FinPod

Meeyeon (00:11)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of our CFI FinPod podcast. Today we are doing another member spotlight. One of my favorite series where we get to know the members of CFI. And today I'm here with Flavio Simoncini and he joins us from not Italy, but Krakow, Poland today.

Flavio Simoncini (00:32)
Hello everybody, thanks for having me.

Meeyeon (00:35)
So I'm so excited to have you on our podcast. You are going to be one of our first, I think you're our first guest from Poland. But with the advent of technology, I'm able to kind of have you here and talk to anyone from all sorts of different parts of the world. But I found you on LinkedIn and I was combing through and I saw that you had completed, I think our beta certification, but I also saw that you were in FP&A&A

And I think that you're so well-rounded in all of the kind of areas that CFI is active in. And yeah, I just wanted to sit down with you and get to know your story. Because as I've always said, and I'm like a broken record, I find all of our CFI podcasts to be the world's most accessible coffee conversation. So just as...

If I wanted to talk to someone in New York or London when I was graduating university or when I was looking to switch careers, it's different now that I can go and listen to a podcast and I could listen to episodes like this and get insights. Whereas before I would actually have to physically go and meet the person because video conferencing was not really normal back then. It'd be kind of weird like, you know, 10 years ago, if you're like, yeah, could I, could I have a coffee chat with you? And then like send them a Google meet like or Skype.

But to get us started, I was just wondering, where did you get your interest in finance? Did you go to school for it from university or did you get your interest in finance growing up through parents or different types of exposure? How did you get started?

Flavio Simoncini (01:57)
Yeah.

Alright, let's say like since while I was in high school I had like a slight passion like I knew already well where I was going so not to finance specifically but it's a leg okay I want to I want to start studying when I'm gonna go to the university I'm gonna start studying economics management business let's say not specifically finance but all but finance always been like like a let's say

a part of like business that was intriguing and like because I didn't fully understand it. And so like, but when I, when I started university, I didn't find a specific faculty that was like finance. So a specific course just for finance, there were like more broad courses. So I didn't, there were like different, let's say curriculums inside a course that

maybe they were like maybe going for like towards like I don't know finance more finance oriented but like they weren't specific for finance like I can find out today so I just took a let's say more business management course and I then actually

And arriving here, like arriving working finance, it was like more or less a coincidence. It wasn't planned because I, let's say I followed my interests, my main interests after university, during university and also after was and still is to work and gain experience abroad, like study and let's say experience in general. So I did an exchange program while I was, I started in Rome.

I studied in Germany and after that experience I said alright I want to continue this experience and I want to change again and so after graduating coming back to Rome and graduating in bachelor I said alright let's go somewhere else and I went to the Netherlands and I had an amazing time there like I spent one year and a half doing my masters and I started like

Business Strategic Innovation Management was the course name, but so it wasn't related to finance and after finishing it I said, all right, I want to stay abroad again and I started applying different jobs and I found this job and I found this great opportunity and is in finance, but I didn't plan it. I had an interest, let's say, but I just by different means I arrived here.

Meeyeon (05:01)
And do you speak, so you studied in Germany for a little bit, do you speak German or and do you also speak Dutch?

Flavio Simoncini (05:07)
Actually, I also like languages, so I don't speak, but I'm working on it. I'm taking courses. I took courses while I was in Germany and also while I was in the Netherlands. took courses of German and Dutch in the respective countries. I also took Chinese actually back then when I was in university. But the problem is that every time I had always something else that interrupted my learning path in terms of languages.

I didn't fully master a language. That's also why I said like recently I said alright and I have to set a goal a specific language and learn it and that language for the moment is German so I'm taking German courses at the moment and my focus is to master German for the moment.

Meeyeon (05:56)
could understand what you mean because so I took my, I guess like my native language is more or less English, but I speak Korean because I am Korean. And in university, I took Mandarin Chinese and I was fairly good at it, but I don't remember any of it now. But I also took Spanish because I was really interested in that. And I was fairly decent at it because my best friend growing up was Mexican. But now I'm like, okay, like if I want to just invest in one language, I should just pick one or the other. But.

It's kind of the idea of just being curious, right? And you seem like you are curious in an international type of way. And so I would say, like, so did you do an internship from your master's program?

Flavio Simoncini (06:38)
Yes, yes, like I had opportunity, thanks to my professor, to do, let's say, an internship that was related more to the thesis, so then the last part of the master that I...

Meeyeon (06:44)
Mm-hmm.

Flavio Simoncini (06:49)
and I worked in a Dutch company. I studied in the north of the Netherlands so it wasn't Amsterdam or another, let's say big city. It was more a university city and the university had different partnerships with different companies and this company, since I was studying, my professor was related to intellectual property. He had an agreement with a Dutch company, an enomotic company.

called Avebe, and like related to starch, extracting starch from potatoes and producing vegetable based products. So replacement to animal based, for example, like candies or other dairies for example. And I joined the intellectual property team and I wrote my thesis on the, let's say, means of communications and problems that can arise within a company that

especially

treats as this real big value as an intellectual property so they have different certifications inside the company and and paid in filing is a problem especially when communicating with customers and with before like before let's say exposing themselves to the customer sometime and so also within the company talking with the commercial side of the company and intellectual property sides sometimes results in a struggle.

because the intellectual property wants to keep the secrets as much as possible, why the commercial side wants to attract the customer and so they need to expose themselves a bit and so they studied this phenomenon.

Meeyeon (08:37)
And so take me through how you went from landing your first full-time job to where you are today.

Flavio Simoncini (08:43)
Well, actually, I'm still doing my first job. This is my first job. I started more or less slightly more than six months ago. I...

Meeyeon (08:54)
the internship.

Flavio Simoncini (08:55)
No, no, no. I finished the internship, let's say, more than a year ago. I finished at end of January and I graduated at the same time. And then I started applying different programs. I wanted to stay in the Netherlands, but also I applied in general also other countries and that's why I arrived here in Poland. I found this incredible program because it's a graduate program, so it means that

opportunity for graduates to to have a broader understanding of

subject works in this case finance, but there are of course different graduate programs in different companies and in different subjects and the great thing about these programs that I there are different rotations so I can like Understand our finance works in different from different perspectives So in this case the first year is focused on p&a while the second year supply chain finance and third year commercial finance so in order to allow us

to

have at the end a broader understanding, especially in a big company, of how finance works. And so I applied through LinkedIn and I did all the tests and the interviews and in the end we were five finalists and we joined the program and we are still doing, well, let's say just started, but we are very excited to continue the program.

Meeyeon (10:34)
And then so do you spend a couple of months in the FP&A portion and then a couple of months in supply chain finance and then a couple of months in commercial?

Flavio Simoncini (10:42)
No, because like the program is divided in three years. So the first year is going to be just p&a. So I'm still in the first year. And the second year is supply chain finance and in the third year commercial finance. I'm specifically in the, my role is a, let's say a new role because usually what the company did in the previous years was that

the previous generations that were onboarding the next generations. And it's also happened with my generation, with me as an exception, because my role was recently created because they merged different departments. I'm more in the nowadays, I'm in administrating the forecasting part and the strategic finance part. So, and there was no

in the previous rotation that could have on board me. So at the beginning I was struggling a bit, in the end, I'm still learning of course, I just joined, but let's say I learned a of things.

Meeyeon (11:58)
And so how's your first, it hasn't been quite a year yet, right? So how's the first kind of several months been? Like what is your day to day like? Do you find yourself using and applying a lot of the things that you learned in your master's program? Or is there a training program that's gotten you on board? Tell us what a day in the life has been like for you in this role.

Flavio Simoncini (12:02)
No. No, yet.

Mm-hmm.

Alright, for sure I would say that it was still challenging but at the beginning it was more challenging for me because I didn't strictly study finance and I got into, that's also why I was surprised when I got in the finance program but I can say that I learned a lot of things because let's say nowadays I'm

I have the opportunity to see the pipelines in the company and from a European level because we in Krakow we just administrate the European part but I have the opportunity to see all the pipelines of the companies and the company is very big, it's pretty complex

And so I can see on the entirety of the, how the company, and since it's very sales-based, sales-oriented, company, I can see the whole, like the different contracts closed every day and then ones that are, let's say, soon to be in different pipelines. So like we have a shorter pipeline and a longer one.

and so we can also track the conversions. So let's say these days I'm more focused on reporting the new wins that are recently closed and tracking the conversion. So how many wins from the pipeline we actually finalized. But also, as I before, I'm involved in the...

forecasting and pricing sales projections in the company. So my role at SESA, I have two different bosses, so two stakeholders to report to. it was challenging at first and it still is sometimes, especially because I'm very close to the management, to the top level management.

also very happy to be here because especially for a person that never had let's say aside from the internship that I've done a job experience a proper job experience

it's very useful for me to be in close contact with these kind of like managers and directors because yes of course sometimes and maybe let's say more often than not the ideas are flowing very fast and so there are different tasks and it's very challenging so things arise problems are arising very fast but at the same time since there are a lot of problems they require lot of solutions and

sooner or later the solution has to be found and And so like I learned a lot. I'm learning a lot continuously and I'm very happy to be here because Let's say Maybe a standard job. I'm also I consider myself very very lucky because maybe a standard job

would take longer for me to get in this position to have this kind of relationship with the top management and so to have also this broader picture of how finance works.

Meeyeon (00:00)
tell us about the company that you work for. A little bit of background context. Yeah.

Flavio Simoncini (00:03)
Yes,

I work for this American company called Ecolab. And what it does, we are the leading company for water treatment and also recycling water for different companies and in different business areas, such as in different metal productions or from...

restaurant and we also provide hygiene products for from on different different scales so from hospitals clinics to hotels restaurants and different industries chemical industry energy industries and also for example if I can make an example related to data related to data that and a computer that we use every day so

We have customers such as Google that they have data centers and for data centers they need a lot of water and our products too in order to, they need our products, our products like ours to reduce the consumption of waters in order to cool down the systems.

Meeyeon (01:20)
And do you have any clients out in Vancouver? When you say water treatment, think of a lot of industry here in Vancouver.

Flavio Simoncini (01:23)
Thank

Yeah, for sure like we have for sure we have them because like I'm not I'm not unfortunately I'm not responsible for the US side. I am responsible for the for the European for the European side. So we track in my team and of course in our office in Kracow just the European projects and so but for sure like in Canada and India in the US I would say that the company is the leader.

for this kind of industry, 100%.

Meeyeon (02:01)
And this is going to be really interesting because this is a product, a service that every company needs, especially today as we become more and more data reliant. But at the same time, I've never heard of this before, which is super interesting. But again, it's an American based company. And so this is going to be probably, maybe you're going to be in America after this.

Flavio Simoncini (02:27)
I hope so, I hope so, to be honest...

Meeyeon (02:30)
What's the place that

you want to go to most?

Flavio Simoncini (02:33)
Well, I would like to go to an English speaking country, so to say, but I'm very open. Because I lived in different countries in Europe and my next goal would be just to have an experience outside. Let's say I would like to go very far just to have a totally different experience, so either US, Canada, but also Australia would be very interesting.

So let's see, let's see what happens. But I'm very, very...

Meeyeon (03:03)
California, big wonderful place,

maybe between New York and California, where would you want to go?

Flavio Simoncini (03:09)
If I had to choose, I would choose New York. I'm more like cold temperature person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, but as I said, I'm very open so I wouldn't mind moving elsewhere.

Meeyeon (03:14)
Yeah, in like a walkable city.

And would you say that in fp&a&A, the bulk of your work is done in Excel and like PowerPoint, or do you have any other tools that you often use?

Flavio Simoncini (03:36)
Well, yeah, we do like the majority of our work in Excel and Power BI, Power Query. We do a lot of like a doc analysis. So usually we have our standard, let's say also slides or maybe presentations and visuals that the management requires. But occasionally, for example, like now we're doing the...

the first quarter presentation report. And in this case, since it's bigger and there are different stakeholders, they require different ad hoc views. And so, yes, we use a lot of Excel and Power BI for that.

Meeyeon (04:21)
And so in your role in fp&a find that kind of half the role, or at some companies it's like a completely different function where they have planning and budgeting and forecasting in one team, and then they have ad hoc analysis in a separate. But because that seems to be a huge bulk of the work, do you find that you rely on, actually this is an interesting way to put it.

When you're doing all of those ad hoc analyses and being that key business partner that helps inform strategic decision-making, what do you find more difficult to kind of learn and practice? The managing of stakeholders and meeting their expectations and learning how to work with them? Or do you find it more difficult and more challenging to learn the technical skills to actually provide that analysis?

So it's kind of like, do you find the soft skill to be more difficult to kind of master in practice or the technique?

Flavio Simoncini (05:27)
Well, it's a very interesting question because especially before joining the program I had a different opinion with respect to the one I have now because I thought that I needed more technical skills. Well, for sure they are needed, but I think that technical skills are a thing that since I'm in contact with those tools every day...

is a normal, let's say, standard learning. So using Excel, Power BI and other tools every day. For sure it requires study also outside work. That's also why a beta certification was needed especially. But also I would say more from my perspective soft skills. like...

understanding what is needed and how to communicate, especially the communication part is the core, I would say, in my set of duties, is maybe the core part. So to understand, but of course also to communicate at what point are we collecting data, for example, or at what point are we doing this kind of process, respect to another process, because being very close to the top management,

as a consequence that I have all the requests and sometimes more often than not they are overlapping so while I'm doing something something else comes and so they asked me to prioritize something else so and in that moment I need to make a choice and the communication comes in so I say like all right should I focus finish this first or maybe should I prioritize the other thing so I would say the majority of the work

Or let's say getting acquainted to do it is working on my soft skills especially from Let's say zero perspective, but for sure, of course the the technical skills are are needed But it's of skills I would say there are more there are more need because after after all like we are just interacting between people So we need to know what the other ones

Meeyeon (07:44)
And then it's interesting the idea of a rotational program where each role that you rotate through lasts a full year because the ones that I'm most familiar with are generally at banks and we'll have, you know, like four to at most kind of five months in each desk, so to speak. So for example, at a traditional kind of investment bank, we'd have someone go through, you know, like a bond desk, equity sales.

Flavio Simoncini (08:08)
Good call.

Meeyeon (08:13)
structured products, and then you only get to spend like four months at each and it's very, very short period of time. do three and then you hopefully have a spot to go to full time. But it's one year is a much more reasonable and realistic timeline for you to actually get an understanding of what the work is like. Do you enjoy it? Would you do well at it? So you have the next two years of your career planned out for you in your next.

in your next role, what do you kind of hope to take out of supply chain finance? Because I've kind of been a little bit exposed to supply chain finance. I used to work at this place called Restaurant Brands International, which is the company that owns Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons. You might be familiar with Burger King because they have quite a few locations out in Europe. But supply chain finance is also very, very data heavy, very

Flavio Simoncini (09:05)
Yeah.

Meeyeon (09:10)
analytically intense, are you looking more forward to that role or the commercial side? Because to have the next two years of your career kind of planned out is something that I'm very unfamiliar with.

Flavio Simoncini (09:26)
Well yeah, think like with the, also with me because like, not in my opinion because usually while I was skimming through different job applications, I also applied to other Android programs and usually they were shorter. So like maybe two years or maybe one year and a half. But this was the only one that I found, was like three years. it was like, and.

I would say also because I I didn't attend all the graduate programs, but I would say in our case, the company puts us in very, let's say, top positions in this case. I would say my position also because it was a new position also, it wasn't available before.

Required maybe I was also surprised because maybe a more experienced person would have been more suited to the tweets You know at the beginning so that's why I struggled a bit to the beginning But I thought I thought that it was was normal especially for a person with let's say very less very very little experience but

But yeah, like supply chain from what I heard, I didn't start yet, I will start in September, is very data oriented. yeah, they told us that the other generations that already went through it, that it's pretty challenging and also, and it's completely different of course from p&a

But yeah, still I'm very interested in it because also one year as we said, it's a lot of time. So after a while...

It's already, let's say, I'm getting very, getting acquainted to it. I'm very getting used to the process in p&a. So maybe after a while a person could say, okay, I know it's everything, but it's not everything of 100%. But I know more or less how this is working. So there is the desire to change. So yeah.

Meeyeon (11:30)
It's just like,

soon as you get a little bit comfortable, you have to move to the next one, right?

Flavio Simoncini (11:33)
Exactly,

Yeah, yeah, that's a feeling. How's it Because like also the other people, say like, as soon as you get like comfortable with the role, you're going to change, start all over and in a different branch where like the things that you learned before are not always very relevant. But I would say that that's why I also the soft skills are very important because I think they're going to be applicable also in the next roles and next rotations.

Meeyeon (12:00)
And when I ask, I always ask, I guess these questions, because I'm really curious to know, but it's going to be a bit different for you because usually I say like, what's your, like, what are your kind of goals, what are you looking forward to in the next year, next three years? But since you have the next kind of two years kind of laid out in front of you, just general career wise, where do you, where do you hope to see yourself in five years? If you play this video, this podcast back for yourself in five years, where do you hope to be?

Flavio Simoncini (12:31)
All right, so I'm 25 now so in five years I would be like and We 31 because I desire I'm gonna turn 26 but I would like to be abroad just that because that's my desire So I was like I would like to at least have done an experience outside Europe So in terms of like living abroad and working, of course in terms of like career wise

I hope I will progress. This is a very big start and big opportunity as I said before. So I hope like after this program is gonna be a follow up and I'm gonna progress even more. So yeah, but for the moment that's also.

For the moment I like finance. didn't experience the different nuances of finance yet and of course in three years I will not experience all the nuances but for sure I will have a better understanding respect to now. But yeah I would like to be in a...

I don't know, let's see, like for the moment I like being in a corporate environment, in a very big corporation and I think it's very useful for beginners to have an understanding, especially with the complexity because there are different divisions inside the company so how everything fits together and sometimes it doesn't fit so we need to find a solution so a lot of problem solving.

skills is needed and I think that's going to benefit me in the future in other maybe possible different roles also in different kinds of companies maybe the smaller companies but yeah for the moment my request would be my desire would be to stay abroad and to interact with different people and that's my wish.

Meeyeon (14:26)
And for people that are listening, I always want to get some personal things that they might be able to relate to you on. Because a lot of people are going to be listening and say, I want to be in a role that Flavio is. There's going to be a lot of people that say, I wonder how he got into that role. There might be people that kind of reach out to you here and there. But apart from work, what do you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies?

Flavio Simoncini (14:53)
Well, as I said, I really like languages.

very keen on learning new languages. Now, as I said, one at a time. So for that, and also I think like sports has to be a part of my life because after a while, after hours watching the Excel and Power BI data, I some physical activity. in Europe, let's say, especially in the southern part, we play puddle. That is like a sort of tennis.

Meeyeon (15:25)
Like pickleball?

Flavio Simoncini (15:26)
playing that

paddle. It's let's say similar to squash. I play also squash but it's a different let's say version of tennis. So instead of one of two players we play in four and the court is smaller and has walls around it and it's pretty very popular in Spain. was invented I think in Spain and in Italy it's very... I've heard it but I never seen it.

Meeyeon (15:48)
Have you heard of pickleball?

think you would love it.

Flavio Simoncini (15:54)
I've

never seen any match but usually I always like to try both in different experiences. like to experience living abroad also comes with a full package of experiencing what's out there. like sports, experience, travelling, languages. I'm very curious and I would like to continue to do that.

Meeyeon (16:23)
Gosh, wonderful. Well, if you come to America, you're going to discover something called pickleball, and I think you'll really love it. It's really popular. It's been really popular for several years now, but it's kind of like a cross between, I would say, tennis and table tennis, like ping pong. And yeah, if you're a lover of squash or any racket-related sport, you'll love it.

Flavio Simoncini (16:47)
Yeah, also it's fun because like yeah, as different companies we also have like our ping pong relax zone Yeah, I also I'm very and very I really enjoy a fooseball fooseball like a Small game, but at least in Italy with my friends. I always play that so Every time I see one as he won a fooseball table. I'm always going to play that

Meeyeon (16:54)
internal teams.

Well, I can't think of a better note to end our podcast on as we get to know everyone that is a member of CFI and introduce people globally. Thank you so much for joining me on our podcast today. I can't wait to kind of see where you go in the next three, four years. Maybe we'll see you in America.

Flavio Simoncini (17:27)
Thank you.

Let's see, let's see, I hope so.

Meeyeon (17:36)
But yeah, if you ever come to Vancouver, you'll have to reach out, because I would love to meet you in person.

Flavio Simoncini (17:41)
Sure, sure, 100%.

Meeyeon (17:43)
Okay. And so thank you so much for joining us. And that's all for this episode. Till next time, everyone, this being our member spotlight podcast.

Flavio Simoncini (17:51)
Thank you.