In this episode of Careers in Finance on FinPod, we chat with Mark Allbee, VP of Finance and Operations at Roko Labs. Mark shares his journey from Big Four accounting at KPMG, where he specialized and built key skills, to leading finance in dynamic startups. He details his transition to FP&A, tackling budgeting and reporting while navigating the unique demands of the startup world.

Mark’s real-world advice is perfect for anyone interested in learning how various finance functions perform in both established and start-up environments. Tune in for practical career tips and lessons learned along the way!

Transcript

Anna Talerico (00:14)
Welcome back to another episode of Careers in Finance, and I am really excited to sit down with Mark Allbee today, talk about all things, finance, FP&A et cetera. Mark and I have been trying to get this on the books for a while, and this is going to be a great conversation. So let’s go ahead and kick it off. First of all, Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Mark Allbee (00:35)
Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Anna Talerico (00:37)
Let’s jump in because as you know, I always start careers in finance with just a little bit about your origin story in terms of did you always know you wanted to go into finance and did you study it? You know, what did you get your degree in?

Mark Allbee (00:51)
Yeah, no, it’s a question. Sort of, yes. My father, from as early as I can remember, he was an accounting guy. He was taxed. So I was exposed to that at young age. I helped a bit in his business. He had a small business on the side. And I enjoyed that work. And I found that would be something that might work well for me as I looked at careers. So when I started going to school, accounting was a natural draw.

And I felt that it was an obvious place, understanding a set of financial statements and becoming very analytical with that was going to open a lot of doors in any direction. So that was sort of the way that I went. I started, know, early stages, like focusing on some accounting classes, realized that it was something that I also naturally had a knack for. So, I started pursuing that. I did go the audit route. I thought that that was, again, a great opportunity. Big Four accounting firm.

At the end of the day, would I tell someone big four versus non -big four? That’s a whole different conversation. But certainly for me, that felt like a right path to actually set myself up. It was a name, it was a training, and then I was going to have that opportunity to really use the skills and then, from there, figure out if I wanted to do something different. So that was a good start.

Anna Talerico (02:07)
Yeah, yeah, and so a lot of people say going through the Big Four, if that’s the path you take, it just gives you optionality because you get exposed to so much, you get time to kind of decide what it’s gonna be outside, know, after the big four. But so you got your degree in accounting, is that right? Yeah, okay.

Mark Allbee (02:26)
That’s right, yes, so I went into Accounting and started at KPMG straight away.

Anna Talerico (02:30)
Yeah, okay. And how long did you stay at KPMG? Okay, yeah.

Mark Allbee (02:34)
It’s about five years just after that. So it was a good trajectory, got to see a bunch of different things. Think moving, again, I have some, my tidbits of wisdom, if that’s helpful here, is having some, again, rolling with the opportunities that are there, but also having a little bit of an idea of how you want that to go. realizing, for me,

Anna Talerico (02:50)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (03:02)
that the practice, individual practice levels were sort of pretty separate. So it was an opportunity to really focus on what area of the business that you wanted to be in. And then that may not be the case for every office, but certainly New York was that case because it was a very large office. So there was very well broken down in practice lines and it kind of came up along that. So finding the practice line that’s something that is going to speak to you and something that’s going to bring out that work that you want to be in. And then being able to…

go down that road is my advice. It’s like finding that, finding the folks that are gonna be your champions, people that you’ll be able to support, those are key factors and something that I think I didn’t realize quite so much until later.

Anna Talerico (03:45)
Yeah, that’s interesting. So the first year or two that you were there, what was that like? Like, how was it different than you thought? Or what was just like a day in the life like?

Mark Allbee (03:53)
Yeah, mean, it’s certainly, I think it was well prepared. Certainly, my father had done the same thing. So he was kind of like, this is going to be hard. You’re to work a lot of hours. Like it’s great. Like focus on the work, like just, just do what you’re supposed to be doing. You have the skills kind of pep talk. And so I was prepared for that. I think the difference was like I was saying is like very, it became very siloed into the practice area very quickly. So I think going into it, my expectation was,

well, I’m going have a chance. I’m going into financial services because I want to do something in financial services. Now, I don’t know that everyone breaks it down this way, but KPMG had its financial services and sort of everything else. And within financial services, there was even very well broken out product lines, if you will. And I ended up in insurance and that was sort of like a good path for me, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I don’t think I realized it at the time. So that was the thing that became,

was different for me is that like, sticking with a practice area was a great idea. And then really focusing and building those relationships with the partners in that practice area like, hey, I want to be here. I want a career in this area. I don’t know if I want to stay and be a partner, but I want to work really hard for you for as long as possible and figure it out. That is sort of the advice that I would have being prepared for that and being focused on like sort of where you want to be. Because you’re going to that subject matter is going to be your experience level.

Anna Talerico (05:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, which is so important. It’s interesting that you say that because I was talking to an investment banker based in the Southeast and he’s got a great firm. He’s probably like 60 people. So it’s on the more boutique side, but certainly a great reputation and track record. And he was saying how important it is to specialize even for investment banking. Like one way to get into investment banking that people don’t realize is some kind of specialization. And so it’s interesting that you found that even

on the sort of big four public accounting side, too. So you stayed five years, which is a good run really, right? Yeah.

Mark Allbee (05:51)
Good run. Certainly, and again, I think some of that is where I think I kind of hit a wall and a little bit it was the practice area. So I moved from insurance. I wanted to try see something different. It became much more difficult to do that both within the firm, between partners and moving around and also just finding sort of a foothold. So I moved, did move practice areas from insurance to real estate. And I think maybe when I got,

I don’t know what it was. think for me personally, was like, this was not the kind of jobs that I was looking for. They were like a lot smaller. was looking for, you know, so maybe there was some sense of like, came here, but now, you know, I haven’t been here. So I’m like, not, I’m obviously just picking up whatever is available, which is fine. And I think maybe the reality was for me at the time was like, maybe, maybe you should have done banking or something else. And maybe now is just a good time to like, let’s go get some experience in house and like,

Anna Talerico (06:37)
Right.

Mark Allbee (06:50)
go down a little bit, build up that sort of, I would call it, a little more operational capabilities, a little more management. So, that became a much more attractive field for me. So that’s why I ultimately decided to leave at that time.

Anna Talerico (07:05)
Makes sense. So where did you go? What was your first role after you left KPMG?

Mark Allbee (07:09)
It was a little bit out of the box, too. There’s a company called In Demand, which was actually in the media and technology space. the thing that was attractive to me was at a very young age, I was already assuming a fairly decent sized team. So I was going to be able to build my management capabilities right away. was assistant controller role. It was going to own the budget, which was a big area for me. So that was really the big selling point. My whole existence there was the

obviously closing the books and doing the normal managing the audit and sort of the operational things around kind of payroll and payments and all of the banking and these areas. But also the key point was like actually owning the budget process from zero, you know, from point one to the end. actually having those conversations with the leaders, sitting down, understanding the budget, refining it, presenting it. So, like that skill,

I think was something that in my mind I felt like I needed to do. It’s not something you do in public accounting. You really don’t focus on budgets or forecasting at all.

Anna Talerico (08:13)
Yeah, so that’s funny you say that too because one of the things that people say about coming up through a Big Four is just you get exposed to so much that you learn really how to get your feet under you really quickly, no matter the situation, get your arms around the information and like you just learn and assimilate so quickly, but that you’re not used to taking things all the way to the finish line because you don’t really own things necessarily, right? So.

Mark Allbee (08:26)
Yes.

Anna Talerico (08:36)
I was here, so what were some of the challenges stepping into working inside of an organization and doing some things that you’ve never done before?

Mark Allbee (08:45)
Management was a new thing. So, I certainly managed people in the KPMG world, but I realized that that is a different… Everyone’s sort of like, coming up the same way, so you’ve all kind of gone through that same time. Everyone has different backgrounds, but you have a similar experience set. have, you’re generally, like, if you’re electing to be there, you’re working hard and you’re someone that is going to be geared toward that. Now I’m moving into a world where people are not necessarily looking for that.

They are looking for a bit more of a lifestyle. They want to like work and live. They’re not, you know, not necessarily career involvement, people that have been there for 10, 15 years. So here I was 26 or whatever at the time stepping in and managing people that were like 40 and like, again, no errors about them. And it was fine. But, understanding that sensitivity of like how people were going to work and that you can’t just have the same kind of attitude as like, you know, you’re a senior, you’re, you’re leading, you’re a lead senior on the job and you’re just telling

your other seniors and the associates what to do and they’re going to do it because they know they need to do it. This is different. So you’ve got to kind of work with people. You’re also engagement level is different too, because at a firm you’re in for a bit, maybe three months, even on the high end and then you’re out and then you’re a new set of team. So, and you learn new people and you, you know, you have the commonality, but there you have the people that you have and that’s what you’ve inherited. So unless you have, and you know, from an early on coming into that

Anna Talerico (10:02)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (10:13)
one of the challenges that they were telling me was that the team had challenges and you were going to have to figure that out. And we know going into it that you are not, you’ve never done this before. So like, we’re here to help, but this is going to be an experience. that was something that was interesting. And that was a big challenge for me and having to go through real deep performance evaluations, really getting the experience of like, I need to document a poor performance because not because I, I want to be a jerk, but because

Anna Talerico (10:18)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (10:42)
they, I need to document it so that I can make a decision later. And like understanding that, having those feelings and having to actually make a couple of difficult decisions and move people around and actually terminate a couple of people was different. And then I also had the first experience of actually hiring someone from scratch. You know, I had never done that before, obviously. You just get who you get. Like KPMG has like, you know, obviously world -class recruiting. you don’t, I mean, whatever, you’re just dealing, you’re getting people that are

top flight coming out of school, whereas here you gotta find it and they’re gonna give you, you’ll get leads and there was an HR team and all that, but really meeting people, interviewing, finding the person that you wanna work for and building the right culture was something new to me and that was such an important thing, understated.

Anna Talerico (11:29)
Yeah, yeah, and nothing really prepares you for that, when you’re doing it the first time. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So what do you think, I’m curious, what do you think from your time in public accounting, working at a big four, prepared you for the new role and where do you think the biggest gaps were for you that you maybe struggled with or just were surprised at, other than you’re inheriting a team with.

Mark Allbee (11:33)
You have to do it. Yeah.

Anna Talerico (11:56)
Lots of different skills, which is so different. People say that, you know, you’ve got to figure out what skills do people even have and what their backgrounds are, right? But where do you think it prepared you the most for that first role inside of an org?

Mark Allbee (12:09)
I think, absolutely you have this analytical capability that you come in with, right? So you’ve learned that, they’ve taught you that. skepticism, know it’s like, professional skepticism is like 101 of what you learn like audit day one. So you just have this, you’re gonna check it, like everything, you have this idea of like, so you’re reviewing stuff, like you always trust but verify kind of attitudes, so it kind of ingrains that in you, you’re not gonna just rubber stamp things.

So you are going to go through the efforts to make sure. you build that in. great for management because you inherently have learned to really kind of quickly assess when things are a little off. You have the analytical capabilities, you know, sort of the ability to kind of pull things apart and understand them if it’s a confusing or difficult, whatever it may be, you have those skills. So that you can lean on, and I did. And that helped a lot. That made a big, that was like, made that part of it very easy. And then I…

I think the challenge a little bit is having to manage the different modes of working in different sort of type of work. in public accounting, it’s very focused and there’s different types of what you’re doing, but it’s all within the same, you’re auditing, right? So it’s all within the same sort of guise of getting an audit done. Whereas now you’re at a company, so you’re dealing with a payment problem or a payroll problem. So you have to wear a lot of different hats. You have to be comfortable with that.

Anna Talerico (13:34)
What do you think about your experience at KPMG most prepared you for the role? What skills were you able to say like instantly transferable?

Mark Allbee (13:43)
It is the analytical capability for sure. It’s the sort of skepticism and the ability to kind of look through and quickly assess if something looks off. to try to short circuit when someone’s sending you something, quick things like this doesn’t tie or that doesn’t make sense or the numbers don’t sound right. Be able to very quickly make assessments about data without really getting into the weeds. But then also,

having the skill set to get into the weeds, if you will. So not without, you know, going in, driving into the whole process, but like when you’re given a spreadsheet or an analysis, how you unpack that and make sure that everything makes sense. Like the way that you go through and make sure that like our numbers linking up are, if there’s like different references, is it the same in every place? So that you know you’re dealing with

something that’s working in a self-contained way and then from there you can kind of like are the input then you start driving into what’s wrong with the inputs or is there a problem or how do you assess whether the data is right so that that capability is strong also really working in a team to get a project done is another thing that you really have well well laid out you know at a big accounting firm so you

it’s an audit so you’re really us it’s effectively a sprint and there’s always a little bit of a job but then this always ends up being a sprint at the end so being able to roll sleeves up get it done no matter what it is and sick shoulder so people just figure out like who’s got to do what let’s get it done because here’s a deadline so some of that actually is good and bad because your car parts that but then you get into this kind of private world some of the stuff doesn’t operate on that but you have deadlines but they don’t operate on quite as

height of a timeline always. you’re kind of like a little bit, just like not having that deadline actually is hurtful, think going, that’s sometimes it sounds silly, but like not having clear deadlines. so I’ve had to, what I had to learn how to do, and this took me some time is actually create it for myself, right? Like, so I’m going to build whatever the team is going to do, but I’m going to create that timeline for everybody and whatever you want to call it, closed process. And then budget timelines like,

Anna Talerico (15:48)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (15:59)
everything kind of lives with a project timeline. And I think that was another thing that’s really nice that you learn in a public accounting setting. It’s like the projects are, you know, want to maximize the revenue, of course, right? So you want to maximize your time. So you’re going to be very efficient about how you do it. So you learn how to be efficient with your time.

Anna Talerico (16:18)
Yeah. Yeah. And working with urgency, sounds like too, right? That, yeah, we are running for a finish line and that makes so much sense. what did you like the best about that first role working in private sector where you’ve clearly said this is for me, right? Because we’re going to talk more about some of your additional roles, but what did you like about it?

Mark Allbee (16:40)
So again, I like the autonomy. I loved, you know, sort of being a trusted leader. And the other thing that I would say the difference between when you leave public accounting and you go to private is you’re now in this org and it was purposely done. Like I focused on a smaller org. So it was like maybe 150 people companies. So you get to actually really know all the people. You get to know the departments. You get to know, particularly the other leaders. I was being seen at a, you know, again, at a young age as like,

a key leader within the organization. having the opportunity to see other people and learn from their experience, like there were people that were creative, there were marketing, there were like HR. It wasn’t just finance and accounting folks that I was liaising with. So I was getting this other side of the world and those people were learning from me because they didn’t know. So when we were doing budget, I was the one that was explaining, well, no, you don’t look at it like this, you look at it like that. Or like, this is how we should budget it because like…

you don’t just put everything in and you don’t, and if you put everything in and get it and you don’t spend it like people, the same type of things that people were learning, you’re able to dictate and teach people. But then it’s really being that like a trusted voice and sort of, I guess, building on your voice, right? So like I have an analysis and you know, that was a little bit of a learning curve at that age. Again, you know, having the confidence to come in with, you know, people and say, no, no, you’re wrong. And this is what.

Like, I think this, not like that, but like, you are, like, I think you’re wrong because of this reason and like, this is why. And being able to be respectful, but also like, be forceful about what your point of view is and like, learning from others as well. And like, maybe not everything’s black and white. So those were, those were great things about the role, for sure.

Anna Talerico (18:24)
Yeah, nice. So how long were you there and then what did you do next?

Mark Allbee (18:28)
It was a few, I was there for three years actually. we, honestly, it kind of ran its course. Like the business was not a very, it wasn’t a growth business. It was a sort of a flat line. It existed as a joint venture between some major media conglomerates to provide a service. So it really existed to kind of break even. So as a result, the culture was a little more of a lifestyle company and that was not exactly what I was looking for.

I got what I needed after a few years, like the experience, the management, the budget experience. in that time, I had some flexibility. I thought that what I decided I wanted to do was go back for my MBA because I felt like it was something where I really wanted to slate my experience, like hone in more on the finance capabilities, like the core finance capabilities, more FP&A . I wasn’t going to get that from that angle.

I was very well suited for the controller ship, existing controller roles, but I wanted something that was much more hybrid where I had a broader view of finance. Small was good. Very attractive to me was the startup world. So that’s where I went. I kind of went to a startup pre -seed stage. was a couple of guys that were at the time buying a restaurant business and looking to, with private equity money, make a little bit of investment, rebrand the business and kind of reshape what,

what they were looking to put out there and be a little more efficient, kind of go with cool stuff, like commissary model, like lot of different things that kind of grew up over time, but then was like innovative and new and fresh. So that was interesting to me. And honestly, it didn’t go great for me. I think I did fine there. It was a very fast -paced culture. It was like three or four of us working. It was a lot of, it was a little all over the place.

And frankly, what ended up happening was a big reason I was there was I was going to learn this other side of the business, but I was also bringing forth private equity firm wanted to be able to get audited. They wanted a lot of these things done. So they were like, this guy is perfect because he’s going to get something out of it, but also be able to provide a very stable sort of reporting structure. Business just didn’t perform super well initially. Eventually did, but…

didn’t perform super well initially, CFO left. So I kind of, I was there not that long, like a little over a year. And then I ended up, I ended up leaving. So I had a couple of those, which again, I would reflect on some of those shifts as learning in my experience, but it’s something that I think could be avoided for others that may be watching this, you know, in a way of like just being a little more thoughtful about the moves that you’re making, like, you know, at the time and the thesis, because the thesis sounded right.

But I think at the time I didn’t know enough to really understand the risks, the downside risks, I was still pretty young. And then realizing that it kind of sets you back and you kind of have to go back forward a little bit and work harder effectively to get to where you want to go. Because it’s not all moving, it’s not linear. You’re kind of like maybe taking a step to the side or to the back. that’s what happened. But I still learned a lot from everything that I’ve gone through at those spots.

Anna Talerico (21:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, and going to a seed stage startup is so different than everything else you had done before then. you clearly lived through this startup chaos and all of that. But I’m glad you touched on going to get your MBA and wanting to touch on more FP&A and everything. Because that’s one of the questions I wanted to ask you is just like, you’re so deep right now in FP&A and that mindset and just so much experience. How did you?

It sounds like a lot of that transition was going to get your MBA and then just seeking other roles that would push you there. I know that this is a, I just am curious. I always like to ask people how they would describe the difference between, know, counting and FP&A , because I just love to hear it in people’s own words. Like, how would you describe the two?

Mark Allbee (22:35)
Yeah, I mean, I would say the accounting, mean, again, very simply, accounting like is reporting, it’s sort of reporting the news and like, it’s kind of like projecting the future in a way. But also I would call it as strategic, a little more strategic, whereas the accounting side is much more operational, much more like, like I said, just reporting, which is a critical thing to do. But it’s sort of a lot, it’s a little bit slower pace because you have some, not always, but sometimes you have

Anna Talerico (22:41)
Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Mark Allbee (23:05)
the time to actually review the numbers and spend time with it. So versus an FP&A where things are changing and you have to make assumptions that are not necessarily the kind of assumptions that you’re going to make from an accounting on the accounting side. you, you kind of go through and you have to really tell a story. And a lot of that FP&A side becomes telling a story and projecting that of what

the strategy and the go-forward plan, maybe something that doesn’t exist today, whereas accounting, like I said, is a little more of a historical review, if you will. Like you’re just, you are telling a story, but you’re telling a story of what happened versus what’s going to happen. like you’re also, there’s a bit of marketing associated with FP&A sometimes, right? There’s like a bit of, here’s the data, but I’m going to give you an analysis or a cut on the data, or I’m going to cut it a different way.

Anna Talerico (23:48)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (23:55)
That you would never do in accounting because accounting is, it is what it is. Here are the rules and it operates this way. Whereas you may say, well, this is what happened, but there’s these reasons. So I’m going to throw this out. And if you normalize it, looks like this. And then if you’re on a normalized basis going forward, you can look at it a different way. So you have the opportunity to reframe the reader’s perspective on the data really in the right way. And you need to do it with, you need to present that with honesty and data

but you don’t necessarily have the same rules that you do on the accounting side.

Anna Talerico (24:30)
Yeah, yeah, really well said. Actually, I think that’s right. you’ve got to, sometimes there’s nuance or inference or like as you said, assumptions and things like that that don’t come into play in accounting. So let’s skip ahead a little bit because today you’re the VP of Finance and Operations at Roku Labs. Did I say it right, Roku? Yes, good, Roku. Okay, yeah, tell us a little bit about that role and what you’re doing in that role.

Mark Allbee (24:48)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I could not be happier here. Like honestly, we had such a great, I mean, I’ve been here for a little over a year now. So I started in July of last year and I came in actually through a referral. So I worked in one of my previous roles. I had spent meaningful amount of time with one of the executives. We worked together. I was really his FP&A and a partner. We maintained a relationship for many years. He and the CEO and founder of Roko were also good friends. And he was aware that

that Dima, who is my current CEO, and I just have nothing but respect for Dima, but Dima was looking to take on private equity investment to really look at being a platform and growing the business in a meaningful way. Either way, they needed finance, so it was kind of a win -win, no matter what was gonna happen. We hit it off, I think we have a very similar mindset and a lot of things, and basically I came in right before we were interviewing and looking at private equity firms.

So I had the opportunity to kind of really see it from the ground up, like pre LOI point of view. So understanding sort of like the beginning phases of meeting the private equity firms and kind of talking about the business and hearing how he would talk about the business and the way that we would kind of present things and just be very open about what we were doing and what we were looking to do and transparent. then finding the right partner, like understanding his process on how he assessed

who the right partner was for us versus like someone that wanted to maybe scoop up the company and kind of have everyone be cat, like really just kind of folded into their, folded into a different platform. So really the focus was building a platform with a new party. We found the right partner and Westview Capital Partners could not be happier. They’re like over the moon, like great relationship with those guys. Like, and they said it from the beginning, like this is what they were. And like a year later,

could not be more true. But I’m fast forwarding a bunch of stuff. Like really when I came in, was help close the transaction, work through all the diligence, which we did right off of that. So it was a rapid fire of work and really understanding the business. Great, couldn’t be a better way to learn a business in the diligence cycle. And then actually transform the business from an accounting. were operating cash-based books.

Anna Talerico (27:09)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (27:20)
with like an accrual-based model, so actually be able to get accrual-based books into the system and build recurring processes for payments and invoices and things like this were, it was unique. So in a lot of ways for me, I had been with teams where maybe I would have, know, a guy or a gal reporting to me or another guy or gal reporting to, you know, so there was layers there. So I didn’t touch a lot of the areas that I was having to touch, but in a lot of ways it was wonderful because it brought me back to the basics.

Anna Talerico (27:21)
You

Mark Allbee (27:50)
And it gave me the opportunity to think of things on its head. How do I think of growing certain processes, whether it be my budget cycle or invoicing or accounting and reporting, starting with something that’s simple. You don’t always have to start with, we need a new accounting system and this is a huge investment and a huge cost. This is the thing that I came from. I worked at a few startups and that was the thing that I was told, you’re going to implement NetSuite. We never implemented NetSuite, by the way.

Anna Talerico (28:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Allbee (28:21)
The update was, it was sort of always like, I heard the name, where you think that that’s gonna be the way that you need to do it, so you should evaluate it, but we think that’s what you’ll do. Then you get into it and you’re like, yeah, it’s gonna cost like $200 ,000. And they’re like, no. and you’re more and you need consultants and I’m gonna need to hire people and blah, blah, blah, and all this other stuff. then reality kicks in and I knew that from the very beginning. So I just went in and said,

Anna Talerico (28:35)
Yeah, and take a year or two to get it done. Yeah.

Mark Allbee (28:47)
How am going to do this in the most simple way now and then kick that can down the road a year or two, whatever, maybe forever. I don’t know. But like my idea was like, use what I have and build on. So that’s what I’ve done. you know, it’s been a great experience and now we’re, you know, sort of like humming along going into the next year. So we’re now thinking about planning for the new year and where we going to invest in the business? And that’s been the big conversation is what the next strategy is, how we’re going to invest in.

You being part of that discussion is meaningful for me and it’s a small tight-knit group of folks that are working on it but you know very soon, we’re going look to grow this business substantially so we’re real excited.

Anna Talerico (29:28)
So, fun to be working on something, a growth stage like that, and in many ways, coming in and being able to build things from scratch too. What’s a day in the life like for you right now? And I know you’re in a startup, so it changes all the time, but what’s the current kind of day in the life like?

Mark Allbee (29:45)
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of all over. Like I am a one person finance team right now. So I mean, a lot of it’s sometimes operational and we’re focusing on really key analyses or budget focused or like closing the reporting or as I want to say mundane or as like basic as making payments and actually processing invoices for clients. So it turns, it ends up being sort of a little bit all over, but what I’m, what I’ve been, the main focus has been trying to be more efficient with my time and be

in a way so I can automate more and give myself a little more flexibility and time to work on some more strategic areas. I mean, the business, and I’ve even had some opportunity to work on some business development areas, so it’s been an exciting area for me. Just a bit about the business, we’re a software consultancy, so we do software development consulting. it adds, having a background

like mine where I worked in a lot of software startups, it’s aligned. So I’ve been kind of reaching, mining those contacts to build some relationships. And some are interesting and some are not, but you know, I’m trying to spread the word a little bit about what we’re doing. And, and, know, we really have a, a very like great offering of, of development for folks. And I’ve even brought in a couple of folks interested in projects. So, you know, that’s just, it’s not even about

like achieving that as much as like having the opportunity to like talk about the business and really feel like I’m trying to help grow the business in every which way that I can. yeah, like sometimes it’s really exciting and you know, some days are like I said, you’re just kind of blocking and tackling, but then there’s days that are just super strategic and very like high deep analysis. it changes a lot.

Anna Talerico (31:28)
Yeah.

You have such a unique path, coming into KPMG, cutting your teeth on public account and getting your MBA, working in startups and having all of that full startup experience. What advice would you give to somebody that’s going to come in a background similar years, coming out of a big four, jumping into the startup world? How do they thrive? What do they need to thrive? What skills are important? What characteristics about them or character traits are important? What advice would you give somebody to say,

Here’s how you thrive in a startup world.

Mark Allbee (32:09)
Absolutely. That’s a good question. I think, you know, starting the basics is obviously important, but relationship building, super important. Understated. You everyone talks about networking. This is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about actually building relationships with people that you work with and like, and not being afraid to ask for help or ask them for advice. I think people have given that to me over the years.

Again, I’m here for that reason, right? Like I’m here because of that experience, because I had a good experience with someone and we liked working with each other and I maintained that relationship for years. So that is how, and again, I see that in our business today. Like that’s how we get a lot of business. So like building those relationships is critical, but then also being a little thoughtful about what you want, I think is the other, is the other area. like, if it is that core FP&A role or being thoughtful about like, I need to get

this level of experience because then if I have that, then someone would, that’s looking for me as like a CFO later, they’re like, yes, you check the box on that maybe, or you did it enough. Like you’ll be able to demonstrate your skill or you’ll learn from someone. So finding someone that can mentor you in different capacities or finding someone that can, or finding the right role that you can get those skill sets is like, could not be more important. I know, like in some ways.

Anna Talerico (33:31)
Yeah.

Mark Allbee (33:33)
As you get much later in your career, those opportunities I feel are much harder because everyone is expecting you to come in with a certain level of skill set. like a lot of times, particularly in my role, like I am the subject matter expert. There is no other finance person. So there is no other person for me to talk to. I’d have to find that person outside of the firm. And I have mentors and folks that I actually do look at. So building and maintaining those relationships are critical for later. And it will.

I think that those will, it’s not just from business or getting a job, but it’s also advice and sort of like direction. Yeah, I think it’s not all relationships, a lot of it’s gonna, like that’s gonna open a lot of doors, I think.

Anna Talerico (34:14)
Yeah, that’s great advice. think people, you carry the people with you that you meet through your career and often they become friends, right? So, yeah.

Mark Allbee (34:21)
And I think by them, I think that’s the other side is, know, you show your willingness. And again, I can go into a litany of examples of why I think that I ended up having this relationship, but it’s because I pushed and I showed that I was going to do what it took and like that, you know, and I was going to, I was there for him when I needed it. Right. So like, you know, and there was no, there was really no boundary. I’m not saying you have to be like that. But

showing someone that you’re gonna extend for them, they’re gonna end up extending for you, for the most part. And that’s happened to me. there’s that, but then again, focusing on the right experience and being able to like, okay, if I wanna go into this role, these are the skills. Last thing, if I may, this was actually really good advice. I had a CFO, one of the best people I ever worked for. And when we were talking about this, about growing my career, much…

Anna Talerico (34:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark Allbee (35:15)
getting more of this FP&A experience and being able to, like he was a big champion for me in this regard. One of the things that we did is we did a couple of sessions where he was like, okay, what’s your goal? And it’s like, and it was very thoughtful. And I’ve done this with other people that have been on my teams and they’ve loved it. So I started with what do you want like in words, like, and for me it was like, I to be a CFO someday at X, right? Just like, let’s say that’s what I was saying. And he’s like, okay, what are the skills that you need? Okay, here are the skills. Let’s write them down.

And then in those skills, let’s assess you on those skills. Like here, you’re so strong in this one. Maybe you need more experience here. You have good talent and you have good skills, but you haven’t had the opportunity. So how do we get you these opportunities? then like, you know, we basically were like, okay, and like really like look at, it was like, let’s look at McKinsey and like, what does a CFO need to do? Okay, here’s these five things. And then now we put these on a board and each five, it’s like, here are the things that you do really well. And here are the things that you need more experience in. And then how do we get those? 

It’s so super counter, so super intuitive, but no one really does that. And you know, again, I love that. So I started doing it with my team and they just were over the moon. Like, what do we want? Okay, how do I get? And then maybe there’s things that I can give you. Maybe there’s not, but maybe there’s a way that I can advise you to go that you can get these other things.

Anna Talerico (36:30)
Yeah, yeah, great advice. What a good mentor that person is that did that with you. And then it’s a gift you keep repaying to others. I love it. Mark, thank you so much. This was a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed it. And thanks for sharing about your experience, your career journey so far, and your lessons learned. We appreciate you so much. Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Mark Allbee (36:35)
in.

Thank you.

I can’t wait. Thank you, Adam. I appreciate it. Bye.