meeyeon (26:17)
Oh, Paul, yes. Yeah.

Albert (26:31)
be a good professional and a good F &A person and then he just give me a lot of inspiring insights and advice. I I enjoyed his show a lot. I've been watching his shows for years already I guess.

Meeyeon (26:47)
Paul is a wonderful guy. He is extremely knowledgeable. I think most impressive to me is that how he is just, he is so kind and he is so intentional and thoughtful about ⁓ helping others and just really, his words exactly are as, you know, being in service to other people and just being kind, paying it forward. Cause I think that does, ⁓ that does pave a huge road for success down the future. ⁓

Albert (26:49)
Yeah.

Meeyeon (27:16)
And then one, let's see, a couple of other questions. What is your favorite movie of all time?

Albert (27:19)
Yeah, sure.

Favorite movie of all time, ⁓ let me think about it I think it's The Pianist Have you heard of this before?

Meeyeon (27:30)
⁓

yes, I love the Pia test with Adrienne Brody.

Albert (27:35)
Yeah, yeah, yes. He's so handsome and so stylish. I love the pianist because it has a very good portrayal of people, personalities, it's a sad ⁓ story about World War II. And I remember I watched this movie when I was in childhood. And then it's a very famous movie. then, yeah, yeah. And then it's very inspirational. And then I really love his story plot. And then just amazing, I mean.

Meeyeon (27:50)
Yeah.

Me too.

Yeah, it's an extremely, I also watched it when I was fairly young and I found it was extremely moving. It was like an incredibly important topic, but it was just that, it was so significant. The acting was brilliant. The story was incredibly moving. And I also have that as one of my kind of like top five movies I've ever seen. And last but not least, if you could vacation anywhere in the world tomorrow,

Albert (28:27)
Think so, yeah.

Meeyeon (28:34)
Where would you go and why?

Albert (28:36)
I will vacation I would say two places. Can I choose two places? I cannot just decide between these two I would choose Thailand, maybe Bangkok because I have been in I mean I've been living in Thailand for six months when I was in a intern and then I go to apply for a job from my uncle my big brother of my father I mean in Chinese and then

Meeyeon (28:41)
Yeah, you can choose to.

Albert (29:04)
He is an Ibedianist in Thailand and he opened a lot of conglomerates, real estate and also hotels, something like that. And then I go to one of his serial motorcycle shop, I guess, and then I was a quality control or quality specialist to keep checking the machine of the motorcycle, whether it's working or not, the components, whether it's working or not, and then I learned.

Thai language here for 6 months Back then I was saying my Thai language is not bad but right now I forgot everything already so I cannot speak Thai right now but I can speak Thai back then and then I love this city of Bangkok because it is so chill so laid back, you got your own style no one is rushing, you got working for only 4 to 5 hours everyday so that's amazing and then

Meeyeon (29:43)
my gosh, that's so fun.

Albert (30:01)
Second city is I want to go for a trip is of course Chicago I'm coming for Chicago book so a big shout out to Chicago very nice city I think it's having the best burger and best dig in the world that I've ever ate Yeah, it's so juicy and so yummy and then Yeah, Chicago is so beautiful and it's great city and then I love the architecture here I love the people here people are friendly and kind

Meeyeon (30:16)
⁓ wow. I was actually recently in Chicago.

Albert (30:30)
They always treat you as a friend and I have a lot of goofy friends here and then I guess, yeah, if I go for a vacation or go for a living, I would go for Thailand, I mean Bangkok in Thailand or Chicago in USA, yeah.

Meeyeon (30:44)
love it. Well, Albert, thank you so much for this conversation. I have loved this thoughtful discussion that we've had. What stands out to me is just generally what stood out to me is how intentionally you've evolved in your career from audit to strategic F &A. And now you are exploring how AI can reshape finance teams and doing it on your own in like an entrepreneurial way. It's been a great reminder for me that

Albert (30:50)
Thank you, me and y'all for having me.

Meeyeon (31:09)
growth in your career, whether it's in finance or any related field, ⁓ it's not about being linear, it's about continuously expanding your perspectives, which I see you've done throughout your career. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. And for everyone that is listening, I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Member Spotlight. Until next time, I will see you very soon. Yay! so glad.

Albert (31:32)
Thank you, fans for having me. know, fans. Well, know.