Integrating Finance and IT: Insights From the CIO of Brookfield Residential

[00:00:15] Melissa Howatson Welcome to The CFO Show. I'm your host, Melissa Howatson, CFO of Vena. On this episode, we're diving into the powerful fusion of finance and IT, a partnership that's not just critical but a true catalyst for transformation. Joining me for this conversation is Brandon Sharp, CIO at Brookfield Residential, where he is responsible for developing and executing the company's overall IT strategy. Brandon has spent the past 22 years serving in various finance operations and information-focused leadership roles in the land and housing industry. Brandon, welcome to the show.

[00:00:58] Brandon Sharp Thank you, Melissa. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

[00:00:59] Melissa Howatson So, before I jump into my questions, can you give us a little bit more about your background and what it is you do at Brookfield Residential

[00:01:09] Brandon Sharp Yeah, you bet, thank you. So at Brookfield Residential, I'm the CIO. So I'm responsible for execution of all IT and data strategies. My background is 30 years as a working professional, 22 years in land development and home building. And over that 22 years, in land development and home building, I've spent now roughly 11 years in IT leadership roles as the CIO. And I spent the other 11 years in various finance roles, including CFO for a home builder. So the journey has been an interesting journey, but yeah, here I find myself as a CIO again at Brookfield residential

[00:01:45] Melissa Howatson You originally started in the finance side of the house as CFO, and then you ended up making a move to go over to be CIO. What was it that made you take this leap?

[00:01:57] Brandon Sharp I was always sort of data curious and somewhere during the late 2008, early 2009 timeframe, it was time to take on an IT leadership role with the home builder that I was working for at that time called Standard Pacific Homes. And that data curiosity as a finance person led me to that role as a CIO in the industry. It was not by design. It wasn't the script of my career that I intended. It just sort of happened. And now I've served as a CIO for a couple different homebuilders for about 11 years in total, and in between I've bounced between finance and operations roles.

[00:02:46] Melissa Howatson When you were making this decision, were you nervous about taking this leap?

[00:02:50] Brandon Sharp Absolutely. I was, as many organizations might experience on their own, there's something called shadow IT. And so while I was in a finance and accounting role, I also sort of was in stealth mode operating as shadow IT and then. In the early part of 2009, the first time I became a CIO and taking over an IT organization, sort of working around. So there was a lot of nervousness in taking on that position, taking over the responsibility for a team that wasn't necessarily big fans of mine, and having to introduce myself in the room now as the leader of the team, and trying to execute on a really important vision for execution around data and data transformation. And so a lot of nervousness. At the same time, I transferred myself and my family. There was a lot of combined nervousness. There was the, do I know what I'm doing? I'm not a technologist. Do I know how to lead an IT organization? I am an accountant. And I'm leading a group who isn't necessarily the most friendly towards me. The day I arrive on scene as the CIO and I've moved my family across the country in a really, really tough economic cycle. So yeah, a lot of decisions, a lot of anxiety went into that decision.

[00:04:09] Melissa Howatson This partnership between finance and IT is a really critical one and is often underestimated. What are your thoughts in terms of, as you thought about that move and how important this partnership was going to be? How do you think about that?

[00:04:25] Brandon Sharp Yeah, really important. Having lived many, many years in finance and accounting and having been responsible for the business planning and cashflow forecasting across a large asset base, across many different divisions, and eventually large region. There were, there just had to be a better way for us to accomplish some of the things we wanted to accomplish in finance in accounting, and the IT organization plays a big part in that. And when there is a big divide between IT leadership and finance leadership, and when IT leadership is focused on tech, and not as much focused on business enablement or accounting and finance organization enablement, that divide grows wider. And I think for us, both in my previous life with Standard Pacific Homes, my role as CFO for RSI Communities, and then here at Brookfield once again, having that tight partnership and collaboration with the finance organization really enables the organization to drive key initiatives and key strategies forward much more quickly.

[00:05:36] Melissa Howatson And it's interesting because I think both IT and finance, we sit at these interesting intersections in the business where we see a lot of things across the business and opportunities. And so by coming together, we can not only enable better transformations within the results we need in finance, but also across the business because putting our heads together on how do we tackle some of these business challenges? How do we fund it? What are the priorities? You know, there's a lot that can really help drive the whole business and outcomes when we come together. What do you see are some of the key ingredients to make this partnership be successful?

[00:06:15] Brandon Sharp When I think about alignment across an organization and when I think about data-driven transformations, which is sort of become my wheelhouse, I suppose, helping organizations transform around data and systems, having more voices in the room, and casting the wide net and building a broad-based team that creates that level of engagement that really helps feed the energy into the transformation. You can make good progress with a small number of people in the room. And some leaders and some organizations like to execute strategy transformation initiatives that way. Try to limit the impact on those in the business. Let them do the business, and just pick out the few that have really strong voices. That's one way to do it. That, to me, hasn't ever felt like the right approach. The right approach for me to gain maximum alignment, maximum understanding, is to bring a lot of voices into the room. And so it's not uncommon when we, when I have been involved with transformational initiatives. It's not uncommon to have large phone calls, 30, 40, large meetings. We gather in a city that's convenient for everybody to parachute into. And we spend two days and we plan a project together with 60 people from around the business. Important step, I think, in creating understanding and alignment and creating the energy for this really important transformation, whether it's operational transformation, or it's finance and accounting transformation, but whoever the audience is, and whoever the customers of that transformation are, to me, spreading that wide net and bringing in a lot of voices really enhances the debate, helps you solve problems more quickly, helps to identify solutions more quickly and come to really good answers instead of leaning on a few people to sort of drive the vision.

[00:08:11] Melissa Howatson I imagine that can be controversial within the business when you're bringing in so many people. There's always this friction between moving faster or slowing down a little bit, and it's feeling like it's becoming a little longer of a process, and it getting so many voices that at some point you've got to make decisions. But clear how you think about that. I think when you are casting that wider net, bringing more people in. The ability to influence starts to become a factor as well in terms of how you're gonna still find a path through this. How important have you found that ability to influence is both when you were in finance, but especially now, you know, in working with IT and on these transformation projects?

[00:08:57] Brandon Sharp To some extent, rooted in setting good expectations, telling the story early, delivering on some early wins, gaining some early credibility around this really big, really important transformative initiative. And as you sort of baby step your way into progress, your ability to continue to influence and continue to encourage grows. I guess, success breeds success, if you think of it that way. So the phrase I always use, and I'm not sure even where I got this. I probably read it at some point, but tell them what you're going to tell them, and then tell them, and then tell them what you told them. And following that sort of simple three-step model, if you will. The tell them what you're going to tell them is setting the stage, and explaining the importance of this thing that we're about to go do, and why it's important to the organization for many disciplines across the organization. So that's sort of telling them what you gonna tell them. Then go perform, go execute, have some early wins. That's the tell them. And then do some retrospectives, and remind people of the journey they've been on. And remind them of the successes that we've had, and that's to tell them what you told them. So tell them, what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you've told them. And I think those three pieces if you if you sort of follow that methodology, and if you are if you have the ability to inspire an organization for this transformation initiative, you gain the ability to continue to influence the organization.

[00:10:45] Melissa Howatson I love that, because it's easy to remember. And I think you're right, that influence is earned over time. It doesn't just come right away, and giving the wins. It sounds to me as well, an important piece of this for you is communication. You talked about bringing people in. And it's sometimes easy for sure, in finance, and I imagine in IT as well. We're busy. We know what we need to do. We can see why and how, but not everyone else has the same understanding of why we're even on this journey. And by hearing them and explaining back so they know the why, it's so much easier to get the change management right when you're going through this.

[00:11:26] Brandon Sharp I think for me personally, my ability to influence the organization through these transformative initiatives has always been rooted in me not being a technologist. I came from the business. I was an accountant. I became operational. I understood the nature of what we do, and I could then take my knowledge of the business, and apply it to a corporate IT organization, to then drive initiatives through the lens of the operator, because I speak their language first. So that's part of influence also is depending on what your background is in terms of your respective industry, perhaps you might have a higher level of ability to influence the organization, because you came from within the operation rather than being that technologist leader who is trying to force technology solutions on the organization, and you don't really know the business, and you don't really know what you're disturbing or impacting. So I think that was always part of the keys to my success with the IT organizations I've been part of, is I was able to influence by way of understanding the business first.

[00:12:40] Melissa Howatson Along those lines, you've now moved into the IT org. You're working with a finance counterpart. And this alignment, you know, is critical, but it's also important to understand who's doing what and when do the lanes make sense versus the crossing over? Because I can imagine it could create friction in a different way now when you're sitting over on this seat. Tell us a bit about what that was like for you when you now were wearing a different hat.

[00:13:10] Brandon Sharp Yeah, I mean, it comes up all the time. As I mentioned, right, we have these large group meetings all the time, every week. We have 30 or 40 people that are gathered on a phone call to talk about the status of one of our initiatives. And I have to stop myself at times, while I am knowledgeable about finance and accounting, but that's not the hat that I wear at this organization at this moment. I am not the CFO here. And I'm on these calls driving these initiatives with a whole bunch of finance collaborators from across the organization, including those who are the leaders of the finance organization. And I do have to stop myself at times and say, okay, but look, I'm just the weatherman here. I'm reporting the weather. The finance leaders who are on this call are really the ones that have to go execute on this. The accounting standardization, the finance standardization, the process alignment, that's not up to me to dictate or to determine because that's not the function I'm in here. Even though I'm happy to provide my input and provide my opinion, I'm always never short of an opinion on the topic, but that's not my role. And so I do have to take that hat off deliberately, and make sure I'm not sort of overstepping, and leave the finance organization empowered with the decisions that they're responsible for.

[00:14:27] Melissa Howatson And so when you're pulling these groups together, you know, that exists between, okay, what's IT's responsibility, what's finance, but then you've got many other collaborators from different parts of the business. How do you go about making sure that roles and responsibilities are well understood?

[00:14:43] Brandon Sharp Yeah, I think it is just, to your point earlier. I think that's just very active and open communication. When we plan projects, we have a sort of a deeply spiritual approach to how we plan and execute projects here. And it does include really deliberate development of the charter with the representatives from the business who are gonna be engaged in the project. It's not just a few people sitting in a room contemplating what this project should deliver. What are the objectives? What are deliverables? What are the timeframes we want to try to achieve? What's the work that has to get completed between the day we start the project and the day that we think we're finished with the project? And who's responsible for all of that work? We do that type of planning of a project cross-functionally across all disciplines. So I think from the very early days as we ideate on a project or bring some project initiative to life, we've got that cross-functional, cross-discipline mindset. And so the assignment of responsibilities and the understanding of who is doing what and who is responsible for what part of the project plan, so that we can execute and get to the finish line, I think that's just all well understood from the very beginning for us.

[00:16:03] Melissa Howatson And it sounds like you have excellent project management that is a part of organizing this. When you moved over from finance into IT, were there any structural changes you made or changes to the way that you were operating that you found better serves the business?

[00:16:20] Brandon Sharp Getting stuck in structure or trying to maintain sort of that sequential approach that I applied in my accounting and finance world, but trying to apply that in an IT organization doesn't necessarily follow. It has to be a little bit more agile. It has be more fluid. Even though you do have to keep your mind, or you have to keep your eye on the long-term strategy and the long-term goals, not at the expense of being a little bit more nimble and being able to execute on a strategy that's near term. So I think that's maybe a little more flexibility, and a little less structure would be the way to summarize it.

[00:16:59] Melissa Howatson And you've now had a number of years where you've been doing this. You've led a ton of transformations, systems, processes, technology transformations in your business. What would be the top two or three lessons you've learned on how to do that successfully that you would share with others?

[00:17:19] Brandon Sharp Be really, really transparent in the reasons why, and be really transparent in progress being made. Companies start to bring question to, and the organization, the business leaders will start to establish doubt in the thing we're doing if it wasn't really well articulated as to the why, and if the progress being made along the way isn't being communicated, even over-communicated. So that's one lesson, is just be ultra, ultra transparent in what we're doing and the progress we're making. Otherwise, you can be questioned for and lose credibility. And then the next time you come to the organization for a really important thing to do, you may not get the support. So that's one. And I think the second lesson is just to be mindful. I talk about the casting of the wide net. That's my instinct. That's just who I am as a person, as a leader. I like to engage people in the discussion, and get to a really good outcome. And I feel more voices is better than fewer voices. But also being, at the same time, being mindful of the DNA of an organization. And some organizations just don't want that approach. Or while the organization might accept that approach at a certain point in time, at another point in time, the lifecycle of that company is now slightly different, and you may not have the same support or same sponsorship for approaching the project that way. So it's always, I guess, being open to and being mindful of this shifting nature of, and the shifting DNA of an organization on transformation.

[00:19:13] Melissa Howatson I think that's great advice. And as you spoke about transparency, you know, it made me think about often, when you're going through these transformation journeys, there's a tendency to it’s going fine, all is good. You want to be sharing the wins, because you're trying to keep people motivated. But sometimes these things go a little off the rails, or maybe they're not on track, and it is important to be clear about that one so that you can really get the to get it back on track if that's what's needed. But also, it's okay sometimes to have little failures along the way. What did you learn from them, and how are you using it to get better? Because it's gotta be a balance. Obviously, you wanna be winning most of the time, but you're not always gonna win. Sometimes some of the things you do don't work out, and that's what you take from that.

[00:20:04] Brandon Sharp Yeah, and that's a good point also just in terms of how we execute our projects even during the execution of a project. When we are holding what we call our weekly control calls, we bring people back on the phone, those that are part of the project, whether you're in the business or in the IT project management office, or software partner, but we have this weekly control call where we are identifying the problems in the plan. We are statusing the plan. We are identifying the problems in plan. We're looking at new constraints that showed up or new assumptions we have to make and we are always course correcting. We're looking at things like critical path on project execution. We're seeing that the delay has now occurred, and we're talking openly about what can we do to bring the project back on schedule? Can we, time, cost, quality, right? Those are your three offsetting. Counterbalancing pressure points in a project, time, cost, quality. So if we're off schedule, we can either spend more money, and bring it on schedule or sacrifice quality, and bring back into schedule, okay? Sacrificing quality may not be the thing we choose to do. We want to execute it at a certain level of quality. So then all we can do to bring it back on schedule, maybe is spend more with some extra consultants, and bring them back on the schedule. Or we just agree that the schedule has slipped by 30 days or 45 days and that's our new timeline, and we start executing to that new timeline. So it is it is being open and communicative and transparent all the time throughout execution, and raising issues, and raising obstacles as they're as they are showing up.

[00:21:33] Melissa Howatson I like the time cost quality, because it really is the balancing of these three things. So that's a great approach.

[00:21:39] Brandon Sharp Yeah, that's the triangle.

[00:21:41] Melissa Howatson So when I think about IT and finance working together, IT is often a big part of the budget, especially when it comes to technology investments. It often sits directly with IT rather than distributed. Finance is always looking at ways to make sure that the budgets as tight as they can be or are we putting them into the right use. How do you think that IT and finance can best work together to service what the organization needs there?

[00:22:11] Brandon Sharp Yeah, I think just when a budget's being put together by an IT organization, and to your point, it is a very large budget in many organizations, I think, just having a well articulated strategy, and being able to, I wouldn't say ROI justify everything that's happening in the IT group, especially around initiatives. Some initiatives you have to just do, this is very unconventional perhaps but some initiatives you just have to do. Because it advances the organization, or you have to keep up with market trends, or you have to keep with competitors. And sometimes there isn't a definitive ROI on that part of the IT budget. But in other areas where it feels like a luxury, or it feels an addition in the budget that might not be well understood across the organization, then a little bit more agitation around ROI is important. And so having the finance organization really lean in and understand the guts of an IT budget, and why the IT organization is spending the money they're spending. It's important that there's a mutual understanding and alignment on the importance of these initiatives. Otherwise, you might find yourself with a finance organization that isn't willing to fund the important initiatives that keep the company advancing forward and then the company might wake up one day, and be well behind their competitors, and didn't make the progress that they needed to make.

[00:23:42] Melissa Howatson Now, what advice would you give to organizations that are looking to bring tighter alignment between finance and IT?

[00:23:52] Brandon Sharp Yeah, I think you just, where it can start for a lot of organizations is looking through, penetrating through the finance organization, and finding that person or those couple people who are data curious, right? A lot of people, perhaps in finance and accounting, just wanna come in and do their planning or come in do their accounting. But then there are those gems in an organization who are the ones who really drive tools, and they're always creating some new schedule, or they are always searching for, and wanting to perfect their sciences around data. And it's in the form of a spreadsheet, because they don't have a SQL database to tap into necessarily. But they are data curious, and they are experts at data, and they own the data in their respective market or their respective business group or division. And so I think if you find those people in a finance organization, and it doesn't take very many of them, find one or two of them in a financial organization, they become your conduit into the IT organization. Then the IT organizations, in the absence of a finance person running the IT organization, which is uncommon, I think, but then you have this opportunity to create tighter alignment between IT and finance, because you have somebody in the finance organization who cares about data. You have an IT organization who cares passionately about the delivery of systems and data. And now they can start talking to each other about common goals and common strategies and executing as a partnership.

[00:25:39] Melissa Howatson It's interesting, as you're saying that, you made me think about times in my career when I've had systems and process changes go well. It was those very people, and not just in finance, sometimes it's who's that person in the legal team? Who's that person on another team who has that curiosity enough to care, to ask the questions, to think more broadly than just my domain, what's the job I have to get done, but how are these things going to work, and impact the other pieces, so that when you, even though they don't own that responsibility, they're thinking a little bit more broadly, and willing to walk hand in hand with others to construct the bigger master vision or plan on what the change is going to look like so that it has been thought of more fully. So you're right, that's not everybody's wheelhouse, but knowing who those people are, and letting them shine with it can go a long way.

[00:26:35] Brandon Sharp Yeah, we invite those subject matter experts into all of our project planning and all of our project execution. And those are really critical contributors. They do have to care enough about thinking globally and not locally. And that is hard. A lot of people just get stuck in the, but this is what I do here locally. And they don't necessarily have the desire or the will to think more globally. And how can I help take what I know about my local operation and apply it to the national organization? And how can I help advance these initiatives forward?

[00:27:05] Melissa Howatson Thank you so much for joining me today. I always enjoy having a conversation with you and hearing about your journey and the transformations. I find it so motivating. So really appreciate you joining me. I do have two rapid-fire questions that we like to ask our guests when they're on the show. So are you ready?

[00:27:25] Brandon Sharp Sure.

[00:27:25] Melissa Howatson What is the hallmark of a mature relationship between finance and IT?

[00:27:30] Brandon Sharp Yeah, the hallmark would be that the finance organization leans on the IT organization for support. And the IT organizations isn't pushing their way into supporting the finance organization.

[00:27:48] Melissa Howatson I love that answer because as you said it, it makes me think of that also is how you know you have a mature finance organization, how they work with others, right, when they're getting invited to have that seat at the table. So love that one.

[00:28:00] Brandon Sharp Yeah, that's right.

[00:28:02] Melissa Howatson And, if you could recommend one book that's had an impact on you in leadership, what would that be?

[00:28:11] Brandon Sharp Gosh, I've read it for sure at least a couple of times, but I would be hard pressed to explain everything that it talked about, but it was super influential back when I took on the book the first time. It was Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. And then I had an opportunity at a home building industry conference back in, I don't know, around the 2005, 2006 timeframe to hear Patrick Lencioni as a keynote speaker at an industry conference, which was fabulous and inspiring. And yeah, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, it just, it helped me understand team dynamics, and the personalities in a team that you need to understand and maximize in order to create great outputs, and the underpinning of any successful team is that trust, and how you gain the trust is by open and candid communication and being humanistic in your approach to your team. So I think, again, it's sitting over here on my shelf. I couldn't repeat everything that I learned from the book, but it was one of the books that helped me really understand team dynamics in the early part of my career, at least in home building.

[00:29:23] Melissa Howatson It's such a good book, and you're right. It's one you pull out. I know we certainly, here at Vena, we absolutely use those principles, and we check ourselves at least once a year. How are we doing? And I always find it's a good reminder of those principles, because you're not necessarily always thinking about that in your day-to-day, but the importance of is this team actually coming together, functioning well together, is so key. Thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

[00:29:50] Brandon Sharp Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate it.

[00:29:52] Melissa Howatson If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more on this topic, sign up for our free newsletter, where each week you'll get a roundup of exclusive resources designed to help you grow your leadership skills and drive strategic transformation across your business. Visit thecfoshowpodcast.com to sign up now. For The CFO Show, I'm Melissa Howatson. Until next time.