Elevate Your Accounts Payable Career: Securing Your Seat at the Table

Are you ready to take your AP career to the next level? Join us in this insightful episode as we explore essential strategies to help AP professionals stand out and secure a crucial seat at the decision-making table. We’ll delve into how you can shine in interviews by mastering practical tips and techniques that impress hiring managers and help you land your dream job in AP. We’ll also discuss the qualities that define a true team player and offer insights on enhancing your collaborative skills. Additionally, you’ll learn how to boost your professional presence by effectively communicating your expertise and contributions, ensuring you gain the recognition and influence you deserve.

Janet Ngonadi, APPM
Sr. Director Accounts Payable 

Janet is a seasoned Senior Director of Accounts Payable with an impressive 25-year track record in Finance Operations, specializing in Procure to Pay. Known for her passion for fostering strong team dynamics, Janet excels in collaborating with stakeholders across the business to identify gaps and implement innovative solutions. She is dedicated to continuous growth and learning, constantly seeking opportunities to drive efficiencies and enhance customer service within her team. She remains up-to-date with the latest technologies and has been instrumental in several system implementations. Outside of work, Janet balances the demands of a busy household with four children under the age of eight, demonstrating her problem-solving skills and resilience under pressure around the clock.

Grace Chlosta
Content Manager, IOFM

Grace Chlosta joined the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM) in 2022 in a new role for the team as the Content Manager. She is responsible for the planning, organization, development, and implementation of all the content for IOFM’s digital products and (virtual and in-person) events. Grace is committed to ensuring that IOFM’s content stays timely, relevant, and actionable for all financial operations professionals, and works closely with a team of content developers, industry leaders, and subject matter experts to guarantee this happens.

Transcription

Grace Chlosta: Welcome to the IOFM podcast. This is a podcast for accounts payable and accounts receivable professionals who want to stay in the know with current AP and AR trends and ideas. We'll be interviewing professionals in this space on a wide variety of subjects, including automation, artificial intelligence, career growth, compliance, leadership, and much more.

Today we'll be interviewing Janet Ngonadi, APPM. Janet is a seasoned, senior director of accounts payable with an impressive 25-year track record in finance operations specializing in procure-to-pay. Known for her passion for fostering strong team dynamics, Janet excels in collaborating with stakeholders across the business to identify gaps and implement innovative solutions. She is dedicated to continuous growth and learning, constantly seeking opportunities to drive efficiencies and enhance customer service within her team.

00:01:01

She remains up-to-date with the latest techniques and has been instrumental in several system implementations. Outside of work, Janet balances the demands of a busy household, with four children under the age of eight, demonstrating her problem-solving skills and resilience under pressure, around the clock. She'll be interviewed by me, Grace Chlosta, Content Manager at IOFM. I joined the Institute of Finance and Management in 2022 in a new role for our team as the content manager. I'm responsible for the planning, organization, development, and implementation of all content for IOFM's digital products and virtual and in-person events. I'm committed to ensuring that IOFM's content stays timely, relevant, and actionable for all financial operations professionals, and I work closely with a team of content developers, industry leaders, and subject matter experts to guarantee this happens. 

00:01:55

All right. Hi, Janet. How are you doing today? 

Janet Ngonadi: I'm good. How are you, Grace? Thank you for having me on.

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, we're so excited to have you – a great conversation ahead about leadership and really kind of how to make your AP team visible and just kind of career advice and what it would be like to be interviewing for an AP, kind of what you look for, a lot of advice all across the board. I'd love to hop into it with you if you're ready.

Janet Ngonadi: Absolutely.

Grace Chlosta: Kind of beginning with leadership in AP, how important do you think leadership is in accounts payable, especially in terms of kind of prioritizing people and relationships and the teams that you have around you?

Janet Ngonadi: I think leadership is super important. AP is always kind of the unsung heroes, if you will. If there's issues, that's when you'll actually hear about AP. And when things are going smooth, you never hear about them. So I think it's super important to kind of really appreciate your team, acknowledge them, let them know and educate them on the impact that they have within the organization. We're such a back-office function, but we're instrumental to the success of the business. We work with everyone throughout the organization. It always stops with us.

00:03:21

I think it's super important to make sure that your team is always engaged, that morale is high, that they understand how important they are to the success of the business. So I think communication is super important, listening to your team. I think one of the things I always like to tell leaders in my team is like, "Listen to your team. Understand what their issues are, what their bottlenecks are, and then go into the conversation with a positive mindset." 

00:03:56

We're solution-based. AP is very customer service-centric, and I think kind of teaching that and making sure everyone's aligned is super important. 

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, I completely agree. I think listening is a huge step. Are there any other kinds of insights or things that you do to kind of help with team building or trust or building relationships within your own team that you lead?

Janet Ngonadi: Absolutely. I'm very big on kind of leading by example, rolling up my sleeves. I think it's so important when your team knows that you, as the leader, are invested in them and their growth and everything that they're doing. That's what creates trust. So making sure you're always available. I'm super busy. I'm in back-to-back meetings almost every single day, but I'm like, "Slap me. I'm never too busy. Please, if you need anything, let me know." I also have daily check-ins with the team. I work remote. I have some remote employees, and then we have some in New York.

00:05:08

These daily check-ins are a way to connect. It's half an hour on the calendar. If we need it, great. If we don't, we don't, and we're just on the call for five minutes. "Hi, how's everyone doing? Is there any emergency? You need me for anything? No, okay, cool. I'll give you your time back." But they know that there is a space there for them to get the support they need. 

Grace Chlosta: Exactly. I feel like that's been huge since COVID and the pandemic, just making time for your time, whether that's daily or weekly. I've heard from a lot of people that they feel almost more connected to their team than they did when they were in the office full-time. I think, yeah, making that time, and just being able to listen and having a safe space to share problems and communicate is really important.

00:05:57                     

Janet Ngonadi: For sure. And it's been working very well. Again, I'll go back to – you mentioned trust. That's how you start your relationships, with trust, so that is super, super important to cultivate.

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, I completely agree. Trust is huge. When we had first connected, you talked a lot about how important it is to make sure that people at your company really know about AP and what's going on, because, I think you said it earlier, a lot of times AP feels not really as noticed as other teams. What kinds of challenges – if you're a siloed AP team, what does that do for your team, and how can you kind of gain that visibility with different branches of your company and higher-ups?

00:06:52                     

Janet Ngonadi: This is one of my favorite things to talk about because I like to inject myself throughout the organization. Like I said, eventually, it's going to come to our team, whether it's onboarding when there's new joiners into the company – how do they know how to reach out to us, whether it's that they need policy or to apply for a corporate card, or how do you submit an expense report? If I have a new supplier, how do I onboard them? Kind of making sure that these resources are available to them since the first day that they join. I also have someone on my team who actually has monthly meetings with all of the admins to make sure that they have support when it comes to create an expense report or submitting an invoice.

00:07:51

I think it makes them feel good to know that they have that space to be able to know who their point of contact is. They look forward to that kind of check-in call. Same thing with marketing. I have a biweekly check-in with marketing. One of the first things I like to do when I join a company is like: Who are all the stakeholders? And let me meet them. Listen, my first question is: "How has your experience with AP been? What's working? What's not working? How can we collaborate and partner together as well?" And when you actually create that space, trust me; you're going to get a lot of feedback. 

Grace Chlosta:  Yeah, exactly.

Janet Ngonadi: So we all have [other] support and actually be included in these conversations. Before they go live with a product, or they're onboarding a new supplier, you'll be part of those conversations because now they'll know who you are.

00:08:56                     

Grace Chlosta: Right. And I feel like, especially joining a new company, you won't really know what the challenges are and what your hurdles are going to be unless you put yourself in that position to hear from everyone, right?

Janet Ngonadi: Yes. And people need to know who you are and who their point of contact is, and they also need to know that you're looking forward to partnering with them and collaborate.

Grace Chlosta: Right. So I guess some good advice would be: If you've been at your company for a while, and that isn't something that you've done yet, what would be some good first steps to take to get that seat at the table and start talking to those stakeholders at your company if you've been there for a while?

Janet Ngonadi: Yeah, I would say, even if you've been there for a while, use the same approach. Who are these stakeholders? Let me add time to their calendar to let them know kind of why I'm doing this, like a little tour, if you will. "Hey, I know I've been here for a while, but I would like to collaborate better. I feel there's opportunities to improve. What are some of your pain points currently with my team?"

00:10:04

"How can we better partner with you?" Just asking those questions and listening, and just the same way you do with your team, you're building trust with these stakeholders. They know that there's someone there that actually cares and wants to make improvements. 

Grace Chlosta: Yeah. I mean, on the opposite side, if that's something they haven't done and people really aren't advocating themselves, what do you think those challenges – what could arise later on? And how can people kind of advocate for themselves and their team once they do get the place in the room and be able to talk to people about what the challenges are? What are some ways that you can kind of grow your team and better yourself from what they're presenting to you?

00:10:47                     

Janet Ngonadi: I think feedback is super important. Without feedback, how do you know the areas that you need to improve? One of the things I always tell my team – because, you know, first of all, things are always going to happen. There's going to be fires and there's going to be urgencies. One of the lines that I love to use all the time is "without breakdown, there's no breakthroughs." If everything is consistent and great, there's no room for you to grow, right? Same thing in our personal life. Our world needs to shake a little bit [laughter]. I would say, once you meet with these stakeholders and you get feedback, definitely always go back to your team and share it, and include them in the conversations of like, "Okay, how can we better improve our support model to the business?"

00:11:43                     

Grace Chlosta: Absolutely. Talking about teambuilding, I know that you're really passionate about having great people around you and kind of finding great candidates for your team. So to start with that, when you're looking for a new candidate or someone to join your team, how do you look for someone and go kind of beyond their résumé? What do you look for when you look for an attitude and their potential fit with your AP team's culture and your whole company's culture?

Janet Ngonadi: That's a great question. For me, I feel like attitude is the most important thing. You can teach anyone a task, but you can't teach them how to have the right attitude. One of the things I look for is: How good are you at working under pressure? How curious are you? I think curiosity is super important within this role, because that's how we're going to find kind of areas of improvement and not just stay stagnant, and stop working under fire all the time, right? Instead of firefighting, how do we get ahead of it?

00:12:50

So, really, attitude, their curiosity, their leadership style, whether they like to be more siloed as opposed to it all being about team. What is their customer service style? Again, I'll go back to like AP is very customer service-centric, internally and externally. So those are the things that I love to look at. When I interview, it's more like a conversation, because I want to get to know them: Who are you and how much do you care about people? 

Grace Chlosta: Right, it's very true. You're going to be working with someone every day. Like you said, you're going to be on the standups. You want people who are curious, who are willing to learn, and you're going to get this information from different departments at your company. You want them to take it and grow. It all makes sense. We also know it's a really competitive job market right now. There's a lot of jobs. It's just really competitive. As a candidate, what kinds of strategies can candidates use to really stand out and demonstrate those things, and their willingness and ability to learn, whether that's on their résumé or in an interview with someone. What can they do to really stand out?

00:14:03                     

Janet Ngonadi: I would say, do your research. I feel like we live in a world where we have so much information at our fingertips. In the same way you would do research on like, "Oh, I want to try this new restaurant," or "I want to travel to this new destination," or "I just met this person; let me Google them." Do the same thing with your job search, right? Get to know who works there. How long have they been there? What systems are they using? Just do as much research as possible so when you do get that interview, you're able to ask good questions and really show that you're super interested and engaged because you came prepared.

00:14:50                     

Grace Chlosta: Absolutely. That's a really great point. And I guess on the opposite side, you talked about a willingness to learn, curiosity as someone who would be hiring. Is there anything else that really stands out to you, aside from that, about what are some tools? I guess anything within the actual AP realm that people are doing to stand out right now?

Janet Ngonadi: I'll says systems is not really big for me, because I feel like you could learn to use them all. But speaking into like: How do you handle urgencies? How do you define when something is actually urgent? And when something is identified as urgent, what are your next steps? Some people, we have something that's urgent and they're like, "Yeah, I'm very good with urgencies," but then there's no action. So I like for them to share like, "Okay, you had an urgency. What were your next steps?" So I kind of create scenarios for them to see how they'll kind of answer.

00:15:56

But I think that is something important, because there's always going to be escalations, so I think people coming prepared and being able to share some of those examples and how they work under pressure is kind of key and will separate them from other individuals. 

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, I mean, that conflict and stress management, especially in AP, I'm sure, is really, really pivotal to making sure that you're going to succeed in your role.

Janet Ngonadi: For sure. And another thing I look at, too, is like: How do you work with offshore folks? That's the new world we live in. We have a lot of offshore teams. How do you work with them, and how do you make them feel included with your onshore team? Again, I go back to people, and I think it's very important for everyone to feel inclusive and to feel that they're part of the team.

Grace Chlosta: Absolutely. And what are some ways that you do that? I know you talked about like daily standups. What are some other ways that you can make your team feel more included?

00:16:56                     

Janet Ngonadi: We have kind of a Slack channel where we all keep connected, including our onshore/offshore team. We have a monthly meeting where everyone gets to just talk and interact, turn on your cameras. And just knowing how to respect and interact with other people in another country is super important as well, right? Culturally, we're very different – again, creating that safe space for them to feel comfortable is very important.

Grace Chlosta: That's so true. I'm saying it again, but I really feel like those are all skills that we've had to learn from the pandemic and all working remote that we might've not done.

Janet Ngonadi: For sure.

Grace Chlosta: So that's something positive to come out of that time.

Janet Ngonadi: Yeah. I feel like, after COVID, the way we work has changed so much, so how you adapt to these changes is super important.

00:17:53                     

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, I agree. Kind of talking about going forward, we hear a lot about people being adaptable and being able to continuously learn in AP. How important do you think continuous learning is in these AP roles, and especially with all of this new technology that's coming and all these new processes – AI and automation – what are some things that folks can do in AP to make sure that they're staying on top of all the new technologies are coming?

Janet Ngonadi: I love this question because we've been giving a learning benefit every year, and my team is always like, "Hey, what should we do?" I'm like, "Get certified."

Grace Chlosta: Of course that's what we would say.

Janet Ngonadi: Get certified. There's a huge AP community. Get involved. Ask questions. I think it's super important to stay up-to-date. It's very, very easy to stay stagnant at an organization, and I've seen this as people interview. They've been with a company 14-plus years, doing the same thing. There hasn't been any growth. It actually breaks my heart, right, because we're in a new era, a new day and age, where we have share services and we're updating our systems, and the way we work is very different in AP than it was 15, 20 years ago.

00:19:24

So making sure that you stay on top of technologies, on top of processes. How do we work better? How do we constantly become more efficient? It's super important. 

Grace Chlosta: Yeah, I agree. I feel like we hear from a lot of people they've been at the same job, potentially even the same role, for, like you said, decades. So I think taking all of this information today, you can still make your job fresh and exciting, just by taking some of this advice and utilizing it. Reaching out to your other departments, reaching out to stakeholders, "What are some challenges?" Taking accountability. "What are problems or challenges you have within my team?" And then working on those throughout the rest of the year.

00:20:04

And of course, you're in the right place, because you're on IOFM. You're listening to our podcast. You're hopefully getting certified and all of those things. But there are ways to stay fresh even if you've been in your role for a long time. 

Janet Ngonadi: Absolutely. Just start having conversations. I always tell people, "We can be at an organization, but it's up to you where you go. You've already got in through the door. Now just take charge of your path." It is collaborating – I think collaboration is so important, and there are so many opportunities for you.

Grace Chlosta: I agree. And kind of think about, if the roles were reversed and you got an email from someone asking the same questions that you would be asking them, you'd be happy to chat with them about it. So never feel uncomfortable for asking questions and communicating.

Janet Ngonadi: Absolutely.

00:20:56                     

Grace Chlosta: This has been great Janet. Is there anything else you'd like to chat about today, or any last comments to make?

Janet Ngonadi: I guess my last comment is: We deal with so much, and I feel like sometimes teams are underappreciated, so just making sure that you always acknowledge your team, both positive and any areas that need improvement, because that would just make the team better. Definitely take that on. Collaborate. Let people know who you are. Let them know you care. Let them know you're invested in whatever their pain points are. Wherever you are right now, that whole space will change for you once you take those steps.

00:21:43                     

Grace Chlosta: Absolutely. All such great advice. Really inspiring. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We hope to talk to you again soon.

Janet Ngonadi: You're welcome. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Grace Chlosta: Thank you. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the IOFM podcast. Remember to head on over to the Member Forum to discuss today's episode and provide ideas for our next one. And to stay up-to-date on IOFM's current events, both in-person and virtually, head on over to IOFM.com.