Why Finance Must Evolve or Become Obsolete with Anders Liu-Lindberg

Why Finance Must Evolve or Become Obsolete with Anders Liu-Lindberg

Anders Liu-Lindberg: So I'm a finance person, you're a business leader. I come to you on a market basis. Hey Kelly, I'm not here to beat you up because you're not meeting your, your budgets. I'm here to talk about how can I help you actually meet and beat those budgets, right? Mm-hmm. So I'm here to help. And then you say, oh, that's Andres.

That's really, really nice. I've never heard him again, a finance person Talk to me like that. Here are some of my big struggles. Okay, Hillary, let, let's talk about those struggles. I may not be able to help you with all of them, but here are a few where I think can actually, you know, provide some value.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And then we talk about that and maybe I need to do some analysis and I come back and accept it and whatnot, but I'm working on your issues, doing what? I'm doing good, doing well at, right, doing analysis, doing all these things so that structure, that approach will help them to actually have better interactions with people.

It doesn't mean you, let's say if I'm your accountant, we need to be best buddies and I need to know everything that's going on in your private life. No, but it's of course nice to be able to have a conversation if you watch the ball game in the week or whatever interest that you have, right? Yeah. So that I'm not just this.

Cold prick that's coming to you with the hot facts and saying, you know, something is wrong, you gotta fix it.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development Podcast.

Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business,

brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome. To the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 310 of the Business Development Podcast today. It is my absolute pleasure to bring you Anders Liu-Lindberg. Anders is a global thought leader in business partnering and finance transformation dedicated to turning finance teams into a strategic powerhouse as partner and chief commercial officer at the Business Partnering Institute.

He works with CFOs and finance leaders to help them evolve from traditional number crunchers into key decision makers who drive business success. With a strong background in finance, fp and a and business controlling, including years at Maersk, Anders has a deep understanding of how finance functions can create real impact.

He's also a LinkedIn learning instructor, a bestselling author, and the founder of the world's largest business partnering community, where he shares cutting edge insights on the future of finance. Passionate about helping finance professionals stay relevant in a rapidly changing world. Anders believes that finance must either evolve or risk becoming obsolete.

His mission is to crack the code on business partnering, ensuring that financial teams don't just track numbers, but help shape the future of their organizations. A no nonsense approach and a relentless drive for change. Anders is redefining what it means to be a finance leader in the 21st century.

Anders, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Thanks a lot, Kelly. I should steal that intro. That was awesome. Making it seem like, uh, yeah, hopefully I can live up to that. But let, let's see. Thanks a lot for having me here. It's a true pleasure.

Kelly Kennedy: Dude. There is no question you are leading this field, like zero zero, so don't even stop being so humble.

Um, you know what? From like the moment that I figured out who you were and we had our first conversation, I've been excited to have this conversation with you. One, because I had no idea what business partnering was. I'm like, I don't know whether I had my head in the sand or not. I'm excited to have that conversation with you today.

I am in North America. You're in Copenhagen, Denmark, so little bit different worlds, but hey, you know, like. It's what, zero or three degrees there for you today? It's zero for me. So we're closer than we think.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah, exactly. So four degrees, I was checked, uh, four degrees Celsius. Right. So I'll just check the Apple watch here.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Yeah. We just warmed up to zero Celsius today, so, uh, yeah, we're, we're living same, same equator.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Exactly. Exactly.

Kelly Kennedy: But yeah, no, it's, uh, it's really interesting. At the end of the day, business partnering, when I finally kind of did some digging and saw what it was, I was like why is this not the way that we operate finance in every single business?

I'm really excited to chat with you about that today. I know for a fact that probably 90% of my listeners have never even heard the term before, so it's gonna be a deep dive. It's gonna be, you know, uh, a drinking from a fire hose moment. I think we're gonna slam 'em with a lot of information. I'd love to chat with you about the future of finance.

I know you talk about AI quite a bit and I'd love to chat about maybe. What are those impacts gonna look like for the finance sector as we move, you know, into 20 27, 20 28 and beyond? Ah, but before we do that, how did you end up on this journey? How did you end up such a thought leader in this area?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah.

You know, sometimes I ask myself that, uh, Kelly, and, you know, we have to go many years back by now, right? Uh, so I, I actually worked in, uh, in, in North America for two and a half years as well, down in Houston, Texas. Uh, yeah.

And I got there in, in, uh, early 2012, uh, you know, young, 27-year-old. Very hopeful about the future in his career and everything else.

My first leadership role of small team and, and so forth. So really, really exciting. Yeah, exciting times. And of course I spend a bit of time just getting, uh, the job onto the wraps as well. But then sitting over there starting ponder, well, how should how should finance be, be different. How can I use my experiences?

How can I use that to promote my, my career, both inside Maersk, but maybe also, you know, what are your outs? Have one day? And then I started, uh, writing and talking without knowing what it should lead to.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And then in, uh, in May 2014, so one 10 years ago now, uh, LinkedIn, which is my main social media platform, opened up for their blocking product.

Back then it was a very traditional blocking product. You could obvious blog and then, you know, maybe someone will be right. And I dare say, I think the first 27 blog posts, no one was really reading it, 1, 2, 3 oh people. No one, but, but it wasn't like, uh, you know, had these stories about people publishing and then they went to the bathroom and they came back and there was 200,000 people having read it.

Yeah. Uh, so it was kind of slow, uh, but then, you know, it's like already started to, uh, to build. So I, you know, since May, 2014, I've basically published one plus, let's say blog post a week. Wow. And in 18, LinkedIn launched that newsletter product where I was part of data group. And I could then start the newsletter.

People can subscribe to it as they can to newsletters. And over the years, lots of things have happened. And, you know, today there's a newsletter with close to 350,000 subscribers on, on LinkedIn. Wow. But all this writing, you know, led to, people kind of seeing, oh, who is this Anders guy?

Maybe just like you, uh, Kelly, who, who's this guy? I've never heard about him. Sounds interesting what he's talking about. Let me, lemme meet with him. So in, in 16 there was two, uh, two critical meets, if you will. Uh, one was a guy called Bo. Uh, Bo. He was writing a book about business partnering. I was writing about it in, in, in, in the Small, let's say, you know, articles here and there.

But he had read an article I'd written for Magazine in, in, in Denmark. And then he reached out to me and said, Anders, I'm writing his book together with one of my colleagues. You wanna be a part of it? Yeah. Who doesn't wanna be a part of writing a book?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And he had already written like, uh, 275 pages by that time.

And the book, uh, ended up being 410 pages, something like that.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: But that, that meant published the first book probably ever to be written about business partnering at least kind of, uh, end to end and not just, uh, you know, a few, a few 50, a hundred pages here and there. And so that was, that was 16 and then late 16, that was early 16.

Late 16, uh, Michael reaches out to me. Michael at that time was a senior manager at Deloitte. He was getting tired of, uh, moving people from, uh, head offices here in maybe in Scandinavia and put them out to Asia somewhere in a service center and offshore them and no worries. Really focusing on what happens then to the people that are, that are left, those are not necessarily let go.

How do we develop those? He wanted to develop those into business partners, which was what ER was talking about here in the Nordics at least. So he reached out to me and said, Hey Anders, you are doing a lot of this stuff. I have some thoughts and dreams of maybe wanting to do something different. Should we talk about that?

So we met, uh, some very gloomy, uh, afternoon day in, uh, in Copenhagen and he shared a bit about his dream and I was like, well, I'm writing the book right now. My wife is already a bit there and now I'm sad as such, but she's not too happy with all the time of take. So like I know what I can do, but we kept talking throughout 2017 and April, 2018.

We. Found and launched the Business Partnering Institute, uh, which is, yeah, where we at today, so to speak, uh, almost, uh, seven years later. So there's not a single event or something I can, uh, I can touch on, but it kind of, you know, reflecting on it, I have a simple, uh, model that I use. Yeah. Which is keep building.

I just keep building something, whether it's for myself as a brand or for others. I don't always know what it's gonna lead to. Yes. But it history proves itself. Again, it's gonna lead to some very exciting, interesting, and great things.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my gosh, what an incredible story and an incredible lesson as well, Anders.

You know, I look at, I look at that a blog post a week. That is, you know what I mean? I do two podcasts a week. So like I understand the commitment of making that commitment and sticking with it, dude, it takes grit, it takes determination. There were a lot of weeks where you're like, I don't got it in me.

Not to mention people don't talk about how challenging content creation is. So obviously I do these interview shows, but once a week I actually do an individual show where I show up and I teach business development, not so unlike what you're doing. And I, and it's hard like coming up with content especially, and people, the funny thing about content is people think it actually gets easier.

And my argument is it's easier in the beginning and as you go further and further down the rabbit hole, it gets harder. And it's not just because content creation is hard, it's because your expectations of yourself in blog post number one, are a hell of a lot different from blog post 501, right?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, we maybe see it a little bit different in the sense that. Content ation, like everything else, like it's skill.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Right. And if you keep working at it, you get better at it. And then as you say, Kelly, maybe you raise your expectations for yourself so you know, the complexity and the challenge of it, you know, is maybe always somewhat the same.

But, you know, I always, and I kind always say to people in terms of concentration that, I could look at a tree or a stone or a person or have a conversation and, and some content will appear, not necessarily like a tree, but about something relevant to, to my audience. And, because of course now the, the social media party is such a big thing of, of what creators are doing these days.

Uh, you also have lots of engagement conversations. And of course now we're consulting companies. We also have a lot of coffee chats with clients and whatnot. And every single engagement, there's a story there that just needs to be told one way or another. So being a blogger where kind of had to a week, two week think about something to write about.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: It's more to hear all these stories. And I often hear myself, you know, going from one coffee meeting maybe to today's coffee meeting and saying, you know, so yesterday I was with a potential client and we talk about this, that, and then the client did like this and I was like, okay, we'll possibly double that in the meeting.

Yeah. And then on the next day we say, oh, we just talked to the other client, uh, yesterday and uh, when we talk about this, the client did like this. Is that also your experience? Right. So it becomes a much more relational storytelling thing. That just evolves naturally. But if you look at it from the outside, you know, and of course you know, when all the partners in the company that are not necessarily content creators and and writing a lot, they're like, there's, after more than 10 years, how can you keep coming up with new stuff to write?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And, you know, somehow it just keeps coming. 'cause it's, it's a skill. You know, I think someone said if you practice something for 10,000 hours, you become a champion at it. Right. And I think that's, that's, that's probably where you and I are in this field. Right. Uh, but then we just raised the expectations so we keep, keep, keep each other sharp.

Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Have you ever experienced writer's block?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Not really. Okay. Uh, and maybe that's a, a big thing to say because of course sometimes you sit down and write something and it doesn't flows as naturally as, as another time. But I've never sat down, looked at a piece of writing and not be able to progress within a very short, uh, period of time.

You know, we spend. Six months during last year, writing a book. It's gonna come out here later in in the springtime. And, of course we had an outline with chapters and whatnot, but from there you had some slide deck and I just, I just wrote, so in terms of, uh, a four pages and work, yeah.

I just sat down, I start writing, and then a few days later, there was 15 pages, then chapter gone.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: That's, that's just my process. And I know that's different from many other people. Many other people, they may need a lot of thinking and this structure and whatnot, and then, then they can start writing.

I I just write and then it somehow comes, uh, comes to me probably because I've been doing it for so many years.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing. Yeah. No, I wouldn't say that I've necessarily experienced writer's block, but when I'm doing like, show plans, right, because I do show plans twice a week. So when I'm doing show plans, specifically not for my interviews, because I'm always so curious for these interviews, right.

I just love to talk, I love to ask questions. So like, these are so easy for me. The actual individual shows over time, I've found sometimes I gotta coax it outta myself, you know what I mean? So I have this like, little habit, and I kind of wanted to like ask you if you have any weird writing habits where I actually put on like nineties alternative music.

So I'll, I'll have some like Foo Fighters, some Blink 180 2, maybe a little bit of Van Halen in there. And I'm just like, that's my like happy place. And if I can get there, I find that I can coax writing outta myself. So sometimes I'll like just set a fire and I'll just kind of hang out by the fire on the floor with my music playing, writing my show plan.

And for me, that's been something that I've been able to like, coax out even when I'm not feeling like it, even when I'm not in like the creative zone, I can make it happen. Yeah. Um, I, I think maybe that's what, maybe that's what it's, it's not that like, it's not that. It's hard necessarily. I think that over time you have to figure out how can I make myself more creative?

Yeah. How can I, like, get things flowing? Do you have any like weird rituals like that to kind of help you out?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: I won't call them rituals and stuff, but I also like the music part. Right. Uh, my wife, she's from China and of course I'm from Denmark, right. So it's not that she can't speak Danish, but you know, just to keep a level playing field.

We speak English at home, but that also means I never hear, for instance, the Danish music. Right? Yeah. That I actually do like some, some Danish music. So when I'm just, you know, working from home or, you know, having to focus on something, I put on some, uh, you know, there's some current, uh, Danish music that I like to listen to.

Right. And that, that always gives me a nice, uh, a nice kind of feeling. So, so music, uh, definitely follows me, me a lot on something that that just puts me in a nice setting to be able to, uh, to write. Yeah. Uh, but then I think the other part is really just, taking a topic. And just keep unfolding it.

Of course, now with, you know, AI tools and everything else, it come becomes easier to unfold topics and get ideas of how to unfold them. But, business partner, you, you mentioned that in the beginning, right? You know, I could, I could talk about that for 30 seconds. Maybe you last them to give you a little bit of pitch later, but it's all about it for eight hours almost, right?

Yeah. So, so it's kind of like rubber, you can bend and stretch it and you can really compress it to the hardest ball ever, right? Yes. And that's, that's kind of how I see, see content as well that every single topic, I should be able to treat it like, like rubber and sometimes I need to get 10 blog posts out of a single topic.

Other times I need to do 30 seconds of hits in, in, in something, right? So again, that's also a skill comes with experience within the topic, right? And if you aren't a, a ative figure within whatever topic you have, you can typically do that. But if you're account of. On the way there, like, I often, often do maybe lives or shows or webinars Yeah.

Upgrade the speakers are, maybe a bit less experienced, not necessarily in their topic, but in terms of communicating that. And then they tend to maybe, let's say the script, say you have three minutes and maybe they talk for seven or eight minutes. And it's rarely me as the host, but I can look at the host and the host is going like, stop.

And I'm like, well, but it's a skill, right? So you don't help them. If you don't practice it, then that is going to get you difficult.

Kelly Kennedy: My goodness. Yeah. And I, I totally know what you're talking about as well, because, you know, I mean, business development, for instance, sometimes I'll get asked to come and speak to a group of a business development, and it's really hard to like, talk to, you know, as an entire subject on a whole, in like 45 minutes, right?

Like, that's where I like, find myself. It's like, okay, how can I give the most amount of information in 45 minutes to help these people? But like it's really, I could talk about business development for hours, like literally at this point I've talked about it for 300 episodes, so it's right like you back, uh, yeah, it's a fun challenge.

Just put it that way. Anyways, dude let's get into it. I do wanna talk to you later a little bit about LinkedIn because you're killing it on LinkedIn and I know we have lots of listeners who are looking to like, work on their personal brands. They kind of got the message in 2023. It's time to time to up our game a little on LinkedIn.

And I love to learn from people like you, her sitting, you know, you're sitting with 408,000 followers, something like that. So I'm sure you got lots to give. But today's show I would really love to just dive deep into business partnering. I know we have a ton of listeners, including myself, who before meeting you, I'd never even heard of it.

And I think potentially it's something that could greatly benefit North America if we just understood what it was and started to implement it. So let's talk about it. Let's just get into it. What is business partnering under?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: So business partner is really an activity where specialists, like for instance, finance professionals, alpha, a finance professional, right?

Or it could be uh, IT professional HR professionals, whoever that is, communicates that expertise, uses that expertise to develop insights, new perspectives around the business that will help a business leader, could be a sales leader or could also be the CEO or someone else to make better decisions and to execute stronger want to make those decisions because if you have an expert at the table and an expert is not good at business partnering meaning not good at building relationships, meaning not good at influencing decision making, meaning not good at communicating their expertise, then that expertise is not taken into account when you make decisions.

Unless of course that expert can just say, you do this and you do that, but it's rarely the case, right? So it's for these deep functional experts to learn to translate that deep functional expertise into a language that other people who are not experts in their field can understand it and can use it for their decision making.

Kelly Kennedy: Super valuable. How is it happening currently? Right? Like, I'm not a finance guy myself. I'd like to say I like to know numbers, but I don't make great decisions when it comes down to numbers, not my world. Talk to me a little bit about that. You know, you spent time in Houston, how are decisions being made in Houston versus how decisions are being made in Copenhagen?

Let's give them like, the actual compare and contrast.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. And you know, I don't wanna get the whole North America on, on, on, on my back here, but, uh, it, it's, it's a bit more, at least in the us you know, there's other countries in North America than the US right? Or at least in the US it's a bit more.

Top down or, or command and control. And, you know, my time in Houston, that's, that's, you know, more than 10 years back now, but I met with a finance leader not very long ago who is working here in Denmark. And he is a Dane and he just changed to a company where they're actually also headquartered in Houston, Texas.

And he had to go there, uh, last fall to present the budget. And so we go there to use in Texas and he goes to the 25th floor of a, of a building and he goes in there with the CEO and the CFO of the company. And, you know, they're sitting at one side of the, you know, the board table. I'm sure you can imagine how the board table looks like.

And he and the, the division leader or whatever, is sitting on the other side and they're like, you know, having a very classical budget meeting where they be cured and you know, why this, why that? And they're basically being told, you know, these are what your numbers are supposed to be. So it's, it's a lot more top down commanding control and saying, you know, someone says to do something, you do it.

And it could also be financing. You know, we need to now cut this expense or, do this in our contracts and whatnot. And then people might not like it. They might not agree, but they will do it because that's how man style is. Maybe not all of North America, maybe not all industries, whatever, but at least that's general conception.

In Europe, it's much more, uh, let's say democratized in a way where you actually have to convince people why it's a good idea. Again, there's also differences across Europe, but if you cannot convince me that it's a good idea to implement this tax policy or, or whatever, or actually act on the analysis that you have here, then I'm not gonna do, just gonna ignore finance or HR or whatever and do what I, in my gut feel is the right thing.

And then, then there we are. So that's why in in the European setting, but also in, uh, say the old Commonwealth, right? The, the UK dominated wealth. You more have to convince people, take a business partnering approach where I have insights, I have new perspectives that could help to better decision, but that's not gonna matter if I can't influence your decision making.

So we've actually put it on a formula and we say, what is business partnering? It is insights times influence equal to impact. It's a multiplier because if your influence, which typically is the challenge is low or zero, have no impact. So that's the, that's the equation that, that we work with, right?

And we have to have the influence pop in that equation because otherwise we won't be factor into decision.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. It makes a lot of sense. And actually from my standpoint, when I started thinking about it. Yes, like I want the insights from my finance team when I'm making big decisions. I need to know what I'm not seeing.

And I think most founders, most CEOs, we understand the operation, but we are not finance experts, right? Like, that is not our expertise. We need that person in our corner. And what you're advocating for is finance can be in your corner if you just enable them to do so. Let's talk about that a little bit because let's say that you've grown up as a finance manager, CFO, whatever, in, in the command and control, right?

What, um, is that kind of what we're up against right now is we have to educate the world that there's a better way.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: You know, obviously a lot of great American companies have made a lot of, great value creation and profits and whatnot. So it's not knock on. The American corporate culture, for instance, right?

Uh, there are different ways of doing things than and they can all work, uh, work to, to some extent at least. But the thing is, if your insights are not being factored into the equation, you are more likely than not, let's put it like that to make on average, and I know I'm really generalizing here, right?

But on average, you're going to make worse decisions than if insights from your functional experts. It could be others than finance, right? Effectively that's basically all that we are saying. But just because we know that it doesn't mean that finance, for instance, has a co launch to to be at the table and to say whatever they want, they still need to communicate and enable that.

People understand. Mm-hmm. Because if I come there with my, big be table of numbers and whatnot of our spreadsheets, or you know, here's the spreadsheet with the numbers from last month, you figured out. That doesn't work. I mean, you, you're, you're a business leader, right, Kelly? You know, imagine that your accountant or whatever, you know, just said, here's a pull from EFP system and you, you figure it out, you'll be like, thanks.

But those days, right? Yeah. So, so it's, it's kind of on us to, to, uh, to make it into a shape and form that they can use it. And that's, that's often the challenge with finance people and, and other functional experts, because we're not that good at it. We're thinking, well, I understand it. I mean, it's

mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

No stupid idiot. Why don't you understand it? Right. It just doesn't work like that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. My, my degree is why, don't have that education, man.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: No, exactly. Exactly.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I totally understand. So what it comes down to, like you're saying, is finance can help influence decisions. But once again, you kind of mentioned that influence maybe isn't the skill that they've been developing. So let's talk a little bit about that.

How are you helping these finance people develop the skill of influence? 'cause as me and, you know, influence has a lot of things to it.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah, no, I, it, it's, it's a very loaded topic, right? But lemme just stop by a, a small, uh, small fact, which is not a scientific fact because it's based on post LinkedIn. You know, I asked back in time, you know, my finance audience, which is, probably 90% of the people following me, why did you go into finance in the first place?

Was it because you like to numbers with business, with people, or other comment? Right? And of course, 55% said, I like to work with numbers. Mm-hmm. 35% said I like to work with business. That was probably mostly me, but I also like numbers by the way. And only 10% said, 'cause I like to work with people. This is by no means shocking or surprising to anyone.

The fact is now with, better technology automation, now even AI coming into the picture, it's less about working with the numbers and much more about working with people. Mm. So the very fact I went into finance and try to get away from customer service or sales or some of these other things, I'm now forced to actually try to, to become Buddha.

So there's always a choice, but there's not really a choice not to do it. So, so it's a burning platform for many finance professionals or many accountants out there that they need to become better at advising, at teaching. Mm-hmm. And not just telling people what to do. So, so that, that's kind of the, that's the why, if you will.

So how do you teach people that are not people, but numbers people to become people. People that are good at ing. Yeah.

You give them structure because one of finance people good at their, good at structure, so you give them structure. Tools, tools, templates that they can use to better understand the situation.

So it could be a personality assessment tool, right? So you have disk or something like that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: So blue, red, yellow, all these profiles. Finance people that typically blue and, you know, salespeople, they might be, uh, yellow for instance, right? How do you strike up a relationship or a conversation with such a person?

Okay, let's, let's talk about that. Let's, let's practice that, right? Uh, it could be, okay, so I'm a finance person. You're a business leader. I come to you on a monthly basis. Hey, kill, I'm not here to beat you up because you're not meeting your, your budgets. I'm here to talk about how can I help you actually meet and beat those budgets, right?

Mm-hmm. So I'm here to help. And then you say, oh, that's Andrea. That's really, really nice. I've never heard him again. I find this person. Talk to me like that. Here are some of my big struggles. Okay, Heather let, let's talk about those struggles. I might not be able to help you with all of them, but here are a few where I think can actually, you know, provide some value.

And then we talk about that and maybe I need to do some analysis and I come back and accept them and whatnot, but I'm working on your issues, doing what I'm doing good, doing well at right, doing analysis, doing all these things so that structure, that approach will help them to actually have better interactions with people.

It doesn't mean you, let's say if I'm your accountant and we need to be best buddies and I need to know everything that's going on in your private life. No, but it's of course nice to be able to have a conversation if you watch the ball game in the week or whatever interest that you have, right? So that I'm not just this.

Cold prick that's coming to you with the hard facts and saying, you know, something is wrong. You gotta fix it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think I've ever had a finance person walk into my office with that level of empathy, so.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: It should,

Kelly Kennedy: yeah. But that's kind of what you're saying is like, Hey, be empathetic.

Have a little bit of emotional intelligence and see how you can help. Right. Like you're approaching it from a standpoint of you have a skillset, a very valuable one, an understanding of the total, you know, numbers of the business and how it's operating and what, what might be great decisions. But people are not communicating this.

They're just holding onto this data until the CEO or somebody reaches out to them and says, Hey, we need to know the numbers. Right.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Exactly.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. One of the things that we talked about in our initial meeting that I found very interesting, and I wanted to spend some time on you with, because I think it's really important.

You mentioned that we have to get employees to the point where they care and value the company in some ways in the same way as the founder or owners of the company. I remember looking at you and saying, that's a great idea, Anders, I like that, but how the hell do we do that?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. No. So I think that the thing about business partnering first and foremost is that, you know, there's no rules or regulations or laws that says you gotta have, business partnering in your company, right?

There are some rules where regulations say you gotta have some, some books and financial statements and you know, some tax returns and all this stuff, right? There are some compliance and control that needs to be there, and if you're a listed company, even more and so on, right? But there's no one saying you have to have business partnering.

So it's more trying to, well first of all look at an individual and say, would you like to work in a company where you do meaningful work that is valued and having an impact in the company? It would be hard first to find someone that says no. Yeah. So if I ask a person in finance, for instance, that question, and they're like, no, of course I wanna do that, but I don't feel I have that because they never listen.

Or the, you know, and then I say, okay, well if you want to have that, you are starting point is let's do the work way again. Kelly, Greg, uh, I'm coming to you and saying the only reason I'm here is to help you be successful. But as you said, you've never had a finance person come to you and say that with that mindset.

Yeah. But if you all did that as a business there, you'd be like, that's nice. Let's see if you can carry your weight. Rather than I come to you and say, you know, the numbers logging good. You gotta do something. I'll show you numbers next month. You're like, F off. Right? I mean, I'll do my best, but you're not really helping me.

I need, I need help here. You know, I need kind of, you know what I gotta do. Yeah. So, so to get to that impact in the company. This is the approach. And I can tell you that whenever I've talk about some of my success stories, a business partner, they also fail. All means, but success stories, I'm always like, I'm getting goosebumps, because that's the feeling you get when finally, after years and years of analysis and rejection and whatnot, someone is finally listening to you because you regain the right way.

They're taking your inside thoughts into account, they're acting on them, and they're creating better results, and you know what they're saying? Couldn't have done this without you. Finance guy or growth.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: That, that is what cool stuff is made of when you're in finance and uh, and you're trying to, to, to have impact in, in, on the organization.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and you touched on something that, you know, we're talking business partnering, but ultimately I feel like if every time somebody walks into your office and they're bringing, they're bringing the bad news, right? Of course, over time, you're gonna associate those people with, they're the bringers of bad news.

You're not gonna wanna see them, you're not gonna wanna talk to them. And you know, I mean, I've seen this from operations managers, I've seen this from, you know, finance, but I've also seen it from, you know, everyday employees of an organization who just simply have, it feels like the negative mindset, right?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: And I think it's important for, you know, employees to remember most leaders are very positive people. We genuinely have to live there because if we, if we end up in that negative mindset, the whole game is over.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: No, absolutely. But, but I, but I think, uh, Kelly also, a key point here is that if I have the right mindset as a finance person in business, partnering bad news to you is as bad news to me as it's to me.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? 'cause we're in this together.

Intro: Together.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. Whereas many finance professionals, they're like, Kelly, have some bad news to. I've also prepared some analysis, so I really, you know, you know, you, I really hope you figure it out, right? But will you succeed or not? Not me, right? It's on you.

And I'll, I'll help you understand if you are succeeding, but it's on you. And I'm saying maybe you can do more about it than I can as the finance person, but I'm gonna, you know, uh, cry my heart out as well if you don't succeed just as much as you will. Because if the business is not succeeding, then there is no finance there.

We're

Anders Liu-Lindberg: in trouble. No finance jobs, right? No businesses were created to have a finance organization. You finance is created because there are businesses. So you must be successful for me to be successful. So I'm willing to bet all my career and success on you winning. If I can be a part of that, then I feel a little bit winning too.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing. But I gotta talk to you about this because there's a lot of companies right now, most companies that I've worked with, where that investment simply isn't there. You're right. Those people are there to do their job, but if the company fails. That's their idea. It's like, I'll find another job.

Or, how do you, and I like, I get that this is a hard question, so I just, I I, but I do have to ask you, how can employers foster that level of commitment and dedication to the cause with an employee who simply doesn't reap the financial, the true financial reward of the business? I think, you know, I mean, me and you, we'll work four days in a row if we have to, 12 hour, 18 hour days for the success of our business.

Why? Because the success of our business is also our success. Right? Like we reap the reward of that. Your operations manager, sure, they have a great job, uh, and hopefully you look after them, but they just simply don't reap that same level of reward. So how can we bring that out in our people?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. So I think there, there's, there's two, uh, two steps to it, uh, Kelly, and the first that it goes across anyone in, in, in, in corporate, uh, corporate life these days and, and for many, many years and decades back, I'd almost say is that, you know, if you get statistics on engagement in most companies, the average company would have more than 50%, maybe 70, even 80% of their team members being at least partly disengaged in the work that they do.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And that's not just for finance. I dunno if it's worse or better for finance, but it's, it's around there. So if you have a company where people are disengaged in what they do, that is part number one to fix. You have to create an environment where people get up in the morning and love to go to work, or whether it's virtual or face-to-face doesn't really matter, but they love being a part of this company.

And to get to that, you know, one thing is the work environment colleagues, you know, strategy, working with the right things and so on. But it's also showing a willingness to invest in your people. Basic example we do a lot of communication training, right? And then I always start out by asking, so you know, how many of you think communication is vitally important for your career success?

Hands fly up. Or if it's a one to 10 scale, it's, it's above nine on average, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And then I ask people, so how much formal training have you actually received in your career? If you were gonna one to 10 scale again, it's maybe 4.5 on average, right? So I think this is a skill that's vitally important for my career and it's probably vitally important for the company as well.

Yet I haven't really been invested in it. And you could probably do this for many other skills that people need to succeed in a role. So if you have a work environment where people are disengaged and you're willing to invest in people actually progressing their skills so they can further their career, because most people are career driven, right?

In middle, in, in the business that we we're in then you won't get to it, then you won't get to that mindset. For me, you know, the first time I heard about business partnering was back in, uh, in 2010. April, our graduate program and the, the then CFO of Maersk goes up on stage at the final march of this graduate program and talks about graduate and he says, I want finance to move from the trunk of the car and into the cod driver's seat being a co-driver of the business.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: You know, that all sounded very good, but the fact is he provided zero to low guidance on how to do it. There was no training in how to do it either. Yeah. So I heard the message. It sounded exciting. 'cause I, one created impact. I wanted to actually be part of driving the business, but I had to figure it out myself.

And you know, we've talked, just talked about it, the influencing and all this stuff is really difficult for finance professionals and other functional experts. So I wanna do it or I don't know how, and I'm not getting help.

I think that's, that's really what it comes down to. So people want to do this, they want to have an impact, but as an employer, you've gotta help them.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Well, let's lead into that because I know we have some ears open now. I know we have some people listening who are like, you know what, this actually makes a ton of sense. I do want my business partner in the copilot seat here helping us make these decisions. And I want to help my finance person transition from a finance person to a business partner.

So let's talk about that. What does that transition look like? Can you help these companies start to make that transition?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. So, I don't wanna be too self-serving, right? But, but of course you gotta invest in training in some of those, let's say more people related skills, right? That talked about forth and influencing relationship building communication, regardless any business skills, right?

Give them opportunities to go out and experience how your company does business, right? If you are a retailer, go, uh, either go into the stores if it's brick mortar or sit with the, you know, the customer service team or whatever. We experience the business. So yet you get some of those business things in as well.

And then there's something around leadership also, right? So, finance leaders, perhaps they need to role model their behaviors, but they also need to help maybe, you know, how do you lead selves? How do you change things, right? So it, it's a big change. Journey, you know, personal transformation, but of course also functional transformation.

And we all know transformations are hard and they, and they tend to fail. And I can say this with confidence because I spent 10 years becoming good at business partnering from the first time I heard about other people. 2010 until, yeah, probably 2019, where I finally, now I got it. Now, I could go into probably any company and in three weeks I could do better business partner than I would've ever done.

Probably also better than most of the people inside the company. Even I have no industry or company experience.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's, uh, it is interesting. So basically it comes down to we have to provide them the tools. We have to put together the strategic path. Like we can't just expect our finance people to take the initiative.

We have to help them, right? It's not going to be a okay, we want you to be a business partner. Figure it out. It's, we want you to be a business partner and here's the path and we are going to help you. Accomplish this goal. We gotta hold their hands and help them get there.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. Because otherwise, and again, I think again, this comes many things in life.

Average people will be average people, good people will be good people, great people be great people, right. Uh, you know, to, to use a kids phrase by now, I'm gonna help people go from good to great or from the average to good. Even that could also be something. Or if we don't believe that they can actually succeed as business partners, because, you know, I wanna give everyone a chance, but there are just some people for whom it's not, it's not that thing.

Help them see a different path somewhere else.

Kelly Kennedy: One of the other things that we talked about when we met the first time was your passion for helping people find fulfillment. And I wanted to talk to you about that because me and you both know, finance can be challenging, especially over a 10 year career, right?

You can definitely, you know, have waning passion for your position. This isn't just finance, honestly, if you do anything for 10 years, you probably have waning passion for whatever you've been doing. You mentioned that, that you want to help people find more fulfillment in those positions as opposed to necessarily always relying on the passion.

Can we talk about that?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. So, you know, it was, it's funny, I was having, uh, lunch with, uh, the senior finance, uh, leader yesterday and, and she asked me. So, you know, what did you actually study back in school and did you think you would be doing what you're doing now? And it kind of made me remember a, a story that I, that I used to tell in the past because it was so, you know, telling from what I was doing back then is that when I was a student and in Denmark, we typically have student jobs.

We don't do internships. We have student jobs while we're studying also to, to pay for living expenses and whatnot. And I was in the beginning working mostly in some finance related jobs, but I was also interested in HR and people development. And so I took a, a student assistant role in an HR department within the same company, but I also worked in finance and it was an engineering primarily company.

And I got to work a little bit with those engineers. Now I was also playing an company's bowling team with some of the other engineers. And I heard these engineers talk about hr, not me specifically as a person, but hr, like. These HR people, can't, they just stay out of my way and mm-hmm. Let me do my job and I, you know, just post it on the portal, the job and I'll figure it out.

Don't worry about it. Right. And back then, being a early 20-year-old student, I was like, is that really what I wanna spend the first 10 years of my career on trying to convince people all the good that HR could do was like, no, no, wait, no wait. I'm gonna go back into finance. Yeah. And like, got a finance job.

Right. And what about financial finance? It was exactly the same. The business leaders talking about financing all these finance people, can't you just get out of my way and let me do my business. And at some point, gotta make a stance. So I took a stance in finance and, of course I'm reflecting on it, going back in time.

I wasn't thinking about that back in 2007, eight when I, you know, took my first dance in finance. That, okay, this is then the place where I gotta convince people of finance can actually do some, uh, good in the. So I spent that 10 years trying to convince people and become good at myself to the point where today, I haven't convinced all business leaders out there because of course I haven't had conversations with them, but I feel I could convince every single business leader that you should have finance in your corner, and I'll help your finance team understand how they should act and be when they're in your corner.

Agree? Yes. Okay. Let's do it.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. No, it's, uh, it's just interesting because, you know. I think the passion is one of those things that it's so intrinsic, right? And, and it has so many different influences, right? Like you could be super passionate about something, but then have a health challenge come up.

And now, you know what, it doesn't really matter what was going on before. All that matters now is you gotta deal with your health challenge. Yeah. Or heck, you got family challenge. Maybe you're going through a divorce. I know a lot of business owners are working their asses off and unfortunately you know, they're not spending enough time at home and, and eventually they end up going through a divorce and then, then you can't, you simply can't have the passion for your business in the middle of that turmoil, right?

And so I think it's kind of one of those things where passion, it can definitely come and go. It comes in waves. Is passion truly the important thing if that's the case? Or is it intrinsic motivation to do something bigger?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah, I think, I think the missing word here, Kelly, is purpose. So when passion and purpose meets that, that's a superpower.

You know, if you go five years back, you know, 10 years back, you are talking about finding the why there a purpose, right. Some cynic, top with the y all this stuff. Yeah. And today, maybe we don't talk so much about it but finding your purpose. So my purpose is to help finance people find fulfillment in their careers and help finance organizations actually create value in the companies where we're that's my purpose.

And that purpose has been driving me unconsciously all the way from, from when we started back then in 2012, maybe before, but consciously since 2017 when I actually started voicing it out. But the passion from actually having tried it on my own body, but also tried it, helping other people doing it and, you know, getting the goosebumps that is just unparallel.

And then of course these other things can, can come and, you know, you never know about health and whatnot, but if you have passion and purpose, you have, you have a superpower. And, you know, I want as many people to, to find that as possible. But the thing about passion is you can be passionate about, uh, having a microbrewery or knitting or playing basketball or whatever, but it's for few people in the world where they can actually turn their passion into a business or a career path, right?

So we are passionate about many different things and, and I think, in terms of career and work you also own it to yourself to work with something that you are passionate about.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Because the passion challenge also plays into the engagement challenge, right? If you work in a company, you can't really recognize the company anymore or the reason why you're there, that's a sign for you to say, okay, I should do something different.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I think a lot of people struggle to make that choice. Right? And, and I think, you know, they get comfortable, they get comfortable in their life, right? You know, I, I was comfortable when I was a salaried employee. Life was good. You know what, I work, I work way harder now than I ever did as a salaried employee.

But the value, the passion I have for what I do now is so much greater. So I think you're absolutely right. If you can mix that passion with purpose, man, it's, it's powerful. Anders, I want to, I wanna wrap this up here talking about a couple things. One, I don't wanna spend too much time on it, but I get a ton of questions about personal branding and dude, I am, I'm like leaps and bounds behind you, man.

So talk to me a little bit, like, obviously you've been on LinkedIn doing this thing since what, 2014? You said you started writing articles. And it's funny because back then people didn't even know how to use LinkedIn, right? So you were like way ahead of the curve.

Yeah.

Uh, I don't think anybody could have seen what COVID was going to do to change LinkedIn.

It's night and day Beast now. But I get questions all the time. Okay. It's important, I get it. I have to start building a personal brand. How do we do this? And I do my best to teach them. Know I would love to hear it from someone like you. You're sitting at, you know, nearly half a million followers on LinkedIn.

You've been writing an article a week, you know, since 2014. That's huge. How many articles is that, by the way? Is that's over 500, right?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: It, it's 800 plus at least. Uh, I have half, but it's, it's a loss.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: It's a lot.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Congratulations. That is absolutely incredible. But just for those listeners who are listening today, thinking about starting their personal brand, uh, it's 2026, uh, in this particular episode, they're just, they're, we're in, uh, mid-January, I believe is the launch of this show.

So they're thinking about it. They're thinking about, what can I do different here for the year? Uh, how did you do it? How does one build a personal brand?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: So just, just taking one step back first, Kelly, because there's also a lot of, discussion around this. What is personal branding and what is personal brand?

So just the way I see it, and of course there could be more definition subscribed, the personal brand. Is essentially the sum of opinions that everyone else knows about you and personal branding is the activities you make for people to think about your personal brand the way you want it to be. So in order for working with any of those two first needs to define what is your personal brand.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Right? What do you want it to be? My personal brand is probably, you know, the intro that, that you gave, right. Being a, a senior advisor to, uh, to finance and, and finance leaders and CFOs out there. But you need to know what you want your brand to be. Otherwise, how can you do personal branding?

Yeah. How would you know if you haven't exceeded it? Because you don't know what people think about you. So then that's, that's the first point. Start to define what do you want your personal brand to be. When you know that, well, then you gotta start building authority around that personal brand. And, you know, if I should, uh, you know, beat a bit on myself.

To be fair, you know, I haven't been a CFO before. I haven't made it to the highest ranks of corporate yet. I still talk about what CFOs should do, right? You know, I'm probably need to build a bit more authority in that field also but I build authority over all these years with all the content, with all the speaking, with all the thought leadership that's gone out there and, you know, many companies in, uh, in the world basically trust me for all these source of knowledge.

But that's what I've built up over the years. When I published my first blog post, how to Break Freedom With Stereotype in May, 2014, I wasn't anything right? Mm-hmm. When I wanted to work on my personal brand so that companies. Even my own would hire me in a more senior position because they saw me as someone that was an authority in this field and could maybe have a good plan for how to develop a team or a function, or, or even for but that was, it wasn't so well defined for me back then, but looking back, that's, that's kind of what it was.

Kelly Kennedy: It was very forward thinking at that time. Like I don't think anybody was thinking, you know, personal branding in 2014. At least. At least I, I hadn't even come across it.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah, no. And uh, and I don't know if there was outspoken for me in my inner voice or whatnot but at least, I wanted to, I wanted to make myself attractive in the market and, uh, and, and it worked quite well, even though I never left ma for another company per se, although that when I started, it started myself.

It led to all these other things where I never hadn't started that journey. This company would at least not be included me, but would probably about consult them in the first place. So all these things have happened because I started personal branding activities.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I, I can't, I can totally agree with that because there's been some incredible things that have happened since launching this show that I just could have never seen coming.

I'm a, I'm a firm believer now, you can't see the best opportunities coming your way. Like, you know, they're gonna show up on your doorstep and you just gotta be ready to say yes.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Hold, hold. Helpful please. Second.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. So essentially you started sharing your knowledge with the world, setting yourself as an authority in the space.

Talk to me a little bit about what that takes, because I can tell you that I, I nearly quit this at episode three because I'm like, what am I doing? Who am I to teach the world business development? I had a lot of, who am I moments. A lot of imposter syndrome moments to get over. Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: No. So I think for me, I just started sharing my opinion, my story, my how I do things. And you know what? That can never be wrong. You can disagree. You could want to do it different ways, but my story is my story. And if my story starts to inspire people to maybe do more business partnering or maybe do something else, then we are starting to build authority.

It can never be wrong as such. Someone can come with a better, more well researched perspective, all this stuff, but it can never be wrong. So if you start sharing your opinion about something, it could be in scratch, or it could be, an authoritative figure in your industry has, shared a report and then you share your take on it.

It can never be wrong, right? So that's, that's where it starts. Then there is an inflection point at some point where people start to refer to you as their source for maybe starting their journey.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And that's when you know, now you've maybe made it a bit next level but ideally, of course, there is a story in the real world behind it as well, right?

So you're not just creating content on LinkedIn and suddenly you're going viral by the algorithm and you have, 500,000 followers, but you're sitting in a, in a basement somewhere and have not tried anything in your life. Yeah. Ideally there should be a story behind this, right? So of course, I've told my story and try to get more practical examples of how to succeed with value creation in finance out there, because I saw none when I started doing this.

So that was my story. And then I started to tell other people's stories because I heard so many stories. Then I started to create frameworks around it, and then I said, here's maybe a 1, 2, 3 step approach that you can use. And then it just builds authority from here. But it started with my voice, and that can never be wrong.

Kelly Kennedy: It sounds to me like what you're telling people to do is just be authentic and like, and I know that that's like a catchphrase word at this point, but what he's essentially saying is, just talk about yourself in an accurate and true way, and don't be afraid of, of what anybody else is gonna say.

And I, I would argue that at this point in the show, I've had like two negative comments, Anders. Mm-hmm. I'm like, maybe I'm just like really lucky. But like at this point, we're three years into the show and I've had two negative comments and they weren't even that negative. One was, I didn't like one of the guests you had because of a company they worked for.

Okay. And the other was, your show intros are too long.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: I like that long show intro. I would say, oh, well.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't for the guest shows. They liked the guest shows. It was for my one-on-ones because I, I used to do show updates.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Well, but at this, uh, Kelly, after the be authentic. And then secondly, be consistent, right?

Yeah. 'cause what happens is, and you, you set it yourself that you want to quit after show three. So Kelly has made three shows. Uh, he now he quit. So now Kelly is no longer podcast. Those, right? Yeah. But you didn't quit. And here we are, 300 something episodes later, right? And now you are an authoritative figure in the business development field, right?

Having had amazing people on this show, and he referred to you as a business development, uh, thought leader and whatnot, right? Because you stuck with it in mm-hmm. Your authentic way, right? And I'm sure a lot of the, the, the content and everything you come up with these days is heavily influenced by all the guests and all the shows you've had your entire Absolutely.

You're not expert in this field, not just because you were Kelly and being authentic Kelly, but because you were consistent and you stuck with it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. And so much of business development is just that, right? If you can do consistent work every week like you did, like I do with this show, magic happens.

But it really is. Like a little bite every week turns into an elephant for a year, right? And people forget that. People think, oh, I gotta do these, these big actions, these big actions, and then wait a month and do another big action. No, it's little action every day leads into massive action over time.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yep. Small, micro steps, forms, habits, forms, mindset, forms, culture and, and whatever you do. Right? So, uh, starts with that first wins.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. When people are hearing this episode, Anders, your book is out. Can we talk a little bit about that book? I'm gonna have it in the show notes, I'm gonna have it in all the posts, but can we talk a little bit about your book?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. So the title is Communicating from a Source to Executives, right? So helping these specialists now to finance people. Communicate their expertise to people who maybe they've taken an MBA and there's a finance course as part of it, but that's not their functional expertise, right? So we wanna help these finance professionals do it differently so that all the long half hours they've done of analysis and whatnot that they make this count.

And it's basically just five simple steps that we want them to, uh, to follow, share of course the financial status. We gotta know if we are ahead or behind. Share some insights from your analysis. What have you learned? What can we use for decision making? Make a recommendation. What should we, what should we do about this?

Or at least facilitate a discussion to come up with different actions. We could take back it up with arguments and facts. Why is this a good idea? And then how are we gonna take the next step on this? So what action are we gonna take when we go out of this meeting? Those five steps in that sequence, pack that into a half an hour, monthly management and reporting meeting, whatever it might be.

You're going to see incredible results, but 95% of science professionals are not doing anything close to that today. So we believe we can have a truly transformative approach.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And it almost sounds like, uh, like a, a, an influence guide, if we might call it that.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah. I mean, so influence of course, is, is a part of it, right?

I, we, I spoke about the equation at the getting insights times to, to impact and of course to influence, you gotta be able to communicate well. And I'd say, and I've said this many times during the show, now it goes beyond all good finance, right? But everything we do in life boils down to moment of communication.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: We're communicating now, right? And we're communicating on social media. We are communicating in our private lives. It all boils down to communication and, you know. Wars have been thought of poor communication, right? Mm-hmm.

So I don't want you guys to fight wars out there, but, but poor communication doesn't lead to good results.

Kelly Kennedy: No. It doesn't matter how great your ideas are if you can't figure out how to articulate them.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Exactly. That's what the book is all about.

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect, perfect. If you're listening to this, the links are everywhere that you find this show, so it'll be there. Uh, Andrew, before we close up today, please do lead us into the Business Partnering Institute.

I know we have, you know, leaders from around the world listening to the show right now. I guarantee you they resonated with what you've said. How can the Business Partnering Institute help them?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Yeah, so we work with, uh, finance teams predominantly to help them increase the influence they have in the company.

We do that through learning development programs, which can also be for other functions like hr, it, and, and, and so on, but primarily in finance. We also do consulting projects for finance organizations. Everything from finance strategy work to design a new organization to designing a dashboard, do managed reporting, budgeting, forecasting, all these things.

And then we actually go out and, and also do the work ourselves. Sometimes in case, the, the, the VP resigns or even, you know, a French analyst analyst, they can't find it. They go out and work as, as interim, more short term contractors as well. So we, we both, you know, get our hands into the bot.

We can also consult them on how to do it, and we can train them to be good at it. So we can basically do, do all those things and, and all of it is designed to, to make better decisions in the company, execute stronger so that, you know, we all create more value and you's happy.

Kelly Kennedy: That's amazing. Anders, you know, we're talking to a worldwide audience.

Do you have any limitations to the areas you can work with?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: And, uh, you know, by the time this comes out, probably the limitations are even, uh, even less. We, uh, we do have clients, uh, from all over the world. Most, I would say, from China to, uh, to the us to Latin America, middle East, and, and you know, of course in Europe as well.

So, of course there are some challenges with some clients more than others, but, but not, not as such.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And if people are hearing this and they wanna reach out to you directly, obviously, you know, we've been talking about your LinkedIn, your LinkedIn is blowing up, they can find you there. But if people wanna, you know, contact you in a more direct way, what's the best way for them to do so?

Anders Liu-Lindberg: LinkedIn is always the best way to, to contact me because maybe it's, uh, work, work damage, whatever. I, I'm always on there. Uh, but of course they can also go to our website, the www.bpidk.org and, uh, find all the contact information they want there as well.

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect. And once again, we'll make sure that those links are up in all of our posts.

Anders, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for the 1 0 1 on business partnering. Uh, like I said, never had this conversation before and I think it's gonna be super valuable.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Oh, it's great. You can still have first after 300 episodes, right?

Kelly Kennedy: You would be surprised how many first we still have have this.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Oh yeah. I, I, I'm sure there are many of them but I'm happy to also be one of them. Yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: it's, uh, it's a pleasure. I think the work you're doing is incredible and congratulations on your immense success. I, I wish you the greatest of luck as you continue down this journey.

Anders Liu-Lindberg: Thanks, Kelly, and thanks, love for having me on the show.

Kelly Kennedy: Until next time, you've been listening to the Business Development Podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.