Welcome to Reimagine Mobility Podcast series. I'm here with Jen Fulton. She's the AVL MTI CFO. So our first non engineer, I think, on the podcast series. So welcome. Thanks for your time here. You've been in the automotive space a while back. Yeah. You left. Mm hmm. When you came back? Yes. Why? Automotive? I love this industry. I love this company. So that was a big piece of it. Being able to be a part of something exciting and innovative.
I mean, I. I can count numbers for anybody, but I can't necessarily change the way the world works in every industry. So that is very appealing to me. So I was excited to come back and be part of it. So you’re part of the finance side? Yes, very good. So what kind of trends do you see in your space, in finance, in mobility that you may not have seen in the other industries that you've worked in? So maybe contrast that a little bit or give a perspective.
There's always asked, as an engineer, what do you see in five years happening with stimulation and with batteries with engines ADAS, autonomous. Never had again a finance person. So what do you see in five years? What some of the what some of the trends you've seen over the last five years and maybe what do you see in the future? Well, I mean, obviously the last five years are odd, right, because we've had COVID in there. So we've we've seen a shutdown.
I'm a little concerned about what I see coming. And then in the near term, just in general from an economic standpoint. But those downturns in some ways are opportunities for our business, as is the Big Three. And other companies like those start to constrain what they're doing. It opens more opportunity for businesses like ours to hop in and help them. So sometimes the bad can be good in our space. And restraints also force innovation, right? You have to be more efficient.
You have to be better at what you're doing. You have to provide new product, new technology. The world is always hungry for new technology at that point. So what we do, I think, is so special for what's going on right now in the economy. So five years from now, I don't exactly know where will be. We'll probably be doing things we haven't even thought of yet, which is again, what's so exciting about our industry. Will still need money. We will still need money.
We still need you to give us, of course. Always money. You know, I think working capital is a big thing from a financial perspective, so we always have to be careful about how we're bringing money in. Cash from a cash perspective, not being overly leveraged. We need to be financially strong. I think everything that just happened with Silicon Valley Bank has made a lot of customers and suppliers very nervous. So we're going to have that to overcome.
But it will remain important that we are financially strong so that our customers and our suppliers rely on us and that's where I come in making sure that we're there. We're doing those things. So let's say ten years ago when you were with us the first time, right before you left and now come back, which we're glad for, it was pretty much maybe one, maybe two is really pushing forward the industry, at least within evil, right at that point.
Today, we have four or five, what I would call megatrends. And then there's maybe two major megatrends, which is really electrification and ADAS. How much more challenging is that for finance to now? Again, you mentioned development, innovation. Ten years ago, again, two or three areas today. Double is not maybe triple those. What's the challenge on you two to make the decisions to bring your input in on deciding where do we put our precious dollars?
Well, I don't understand half of what you guys say. So I have that homework. We have a lot of acronyms and AVL and so. The industry has a lot of. The industry has alot of acronyms. And so, you know, coming back fresh, I, I have a big hill to climb to understand everything that's going on. But at the end of the day, my job, in my view, is to help remove the speed bumps, remove the obstacles.
I have to be able to rely on you and our vice president of engineering to tell me and our CTO to say, this is the direction we need to go. This is what the industry is doing, this is why it's important. And then I need to help find a way to make that happen, hopefully with as little capital investment as possible. Sure. Always. Always. So that sort of ties into my next question that was kind of wondered, I want to hear your perspective. How does finance and mobility technology mesh together?
Well, clearly, we need financing, trying to develop new technologies. Then we use that technology that we develop to then, you know, license or sell or reuse in development for products that then brings money and that sort of closes the circle. But how does it mesh? How do people mesh? Is it now we have engineers on one side and you have the finance guys on the other side, and that's the big divide or no, that work really well. How do you see it? At our company, they work very well together.
I've been very fortunate since I came back because I was not in this position before. So my perspective was very different. Not that it didn't exist, but I maybe did not know that it existed. But I work hand in hand with our engineering department, the Vice President of Engineering, and I probably talk at least three times a day.
So we're always collaborating on everything from whether we're increasing headcount and where that makes sense and why it makes sense and how I'm going to help him be able to do what he needs to do. We usually don't go down a path without that, and then that ties in to our project management too. Because we're a project based business, we have more than 200 projects going on at any given moment at MTI. So it's, you know, we don't sell widgets, we sell projects.
So the management of our projects, making sure that we're executing those projects is where program management and engineering partner and I'm always involved in those. We make sure that the three of us are aligned on what's best from a financial perspective, what's best from a project perspective and what's best for our teams before we make moves on things. And that I think has been hugely helpful.
The time that we invest on making sure we're aligned pays off in the long run because instead of later fighting each other over why this decision was made or why things are happening that way, we're really working very cohesively as a team, so they enable me to, by giving me the information, by talking to me before things happen, rather than after. Not begging for forgiveness, but actually coming and working, collaborating collaboratively rather than even asking for permission.
It's this is the goal. This is what we're trying to do. How are the three of us going to make it happen? And then we run it all by you. So it sounds like we're doing something right. It's good we get on. The same page and then we make sure that we're going in the direction you want to go. But it's certainly made things so much easier and so much more enjoyable that we're all working so closely together. One team, one team, one Direction, that's for sure.
So you're talking obviously in finance and in the technology side, I was asked the guests or many times I ask them, how do you educate yourself about new trends? How do you keep up to date? I mean, we're not constantly going back to school, but we all kind of have our own ways of how we do it. You know, even we were watching our podcasts or we're reading books, or we may take an online course or whatever. How do you do that on the finance side?
And are you also doing something on the technology side? Because here's another three letter acronym. I have no idea what it is, but they constantly say it. I want to be smarter about it because I need to feel like I need to better understand what they're asking me for money for so that I actually know what it's going to and all that. So tell me a little bit about that. So I should do more of that, admittedly.
But when things come up, when we have issues with customers that come up in the media, I will go and do research. When I hear an acronym that I don't know, I Googled my best friend when those things happen. And again, because I have that collaborative relationship, I can also ask a lot of questions from the people around me, which is great. And then from my perspective on our finance side, I have to do 30 hours a year of continuing on.
So I get to do lots of online courses and lots of research on things going on. So know when when we start really buckling down our focus on working capital. I can go watch a couple working capital classes that, you know, I can pick little pieces out of and say, okay, that's something easy that I can do to help manage this. The other thing, even in my industry, is just the constant improvement of software.
So tools, I, of course live in Microsoft Excel and that is a tool that is ever changing, ever growing, and you have to stay up to date on those things so that you can start being better. So I've spent a lot of time in the last month doing some deep diving on Power query, which is going to change my entire world, I'm sure. Sure. And and that's a byproduct of maybe I'll rolling out some Power BI information, which was something I wasn't familiar with.
So Power BI more database driven power query, more Excel driven. Now I get to bore you with things you don't care about. Nobody wants to. Talk about it, but it's all about really kind of built in automation of things that you're doing and being able to pull from large database pools down to just the data that you want.
And so for my department, if we can get to a space where we are doing something once and basically creating macros in the system to do it repetitive, then the things that only take an hour or a week become only 5 minutes a week, and then we can gain those efficiencies and spend our time doing things that are more valuable. Yeah, I think you just nerded out a little. I do. Sorry. This is awesome.
So maybe next question then is and not not ALV specific, but industry specific as it relates to you, if there could be one or two things that you wish you could change things as foreign exchange stable for six months instead of up and down customers paying on time, the same terms and conditions. I don't know from a finance side what what would it be? What would some of these be again, independent of of of maybe I'll just
generally in your profession. So first and foremost, I think one big thing that's difficult is we don't really have we don't really have like a credit report for like you do for an individual. Right. So and there's Dun & Bradstreet is, is a big resource, which is great but it's not the same as you know I run a credit report on you you can't hide from your social Security number. Right? We don't really have that in the industry.
So that makes it hard in these times because things are changing fast. People go from being completely fine to not being fine. And unless it's reported through D and B, you don't necessarily see it. So it makes it challenging, especially in our industry, where you're trying to support startups, you're trying to move with slightly riskier, innovative companies, which is something we absolutely need to do, but at the same time we need to protect against risk.
So it's really important that we're working together from finance to the sales side to make sure that we're using our contracts to protect us so that we can do some things that are a little bit riskier without risking our financial stability. So to me, that would probably be first and foremost. Absolutely Not necessarily AVL specific, but people that work on a global level, the exchange rate has been a huge factor in the last year, year and a half.
So certainly if I could wave a magic wand and say it's going to be this rate and that's where it's going to stay and I'm going to know what's going on with that, that would be good. And right now, I think banking feels a little unstable. I don't know that it is as unstable as it feels like right in this moment because it's it's fresh, but certainly a little more confidence in that area would be nice to you know, it is our industry here is difficult payment terms are difficult.
So we in turn have to make payment terms difficult for our suppliers. But I think industrywide, if we could all sort of recognize that we cannot take on all the risk for some of the bigger guys and that, you know, we need to all make sure that we're that we're covered and that we're doing the right things. That would be great for us. Okay. And great for our industry. Sure. The final question challenging you a little bit on that. Why should someone choose finance over engineering?
And you can't say they should go into engineering? That's not going to count. I know we're a heavy technology based company, but finance is as important. Well, I guess, you know, there's the old saying that you need chiefs and you need Indians and you can't have more of one than the other. It's the same. Some some people are. They think that way and are able to do the engineering side of it. For me, the numbers are where it's out for me, that's where my head goes. And the strategy behind that.
So for me, finance has been a great way to enable an industry that I think is amazing, but that I'm not necessarily skilled to be part of. So I came from a background of project accounting. So this industry ended up being perfect for me. Project accounting becomes a little niche in that not everyone knows how to do it. Not every company needs it. We're not manufacturing. That's not what we do. It's a different mindset to address project accounting.
So for me, this was a great industry to be part of. Even though we support companies that do manufacture, that's not what we do here. So this industry has allowed me to use my background in project accounting, which I've always enjoyed. We do custom projects. So again, we're not a job shop where you're getting the same thing over and over again. Everything's different.
There's always new challenges, there's always new teams to work with, there's always new technologies, there's always a new acronym. So there's always something new to do. So, you know, I think if if you lean towards numbers, then maybe finance makes sense. If you lean towards the strategy of helping other people do what they know how to do best, and you are able to stay in the lane of trying to help them and be happy about their successes,
then this could be a perfect field. Go. I got one more question now that you mentioned that. So sorry, this wasn't a well, this is not going to be the last. So an engineer, right. Oftentimes gets very much satisfaction and joy out of being able to say, I have this vision of making this into this or making this turn or making this move, make it light or fast or cheap or whatever. What is it on the finance side? At the end of the day, it's like we made money here. This is kind of
what I get. The thing is it you being able to enable the engineers to do so more as a as a supporting role versus the lead role? What is it for you? That is exactly it. So when you say, you know, I wanted to make this and I made this, I think he got to make that. Yes. So, you know. That's that's completely becuase of me, I know it's exactly that. You know, I, I can't do that. I don't have the skill set to do that thing.
But I get joy out of knowing that I help someone get to where they were trying to get to that, that I was given the the authority and the room to make my decisions that then helped them do what they were trying to deliver. And I think we do a good job here of feeling like a team. So we all sort of succeed together and we root each other on and it is I think there's a I've seen the mentality in accounting that we're the no guy.
We just say no and the default is no. And I have tried to approach this job in an opposite perspective, which does not mean that the answer's always yes. But let's figure out if we can get to a yes, how we can get to a yes when we can get to a yes, because it might not be now, but it might be someday. But what what are the things that we need to do to get there? So for me, it's been exciting to be able to approach the role from more of a can do attitude than a will not do approach.
And it seems to be working. Yes. Very much. Thank you. Thanks, Jen, for your time and thanks for tuning in imaginable. Thanks for listening to Reimagine Mobility Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and tell a friend.