Leaders of Modern Finance Ep. 23 – Creating Intra-Business Connections, ft. Adanma Osuagwu

On this episode of the Leaders of Modern Finance podcast, host Ken Boyd welcomes Adanma Osuagwu, Director of Finance/Project Control at By Light.

Connection and Synergy

Adanma has worked in the government contracting space for over two decades and has spent nearly her entire professional life in the accounting sector. While many of her friends sought restaurant and service industry jobs while in school, Adanma went to work in an office. Her first job was as an accounting clerk and she bounced between organizations for the next 20 years, touching a different piece of the accounting cycle in each role. Along the way, however, she gained experience in more than just financial systems.

Adanma was trained in project management alongside accounting for much of her career. This gave her a deeper understanding of traditional business operations as well as the software-specific operations knowledge that has proved valuable at By Light. In addition, Adanma was given the opportunity to study associate satisfaction and retention under a previous employer. All told, she has worked in finance, operations, IT, and HR. 

These diverse experiences have taught Adanma to seek out connection points within her organization. She is seldom in danger of having tunnel vision. Rather, she has a knack for seeing the ways different roles and departments affect each other. She’s learned to leverage those effects to create efficient systems that make the most out of each department’s strengths. To her, this is what it means to be a leader in business, financial or otherwise. Synergy breeds efficiency and that interconnectedness can only come through intentional effort.

Adanma’s holistic mindset is not limited to financial systems or operational structures. Her unique experiences as a woman in business and her research into associate satisfaction allow her to be a bridge-builder between departments and between people as well.

Connecting People and Technology

Adanma’s specific role at By Light intentionally places her between two departments: finance and program management. Her unique background makes her especially suited to serve as a liaison between the two. Chief among her responsibilities are the streamlining of company systems and the automation of processes. This means that she is often tasked with evaluating potential software tools that could increase her organization’s efficiency.

While many in her position may evaluate technology from a strictly objective, numbers-based standpoint, Adanma’s experience in HR won’t allow her to do so. Rather than simply look at software compatibility or cost-effectiveness, Adanma’s primary concern is the way a new software tool will affect the people tasked with using it. Tech that appears less effective, when placed in the right hands, can be a more powerful tool than tech that seems to have superior features. 

Before committing to new technology, Adanma meets with each of the people who will be making use of these tools. She documents their needs, concerns, and what each individual is hoping to get out of the software’s implementation. While there’s seldom a solution that satisfies everyone’s needs perfectly, these interviews offer Adanma the chance to make a more efficient overall business, not just a streamlined accounting system.

When successful, Adanma’s approach builds a bridge between her team and the technology. Thus, the human and software elements of By Light work together to become greater than the sum of the parts. Adanma can bring the best out of all the assets under her management. This connectedness promotes cooperation between departments by meeting their unique needs and then placing the right tools in their hands. These tools allow them to work well, both as independent agents and as pieces of a greater whole.

Women in Business

All of Adanma’s time in business is filtered through her perspective and experience as a woman. As she tells it, that filter made her hesitant to put her ideas forward for much of her professional career. While her male counterparts were often seen as passionate for confidently asserting their opinions, Adanma, and women like her, would be seen as angry. These gender-assigned connotations slow the career progression of many women. 

It took Adanma many years to build up the confidence to assert herself like her male colleagues but, during that time, she remained perceptive. Rather than wasted time, those years of learning taught her to pay close attention to the people and systems around her. She endeavored to always stay curious and willing to grow. When she finally was able to shrug off some of the gendered expectations that had kept her from asserting her ideas, those years of curiosity shone through. Her intimate knowledge of financial systems, technology, and team dynamics propelled her to success in her field. 

Despite her success, she recognizes that not all women can accomplish what she has without help. Adanma was fortunate enough to have a mentor early in her career that taught her to navigate the financial world as a woman and she now hopes to do that for others. She seeks to connect women she works with to roles that make the most of their skills and help set them on a vertical career trajectory.

Finance has long been a male-dominated field and Adanma sees that as a detriment to the whole industry. Success means pairing people with roles that best suit them and many of those people are women who may be hesitant to advocate for themselves. As she does with all other areas of the work, Adanma seeks to build connections, this time between women and opportunities, that allow them, and the whole industry, to be successful.

Leading by Example

Adanma is a self-described liaison between departments in her organization. She is, however, much more than that. She doesn’t just facilitate efficiency between departments but serves as a connector of assets of all kinds across the breadth of her organization, be they technology, finances, or people.

From this perspective, to be a “leader of modern finance” is a bit of a misnomer for Adanma. To her, being a “leader of modern finance” just means being a leader. Finance is not an island. The ability to connect financial assets and systems to people and technologies that can make effective use of them is what leadership in this industry entails. Her example is one worth following and the approach to management that she embodies brings together the best parts of objective data and the human element of business.

To marry these two assets is to achieve true synergy.

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