Accounting for change

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:00:00] Welcome to High Agency, where weignite conversations that drive change and spark momentum towardstransformative action and professional mastery. The role of Chief Financial Officers has evolved significantly over thepast decade, becoming increasingly strategic and impactful on companygrowth.  Modern CFOs are now keystrategic partners with 81% seeing their role as more strategic in recentyears.  Effective CFOs can drive up to2.1 times more growth in revenue and profitability compared to their less effectivepeers, according to a study by McKinsey. Additionally, 82% of CFOs report leading or being heavily involved intheir organization's digital transformation initiatives.  One notable trend is the rise of fractionalCFOs with over a 100% increase in their hiring over the past two years.  So today, we're joined by John Fong, anaccomplished strategic financial operator with over two decades of experienceacross technology, mining, and international markets.  John's path has seen him move through leadershippositions at Invoke, BC Tech Association, and several publicly listed companieson major stock exchanges.  His journeyincludes a pivotal role as CFO of Numinous, where he contributed significantlyto the development of the company, and helped to drive the company's growthbefore founding F28, a studio providing fractional strategy services tofounders who are scaling their businesses rapidly.  But John would be the first one to tell youthat we're more than our LinkedIn titles. We chart our own paths and find a way that is transcendent and true toourselves if we listen and reflect deeply. So in this episode, we're going to explore the evolving landscape offinancial leadership, particularly in the context of startups, and rapid growthcompanies.  And John's going to share hisinsights from experiences working alongside visionary CEOs and navigating thedelicate balance between ambitious business goals, financial realities, andfinding your own path through the chaos of it all.  Welcome to High Agency with John Fong.

John Fong

[00:02:18] Great.  Thanks. Thanks, Mo.  That was great.  You like that?  Yeah. I mean, just hearing that, it's kind of like a- Are you blushing alittle bit?  No, it's like aflashback.  Of all the things that I'vedone.  I mean, very kind words.  But yeah, it's nice to reflect back and justsee things as it happened and just recognize the wins.  Right.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:02:47] If you don't mind, can we continuethe flashback sequence a bit longer? Sure.  So you've had a lot ofdiverse experiences in your financial experience as a CFO and as anoperator.  Yeah.  And working with leadership teams in thesecompanies.  Yeah.  Why finance? Like, how do you get started on all this?

John Fong

[00:03:05] Why finance?  So when- I think my parents are verypractical, except for when they immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada.  I think that was the biggest risk that theyever took in their lives.  Just like alot of immigrants, immigrant families. They want what's best for the family. They see that the things that they have at home is just not going to dothat for them.  So they sell the homes,sell everything, move everything over here. So when they came over, took that big risk, they told me and my twobrothers, 'okay, find a safe path to life.' So when I came to school, my brothers went into engineering.  I was just going to say, so you didn't do thedoctor, lawyer, engineer route.  No,no.  You rebelled and went intofinance.  Well, I had a choice of either,or not a choice, like my parents said. You can either go into computer science or go into accounting.  I wasn't good in math, but I just chose thataccounting was just a practical thing to learn. And yeah, I didn't have a love for money or numbers or anything, but Ireally enjoyed just trying to solve problems. Even at a younger age, I loved to build Legos.  I loved to solve different problems.  And as I went through my finance path, I justdeveloped-I just developed the knack for how do you look at numbers and moneyto build a meaningful and profitable business. Yeah.  And it went from my miningdays all the way to now.  So it was thechallenge of problem solving that initially attracted you.  I think in mining, for me, it wasn't aboutdigging gold out of the ground.  I thinkit was more for me.  Mm-hmm.  Was the impact that a mining operation canhave at the local community level.  Sowhether it's in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, whatever, I got a chance to go tothese communities where the mines were being built.  And the jobs that we offered them, the betterincome that they would have from the jobs, the farming that we would requestfrom them, because I remember there was this one mine that we built out inPeru.  We helped them build a school fortheir children for education and so forth. But we sourced all the food from local farmers and all that.  And just to build that community aspect of itand to see the local people just being so fulfilled to having theseopportunities.  I think that was greatfor me.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:05:48] Yeah. No, it sounds like it.  So you'vetouched on a lot of diverse industries, though. Yeah.  What are the common themesthat you see for the companies that you've been in in the past?  Maybe we'll start from where you were workingin-house as a part of a leadership team. Right.  And then we'll talk aboutwhat you're doing now a little bit later. But let's say back in the day, from touching these different industriesand these different companies. Yeah.  What are the common themesthat you saw?

John Fong

[00:06:15] Common themes.  I think everybody just wants to make adifference in the world.  Through mining,you see it that you're just digging gold. You're digging gold off the ground. But it's a lot more than that. What does that industry provide, whether it's jewelry or whether it'selectronics?  There's a bigger way toimpact the world than if you're just looking at digging gold off theground.  In the technology space, whichyou're a part of, what are the products that you're building to make a betterworld, make people's lives easier, make people's lives better?  And then with Numinous, definitely in thehealthcare space, what are we building to help people that are going through amental health crisis?  So there's alwaysthis common theme of trying to build something better for the world, trying tomake a difference in the world.  Andthat's where I think my curiosities have led me throughout all these differentindustries.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:07:15] And so those roles that you're describing,that's when you were in-house working with a leadership team.  So recently you started F28.  Am I saying it right?  Yes. Is it F28 or F28?  F28, yeah.  Got it. First of all, what does F28 stand for? And then what's it like going from an in-house role to being afractional CFO?  Right.  And what is a fractional CFO?

John Fong

[00:07:38] Sure. So F28, I was thinking about, you know, what do I call my company?  F at first, I was thinking, okay, F standsfor like my last name, Fong.  And thensomeone told me, well, F could mean like finance.  F could mean, yeah.  So I didn't, I don't know why.  I didn't think about that.  So, you know, you can call it finance or mylast name.  And 28, I picked it becauseit was just a lucky number that I've always had throughout my life.  But later on, some people told me that, oh,28 in Chinese means easy to get rich. So, yeah.  So it's funny thatthere was like a finance element to it. And then later on, I realized another couple of things.  28 is my wedding anniversary date.  You realized that later?

John Fong

[00:08:23] Don't tell my wife.  I mean, she'll probably see thisanyways.  And also, 28 is the day that webrought home our puppy.  Like he passedaway, but our first puppy.  So, 28 hasall these memories.  Yeah.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:08:36] Okay. As a, yeah, I mean, as a branding guy, I love stories like that.  Yeah. Because it's got a cool personal touch. I mean, and ultimately the name is the relationships that you createwith people.  Yeah.  But F28 Studio is what you're callingit.  Yeah.  Yeah. So, you know, when you announced it, when you first posted about it onLinkedIn, like I was pretty fascinated. One, that you called it a studio. Right.  And secondly, that you arenow starting to provide these fractional CFO services to your clients.  So what does it mean to be a fractionalCFO?  And how do you, how do you do that?

John Fong

[00:09:09] Yeah. Fractional CFO. It's, it's funny when I think the word fractional hassort of been trending over the past few years. I think there's sort of a, a negative connotation about being called aconsultant because people think of McKinsey or whatnot, that someone just comesin, provides strategy and sort of peels off and then the execution is left to,to, to the client.  And that's tough whenthe client doesn't have that experience or expertise.  So for me, you know, I see fractional workas, while you sit, while you, you know, you mentioned that, you know, eitherin-house or whatnot, I see fractional as I'm an in-house finance leader for myclients.  Yeah.  You know, I don't separate that, you know,I'm just providing strategy.  I'm thereto work with leadership, rolling up my sleeves, building relationships, um, andjust helping them get through whatever they need to get through.  Um, so I would say, uh, you know, fractionalis like that you're, you're providing this higher-level value of strategyexecution and building relationships.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:10:16] So, I mean, the financial side ofyour role, let's take that as a given, right? We didn't, we didn't park that. Yeah. Um, but what are the differences you felt or seen in, uh, being in-houseversus being fractional?  Are there anyadvantages that you've seen to your own perspective or, or how you, uh, or whatyou bring to that role?

John Fong

[00:10:32] Right.  I mean, for me, um, I think being in-house,you have to be a certain size company in order to have an in-house CFO becausea CFO's role is just like, is like this. You're looking after not only financials, you're looking at, you talkedabout, uh, digital transformation, you're overlooking legal.  If you're a public company, investorrelations, all these things.  Whereaswhen you're fractional, you get to focus on a few different things because thecompany is just smaller in, in size and scale. Even though I have experience in all those different things, I canprovide that strategy and guidance for, for leaders and, and so forth, but thefocus is just a smaller scale.  Mm hmm.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:11:15] Got it.  Um, but at those smaller scales, I mean, sometimesthe leadership team, the company, especially if it's a startup, they might notbe, I guess, seasoned enough to fully understand what their needs are, what thepitfalls are going to be, and what some of the implications are.  So how do you integrate with a leadershipteam?  I guess really what I'm asking is,there's a sort of double-edged sword of bringing a lot of expertise to a role,because you would have seen in dumb things that a company that is starting outor just getting ready to scale, they just don't have the experience yet.  And so how do you bring about change in thoseenvironments?  What are the frictionsthat you've seen or felt?  What are thechallenges?

John Fong

[00:11:59] Jeez, that's a good question. Youdon't want to overwhelm people at a certain stage of a company, because likeyou said, they're not there yet.  Butbecause I've experienced that whole startup path towards a meaningful exit,whether it's being acquired or IPO, I think my role is just to provide thatsix-month or one-year view at certain points in time, whether it's theirquarterly planning or annual planning, to say, hey, you should consider this,because the signals are telling you as a company that you're going to encounterthese roadblocks or opportunities ahead. So how do you plan for that?  Howdo you invest in that?  How do you turnyour company into a profitable enterprise? You can take that profit to fund these opportunities coming up.  And then once I'm able to provide that view,then it's working in the trenches with their teams and say, OK, let's try tobuild these things and measure that every quarter or whatnot and see where itgets us.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:13:07] I mean, I can see the value to yourend client quite a bit.  But after havinghad the career you've had, the meaningful exits, why was it attractive toyou?  Do you ever walk into a situationwith some clients and you're like, you know, like working on very basic or veryelementary things based on your experience? Or was there some other attraction that brought you to F28 and has youengaging startups at the level that you are?

John Fong

[00:13:37] Right. I think starting F28 was justreally more of a personal thing and a stage in my life.  You know, hearing your introduction justthinking, me flashing back to all these different experiences, while it wasgreat, there were just so many things in those full-time roles, you know,certain things I loved, certain things I didn't enjoy.  And over the past four years, you know, beinginvolved with Numinous, it was it was a great experience.  You know, I'd say, you know, it's all thesecheckboxes or highlights that a finance person would want on their resume, youknow, going public, acquisitions, fundraising and so forth.  But, you know, that came at, you know, 12-13hour days because that's what you do in trying to build a high-growthstartup.  But on the personal side ofthings, you know, 2020 COVID, I think it just did a number on oneverybody.  2021, my mom passed awayafter a two-year battle with cancer.  Sothat was tough.  A year after that, mydad passed away.  And those two eventswere tough for me because, you know, in addition to just mourning the loss ofmy parents, you know, I felt there was a loss of identity for me.  You know, I'm no longer a son anymore.  You know, I, I don't have anyone to call likemom and dad, and and that that hit hard for me. And, you know, going, you know, working 12-13 hour days.  I was thinking about my own role as adad.  Now, what does that mean for me asa father now for two kids who call me Dad? And then a year after that, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.  So all these things, you know, I alwaysbelieve.  Wow.  I always believe that the universe tries totell you something.  Sometimes it can belike a soft tap on the shoulder and say, hey, you know, you should considerthis or look at that.  And sometimes forwhatever reason, it can hit you smack in the face.  And I felt that with all these life things,it was like a big smack in the face thinking, hey, you know, you're at thispoint in your life.  You know, I turned50, you know, a couple of years ago that, you know, like there's more importantthings than working 12, 13 hours a day. Yes, Numinous had a great vision and mission and is meaningful to me onthat.  But there was just something moreessential in my life that I had to focus on. So, yeah, so I left Numinous and I took the time to look after myfamily, make sure that they're OK through that treatment path.  And when it was time to find work again, Ihad a couple of conversations about full-time roles.  You know, when your gut and your heart tells yousomething that it just doesn't feel right. It didn't feel right for me.  AndI thought, OK, I'm going to try this fractional thing and see how it goes.  And the main impetus for that is I just wantto I want to build work around my life as opposed to life around my work.  So that was a big shift.  That was a big shift for me.  And now, you know, F28, I have two clients.  They're great.  They're amazing.  I spend three days a week on average workingfor that work.  And that's enough.  For me, I have the rest of the time.  Like just this morning, I went for like a twohour walk with my wife, went for coffee, totally guilt free.  I'm not thinking about work or anything, butit's just being present with with her and my family.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:16:59] And you weren't doing that in theearly days of Numinous, I can assume.

John Fong

[00:17:02] Yeah, I wasn’t. And if I did, I'dfeel guilty because there's always in the back of my mind.  OK, there’s all these things going on. Yeah,it's just that obviously, you know, I’ve only been doing this for about sevenmonths. You know, financially, it’s not as good as a full-time role, but I seeit as I’m buying back my time. And again, when you’re when you’re when you’regetting older, you know, time ticks and there’s I’m just more aware of time. Sowhere do I where do I invest my time in?

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:17:37] Have you noticed any other changes inyourself?  Like.  I imagine that.  As people, we.  Like to assume that all of our decisions arerational and that when we're thinking about strategy or what a strategic choiceis, that we're just looking at the logic of the situation in front of us andmaking the rational choice.  Yeah, I knowas somebody working in marketing, I know that's not the case.  Yeah, I know that I don't make my decisionsthat way.  So have you seen theemotionality and the emotional change that you've that you've sort of gonethrough that?  Your perspective on lifehas changed, how you're spending your time. Right.  Have you seen the impactit's made on your decision making?

John Fong

[00:18:23] Hmm. That's a good. Geez, that's agood question as well. I think I'm just more calm and thoughtful about thedecisions that I have to make, whether it's taking on a new client or orspending time with family or where I spend my energy on. And it. You know, youmentioned that, you know, do I make rational decisions? Yeah. Rationality comesto it. But for me, it really boils down to, you know, how am I best spending mytime?  And again, I'm measure I'mprobably like, you know, you might not hear this from a finance person, but nowI'm investing more in time than money at this point.  You know, just spending that, you know,spending an hour and a half with you today. No, I, I love that because, you know, I'm not getting paid; paid for itor anything, but I just love spending time with you and just talking with youabout it, about things and just, you know, i've never done this before.  Like podcasting is totally new for me.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:19:26] And we very much appreciate that,then asked to be paid for it because we're just starting.

John Fong

[00:19:31] So that would have been anonstarter.  No, but it's just it's just,you know, I have I have this freedom of time and I think that's the mostimportant thing for me.  So whether it'srational or whatnot, part of it is rational, but part of it is just partly morelike the gut and heart.  Part of thingsfor me.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:19:51] So you've you're working with twoclients now.  Yeah.  And, you know, like we crossed paths when youwere working with Numinous and things that Numinous moved quite fast.  Yeah. Like I know from Skyrocket's perspective, even Numinous was a great casestudy for us because, you know, the founders, you know, Peyton Nyquist andStacey Wallen were, you know, very thoughtful, heartful people, but alsoaggressive and powerful.  Yeah.  And I remember the mandate from them wasbasically, you know, you're hired today. Yeah.  And we have our firstinvestor meeting in four weeks. Yeah.  Weneed a brand.  Yeah.  And it was one of our most favorite examples inour history of actually doing something like agile branding, where we gave themthe stab of an idea that was strong. They could enter the world with it and continue to grow and developthat.  And it almost like blossomed likea flower over the next two or three years. Next year, yeah, and that was a very particular leadership team.  It was you know an ambitious CEO and aco-founder, yeah, and sometimes you know the planets align, lightning strikes,and you get these you know wonderful moments where you know everything is justaligned and you're able to do some of your best work, yeah, and it's quiteprofound um.  But there's also beenplenty of cases I know in my background where you would think the ingredientslook the same, yeah, there's an ambitious CEO, a leadership team that's veryaggressive, yeah, uh, you know appear to be very emotionally invested, there'ssome funding, and the entire thing actually is like this horrible pressurecooker right.  The work gets done, yeah,right, yeah, but it doesn't quite have the same life to it, and so what's yourexperience been working with like really ambitious, you know, hard-drivingleadership teams or CEOs right?

John Fong

[00:21:42] I mean, you know, Numinous is a greatexample.  Of that, you know, just the thethe speed and scale that they went, um, you know, the demands on the business,um, I mean for me it's, for me, it starts with the relationship, um, and justbuilding a level of trust, um, building that level of familiarity, um, and justfor me like going back to time is, you know, do I want to spend time with thisperson?  Do I am I willing to to runthrough walls for this person?  Yes, it'shard work, but if if I believe in in this person, if I've built a goodrelationship with this person, and you know pain's a great example, you know, Ilove the guy just because he he's so focused on what he wants to build and hegenerally. Cares about not only what he's building, but also the people aroundhim that support him, and that meant a lot to me.  And I think that's a great example of that,because I think that's a great example of me, um, if a CEO, you know, had astrong vision connected to it, but didn't care about their people, like Iwouldn't like, I'd peel out right away.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:22:55] Yeah, no pain's a great example.  We're actually going to have them on uh in acouple that's great, yeah it's gonna be great, a great case study actually um,you know, were there um occasions whether it was working with you knowleadership team at Numinous or other companies where there was conflict with TheCEO, or with the leadership team where there was an ambition, there was avision, and sometimes those can be lofty but not rooted in reality necessarilyright.  Yeah, and the financials of anycompany are probably the hardest and most black-and-white reality thereis.  Yeah, but you know, are therescenarios where you had to negotiate that where it was most challenging?

John Fong

[00:23:33] Oh yeah, I mean working withvisionary CEOs is - it takes a certain type of person to try to navigate thatbecause they have big goals, big dreams, big ambitions, and like you said, youknow, for me, like from the finance level, uh, sense of things, you know.  Things are black-and-white.  and white, but you know for me it's about howdo you take that financial data and tell a story that can align to what theyneed to get to, and I really feel is that storytelling piece uh that's reallyimportant for these visionary founders because they can they understand the thenumbers but if you just bring them data they're just gonna blank out and it'smake it work make it work but for me it's you know how do i take this story howdo i take this, I take these numbers, data craft the story that can say thatcan tell the founder look, you know we can get to where you need to get to, buthere's the data, what's telling us here's the paths that  We can.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:24:35] That we can take to get to where youneed to get to the another one of my favorite quotes is um, you know if you, ifyou torture the data long enough it'll confess to anything.  Um, has there ever been a situation whereyou're working with a leadership team yeah and you know you might be doing thenarrative and storytelling the best you can to contextualize these things yeahum and it still isn't working right they still want you to tell a differentstory yeah um I think when you're what you're getting to is that, you know, youcan, you can, you can present the numbers any way you, you want to tell astory.

John Fong

[00:25:13] You look at you know likecompanies  like uber early days or wework early days they'll they'll you know massage the numbers Harvard wants toto craft that story I think for me is how do I push the boundaries of that butstill remain in this ethical area that you know this is the truth but you'renot creating fraud and and then that's not going to jail is a great goal yeahand that's and and you know for again using those examples I'll use We Work asan example because it looks like a super famous example right they were justyou know they weren't just they were just really pushing the limit to that andsometimes maybe over the limit on things on how to craft that financial

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:25:55] Story, yeah, I mean it's beeninteresting hearing you talk about narrative and storytelling, um, and theimportance of that because again the assumption always is that we're rationallogical decision makers, yeah, and as human beings we're not.  Right things need to be contextualized andthat's a great tool for creating alignment and um, what is the um, what's yoursort of go-to like when you're working with let's say a new client or a new engagementand like I'll give you my example right if we were going to work togethertomorrow and I said oh I'm bringing in John Fogg as a fractional CFO yeah myfirst order of business  Would probablybe to think about okay, you know what do we need to share as far as financialdata is concerned and it's going to be a dollars and cents numbers conversationfrom then on, yeah.  But what does anengagement look like for me?

John Fong

[00:26:43] So, a typical engagement would be atwo-two phases so the first one is kind of like a discovery phase, so it's meis looking under the hood not only you know getting access to financials butbut what are all the things that are connected to the financials?  For me, it's talking with the marketingperson or talking with salesperson, talking with the designers or whoever it isbecause money  touches every part of theorganization and so you know I want to understand from each part of thosepeople like you know what are you know what are their metrics what's truewhat's motivating them you know what does success look like for them and howdid all these things come together to to to drive ultimately company successand through that it's is developing relationships with people that you know I'mnot here to I'm not here to to judge you I'm not here I'm not just the numbersguy but I'm here to help you to do the best work that you can and it's it'sfunny when when I have a lot of these Discovery uh conversations likeeverybody  everybody just wants to talkto somebody they want to you know unload their problems to somebody and havinga third party uh uh come in they'll just create some safety tool yeah they'llopen up and they'll create the safe like you said to open up and that gives meso much context into okay you know this is where the company is really at andit really it either confirms the the leaders uh suspicions of you know likethey know something's going on but maybe no one is telling them directly um orI can uncover something new and you know I'd say 80 of the time you knownothing is new but it just reconfirms that um that these issues are

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:28:28] Are at the company, so once you do,once I do, that sorry, uh, once I go through that Discovery phase, you know,I'll provide a provide an outline of these are all the findings here's whereyou need to get to, um, you know, I can help with these things, yeah, I mean,um, you know it's uh on the surface it seems like a small thing but it'sactually quite profound when you talk about the the opening up of, okay, youknow, there's a safe, trusted new person, yeah, um, that is kind of outside ofthe organization but embedded at the same time, yeah, that creates enoughdistance for like maybe some of these confessions to take place, yeah, right soremember years  Ago, reading about howinformation travels in major organizations, and the phenomenal sort of uhparadox is that the most information and highly supported role in a corporatestructure is the new intern, right? Right because the expectation is you don't know anything, you don't knowhow to do anything, so lots of information, lots of data, lots of support,yeah.  And the least supported, and insome cases um, you know where there's a bit of an information and maybe adrought of truth, is actually a leadership team, and CEOs, right?  Because the further up the pyramid you are,it's kind of isolating, yeah, and some of these people.  Are in these roles and you know we might readthe headlines or look at something after the fact and be like 'how could you possiblymake that decision?  Yeah, but then youlook at the sort of you know cocoon that gets created over time.  Yeah, the assumption is well, you're theleader, you should know.  But informationisn't necessarily traveling that way. Yeah, and there isn't a lot of maybe peer support going on, or like aboard of directors or something.  Yeah,um, so I think it's quite profound that you're able to create, you know, somenew channels of trustful communication that might land as a revelation, right?

John Fong

[00:30:20] To leadership teams.  Yeah. And I think that's one of the benefits of being fractional, that youhave sort of one foot in the door and kind of one foot out the door in terms of,you know, seeing inside the business and also seeing outside of the business aswell to create that, you know, enough separation, but also enough intimacy inrelationships.  To build a good level oftrust.  Yeah.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:30:44] And when you're doing that discoveryand you're building, you know, those relationships with people, you talkedabout getting to a definition of what success is. Yeah.  So the company is going to have theirmission, their objectives, some internal definition of success.  Yeah. But for startups, especially to some extent, you know, the marketdefinition of success has been changing and shifting, actually.  Right. Like I saw a post of yours recently. I loved it.  You saidprofitability is the new black. Yes.  And I kind of read that as,you know, being in the black is the new black. Yes.  Yeah.  And so, you know, what's been the culturalshift in startup land?  Because we're nottoo far out from a period of time when it was just growth max.  Like it didn't matter what you burned and howlong you burned it for.  As long as therewas, you know, horizontal land grabs going on and you could carry them on forsome period of time, profitability wasn't necessarily a concern.  Right. So we're not too far out of that. Yeah.  But, you know, I've evenfelt it.  I don't even work in the industry.  I don't even work in the industry.  I don't even work directly in finance thatthere is this sort of cultural shift in startup world.  But what's what's been your experience of it?

John Fong

[00:31:45] Yeah, it is this focus onprofitability more than growth by any means. But if you take a look at, you know, grow growth, you know, growth byany means and profitable growth, they're two very different businessmodels.  You know, profitablegrowth.  It takes its definitely slowerbecause you're growing through customers, through paying customers, whereasgrowth by any means, you're taking on investment.  I mean, that's just very generally speakingas well.  But if you're trying if you'reyou know, if you started out as a growth by any means and you have to switchovernight, which a lot of companies have been trying to do over the past coupleof years in their profitable growth, then you're it's it's a total mindsetshift of, OK, how do I now?  How do Ireally focus on customers and expanding that customer base?  And at the same time, you definitely have tomake changes in your org, whether you have downs and downsides is a bigthing.  That's why you see all theselayoffs.  And then over the past littlewhile, you know, I saw data that, you know, the the even even though thefundraising aspects has been picking up over the past quarter or two quarters,you're not seeing you're not seeing that matching level of hiring anymorebecause companies are more, more, more mindful of completion and over time, whenyou have the collection of your word, which is some kind of our metabolism.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:33:19] Look, greed is just humое.

John Fong

[00:33:39] In nature, and you're seeing the, therush into AI now, and like, the, the millions, hundred millions, or billions ofdollars going into that are our AI companies profitable?  No, probably not, because it's still tooearly.  But you know, you're gonna,you're, you are going to see, you know, continue to see growth by any means,and people pouring money into that those opportunities.  You know what I would hope to see is that, inthe startup land, that people take a more thoughtful approach to to growth andjust really building a profitable, healthy business and growth at the sametime.  I mean, that's that's really hardto do, um, especially if you're a VC-backed because they have  Because they have a business model of certainreturns over a certain period of time, yeah, um, but, yeah, I just hope thatpeople can can take that you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, Idon't know, I don't know, I don't know reasonable growth mindset and profitablegrowth.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:34:40] Yeah, I mean there isn't a realm thatAI isn't gonna affect in some fundamental way, um, you know, finance, legal,marketing, you name it.  What do you seeas being the big sort of shifts that are coming right?  Like the interesting thing to me about fractionalservices is that it's like the senior side of the gig economy to some extent,right, yep and  so we see you know overhistory even you see like you know consolidations of things and then it kind ofdecomposes and distributes and then it consolidates again yeah and it keepshappening in these waves right so i'm not sure what a consolidation of skillswould look like again maybe it's going to reconsolidate around artificialintelligence i don't know right but what do you see as being like the future ofyour role fractional and the relationship between how companies are built andgrow i think fractional i think there's probably two reasons why fractional hastaken off over the past few years i think one is probably

John Fong

[00:35:41] Just, uh, just from layoffs, peoplebeing laid off they can't get a full-time job, so you know they'll tryfractional and try for a few years and and and just wait for the next full-timerole.  Another another one is probablyyou know maybe someone in in my position where they've worked, you know, a longperiod of time, 20-30 years, and they're going to still stay engaged in thegame but don't want a full-time role, so I'd say you know those two things areprobably like the bigger forces um in terms of how companies and teamsstructure themselves using fractional work. So uh one of my one of my clients that I'm working with now they'rebased  in asia while the owners are arenorth American they didn't know about the fractional role they just thoughtthat they can just you know they need to hire full-time but since they broughtme on you know they've hired a few more fractional leaders because they see thebenefit that um you know they get the expertise of someone like me or afractional marketing person or fractional chief people officer that can helpthem you know like a day a week or two or three days a week um but translatingthat in in in in terms of the amount of work that can get done it's like twotimes or three times a week and i think that's a good example of  like three times or four times uh that theamount and quality of it uh while not needing like a full-time role um arethere any other changes coming into like the industry of finance that you seeas being like seismic shifts or is it continuing to shift and be the backstopfor you know the economy as it always has been i mean you know i've read youknow with with ai you know what is what does tech what can technology do thatcan uh alleviate like the the pains around finance and accounting so it'sprobably less manual work less data entry um uh being more uh or yeah less dataentry probably like the biggest thing whether it's invoices  Or whether it's fpna, um, and how does AIbecome smarter taking on data, uh, to tell different paths and differentscenarios.  But in terms of like justoverall finance, I would just say faster decisions, faster decision makingthrough faster data analysis.  I thinkthat would be the continue big shift.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:38:24] And how that trickles down from largeorganizations that have the money to invest in those products and tools, downto like small businesses, so that's where I wonder sometimes of like you know,especially the consolidation of power, especially via technology, yeah, I'vegot a little bit of a social justice streak in me, so um, you.  know I do sometimes wonder about where theadvantages are going to, right? Right.  Right.  Because what we talk about sometimes, I mean,for the average business owner, like these sound like fantastic ideas, like,oh, I'm just going to use AI to make faster decisions.  Yeah. But what sort of decisions is the small business owner making?  Right. Versus, you know, larger corporationsthat can invest millions.  Right.  Right. To save hundreds of millions. Right. Potentially. And I sometimes wonderabout, you know, how some of these forces are going to continue to consolidateactually power in fewer and fewer hands. Right.  Right. Yeah. And, youknow, finance is a big part of that because a lot of social power is derivedfrom economic power.  Right.  Yeah. Right.  Yeah.  And so, you know, in the funding environmentand the technical environment, like, do you see a future for, I don't know,like a more democratized Startup environment? Because I feel like, you know, the decade that we've come out of, it'sbeen very much about proximity relationships. You know, sure.  Plenty of meritas well.  Yeah.  But it's been people in the right markets inthe right places that seem to be able to, you know, swallow up a lot of thefunding. Right.  And the promise of thedemocratized Internet, what technology was going to enable the average personto do.  Right.  You know, was kind of like it seems like thedream was almost kind of realized for a little bit, but then it kind of gotconsolidated again.  Right.  And like, where do you see this headed?

John Fong

[00:40:17] I mean, I think there's always goingto be that type of cycle where new technology comes out.  A lot of people can can can take advantage ofthat.  And then ultimately it gets itgets consolidated into a few people, into a few big powers.  You look at electricity or you look attelephone companies or even look at retail. You know, there are there are these big companies that ultimatelyconsolidates.  Right.  And there's also the small companies thatcontinue on.  Speaking of retail, there'sa there's a shop in Vancouver that that has been in business for about 20years.  And, you know, we first went tothem when they first opened just in the Canby Village area.  And they've they've managed to to to survivethrough many different cycles of of of retail, of of the economy.  Of consolidation, of of of retail, but thosesmall businesses, what really helps them is just building a community of peoplethat can support them and care for them. And again, going back to relationships like that's a big thing forme.  If you if you if you and yourcompany can build strong relationships with your clients and with the communitythat you engage in, they're going to be there to support you.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:41:42] Mm hmm.  Yeah. Storytelling, narrative relationships, yeah, those are pretty consistentthemes of the things that you talk about. Right.  Yeah.  It's been interesting to me because, again,you know, I think a lot of people have assumptions around where theconversation is going to go.  Right.  Finance people are going to talk aboutfinance.  Yeah.

John Fong

[00:42:01] Sorry, I totally didn't answer.  I don't think I answered your question about.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:42:04] No, no, it's it's all good becausewe're we're kind of like headed to the same place anyways, because, you know,because what you're describing is kind of like a community resiliency.  Right. In the face of what could be like massive shifts in the way, you know,economics are divvied up and what's going on in society, like, and I don't meanto sound like a Luddite myself, like, you know, there's a lot of tools that weuse, there's a lot of benefit that we see from them. Mm hmm.  But I also, I think sometimes look at startupworld and technology as being a big sort of amplifier of some of theinequalities that exist.  Right.  Yeah. As much as they might be creating new opportunities.  Right. Right.  Yes.  Yeah. Um, I'm going to ask you about. Yeah.  You know, and this is goingto be an interesting one because it's going to, I think, maybe sound a littlecounter to what you've been talking about so far.  Right. Because, you know, storytelling, narrative, importance ofrelationships.  Right.  But you have this post, your LinkedIn isdangerous for this reason, because I can just bring it up.  But you said work is not family.  Yes. Yeah.  So yes, I think I agreewith you, but I want to I want to hear you kind of expand on it.  What do you mean that work isn't?

John Fong

[00:43:10] Sure. I mean, there are certain elements, family-type elements, whether it's,you know, this this familiarity, this camaraderie, this really, you know, thissupport of each other, this I'll just say like a family hierarchy, whether youhave like the mom, dad, and brothers, and so forth.  And in work, you have, you know, you'reyou're a CEO, and all those kinds of things. So there are elements of of family. Um, but for me, you know, I had. Yeah.  I only have one family, andfor a family, I would do anything for them. I would quit my job, spend time with them.  I would I would, you know, if a car was.  And you have. Yeah.  Yeah.  Like like I would sacrifice my life for myfamily and I don't want to sacrifice my life for for a company, even like evenmy own company, F28.  If if if I had tomake another, I know I'll find.  Wouldsomewhere to knock on later, but if if there is another family health situationthat I needed to step away from from my work, I'd do that like I wouldn't do thatfor for my company or like anyone else that I would I would give one hundredand ten percent to help make that company successful, but it can't come at thecost of my family.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:44:34] Yeah, I think the phrase'family'  is sort of phrase like I'veheard it used in the past, and I feel like it always struck me as a littleweird because I know what the intention was. Yeah.  It always landed kind of inauthentically.  Yeah, yeah.  Because, you know, your your teammates aren'tyour family, right?  These are peoplethat you work with.  Yeah.  And I think in resisting that phrase, italways kind of seemed like, OK, maybe you're not a team player or what.  Right. Yeah.  And then I finally had amentor probably about a decade ago that actually gave me a far bettermetaphor.  And he said, we're not afamily, we're like a sports team. Yeah.  Right.  And he's like, we're going to be in a lockerroom.  There's going to be a lot ofbonding.  There's going to be emotionalmoments.  We're going to have eachother's back.  We're going to goout.  We're going to play hard.  Yeah. But then after that, we're going to go home.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:45:23] And I think increasingly I've beenusing that metaphor for my team. Right.  Yeah.  Just because I felt the inauthenticity oflike, I understand what the intention was. Yes.  Trying to describe your workas family.  Yeah.  Yeah. But it's kind of unhealthy as well. Right.  There's a little bit oftoxicity.

John Fong

[00:45:35] Yeah, it is.  And I think for me, it's when you injectfamily into into a work, inject the word family into a work environment, youstart blurring that line between, you know, is work my family?  You know, do I have to sacrifice everythingfor it?  Do I have to work like 24 hoursa day for the family?  Do I have to be oncall for for the company?  And that'sthat's where that's or, you know, for me, I'll use myself as an example.  It's hard to draw boundaries when you'reblurring that line between family and work. So that's why I made the post that I did.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:46:13] Yeah, no, it yeah, it resonated alot.  What advice would you give theyoung John Fong?  Yeah.  Whose parents are convincing him to do theright thing. Right.  Do the safe thingand go out and make a difference in the world at the same time.

John Fong

[00:46:35] Oh, that's a good question.  The young John Fong.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:46:41] I mean, not to say that you're the old John at all.

John Fong

[00:46:43] No, no, I know.  But I mean, it's to be to be young is justgot to put in the work.  There's no easyway around it.  No, you can't.  You can't see other people's successes andsay, OK, you know, I'm going to, you know, I'll just, you know, slap a title onmyself and, you know, try to pretend to be that; no, you've got to put in thework.  So I've.  I've been trying to work out just to behealthy.  And, you know, I see, I followthese YouTube workout people, super fit. And I was thinking, okay, you know, I'm not going to get six packs atthis point in my life.  And there's noway that I can start benching 300 pounds. But I have to work my way up from, you know, 50, 60, so forth.  And it takes time to do that.  And if you, you know, for a young John, I'llsay, you know, just keep on putting in the work and take steps to be better,whether it's every day or every year or whatnot.  And when you get to, when you amass a certainamount of capital, whether that's knowledge or friendships or network, then youhave more opportunity later in life.  Imean, for me, you know, I wouldn't be able to start my fractional business if Ididn't put in 12, 13 hours.  The pastfour years at Numinous and working at digital agencies, like all thesethings.  So, yes, I guess that's myadvice.  Just put in the hard work.  There's no easy way around it.  Yeah.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:48:19] I appreciate that. I'm not sure ifthis is just me getting old or not, but, you know, I feel like there has been abit of a shift in even the work ethic. Right. I'm not sure if you felt this aswell.  And I struggle to understandwhether it's because, because like there's a generational corporate toxicitythat I'm used to that was unrealistic and maybe inappropriate.  Right. Or whether, you know, kids these days are lazier. Right.  Like I've been vacillating between thesethings.  Yeah.  Yeah. But have you seen, you know, is there anything that you can speak to inthe startup world of what you've seen as far as a shift in work ethic and theculture of what it takes to make a difference and make things happen?  Right.

John Fong

[00:49:07] Geez, I don't want to sound like anold person and say, yeah, the younger people, this.  But, I mean, I think it really, I don't know,I think it really depends.  So thisclient that I have, they're based in Asia. A lot of the staff are based in the Philippines in the finance team.  They're pretty green.  They're pretty young.  They know how to have fun, but they know howto sacrifice and put in the hard work when it's needed.  Just because of, you know, their, their,their, their, the situation that they're in. They have to provide for the family and all these kinds of things.  So I would say it's really, it's reallydependent on, on the type of people. Like, you know, I've read.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:49:52] Circumstances where you are. Yeah.

John Fong

[00:49:53] Circumstances.  I mean, you read headlines that, you know,the younger people are lazier or whatnot. You know, I haven't really encountered that.  But I would say young people just do thingsdifferently.  Maybe they're just doingthings more efficiently than us before. Maybe not us.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:50:13] I mean, nobody works harder and moreefficiently than us.  Yeah.

John Fong

[00:50:16] But, but there's just different waysof working.  And even if I look back atmy parents when they're working, you know, they worked very laboriousjobs.  They were working very hard, butthere are, you know, they, they came from a different generation where workinghard means, you know, like physically working hard.  For eight hours a day and so forth.  But I look back at their life and said, youknow, they, they have a good work-life balance. They don't have to take, you know, they left it there.  Yeah, they left it there.  Yeah, they left it there.  So and for, for us, when we're building, youknow, we just knew we just needed to continue to work hard to grind, to, tobuild that career or build the business. But I think for young people, they're, they're, they're valuing hardwork.  They're finding more efficientways to work.  But they also want toenjoy it.  They want to enjoy life, to havethat balance.  So, yeah, I would saydifferent expectations of work.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:51:13] Absolutely.  Yeah. No, this has been great.  And Ithink I mentioned to you before that, you know, you, you go into a conversationwith some assumptions.  Yeah.  That I'm going to talk to the financeguy.  So it's going to be about numbersand markets and economy.  Yeah.  We wind up talking about storytelling andrelationships and life.  And.  Changes you've been through and, you know,dealing with heartache and how that transforms you.  So this is, yeah, this has been great.

John Fong

[00:51:41] Well, thanks.  Well, thanks for having me.  That was great.  Appreciate it.  I really enjoyed it.  Thanks.

Mo Dhaliwal

[00:51:46] Well, hopefully we've given you a lotto think about.  That was HighAgency.  Like and subscribe and we willsee you next time.

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