Good morning. Upskilling is the job that never ends. I recently had a fascinating conversation with Sandeep Aujla, EVP and CFO at software giant Intuit. He takes a novel—and proactive—approach to training leaders on his team and allowing them to develop new skills. He has them constantly try different roles. “If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, at some point it becomes muscle memory,” Aujla explained. “I was deliberate about every two years on the dot, moving them into new roles.”
“Intuit wants to view the finance role as a co-owner of the outcome,” Aujla told me. And that means being a core part of the operating team, and not just a support function or an accelerating function to the business. “It all starts with talent,” he said.
Coming from Visa, Aujla joined Intuit, the Fortune 500 company known for products like QuickBooks and TurboTax, in 2015. He previously served as the SVP of finance for Intuit’s Small Business and Self-employed Group and the Technology Finance organization.
During the eight years that he ran the Small Business and Self-employed Group, he narrowed it down to three factors he sought in talent: “intellectual horsepower, intellectual curiosity, and ambition to have an impact.” Aujla hired leaders who previously worked at firms like McKinsey and Bain, along with engineers, and marketing experts, for example. He asked the leaders in his organization what they hoped to achieve in the next three to five years. Then he had them try different jobs within the group.
However, it wasn’t always a promotion. “It’s like rock climbing, sometimes you have to move laterally,” he said.
And in asking what his team leaders wanted to learn, sometimes they just wanted to join certain meetings with him. For example, one leader wanted exposure to credit ratings and joined him during meetings with S&P Global and Moody’s.
But there were some instances when someone’s aspiration required leaving Intuit, for example wanting to become CFO of a startup, he said. But Aujla doesn’t take that personally as he sees his job as working to “develop world-class leaders,” he said. “Even if you go outside of Intuit, all that changes is the company name on the W2; our friendship and the relationship continues,” he said.
Aujla is part of a leadership team at Intuit that’s diving deep into the sentiments of employees. Fortune’s Paige McGlauflin recently spoke with Emily Pelosi, who was given the title of “head of employee listening” at Intuit in 2022.
Now, as CFO since August 2023, Aujla intends to explore the two-year job swap with his global finance team. Earlier in his career, he worked in investment banking roles at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, where they made sure employees were working on different things, internally referred to as “always feeling your brain hurt,” he said.
“I’ll make sure my leaders are always feeling the brain hurt because that makes sure you’re growing,” he added.
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Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]
Leaderboard
Andrew Skobe was named interim CFO at Fossil Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: FOSL), effective immediately. Skobe assumes the CFO role from Sunil Doshi, who is leaving the company for another opportunity. Doshi will remain with the company through July 19. Fossil has initiated a search for a permanent CFO successor to Doshi. Skobe was previously managing director at Ankura Consulting Group, LLC. Before that, he was EVP and CFO for Radisson Hotel Group. Previously, he spent four years as EVP and CFO for Croscill Home-Excell-Glenoit.
Asheley Kinsey was named CFO at 8 Rivers Capital, LLC, a decarbonization technology developer. Kinsey brings 25 years of energy industry expertise to the role. She previously served as SVP of strategy, corporate development and energy transition at TC Energy. Before that, Kinsey spent nearly 15 years in the investment banking industry at RBC Capital Markets, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley working with companies in the power, utilities, renewables, midstream, and liquefied natural gas sectors.
Big Deal
Cybersecurity remains top of mind for companies. Sensitive Content Communications Privacy and Compliance Report, an annual report released by Kiteworks, provides leaders with data insights. For example, 57% of organizations surveyed globally cannot track, control, and report on sensitive data sent and shared externally. Meanwhile, 32% of organizations experienced seven or more data breaches last year, and 66% of organizations exchange sensitive content with 1,000 or more third parties, posing significant risks, according to the report.
The findings are based on 572 survey responses received from IT, cybersecurity, and risk and compliance leaders in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific regions.
Going deeper
“Olympic gymnast Suni Lee recites this 10-word rallying cry before competing to reduce stress and boost confidence,” is a new Fortune report by Alexa Mikhail. She writes: “Last year, Lee was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease that forced her to take a training hiatus. However, she kept her sights on the Olympics and worked with her medical team to make a comeback.”
Overheard
“It doesn’t look like it’s heating up or presenting a big problem for inflation going forward. It looks like it’s doing just what you would want it to do, which is to cool off over time.”
—Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said of the U.S. job market on Tuesday during the European Central Bank’s monetary policy conference in Sintra, Portugal. The job market is “cooling off appropriately,” which likely means that it won’t heighten inflationary pressures through wage gains, the Associated Press reported.