Women in Finance Panel

Please welcome founder and host of Macro Talk News, Hope King. Hello, everyone. It is so great to be with you, an honor and a privilege to be back at Splash. For those of you who were at this panel last year in Nashville, it's great to see you again.

I am so overjoyed to be hosting this panel again this year. There's been a lot going on in the world, and for a space like this to exist, it takes real commitment and courage at this time when a lot of companies are pulling back.

So it is an extreme privilege to be here with all of you in this space. Macro Talk is an independent business news platform. I focus on the economy, the future of work, jobs. So this is just so what I am obsessed with and excited to talk about, especially at a time when I'm really personally worried about where women might be falling behind in AI.

However, there is really good news, and this panel will go into where women are actually excelling, where they can lead strategically. And so I'm really, really honored to have these next panelists join me on stage.

So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Brenda Lovcik, the SVP of financial planning at Solventum, and also Betty Liu. She's the former vice president, former executive vice chair, excuse me, of the New York Stock Exchange, and of course, Pam McIntyre, the chief accounting officer of OneStream.

Great to have you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Hope. Welcome, everybody. Hopefully, you guys have had some fun so far in Orlando. It's a great facility, great location, except for the humidity.

So thank you, everybody, for bearing with us through everything, and thank you for joining us. So I can't help but reflect on the location, the place, the facility. Some of you may know this, but it's been Tom's dream to hold Splash at Disney.

It was really near and dear to his heart and really special to him and his family. And so the fact that we're holding Splash here and having a venue that's this amazing with such great participation, we couldn't be more proud.

So thank you all for joining us here. And more importantly, women in finance. We started this initiative over six years ago, and I've been truly blessed to be the executive sponsor during this time. We've evolved this from online communities to in-person sessions like this.

And this is truly one of my favorite sessions because we get to have real conversations with great panelists, and we get to celebrate women, their achievements, and what they bring to the office of the CFO.

So our goal is to connect, empower, and celebrate women across the industry through conversation, through these communities. And we always try to bring some real conversation, and today we'll dig into some stuff with hope on AI, talent, and some other things.

So over the past couple of years, we've been conducting a lot of research. I think some of you have seen some of our research, the glass chair study that we spoke about last year. And this year we're actually announcing and sharing our new study, which is forward finance.

So we want to talk specifically today about the role and the way women will be part of this forward finance community. So what we've learned is that women's career paths very much align with the role that the future CFO and finance leaders need to have.

So the natural evolution of the CFO role has grown in importance as well with the need for AI and the role that AI will play in how we do our day-to-day work. You can learn more about our findings in the forward finance and glass chair initiatives with the QR code that we'll be showing in just a minute here.

And in this study, you'll be able to see the shift from traditional finance to the insight-driven, tech-enabled strategic models that require leaders like we see today. So without further ado, we'll get started, and I'll kick it over to Hope.

And let me just do a reintroduction of Brenda. I totally butchered your title. I'm so sorry. I got lost in my thoughts. Brenda is the SVP, Financial Planning and Analysis at Solventum. I was clear, I think, in my head, and playing it back, I think, so I apologize.

But I want to give you the proper introduction. So one of the joys of this panel is what we're going to be talking about today is all rooted in data. And something that I found really striking with Forward Finance is that they mapped out the types of skills that finance leaders need today.

And they're on the screen, as you can see. And so I want to begin our conversation by looking at this because, to me, it looks like five different people in each of these categories. And now finance leaders have to be all of these data steward, AI strategist, chief operator, IT collaborator, workforce architect.

Pam, Brenda, let's start with you. Are we looking at an archetype that has always existed in these individual team members, but now they do need to exist in one person? And how does one person accumulate all of this in the time that we need in this very fast-moving AI world? Brenda, what do you think? Yeah.

It has been a fantastic span during my career. And the amount of change in process technology over that time period has really developed all of us as finance individuals. And so I'd say, you know, these five skill sets, knowing Pam, knowing Betty, others that I have worked with, they do.

They do exist in one person. But they don't have to just be exclusive into one person. And you can have within your finance organization individuals who are experts in those different areas. And learning how to corral them, bring them together, put them on projects that are going to help advance the organization, improve processes, will get your organization to the next level.

Pam, you've seen the evolution of the finance leader over the years. What have been your observations in the development of these skills? You have to be okay leaning in and learning the new skills. And also, if you aren't the expert, finding an expert on your team that you can really truly leverage to do the things that you need to be done.

So you don't need to be the expert in these things. You need to be able to recognize where you have weakness and make sure you're hiring those people. So I think that as we see the role of the CFO really continuing to evolve, we've seen this the last 20 years, really.

We've talked about that many times. What we do today is not what we did 20 years ago. So really, like finance is really in the core. Tom mentioned it. It's the control tower. It's making sure people are doing the right things, getting the right data.

And that finance person has always been the person people rely on to make sure data is right, that you can be accountable to it. And we're delivering the right results. So I think it's obviously natural that all of these things end up becoming the role of the CFO.

And also natural, reliable. I'm sure as women, we feel the burden of being reliable all of the time. Betty, I want to bring you in on sort of the macro perspective of where the finance leader really sits in these organizations.

You have been a journalist at Bloomberg, a board member. You're now a strategic advisor, executive coach. Where do you see finance playing a role in today's economy and in today's boardrooms and also in the governance of companies going forward? Yeah.

Well, first, I want to say thank you, Hope, for inviting me. And it's great to be here on the panel with Pam and Brenda and great to be here my first time at Splash, hopefully not my last. So I, as you mentioned, in the various roles that I've had through the years, I've worked with CFOs.

I've advised companies and, you know, and the management teams, including CFOs. And now I coach some CFOs. So I have been able to see sort of, you know, from different angles some of the opportunities and challenges for the finance leader.

And for me, and particularly even after listening to a lot of the panels over the last 24 hours, I mean, it's just so clear to me that the finance leader is imperative, critical to transformation at any enterprise.

And part of that is because finance touches pretty much every part of the organization, right? I mean, it's, you can't say that for certain roles, you know, that are at the same, you know, at that same level.

But finance just touches every part of the organization. And I also think finance leaders are the realist in the room. You know, they're the ones that hold other people accountable. And, you know, and so I think they come in with that dose of realism, which is so needed, particularly at a time where I know we're talking about AI.

There's a lot of hype around AI as well. And so to have that, have that voice in the room, I think, is, is, is especially important. And it adds that level of gravitas to these conversations. Yeah. And you've also grilled CFOs.

Yeah. I'm on air. I mean, you, you know, this role really intimately on all these levels, as I mentioned. But something that you said on our prep call that was really, I think, significant was that you've seen that enterprises are also becoming more matrix.

So the idea of this linear ladder that we've all, many of us were taught to climb, no longer really exists anymore. It's more of this matrix. Can you share more about what this means, especially as it relates to influence in the finance role? Yeah.

I think all of us can agree just how companies have evolved, how corporate structures have evolved, that, as you were saying, Hope, you know, this whole idea of, you know, you work your way from the bottom to the top.

Maybe that still exists in some pockets. But it's really, I think Sheryl Sandberg said it, right? It's really a jungle gym. You know, we're all sort of, you know, how you get to the top is very, you know, very different.

It almost reminds me of, like, a squiggly line or something like that. And so for finance leaders, and not just finance leaders, but I think senior leaders across the board, things like relationship building, influence, communication, that becomes all the more important.

As you see with AI, you know, it's taking care of a lot of the hard skills that, you know, that many of us have. It's taking away, you know, the parts of our jobs that are, you know, repeatable or rules-based.

So what's really going to be important is the soft skills, you know, leaning into those soft skills. And at the same time, not only that, but also within organizations, decision-making is becoming more federated.

So, you know, people are relying, senior leaders need to not, they cannot make a decision only in one silo. They need to influence and bring other people on board in order to get things done. And we're just seeing that across the board at larger and larger enterprises.

Yeah. And, Betty, that jungle gym that you're talking about is so real because our research actually talks very specifically about how women take longer. And so as a woman takes longer to become a CFO, you're doing different roles, building different skills.

And that jungle gym adds value, which is why when we talk about the architecture of the CFO, the skill set of business partnership and really understanding data, those extra roles actually add value to the organization and to the role of the CFO.

Well, Pam, there's something, I think, missing, would you say, from this? Is there one maybe characteristic that you would add to this list? I think you and I talked about this before, if I'm remembering our conversation correctly, but really being the collaborator and being the person to bring people together in general and persuasion.

You have to persuade people to come along the ride with you because if it's forced, people end up becoming defensive, holding themselves back. So that persuasive role is, I think, what you're referring to.

You and I have talked about that a lot, that that's a very important skill set for business partnership, understanding, building an understanding to build a business case, and bringing people along the journey instead of being forceful.

And this idea, again, of influence and having internal influence. We all know the external influencers out there, but it's really important to really adopt that internally as well. Can I add something? Because I totally agree with Pam, and it just reminded me of something.

Because I know we're on this panel talking about women in finance and women leaders. I think sometimes, you know, we, and I'll speak for myself, you know, as a woman, you know, going up into the career or going along my career journey, I always thought that, like, my work could speak for itself.

And, you know, that's what I was taught, that, you know, do the good work, work hard, and it'll speak for itself. That's not enough. In this day and age, you not only have to do the work, but you also have to let other people know you're doing the work, and you have to speak up, and you have to, and that's part of the influencing, right? Like, and I'm not saying speak up, like, brag about yourself.

What I'm saying is just add your voice in. Don't hold back. It's not just the work that speaks for itself, but also you advocating for yourself, and you communicating with other people and building those relationships.

That's part of succeeding in a large, in a more matrixed organization. Yeah. I think that's so true. There's more women finance people out there that definitely have the credibility, the capability. What they're missing is the recognition.

Right. They're not getting the recognition because they're not always the loudest voice in the room, the one jumping up and down. Typically, we're less emotional. As funny as that might sound, oftentimes we're less emotional.

And so, but the skills that we have acquired are perfect for this AI age. Going back to what Pam said about persuasive, right, bringing your teams along, talent development, right? Our team should be so excited about AI and the opportunity that it brings for them and how it's going to change their job.

And it's our job as leaders to help get them excited about it. And I think oftentimes women are more able to do that and bring their teams along. So I think it's an exciting age. You're absolutely right.

We need to recognize ourselves more, be willing to speak up. Yep. So influence is a skill, being able to collaborate, coordinate, bring groups together. How would you also advise women to think differently about being tactical in finance operations versus strategy-centric finance leadership, which, as we know, is really critical at this time? Pam, you've mentored lots of younger women, lots of younger finance talent.

You've been mentored yourself. So what are some of those ways that you can really step up from the tactical stuff to the strategic? Yeah, the tactical stuff has to get done. I mean, I think one of the other things that was in our glass chair study was that women are generally the rule followers and rule keepers.

And so that does drive some of the focus. But that ability to automate those things, that ability to focus on getting the task done so that you can be more strategic. You have to understand what goes on.

We were talking about it just a bit ago. All of the process and the way the process ends up impacting things, you have to understand that to understand how to impact the strategy. But you have to really look long-term.

It's not a quarterly outlook. It's really thinking about what the future will look like, which was the whole reason we started the Finance 2035 study, because what we do today is not what we're going to do in the future.

Things change so quickly. So we really kind of took a step back and tried to think about, instead of developing a product and a strategy for today, what will it look like? The globalization, the changes in the economy, the flexibility, the ability to pivot.

Those are all super important skills for CFOs, because if not, those companies go bankrupt if they can't do it. We're going to move into a different topic. I just want to remind everyone, too, we're going to have a Q&A at the end.

About 10 minutes, we'll have a QR code as well for you guys to submit some of those questions in. On the idea of strategy, there was also really fascinating research that OneStream conducted that looked at what the priorities were from a global investor's perspective and the priorities that senior finance leaders, who happen to be women, and there was a lot of overlap, but there was one that, to me, looked a little bit off and missing, which is that global investors rank overall business strategy as sort of the top priority.

And for women, they ranked development goals, very tactical stuff, right? And so it just speaks to what we were talking about. And I think, you know, Brenda, specifically, you've been tapped to drive enterprise -wide change for most of your career.

Is this just maybe a blind spot for women thinking that they weren't doing the thing they were already doing to kind of explain why there's a difference here in the data? I wouldn't call it a blind spot.

As I look at my career and as I trace other careers that have been really successful, they realize that, okay, you know, you can have a fantastic system. Like OneStream's fantastic. SAP's fantastic. But if the underlying processes aren't there, if your data's not correct, like, none of that matters.

Putting AI on top of bad data is going to give you bad decisions, right? You're going to create bad decisions. And so I don't know. I think we as women realize how just how important that is to be able to make the business strategy.

It's the foundation. Right. And then you'll make better business decisions based on that. But Brenda, you'll get those bad decisions faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We all deal with this. And something that I think maybe you could all share some stories around is when you do see these bad decisions being made, bad processes, at what point do you step in to try to challenge, which we know sometimes is not always welcome, depending on your seniority, depending on which room you're in, and when you know to step in and when those battles should be fought.

So in your careers, can you think of a moment where you really stepped up for yourself or someone invited you to step up? I think sometimes we need a little bit of a push. Like, we can't see ourselves clearly.

But somebody else who is managing us or who works with us can. So would love for Pam, for you. I know you've got a lot of these stories, too. So pick one. I'm going through them in my head. I know. But the one that I think very much impacted not only me but my team was there was this chief procurement officer.

I won't go into the details. But in our board meeting, he was arguing the data. And I kind of just said to him, the numbers don't lie. So he marched down to my office, which was the furthest from the boardroom.

And he put his hands in the door and held the door as I was sitting at my desk like this. And he was like, you need to do this. You need to get me this data. And I just looked at him. And I was like, I don't need to do blank, blank for you.

I was like, you can leave here. And if you want me to help you, then you can come in here and talk to me politely. And as he walked down the hall, he didn't come back in the room. He just, like, backed up, walked out of the hall.

My whole team, which was, like, 30 people, were clapping in the hall. I love that. And they just loved that I pushed back on him. Can we clap for her now? That's so badass. I love it. I'm sorry. That's incredible.

Yeah, it was, like, a real moment because I thought, like, you're not going to bully me into doing something for you. And you're not going to do it and be mean to me. If you want my help, you can ask me politely.

And I didn't even realize the impact my team had watching that. And then once that happened, I was like, wow, this is, I was proud that they recognized it, honestly. I'm okay for myself. I didn't care.

But I was actually proud that they recognized that he wasn't treating our team professionally. And that was something that I was always going to stand up for. My heart was, like, racing as you were telling the story, like, physically, right? Yes.

Horror stories. Other horror stories that we'd like to share from your past that you... Yeah, I don't have a story. But when we were talking about bad decision making, I would also put slow decision making in that bucket.

And I think that there's... That is a disease as well, you know, within our own companies where, you know, people want to avoid a bad decision. They make a slow decision or no decision. And that's just as bad.

And I think, you know, Pam, your story is great because, as we were saying, it's courageous. And I think what is a common challenge, I think, within companies is having those courageous conversations, whether it's, you know, standing up for yourself or it's just having a direct conversation.

You know, those things are more challenging than you would expect them to be. And, you know, that hinders a lot of development and growth in companies. I don't know, Brenda, if you've seen that, too. No, that's so true.

Maybe two things that I'd add to the conversation is, one, we're always going to be making decisions with incomplete data, right? There's never going to be complete data for us to do it. So, you know, for us to be able to advise or think, like, this is the best data we have at this time.

But one of the stories I have is, to your point, not making a decision. I finally had to go into the chief accounting officer and say, if you don't make a decision today, you've made a decision, and we no longer can do this.

Because, to your point, just kept wanting more data and more data and more data. And I'm like, there's nothing else I can tell you at this point that would help you one way or the other. But by not making a decision today, you're making a decision.

But the assertiveness was something that had to be prompted. Exactly. And what was that moment? What was happening? Again, I'm very passionate about process and controls. And it was about something with the system that we were putting in.

And I felt like it was my team and the enterprise was going to miss out on something big that we could have been implementing by him not making the decision. And I said that to him. And it was obviously received in a way that was effective.

But I guess for folks who are listening to this, by the way, so inspiring. I wish that you were in conversations in my past. I'm going to channel you, Pam. But if you look back on the evolution of your career, was there a moment when you also just decided, I'm going to be a different type of leader? Yes.

So when I was on an integration at a big company leading the finance part of the integration, and the integration lead had a specific date to close the acquisition. And it was the worst possible date.

Very similar story again. Worst possible date that you could probably do that would create a tremendous amount of additional work. But he, from an IR perspective, wanted it at a specific time. And I just had to be bold.

And from then on, I was a completely different person. But again, I realized the impact on the people. He wasn't thinking it all the way through. It was a very narrow thing. And to this day, he thanks me for that decision.

That's great. He'll bring it up. And the reason why I'm asking you to go into this, too, and, Betty, I want to bring you into this, is there's always tension around who owns strategy, who owns what kind of strategy, especially if it's AI.

Today, in your experience, how do finance leaders really fit into the picture of where they can ultimately throw their way? Aside from we're just not going to give you the money. But even aside from these great examples, how have you seen that also sort of change? I think what I've seen change and what I think was really representative in the executive summit, there was a conversation between the CIO and the CFO of, I think the company was Aircap.

Aircap, yeah. Yeah. And there's more and more of those conversations happening, particularly with AI, because, again, who owns the data? Who's going to put the strategy around the data? And that is a conversation specifically between the CIO and the CFO.

And you're seeing those. I'm seeing those crop up over and over again at some of the companies that I work with. And it's always the question, who owns the strategy? Who's the Batman and who's the Robin? And the finance office will say, we're the Batman.

The CIO's office will say, no, we're the Batman. So it just requires, again, direct, courageous conversations and then getting the teams aligned with that. And what I love also about in the forward finance report was there were some recommendations around doing like pilot projects, for instance, or 90-day sprints or something like that, where I think it gets these two groups working together.

So that's kind of – that, I think, is happening every single company and particularly between those two offices. And Pam and Brenda specifically, how have you seen AI changing the role of the CFO itself, outside of just what Betty was alluding to in terms of influence, but the actual role, the skills, what you're looking for in talent? I mean, this is all something that you're dealing with on top of doing your day-to-day jobs.

You know, as Betty mentioned, there's this tug of war between IT and finance because IT can dump the data there, but who's going to make sure it's right? Who's going to make sure it reconciles? Who's going to make sure it's accurate? So you can dump it anywhere you want and run AI on top of it.

And like we always talk about garbage in, garbage out. That's an old, like, theory. It's still relevant. It's never going to change. So you can put AI on top of it, dump the data, and you're not going to really actually truly get insight.

So you have to have that ownership, that partnership, the reconciliation. And so that's where finance has to play a tactical role in building the roadmaps, in building the data and reconciling the data because otherwise there's no point in putting it somewhere and doing something with it.

But also finance owns the ROI of the company. And so the whole purpose people are in business is to make money, to make more money, to return shareholder value. And so there's increased revenue. You're reducing cost or creating efficiency.

And so finance is also creating the budgets tied to these things. They're creating the opportunity and driving what the strategy might look like. But you also have to let the functional leaders determine what they need and how they need it because otherwise, like I said, they're not going to lean into it because it'll feel forced.

So there's a little bit of that. But that's where finance, and we were talking about it, Brenda, about FP&A owns the budget that's distributed across the organization. So there's give and take resources, opportunities, other projects that might need to be revisited.

But that's where finance really kind of comes to the center of it. And CFO will continue increasing its role over time. Yeah, one of the other themes I think that's been coming out of this conference is that AI is not going to replace the humans, but humans who use AI are going to replace other workers.

That was a good line. It was great. That's fantastic. And I think about that, and from a finance perspective, we need our team still to have that critical thinking. Like, okay, it's spitting something out.

Does it make any sense? There's still judgment that needs to apply. So a lot of those skills that our teams and we've already developed in our teams are still real today. We just get the data hopefully a little faster so we can spend a little more time analyzing.

That's my biggest challenge right now is trying to get the data enough so I can spend more time analyzing critical thinking, figuring out from a strategic perspective how to better use it. I think the topic we're going to shift into next is really what I alluded to in the beginning.

I have a lot of worry. I see the data in the difference in confidence level between men and women on AI. This was a big topic that we had at Splash Women in Finance last year. I want to just quickly touch upon that.

We are all dealing with a lot, you know, whether it's professionally, we are caregivers, we are, you know, lots of things outside of our jobs. And so what I see is when you have unpaid labor at home and all of the other pressures on women is that we don't even have the time to sit and play with Claude or to experiment in the off times of our working hours.

And so my worry is how can we prevent women from falling behind in the AI conversation? And I'd love to hear your perspectives on how you're encouraging that in the workplace, you know, maybe at home with your friends.

I've got a group chat. It's Billionaire Babes Club. Like, we're just trying to make our billions. Like, we send each other articles about AI. We're sharing the projects that we're working on. And I know a lot of moms have WhatsApp groups for their own friends and circles.

So I see it happening at these very small level, small scale levels. But I think at the enterprise level, again, you've got your quarterly reporting responsibilities. You've got your strategic initiatives.

You still have to, you know, politic and do all of that. Are my worries unfounded? Are they to be taken seriously? And, again, how are you all thinking about making sure this doesn't happen in your own workforces? I think it's a real concern.

And let's take it head on and attack it. So the idea of these proof of concepts has really rung true for us as well. It's like let's identify some areas. And typically if it's coming from your teams, like here's their pain points.

Here's the things that are causing them the most frustration. Let's talk through those and figure out how can we use AI. So, and again, we're at work all day, right? So if we can use it while we're at work and find these opportunities that are also helping to solve problems for our teams, for our business partners, it's a great way for us to start to get more familiar with AI while also listening to our teams and hearing from our teams.

Then they're also getting more excited about it because they're part of the solution as well. So you've structured conversations around this, it sounds like. Yes. You're baking it into your operating and your processes.

Yeah. Solventum's a brand-new company. There was no processes documented when we got into the organization. So we're in the middle of documenting those processes and through that identifying where those opportunities are and then together kind of rack stacking to say what should we go after first, looking at ROIs, making sure we're getting value in it, making sure we're getting the right talent.

So assessing talent as well so that we can develop people, not going directly externally to do it, but we've got lots of great talent within the organization. So how do we identify those, get them excited, passionate about it, put them in the projects? We have to do it anyways.

And then I love things like, not for a plug for OneStream, but I love that stuff like with OneStream because now we can leapfrog. And that's what we need to do because we're so far behind. Like we should be thinking more about how do we leapfrog, not do baby steps to get there, but what technology, what tools, what skill sets do we need to do that? And so it's been really fun for me coming into the organization, seeing people who do get passionate about it.

I've got a couple here that are excited about OneStream and what can we do with that and what can we do with AI? Yeah, I would say, first of all, I use AI every day. I talk to my Claude. My husband thinks I'm always talking to Claude about him.

And sometimes I think back, I'm like, wow, two years ago, what was I doing with this time that I'm spending, you know, talking to Claude? But anyway, I would say at this moment, and I've talked, you know, I work with my husband a little bit, and we've talked about how, like, we want to have, like, a vibe coding night or something like that.

Just to make sure that we're at least keeping pace or keeping up with, you know, what's happening. We haven't done that yet. So I would say my level is, like, advanced basic is probably where I would put myself right now.

I just think it's so evergreen. I mean, everyone, I think people are at so many different points when it comes to integrating AI. There's no, like, one single, you know, or two or three pathways right now.

Like, I was talking with a senior banker friend of mine who was, you know, he said to me, like, oh, thank goodness I'm at the, you know, selfishly, I'm at this level now where I've built these relationships with clients.

You know, I have that relationship capital. I don't know what the young junior analysts are going to do these days. We may not even have junior analysts going forward. You know, how are people going to build their relationships? So he was a little bit relieved for himself, but then worried about, you know, worried about the future generations.

But like I said, I think it's so evergreen. And I think every, you know, every board is asking their CEO and their management team, what are you, you know, how are we leveraging AI? And everyone from there is looking at their teams and, you know, putting together meetings.

Like, you know, how do we bring in AI into our workflows? But again, you know, I keep repeating that word, but it is very evergreen. So I think it's, you know, we'll see how all this shakes out in the next two to three years.

But just really quickly, so for women specifically, how do you feel that they can gain more confidence? Gain more confidence in AI? And not feeling behind with all of the new models that are released and, you know, the scary blog posts about job losses and all of that.

I mean, I think what comes to mind for me is that we're all in the same boat. I don't know if it's a woman or a man issue. I think it's just a people issue. Like, we're all in the same boat. And so, therefore, I think women have a great opportunity here because it is a level playing field, essentially.

Like, we're all discovering this together and we're all trying to figure it out, figuring it out together. So, you know, as long as you're in it, I'm going to be scheduling my vibing code night, you know, after this panel.

But let's just get into it. Just, you know, just start working on it. Agree? Disagree? I mean, I agree, but I also disagree. I think if you think about when AI first got introduced and started gaining pace, there was this mindset of cheating when you were using AI.

And that finally is broken through because people have learned to use it in their daily lives, just like when the Internet was cheating, right? So, AI now is more accepted and adopted. But, like, schools, I'm on the board for the business school.

And they still don't integrate AI into their curriculum and how people can use it properly and how they can build outlines or process or presentations. And that's not cheating. That's actually augmenting your brain and what you can do at a faster pace.

So, that cheating mindset needs to go away, number one. And so, that starts at universities. And we have to get them to teach students how to properly use it because they're using it for everything. People use it for everything.

But you also have to critically think, is the data, is what the answer correct? Or I'm going to follow this map and end up at the wrong London. Like, it's actually London, Ontario. I didn't need to fly to London.

So, you need to ask it the right questions to get you in the right direction and learn how to properly use it to help really empower your team. But even just downloading it, starting to play with it, using it for easy things like finding recipes, how do I do this? Like, it will pull so much data together for you, whether it's ChatGPT or Claude.

And then you can dig into whether it's valid. I can give you a good example. We were getting new appliances and we were asking. But every time you asked the question, it gave you different recommendations.

So, it's not actually helping me. It's actually creating some lost time. So, what are the things that I want to focus on, on the appliances I was looking for? And you could spin and you could spend days and days and days upon weeks just looking at one question using AI because it's just reaching everywhere to get data.

But it's not digesting it and really curating it for you yet. So, those are things that will evolve. But just downloading different types of AI, testing it, using it, figuring out what to use, when you need to use it.

Two things. What was the appliance? Our refrigerator broke. But then everything needed to get replaced, right? My dishwasher broke. The other thing that I was thinking about as you were saying this, and I know we talked about this last year, but who cares? Cheat.

I feel like as women, we're trying to be good all the time and follow the rules. Like, yeah, go ahead and cheat. We need to take some shortcuts here. I was just thinking about that as you were talking.

And maybe we've been feeding that message also in the wrong way by saying that cheating is even bad. We all know people cheat. We all have people in our workforces, in our groups who you know are not doing the work.

And it's like, you know what, like right now, use every tool to your disposal, right? Am I being, like, so flippant right now? Like, I'm just getting this feeling where I'm like, God, we've got to take advantage here.

We've got to have this personal agency. Pam's like, no, please don't cheat. I was like, I don't actually know how to answer that question. I mean, cheating is cheating. But no, I'm just kidding. Yeah, but on the AI side, like thinking about it.

You have to use everything and every opportunity that's in front of you. If that tool is AI, that's AI. If it's your friends and leveraging them and your network, that's something to use too. It's no different.

Leveraging people's experiences and opportunities to help you, why recreate something that already exists? That's my thought is that I don't think of it as cheating. I think if you're not using it, then you're being inefficient.

Like, to your point, you should go out there, find the tools that are going to help you get your job done most efficiently and effectively. Now, again, you'll want to read it to make sure it's answering the right question.

But to your point, I don't think it's cheating. I think, and we have to get that out of our mindset. Disclaimer, my opinions do not reflect the views of OneStream. Okay? I'm trying to get you in trouble and say, like, cheat on other things that are compliance related.

I think it was just more of a mentality. People say that all the time. Right, right. Okay, we're going to turn to our last segment before we get into the Q&A. And this is really around where women have a lot, I think, of value to add to the workforce, especially when it comes to AI.

I was, you know, chatting with a couple of CEOs in San Francisco a while back. And, you know, it was very notable to me. Like, the bubble exists. Like, when you go to San Francisco, I kid you not, it is a different world the way they think about it.

And when I come to, you know, conferences like this or talk to my friends, the fear of AI is very real. There's a lot of anxiety. There are some folks who may be just me. I'm, like, resentful that I have to learn this new thing.

Like, I already went through the pandemic. I already went through the great financial crisis. Like, really? Like, give me something else. How are you guys as leaders bringing your team along? And are they coming to you and saying, like, Pam, I'm anxious? You know, Betty, when you're coaching executives.

Brenda, when you're talking to your team. Like, do they feel like they can come to you and say, am I automating myself out of a job right now? What is your response if they do come to you and ask that? We're definitely going through that right now at Solventum with all the process improvement stuff that they were going through.

And the culture in the previous company was one that there was a lot of layoffs. And you're hearing and seeing about it all the time. I think it does go back to our conversation earlier about AI not replacing the human worker, right, but augmenting the work that we do.

That doesn't mean that people won't lose some of their jobs because the jobs are changing. But to me, I look at it, it's no different than when the personal computer came, when the mobile phone came, SAS came.

I mean, there's continuing technological changes. This one's just moving at a faster pace than we've been used to in the past. So I think that, to me, again, I keep talking to them about this creates so much opportunity for you and all that yucky stuff that you had to do before.

Like, we get to do more fun stuff and really talk through some real examples and really get them excited about it. But the fear is real. And so we're having more conversations about that, talking more about talent development.

How do we upskill them as well so we can bring them along for the journey? Going back to my example of projects, what project do you want to be on to do that? And, again, if they're not excited about that change, they'll probably decide to leave on their own and go somewhere else.

But I keep trying to say, anywhere you go, this is what we're going to start to see. I think it's great that you're having these conversations. Because I know that there are certain companies where these conversations are just being shut down.

Or, you know, the focus is so much on AI efficiencies that there doesn't seem to be room. People don't feel like they have the space to be able to raise their hand and say, slow down. Yeah, and I would say a lot of the conversation right now is very much around AI and job loss.

Right. And while that is a true, you know, a true concern, there's not enough talk about some of the opportunities that will come from, you know, from implementing AI. And I kind of, like, think of it back during the dot-com era.

You know, I guess it was Web 2.0, I believe. And, you know, who would have thought from there the jobs that would have been created today from that shift? And I'm thinking about, like, social media, you know, TikTok stars.

And, I mean, there's all these new jobs that have been created from that technological shift. And we can't even imagine. And, you know, there's a company that I advise that's in the outplacement and reskilling space.

And, you know, one of the points the CEO makes, which I totally agree, is that we just cannot imagine in 20 years what are the jobs, the new types of jobs that will be created from this huge shift. We just don't know.

But there will be these opportunities. And, you know, we'll discover them as they evolve. Yeah, I completely agree. You've got shortages in some areas. You've got excess in other areas. And the people that will thrive are the people that are flexible and will learn the new things.

So we were just talking in the last session about how people need to evolve. And that's going to be the driving force. I think Brenda and I were talking about the fact that the team and the skills and the people who are really, like, eager to learn and work themselves out of their job are going to be the person you want to shift to help the rest of the organization.

So they're creating themselves a new job. So I think that's true. I mean, the opportunity, even with going and leading a large implementation, you're proving your skill set. You're proving your leadership skills.

And so it's going to drive that next opportunity. So don't be fearful of implementing things. Really lean into it because you're creating a valuable skill set to do that. And that's going to be a skill set that your company or the next company will find even more valuable and will keep building value and, honestly, opportunity for you.

Yeah. I think it's tough. We all doom scroll, right, when we're not working or when we are working. And that narrative is just so much stronger and louder. And so, I mean, if I were to pull the folks in this room today, like, how many of you are worried for your jobs? How many of you would raise your hands? Really? Nobody? Nobody's worried for their jobs? Okay.

Okay. I mean, that's great. That's unless people are just raising their hands under the table. I mean, all the survey. I mean, you're seeing this backlash. And so I bring up the context just because I think we know where it is day to day.

And the last thing I'll just say on this topic, you know, somebody made a good point. 20 years is a short amount of time or it's a long amount of time depending on who you are. But it could also be the entirety of someone's life.

And when that was said to me, or I think I read it somewhere, I think that really struck a nerve. Because I think for a lot of people who are worried about it, 20 years could be the most important working years of your life.

And so it's fine for economists to say, well, this change will take this much time. But that is all the time I have on this planet, right? And so I just wanted to bring that context in. It's not going to change any of your answers, obviously.

But I do think that's kind of where the fear is kind of coming from. It's important we recognize it, that we make the time to listen to our staffs. And also making sure we've got the development opportunities that we talk about available for them.

But you're right. It is real. Speaking of development opportunities, I have this slide up, which is the workforce architect. It's one of the skills that we talked about at the beginning of this conversation, which is to kind of build human and AI workforces fit for the future.

We've talked about this throughout Splash. What are you looking for in talent today that will give you confidence they'll be able to handle all of the changes with AI that's coming? What do you look for? For me, it's curiosity.

Again, that critical thinking. They still do need to have that technical background. That will always be the foundation of the stuff that they do. Collaboration, the communication skills, all of those are super important.

And passion. And passion. And passion. What do you look for, Betty? Yeah, I would completely agree with Brenda. I think that curiosity, the openness, I go back to the empathy, relationship skills. Like all of those, I think, are going to be ever more important in this age of AI.

It's really, you know, what can AI not do? It can't really relate to people. You know, it can't build a relationship. I mean, maybe people think AI is building a relationship with you, but it can't build relationships with people.

I always tell my husband, your buddy Claude is talking to you. Yeah. Because he's always, well, Claude said this and Claude said that. But, yeah. My husband does the same thing. No, like it's a person.

Like you're talking in the bathroom to somebody. It's Claude. Talking in the bathroom. What is up with that? It happens, Hope. It happens. But for me, it's actually learners, people who want to keep learning, because that's going to be needed forever.

Because the table stakes of what you do in college, the resume, that's like a, it has to be done. But the challenge to continue challenging yourselves, learn, partner, and actually speak to people, those are really the skills that I think are still really true and true to the people that I try to have on my team.

Because if you're that heads down person, that's really difficult to bring in the partnership, the collaboration. And that's what's going to continue kind of driving the workforce in finance, the partnership across the functional leaders, IT, everybody.

And so it's no longer just doing your job. It's actually being a partner with the organization. I guess more specifically, are you changing the way that you promote people, the way that you look at, you know, who are your top performers? Are you looking at token usage as an indicator of who is most AI skilled? I would love to hear maybe some more details around, like, if you're thinking about your organization today, how you're really looking at the talent.

We actually had a session with our whole CFO org probably about a month, month and a half ago. And one of the sessions we had was how can each team start leveraging AI and actually continue reinforcing that.

And they all came up with their ideas, and I was proud that every one of them had a full page of things. And they were talking for a long time. I thought they were just chit-chatting. So I was walking around the room, and they weren't.

They were really focused on the ways that they could use AI, the things that they can automate, how they can actually help, you know, do reporting and other things better for the organization and better for themselves and their roles and remove some of the manual work.

So that was, like, a proud moment because I really thought that, oh, they're going to use this as a break and really not really be collaborating. But they were. And so that's not the way that I'm going to use to promote people.

But it is going to let some people rise because those people that are able to accomplish those things, become the leaders for their teams or organization, will be a new opportunity for people who may not have otherwise been leaders.

We have a lot of questions, so let's get to those. Well, that's good. Here we go. All right. Thank you guys for sending in your questions. We're also going to put up the QR code, too. This one got a lot of upvotes, so I'm going to do this one first.

How would you respond to colleagues who have tried using AI for finance? And they say, chat GPT delivered incorrect answers multiple times, so I don't trust it anymore. What is the response if they are coming to you saying that? I want to hear Pam's thought on this first.

Well, our team actually uses the OneStream agent. So it's always right. Hopefully it's not wrong. But we did have to learn from doing the development and working with the team. So we actually do use the OneStream agent to ask questions, to do research, and things like that.

And we have the agent in the search mechanism. So we load a lot of stuff into it, accounting manuals. We load our IR reports and things like that. So our IR team was using it to really curate what are the questions, what are the reminders from the conversations that were had, what did the analysts say in their report.

So we had loaded all of that stuff up. So that was, like, one good use case, and it was a way to test the product as well that we did. But really, you have to click the button and validate the data no matter what.

So having it be auditable is going to be the question. And so hopefully people learn at Splash how to actually help through that process and how auditors can rely on it was a question that we keep getting as well.

And so really making sure that there's the documentation, the process. There's a way to roll these tools out to be effective and to be able to rely on them instead of just adding technical debt. Like, AI can just be technical debt if you're just layering on bad stuff.

Yeah. You know, that's one of the examples I had was we have what we call a green book that the CEO and CFO use at the end of the quarter to do all their earnings prep, and it's hundreds of files that we have in there.

And like, oh, we're just going to put Claude right on top of there, and then we can just dive into it. And they tried it a couple times, and to your point, the answers were wrong. And I was like, well, did we go look at the data? And here we didn't have updated files.

We had incorrect stuff. You know, so Mike, I'm just always asking, you know, what are you trying to ask? What's the data that you're looking at? Because it all comes back to that. So just listening and asking questions further and then helping them get to the next level.

Yeah, that's why I was going to go in that direction to what Brenda was saying, which is that answer or those answers coming from the finance team sounds like there's, you know, going back to maybe the curiosity side, which is, you know, what's exactly happening there? Is there, have they been using it in a very narrow way? And so it just sounds to me like there needs to be more probing.

That answer sounds like it's coming out of more like maybe a stance of confirmation bias, which is, you know, I already think AI is not great, and here's proof. There are a lot of great questions. We're going to try to get to these on the Women in Finance LinkedIn pages too, so we're keeping track of all these.

But I want to get to the ones that have been upvoted the most. This one has eight upvotes. My question is on strategic influence. Women already have to work hard at being heard in the room with all these new skills in forward finance dimensions.

How can women who are just below the CFO level build strategic influence to drive AI adoption? If I'm reading between the lines, it means you're like sometimes in the room or on the call, but maybe not always.

So if you are there, how would you really build the strategic influence to drive AI adoption? Coaching moment? Yeah. I guess I have a little trouble with that question, meaning how do you build strategic influence for AI adoption? I think it's just how do you build strategic influence? It's overall, whether it's AI adoption or any other topic.

For those who are right below the C-suite, I would say that, and particularly for women, I would say just ground yourself in who you are. Know your work and your worth and speak up when you find the opportunity.

Don't question yourself. Don't doubt yourself. And there are moments where you have gravitas by speaking up, and there's moments where you have gravitas by not speaking up. So don't perform gravitas. Just be gravitas.

And you get that by knowing who you are, knowing your work, and not having to prove anything to anybody. That's how you become influential. I'd love to hear what Pam and Brenda think about that. I mean, I think it's really hard.

It's hard to kind of get the exposure and the things that you want and you envision in your career. But one thing that I've always found myself doing, and it was a very early mentor of mine that told me, work yourself out of a job, number one, and always do things that make your boss's job easier.

Make them look good. Because they'll bring you in if you're helping them. So don't be afraid to kind of feed and help and influence and reach for that next opportunity because you will help, whether it's the CFO or whether it's somebody else, and they will start bringing you in because you're being helpful to them.

Would your answers all apply to this one, which is very related? What advice would you give to someone early in their management and leadership career looking to make an impact and gain trust and influence in a male-dominated C-suite? Would all the answers that you just gave be applicable to this as well in a specifically very male-dominated C-suite? Don't perform gravitas.

Make them look good. Is there anything else you would add just on this variation of the question? Sign up for projects. There's lots going on across the organization, and there's always a need for additional resources.

So find your way onto one of those great jobs that will give you that visibility as well. More work on my mind. That's the whole other topic. Doing work. Okay. There's a lot of questions about navigating these relationships.

But this is one, I think, that's a little bit more personal. For those of you balancing executive leadership with motherhood or caregiving, how have you managed the mental load and competing pressures that can come with trying to succeed in both areas? It's a heavy one, right? And back to kind of my worry about women falling behind in AI.

Any advice that, as mothers and caregivers of all of us have, how are you dealing with your mental load? So I am a mother of three. They are now older. But I can definitely understand the challenges of raising little ones while also driving your career.

I really had to be willing to set boundaries. Again, I'm a very hard worker. I continued to show up. I was also confident and presented myself. But I also learned boundaries. And if there were very special events that needed to be there for the kids, I was sure to have that conversation with the boss and then deal with the consequences.

But, again, I was very planful about it. And there was also things that I missed. And I had that conversation on the family side. But the important stuff I was there for and I made sure of it. So I never resented work.

And my family never resented me for being at work. Setting boundaries is difficult. How would you both add to that? I would definitely agree with that. And I, so my kids are now, I'm an empty nester. So my kids are now off.

And I'm actually an empty nester one over, meaning that they graduate at college. So I'm really done, hopefully. But when I was raising them while working, I practiced what I called zero guilt. Now, I wasn't perfect at it.

But I promised myself that I would have zero guilt for being at work when I was at work. And I would have zero guilt when I was at home with the kids and not at work. So I practiced what I called zero guilt.

And for the most part, it worked for me because I knew that when I was with my kids, I was completely present. And when I was at work, I was completely present there. And, you know, I guess we'll see from now, you know, what feedback I get from my, you know, from my adult kids, whether that worked for them.

But at least at that time, it was very helpful because it allowed me to sort of stay focused and stay present without that guilt. Their therapy bills will reflect better. I also want zero guilt on a hat.

I love that. Yeah, I like it. Anything else you want to add? You know, my kids are 16, 13, and 10. So they're still in the thick of it. So I'm not going to lie, it's exhausting. And I do think COVID changed a little bit of how people work and are constantly connected.

So it is hard to disconnect at times, more particularly at work when you're off because you're accessible. We're a global company. There's a lot of things and challenges. But being honest with yourself, when you can be there and not overstepping and over, like, reaching to make sure you're at everything, there are things that I for sure miss of my kids because I'm traveling or there's other things.

But when I'm there, I can be there as much as possible. I love it. All right. We're almost at the end of time. There's one question about the environmental impacts of AI, which I have not seen come up in other panels.

So I do want to address it quickly. For those who, you know, feel like a moral responsibility to look after our planet in this way, what do you say to someone who has these concerns about the impact that AI has on the environment? I have not had that question.

Yeah. That's a good one. Good question. It is something there's a lot of research. I think Michael, who was part of our last panel, and he led that section. He mentioned that they've had some research.

So I think there is research out there about how it's going to impact where things are going. He made a comment that they're doing research about putting data centers in space and seeing things like that.

But whether that's actually possible, but we'll have to see. I mean, when cars got started, there was a lot of pollution and things. Like, it's the next development. It's the next generation of technology.

And we have to evolve and figure out ways to make it efficient, efficient energy growth and things like that. So one of our customers is an energy company, and she talked last year about how they're actually looking at expanding their energy footprint to be able to support some of these things.

And we'll see how it goes. The spirit of that question is, like, do you want to just live in a forest and just, you know, live on your own farm? Or be in this? The choices feel very binary. I want to end with one question, one word, one last word from each of you.

And this question comes from Catron, who did a great job of organizing all of this. What should women in finance be most confident stepping into next in this age of AI? Pam, I'll go to you first. Your last word.

What is the one thing that women in finance should be most confident stepping into next? Being inquisitive. I think continue being inquisitive. Ready? Powerful. Stepping into power. Great. Stepping into power.

Collaboration always comes back to me. Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for spending this time with me. Thank you all for being here. Hope you learned a lot. And have a great rest of Splash. Thanks so much.