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From Data Reels, this is FP &A Today.
Welcome to FP &A Today.
I'm your host, Glenn Hopper.
And today we have an incredible guest joining us.
Evgenia Elisova is the head of regional finance for Southeast Europe at Lindström, one of Europe's leading textile service companies with over 175 years of history.
Evgenia has been with Lindström for 14 years, during which time she's worn many hats, from driving M &A initiatives to leading transformative finance projects.
Her expertise spans everything from business partnering and global finance processes to spearheading development programs that elevate finance professionals to strategic business leaders.
One of Evgenia's most notable achievements is the creation of a two -year development program for business controllers at Lindstrom, designed to transition them from back office roles to strategic co -pilots for management.
Her vision focuses on developing both soft and technical skills, empowering her team to not only provide insights, but also shape the company's future through impactful decision making.
In today's episode, we'll dive into Evgenia's journey, her approach to transforming finance roles, and her perspective on the evolving landscape of FP &A, including her aspirations for leveraging AI and technology in finance.
I know this conversation will inspire and offer practical takeaways for finance professionals everywhere.
So let's dive in. Evgenia, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Glenn. Very happy to be here.
Yeah. So I'm super excited.
I really want to talk about your training program.
But before we dive into that, we need to lay the groundwork a little bit.
So if you could just start us off by kind of walk us through your career journey, highlighting how you came to your current role at Lindstrom and your background leading up to today.
Well, my career started in Finland with the company named Kone.
I received some internship there and it was so exciting for me to be there in Treasury Department and Accounting Department during the summer time.
That I've been actually going around different departments, different people and asking them, what are you doing?
I'm so interested to know, to learn.
And I was so curious that maybe my approach was a little bit different from ordinary.
And that's why I was invited again to Kona to work for one year.
It was a position to replace somebody on maternity leave, but then it was in the group reporting.
So it was also very exciting to work in the group reporting team.
That was the first year, actually, they were implementing KFRS there.
So great, absolutely, experience.
And then after that, again, after one year, there was no open position to continue, but then form a subsidiary of Kone Valtre.
This is the company producing tractors, Valtre Incorporated.
It's part of Arco Corporation, the American company.
So basically, business controller from there wrote me and asked, would you like to join us, assistant business controller?
And I was so happy about that.
I really wanted to continue this journey in business controlling and reporting.
So I started with reporting there.
I was working with subsidiaries, working with SOCs, working with internal audits as well, and mostly concentrating on the closings.
But of course, my passion was always like more in the analysis, how to impact the business, how to predict maybe the future for the forecasts and so on.
So I think it started somehow there.
I spent five years in Waltra and then due to personal reasons, I wanted to move to Helsinki back and I have found Job and Lindstrom.
And you have already spoken a little bit about the company, so I do not need to introduce, but it was, I came as a business controller for subsidiaries.
It was a completely different company, completely different than the company I'm working today.
And I started with the subsidiaries business control.
Then it went more with development because I'm really interested in development and transformation, any kind of finance projects, development.
We were implementing, for example, forecasting process back then.
we didn't have really forecasting before and okay, it was almost 15 years ago, right?
So the systems were very old and then at that time we were implementing forecasting, implementing all these new systems then and it was very exciting and then my path went more to M &A and development of M &A process, I really enjoyed that part because every M &A project is different from one another it
was always something new you know if you are there from the beginning like from then you have the list of target companies then you go into negotiation stage going into the valuation preparing the business case going into due diligences and then I was also participating in integrations as a finance
team lead or as an integration project manager in the end.
So very interesting, exciting, the whole process.
But they understood that I'm much more about this transformation, about development, about really impacting the business.
and about also processes and optimization of the processes.
And then in M &A, maybe I have learned one of my most important principles in life.
You know, in M &A, one plus one is not two, it's more than two, always.
Yeah, there should be added value.
If two companies are joining together, there should be added value created.
Yeah. And then I think it's like basically working everywhere in life, right?
This one plus one is more than two.
And then if you create, for example, the team of people who are working together, there is some added value always created if the person would be working alone and so on.
So this was my finding.
And this is one of my principles that I really like to work with the team and like to work with people together and create value together.
I love the idea of, you know, in a successful merger, one plus one is more than two because, you know, there are so many mergers that best intentions.
I think of, you know, there's a million business school case studies out there.
I think of Kraft Heinz and other ones that were, and, you know, I think that there's, you know, historically, and if you don't do it right, a high percentage of mergers actually end up destroying shareholder value because they make all these promises.
They say there's going to be these synergies and then they fail to achieve them.
And so the fact that you were doing due diligence and also on the integration side, I love that.
And because that's similar to my own background, you know, if you're going to make these assertions about the synergies of merging the two companies and then being able to follow through and do the integration, because that's the hard.
I mean, due diligence is hard, but nowhere near as hard as actually doing the merging and integrating of companies.
So if you're working in that people, systems, processes and all that, that's where the real value comes from.
And that's where the real skill is.
So it's great to hear your background with working on both before the merger and then after actually going through and doing the integration.
This is also interesting because you can focus on the right things during the integration project, right?
Because you've been the person working together with the team on synergies, evaluating those, how much we should get from where and how we can really make this work this one plus one more than two and then you can follow this up and I think this focus is one important thing and second one is you then
what I have found out there is communication is the key for successful integration in many ways apart from this whatever plans we are doing processes you need to communicate it very well and then of course people aspect cultural differences understanding one another, even understanding language -wise,
because you might have different vocabulary in the company.
So this is something which is creating the difference, making things working together so that people is a little bit always more difficult aspect than processes from my point of view.
Yeah. Yeah. So, well, so you've been at Lindstrom a while, but the company, 175 years old, it's amazing when companies endure for that long.
And there's not a lot of them that have been around that long.
And it was super interesting when you mentioned, so you've been there 14 years now and talking about when you started out doing forecasts and that they weren't doing forecasting before.
So I imagine that Lindstrom has probably undergone some pretty significant evolution just in your time.
What are some of the changes that you've seen in transforming the role of business controllers to become those business partners and sort of the changes that have happened around you at Lindstrom.
Yeah, then I came into business control in Lindstrom.
It was more or less controlling was concentrating on reports creation and maybe a bit of analysis.
But now it's really, really getting to this business partnering, to creating, adding value, working more with the team, like with country management team, for example, if you're country business controller.
it's more about looking into the future also not backwards of course you need to understand how you worked out this month but then it's more important to understand what you are planning to do conclusion section plans and this is what our management is looking from business control as some kind of advisory
role more concentration on the future scenarios understanding the base of course is important you need to make sure that there are proper controls in place the processes are running well but then it's coming to analyze this forecasting really advising there is huge role nowadays of controlling strategy
as well now we were creating the new strategy 2030 and then I remember like quite also many years ago I was participating in one program of one Finnish university for business controllers for development of business controls it was also something like maybe 10 years ago and i remember there was c4 very
big finnish company international company but head office was in finland and then the guy was we had the project and we were delivering the results of the project and the project was about the role of controller in strategy and then the CFO of this big company was like telling that I actually do not see
how controllers should be involved into the strategy process CFO and nowadays you can't even think about that right nowadays it's like evident that you need to have controllers and will day you need to have this kind of scenarios future views understanding KPIs developed and I think in our company also so control
assists, supporting strategy by steering, really, on the direction, overlooking KPIs, and keeping the focus.
So this is what we are looking into nowadays.
So I can see huge difference what it was before and, of course, what it is now.
Much more focused on the future, much more focused on scenario thinking, and I'm looking forward to what, really, AI will bring to us because this is, I think AI will change, first of all, our just working day, how it will be structured because it will be, we won't spend so much time with ordinary activities,
right? Like reading emails, we can already create some kind of action plans and please tell me what are the actions points from the emails?
What are the most important things to be done, yeah?
That's already there, but then thinking also for the future what kind of possibilities we have.
how much quality there will be in our work and how much we can gain from there.
This is something incredible.
And I believe that Lindstrom has been taking this role of forerunner in many processes nowadays.
Like I have seen the huge transformation in the company.
And I think that we are really getting there as a forerunner.
I want to dive in to your training program.
However, since you mentioned AI, I want to touch on that quickly.
I know that you really love this topic.
So, you know, I'm talking to companies a lot now that they'll come to me and they'll say, oh, we need to incorporate AI.
And we always start with an assessment.
Before they could even, most companies could even think about AI.
We need to make sure that they have BI, make that they have data, that they have analytics, that they have a good FP &A system.
because if you, you know, you can't just wave the magic AI wand over something and make it turn into just magical solutions.
But I think there are a lot of things that even if it's not fully integrated into your systems yet, there are some things that companies can do, forward -looking companies can do safely to experiment with AI.
And I'm wondering if in your department, are you and your team using any AI tools right now?
Do you have policies and guidelines around it or sort of a focus on the future with it?
What are you guys doing?
Well, we basically, first of all, you started with data and analytics.
We have the data and analytics team who are taking care of our data or data warehousing.
But then we have also the person there who is actually concentrating fully on AI and development of AI within the company.
And I think if I would look to the last two months, I think there were at least six or even seven sessions about how to use AI.
What are the latest developments there are in different tools, like in Teams, for example, how you can use it or how you can use it.
Like let's say our guys were looking how you can use it in Excel.
of course, it's maybe dragging a little bit behind other, but after all, in Outlook, how you can use AI and so on.
So you can really, in very practical way, use the tools.
So companies creating for you all the possibilities for this transformation.
And we have, I think our communications team is also very, very good in that.
They are recognizing this kind of a coffee break.
They have 15 minutes, people are gathering together, and then they are also looking how to create with the help of AI posts in social media, for example, or something like this.
So really very useful tips and very practical ones as well.
So it's all about practice in the end.
And of course, following up about the development, what's the latest development, what's been lately develop and how we can utilize it.
So this is what the company is doing.
I'm glad they're doing proactively leaning into it and giving the training and all that and giving, you know, areas where, okay, this is where you can use AI today and focused on the future.
So that, and the fact that you guys have an analytics team and all that, that's a, you're in a great place set to kind of ride the AI wave.
I know there's a lot of companies I talk to, especially, you know, if you have an older, more traditional company, a lot of times they're just very, they're very slow to change and they don't want to, you know, rush anything.
So to hear that you guys are taking a proactive approach, that's exciting.
Okay, so I really want to hear about this program because I think the fact that the program is two years long really sends a message because I've worked at a lot of great companies where they'll offer training and there's reimbursement for training that people do on their own.
And maybe, you know, there's company -wide training.
It's kind of like throwing darts And it's, okay, we're going to do a session on this today.
We're going to do a session a couple months.
We may not do one for three months, and then we're going to do another one.
But the fact that you have a program that is two years long, and it's very orchestrated, that speaks so much.
And I imagine, I know we talked before the show, you know, you're a good ways through it now, and you're starting to see results.
But I guess without me just yammering on about it, I want to switch and let you tell me about the program and where it is now and where it's going.
I want to hear all about this.
of course I'm happy to tell about that because I'm waiting also for our graduation of our guys and results what they can bring to the company but this is I can tell about that a little bit later yeah but about the program maybe I should start a little bit about also transformation we had generally in finance
we named this project Finance Forerunner and then some years ago we decided that, okay, it's good to create this specialized center for basic processes.
We created it in Helsinki.
So that invoicing, for example, the purchase invoice management accounting, it will be in one place handled.
So the basic process is handled in this centralized finance center.
And then same time in the countries, we have much more business support.
So there are business controllers in countries, and then they are not handling this kind of basic things.
They are concentrating on financial planning and analysis.
And then we have defined it and started this transformation.
Second part of this project was about, OK, what is the actually business controller's role and what is basic role and what is advanced role?
And how to take business controllers from this basic to advanced, yeah?
Because advanced, it's already this kind of role of advisory, being some kind of like, let's say, reading the map, helping to management to drive the car, right?
So being part of the team and through the means of numbers, help to navigate the business.
So we started with defining this and then we thought like, okay, we really need to develop people.
And I was in charge of that part then.
And then I was very much interested in how fast to take controllers from this A to B.
How to transform from this basic reporting or this kind of back office role more to the front line.
And our controllers nowadays even like, let's say, also visiting the customers together with their sales, helping with sales even.
Yeah, so they're very active.
They are not sitting anymore somewhere in the back office, but they are also having a very active role in business.
That's so great. And that's such a part of business partnering now.
I think when, you know, I've been doing this for a million years and when I started in finance, it really felt like we were in this sort of protected bubble, like away from the rest of the company.
And we just sat there with our spreadsheets and just crunched numbers and did things and you didn't get out and, you know, work with sales and work with operations and work.
So I think that you're kind of riding the wave of just like with AI, of sort of seeing how your teams can be more effective and getting them out with not just in operations, but actually going out and dealing with customers and seeing, you know, these widgets that I'm counting, actually, here's the impact
and this is what they do.
So I love that part of it as well.
Of course, it requires not only like business controller going around, like I can help you, I can help you, there should be support from management.
And of course, we need to support developing the role, explaining to the management what related value we can provide.
And now I believe our management really sees the value, really understands what business controllers can provide.
And then requirements as well are growing, growing and growing.
But this is very good.
That means that there is really understanding of the value we can provide.
And this program we have created, first of all, I'm not alone.
yeah i'm like let's say leading this up but then i have a team of people helping me and we thought it would be nice to have people from different backgrounds different functions so basically there are also country business controllers in the countries then supporting this then there is also communications
manager hr supporting and also controllers from head office because we have head office functions as well and it's they have group business control in health thinking and they're concentrating on more like this competence center support like for example HR support operation support and so on basically
the program we started it in May 2023 yes so it's like about one and a half years a little bit longer for now lasting and the idea was is like really take our business control to the next level, to create business partnership in all levels in the organization.
That was our target.
And the idea behind how to structure the program was that we will do it in a very agonized way.
We will have monthly sessions and these sessions will be very practical and these sessions will be also helping them in everyday job.
Yeah. So we are not going to give any theory or we are not going to speak about how certain tools are working.
They should know that already.
They are going to the advanced role.
So we are concentrating more on the business cases to understand the knowledge.
We are creating quizzes.
We are making this exciting decisions, every session exciting and interesting for them.
they're really looking how to get the most out of session because you know usually if there is some education is ongoing and then there is a session somebody's talking very long and then you are sitting there and if it is especially online you might be doing whatever they are on the background so how
to make people really get involved and we are doing it of course through also making this breakout rooms, that they have to do some tasks together.
So it's really very interactive and it's helping us also to build up this business controllers community because we have 24 countries and there are people from different countries together.
They do not see each other very often.
This program is helping them also to organize this community and to ask questions.
If, for example, they would like to know something or to get help they can always go like our uk controller but go to our controller in sweden or like to to get some expert advice so it's very important for building community for them to work together and one of the ideas was that we will mix them there
we usually have for this monthly sessions pre -work or homework and it's usually done in the group so in pairs.
We do not do too much of the individual tasks so that we can mix people from different countries and make them work together as well.
They can train their communication skills and soft skills.
Yeah. And of course we are putting the sessions, of course there are sessions about very important topics in finance, which are more like of finance, hard skills, like pricing, or maybe we are looking to scenario planning or we are looking into reporting systems and how to utilize the reports, like
really sharing the experience, what reports you are using for what purposes because we have nowadays there is a lot of information, vast amount of reports, but then like what's the best, what are the best reports to utilize, how to modify those, especially for your purposes, share their experiences,
how they are following the data, how they are looking into the future and so on.
So it's like maybe level up from this basic trainings, then you're explaining what has to be done, how the tools are working and so on.
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I didn't think about this before, but the idea that there's not individual work, that's really smart because I think so many finance and accounting people, we get into this because we're maybe naturally introverted and we'd like to go off and get lost by ourselves working in a spreadsheet versus having
to do that interaction and communication with people.
So if you send everybody off doing the homework on their own, sure, they'll do it and they're getting what they would out of the assignment.
But when you pair them up or put them in groups, I like that better because it's just driving home more and more that partnership and that communication and that relationship.
And especially, like you said, you guys are in a couple dozen different countries and you've got, I'm assuming, remote workers as well.
And so people that don't interact a lot.
So driving them to work together, I think that's just great.
And then during, we structured so that there are monthly sessions and then at least we decided that at least three sessions will be about soft skills development because hard skills are important, but then soft skills are getting to be much more important nowadays Then there is much more interaction,
communications, how to present, how to tell the story.
So we are training these skills also.
And at least one session per year, we told that, okay, we will put people really together physically face to face.
And actually, we had two sessions like that.
Those both were in Helsinki.
But those days were really interesting, fun.
And there was also some possibilities for networking, spending time together.
So I think those were really, really great sessions.
A bit like controllers days, but very, very much oriented to soft skills development.
The first session was about communication skills with very practical tasks on presenting and communicating.
And last session was beginning of September.
and it was more about leading and leading the projects also in project management because on the second year we thought okay these monthly sessions those are good but then we would like actually on the second year create the value more for the company i think we're already creating value by this giving
this homework or tasks which are actually related to their everyday business work like create the scenario or like let's say support some like let's say pricing methods and so on but we decided that okay people should work together we put five teams together and this last year of bpa business partner
academy they're working all the over the projects yeah And by the way, one project is about AI and finance.
So the guys are working for one yet to really recommend something very practical and how in finance.
So you may tell them I have a book recommendation for them, you know.
I might be able to get a discount too.
Just let me know. All right.
All right. That's very good.
Yeah. And then REST, this is a very interesting project.
And then there are four more projects and they are oriented to our also new strategy and support to the strategy.
But then they are related, for example, to benchmarking or to sales support or like one project is related to certain area of pricing, how to develop high value pricing.
So I believe that those are very, very much needed and they're adding value for the whole Lindstrom group.
That's great. And those are the hard skills in having them in projects where it's an interesting approach to do it that way because it's part of the academy, but it's also doing sort of extra work for the company, but it's changing their mindsets and giving them a new way to think think and having these
group projects and maybe if it's people from different subsidiaries and all that, I could see.
And it's much more fun.
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned all the sort of the hard skills that they're working on, but also the soft skills are so key and it's great to see a company because people, maybe they'll go on their own and figure it out.
They'll get a certification.
They'll figure out, oh, these are some soft skills I need to work on.
But having the company giving that training is really great.
Again, thinking back early in my career, I would joke that the reason I was able to be promoted quickly in some scenarios was, one, I was very good at Excel and two, I was very good at PowerPoint.
And I didn't even know the notion of storytelling back then.
But I would say that kind of jokingly, but now looking back, being good at PowerPoint means you're able to sort of tell a story and you can do all kinds of, you could build incredible models in Excel, But if you can't distill them down to that information, the storytelling to kind of get your point
across, then it's all for naught.
So I think there's a lot of people, especially early career where you see it, you're deep in, you understand all the numbers, you're doing the analytics, but then you have to convey it to people who aren't as deep in the numbers and who maybe are not statisticians and their background is not FP &A, their
other management functions and being able to explain to them how you reached a conclusion and why you're making the recommendations you are.
that's such an important part of the job.
That's right. And actually, I wanted to mention two things more.
First thing is that for every session, we always try to invite people from the business.
For example, last session we had about our strategy and one of the strategic programs we are implementing currently, we invited two senior vice presidents of the region to the roundtable and we were discussing what are the expectations from controllers, from their controllers from their countries uh
in this next strategy period how they see for example in 2030 what controller would be how they will support the country management team how they are going to be what is their dream controller for example and it was very interesting to listen yeah and it's important uh for the controllers also to listen
how how the top management is perceiving them and what are their recommendations for development.
And that is one of the principles also.
There is always people from the business and their business partners invited for those sessions.
Doing this training and with your teams just scattered across, you know, all throughout Southeast Europe, and then you've got the centralized functions in Helsinki, like everybody working together.
How, I just think of, you know, you've got your individual personalities And probably, even though you want to standardize as much as you can, there's probably processes in the different subs that are slightly different.
Like, how does orchestrating and coordinating all that work to take all these subs and roll them up into the corporate function?
Of course, there might be the processes.
We have pretty much the company has standardized the processes.
Basically, we are running same business lines in different countries And then, like, let's say it's always, you know, that finance is covering the business in the best possible way where support is needed.
That's where we are trying to focus always.
But I think that having these centralized processes and process development in head office, but then in the countries, then actually the frontline development utilizing, like, let's say, concentrating on the growth.
But then the head office will collect the best practices, the best support and coordinate those processes that will help to optimize those.
You know, since we just got through budget season, one of the things that I always think about when you're dealing with so many subsidiaries and budgeting, you know, there's the top -down approach or the bottom -up approach and then thinking about how you deal with it in the subs.
So doing your forecasting and financial modeling, how much comes from corporate and how much comes in from the sub?
Can you walk us through the budgeting and forecasting process, how that works?
Well, basically, I think we are getting off from this budgeting.
Of course, we call it budgeting, but it's like target setting for us for the next year.
So our forecasting is rolling forecasting.
We have 16 months rolling forecasting, and we are updating it on monthly level.
And basically, it's coming from the countries.
We have, you know, it's not really, of course, there is steering from the top, yeah?
But it's always coming from the countries.
They are on monthly level updating the latest developments.
They are doing it to their best knowledge, yeah?
And then basically, I would say it's more down -top approach than top -down in our way.
So it's coming from all the organizations, from subsidiaries, from cost centers owners.
They're making the forecasts, and then we see the big picture.
Gotcha. Yeah, it's got to be just getting everyone to coordinate and work together and get those inputs and all that.
And then you've got the steering and you know where the goals are and everything.
Yeah, that's right.
But what is good about our business, like we have rental textile services, so it's pretty much predictable, yeah?
We have long contracts, long -term customer relationship is one of our values.
And then the predictability is much better than in some other businesses.
So in this way, in the long -term customer relationships, you can very well predict, yeah?
Unless there is some unexpected events coming like COVID and this kind of the world is getting more like, let's say, unpredictable.
So, of course, we have to build scenarios for some events.
But at the same time with our business, I think you can really, really create very, very close to reality forecasts.
us. And, you know, that's, we talk to people from so many different industries.
And whenever I talk to people, I do, we haven't talked about what Lindstrom does and being in the textile service industry.
And if you could maybe, just because I think about all the, our listeners from all the different organizations and industries and, you know, everything from e -commerce to textile and CPG and all the businesses they're in.
What do you think, like, so in the textile industry, Are there some really important KPIs that you monitor that might be different than other industries?
Or what are some unique challenges and opportunities leading FP &A in textiles?
Textile rental. So, yeah, good question, actually.
I think it's important.
Efficiency KPIs are very important for us because we are having this kind of big commitment for circulate economy, sustainability and sustainable solutions in our company and of course we need to optimize the usage of textiles to make sure that that these promises are fulfilled to the customers here
I believe of course we are looking to the growth and we are growing steadily and to profitability but again And in the long term customer relationships, you have to take, of course, actions for the price increases or like let's say for pricing actions or for recalculating price lists.
But in the end of the day, you can keep the steady profitability level as well.
So I think from that point of view, rental services is pretty stable business, if you steer it right, of course.
And I just, you know, thinking about 175 years of business in Lindstrom's account and thinking of how much historical data you have.
Now, I know the company wasn't all, you know, we weren't doing data and analytics 175 years ago, but just the, it would be interesting to just watch over time, you know, tied to macroeconomic changes and industry changes and inflation and technology and all that, it's probably a pretty fascinating history
to see how it's grown over that time.
It is. And we are getting more and more knowledge and more and more understanding how better to run the business because we are looking to different industries as well, which we can support.
For example, with workwear rental, it can be absolutely different industries supported and we can look and focus on the growing industries, on the industries in the future, which will, the forecasts are very positive as well.
So diversify as well our offering.
So that's what we are doing already as a company.
And it's great. I mean, for a company to be around that long, it's got to have generational turning over leadership and all that and stay forward thinking and not just rely on what's happened in the past.
And it sounds like with everything you guys are doing that you really are evolving with the current times and I just, one of the biggest takeaways for me though is that training program.
And I guess I really, if you have any advice for other finance leaders who are hearing this and they're thinking, wow, that's, I mean, that's a real commitment to be able to train the team.
What advice would you give finance leaders who were looking to implement like a similar business controller program in their organization?
Well, it's, I think it's all, always starts with people.
You need to find somebody who is very interesting to drive it.
I'm very much personally committed.
I enjoy seeing the change and seeing the change, especially in the quality of controllers work.
If I can see the value added through the program, then for me, it's like the best I can get out of there.
So I'm very excited about that.
And I'm excited to drive it.
Same time, I receive a lot of support from my management.
Our CFO was like, yeah, let's do it.
And this is one of the very important things to get the support and to have this.
Okay, you have this great idea.
Well, let's do it. Just start it.
Let's see how it will go.
And after all, what is good for internal programs that you can really create something great and you do not need to invest very much into that.
yeah and then you know exactly if you have long experience in the company if you know what exactly is needed you can make it tailor made exactly for your company yeah you know what is needed to be done yeah so i think that's that's all again about people individuals and support i i get so good support
from our communications manager her name is annie She's absolutely great.
And by the way, in this program, this is what I was telling to you about.
It's the general path.
It's two years, monthly sessions, four hours, monthly sessions, and these face -to -face sessions.
But then we have created also personal development paths for people.
Same time, during these two years, we are supporting them in personal development.
And what they're interested about, they can ask for mentoring support, coaching support during this all two years.
They can come to me and say, hey, I need support with developing this skill.
And to help them to define this development areas, we do 360 ways for them.
Then they can ask people with whom they are working about the soft skills and how they are doing.
And are there some areas their colleagues can recommend for them?
And that's only for them.
If they do not want to share it with anybody, it's okay.
It's just for their personal development.
So now we are running the second survey and the last will be, then the program will be finished.
That's great. And I would imagine one of the benefit that it maybe isn't as loud as some of the others, but a real benefit has to be employee morale to see that the company's investing in them and giving them these opportunities and giving them collaboration opportunities.
I bet that leads to, you know, it'd be interesting to see surveys and see morale of the employees that are going through all this versus some who don't have programs like that.
I think our we care culture, we have this we care culture, it's really supporting this mentoring and coaching support because you can receive this coaching from top management as well.
You just need to go and be brave enough to tell that this is the area that I needed and this is what I need to understand, learn from you and this is where I need help, yeah?
Because it's always responsibility of the person.
Your development is your responsibility and then as well, I would say, how much you can take out of this program.
You can take really a lot or then you can take little.
The participation level is important.
And for example, we are also running small groups coaching for communication skills and for influencing skills.
Now there are a group of five, six people there within the program.
So we found out that there were more than, let's say, more than five people interested in developing communicating skills and developing influencing skills.
And then we created a small group so that they can also work together, develop those share.
And I believe that those groups were working for the last eight months.
So, well, this has been just fascinating hearing about everything that you're doing at Lindstrom and about your career progression and about the training program there.
I do, as we wind down the shows, there's two questions that we ask all of our guests and I'm going to throw them out to you here and I'm going to put you on the spot with these because we were talking before and we didn't get you the questions beforehand.
So what's something that not many people know about you?
Something maybe that they couldn't find just by googling you well i think that sometimes maybe not lately because i have a daughter of three years old and i try to spend my free time with her mostly but before that i actually finished the music school and we have the huge front piano downstairs in the office
and after the office hours very often I was just going there downstairs and playing piano and enjoying because I really music classical music that was something which is also my kind of way of meditating and release from the emotions so it is something maybe not too many people nowadays know because last
three years because of my daughter was very little, and now she's free.
I wasn't doing that.
But before that, it was very often that I was just sitting there enjoying the music.
I know that some people were listening to it because usually it was after office hours, but then they were coming to me to say like, oh, you've been playing piano again and so on.
It was fun and nice.
That's great. Well, now you can have your daughter sit on the bench with you and you can play together.
Start her out with some chopsticks and move her on up.
Yeah, I can teach her.
She is actually singing very well.
I have noticed at the age of three, she's really getting the notes correctly.
So maybe we can start that, that I will be playing the piano and she will be singing.
I love it. All right.
Now for the hard question.
What is your favorite Excel function and why?
Like I would say, maybe if I'm using Excel, it's VLOOKUP.
And VLOOKUP. So, you know, I was before I took over as host of the show, I was the guest on the show.
And I said, and VLOOKUP was my favorite.
And when I said that, I've talked about it a lot since then, because we always ask this question.
but someone told me that that was the best way to date yourself and show how old you are because people who came along later, there's VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP and then index match, and now there's power query and all that.
So just, and I said, you know what, when I started out, that was my go -to and I understand that the other ones are more powerful or whatever, but VLOOKUP is going to be my default.
So I'm right there with you.
Yeah, welcome to the club.
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
I guess just the last question, if any of our listeners wanted to connect with you on social media or follow up, how can our listeners connect with you?
I think they just can write me on LinkedIn.
Perfect, perfect. And we'll put your profile in the show notes too so they can reach out there, yeah.
Well, Evgenia, thank you so much for coming on the show.
This was really enjoyable.
I love what you guys are doing and keep up the great work.
Thank you very much.
I have great support also from the company to do all this.
So I'm really happy to be there.
