A Young Finance Leader In The Land Of The Free

I remember my first encounter with Houston. I was flying British Airways across the Atlantic early November 2011. I had just returned from my honeymoon on Fiji with my wife including a visit to my in-laws in China. I had covered pretty much all time zones in a matter of a week. It was a grand experience to say the least for a 27-year-old on his way to his first leadership role on the other side of the world!

The plane was half empty so already then it felt like a luxurious experience. The reason was probably that activity was only slowly picking up again in the US Gulf of Mexico post the Macondo incident where Deepwater Horizon suffered a fatal accident with huge amounts of oil pouring out into the gulf.

I was picked up in the airport by a driver in a town car and it truly felt like the red carpet had been rolled out as I could just as well have taken a cab! My hotel is just next to the office so the convenience is in abundance. There are a lot of new impressions to take in as you would expect anytime you show up in a new country, yet this is going to be my future home. It was a bit overwhelming to say the least but if nothing else there was always the work to hang on to! 

Speaking about the work 

I show up at the office the next day where we had like half a floor on the 18th floor of 2500 Citywest Blvd. The view was amazing as you could see all the way into downtown with no tall buildings in between. Houston is flat like a pancake and my office to be had the center stage. Just look at that sun rising over downtown Houston!

Right, about the work. I was there for a week to take handover from the previous finance manager as he was going back to Denmark leaving the company for an external opportunity. I diligently took note of how he did things yet either because of jetlag or just because the whole experience took so much energy to take in I didn’t really get the full picture.

Still, it was good to meet the team of two accountants and the other 15 people in the office (we also had 170 people working offshore). I don’t recall a lot more about the work that week though. Most of my memories relate to the experience of the city.

I come back a few weeks later to start handling the work and that’s when I start making my real experiences. In addition, there was house search, getting to know the city first hand driving around, getting my wife, who quit her job for us to come here, acclimated, and so on. The work was probably the least of the challenges to begin with yet not to be undermined.

Here I was in my first leadership role with no real support trying to figure things out. First, I needed to do the work through someone else’s way of doing things. It was a bit like folding your arms in the way that feels natural to you and then forcing yourself to put the other arm on top. Quite uncomfortable I dare say! 

All you talked about was non-work so what’s the learning? 

Yes, I’ll save the work for next week’s article, but the learning of this story is that as a young professional you should push for getting experiences outside your comfort zone. I’m a suburban guy who lived the first 27 years of his life in a town with 20,000 people just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. Suddenly I find myself in the 3rd largest city in the US with a challenging work-life situation on my hands.

I dare say I learned so much from this experience and it’s the main factor in making me the kind of professional I am today. Here are some of the things that started for me while in the US. 

• First time I owned a car
• My first child was born
• It was my first leadership role
• It was there I started to articulate and own what business partnering is
• It was where I started my writing
• It was the first time I made a real business impact

There are likely many more firsts and if I hadn’t grabbed this opportunity I would likely have been in a different place today!

So, push yourself out of the comfort zone and dare to go places you’ve never been. You’ll grow enormously from this and it’ll make you a different professional. Don’t overthink it. Just do it. Are you ready to go?

This was the sixth article in the series "My Early Career Lessons From A Decade In Finance & Accounting". You can read the previous article(s) below.

My Early Career Lessons From A Decade In Finance & Accounting

The Purpose Defining Moment In My Finance Career

Are You Looking For A Finance Job Or A Finance Career?

Here's Why You Should Take Charge Of Your Career

The Intersection Between Finance And Business Is Where It Got Interesting

The Accidental Finance Business Partner

If wnat to become a better business partner you should consider taking our online course "Business Partnering Explained - Value Creation Unlocked" to get a better handle on the role. It's accredited for 5.5 CPD hours.

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is a Senior Finance Business Partner at Maersk supporting our largest product and I have more than 10 years of experience working with Finance at Maersk both in Denmark and abroad. I am also the co-founder of the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with almost 8,000 members. My main goal at Maersk is to show how to be successful with business partnering and drive value creation as a trusted partner. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with 39.000+ followers.