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Speaker 1: This is what the floods. I'mb and It's Wednesday, the

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Speaker 1: fifth of November. Today Brett and Justin will be doing

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Speaker 1: a deep dive interview with Ungered Sein, the managing director

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Speaker 1: for Australia and New Zealand and global chief strategy officer

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Speaker 1: at Zero. But before that, here are the top three

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Speaker 1: business news stories from Australia and around the world. The

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Speaker 1: Reserve Bank of Australia has made a decision to hold

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Speaker 1: the cash rate at three point six percent. For those

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Speaker 1: that have been following recent economic news, you might not

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Speaker 1: be that surprised by this outcome. That's because the annual

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Speaker 1: CPI for the quarter ending September jumped to three point

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Speaker 1: two percent. This means consumer spending is rebounding faster and

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Speaker 1: larger than the RBA expected. In other news, Cadbury sales

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Speaker 1: of the Pascal Clinker chocolate has gone up two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty percent after they went viral in a TikTok trend.

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Speaker 1: The Clinker challenge involves people promising to do something if

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Speaker 1: they correctly guess the color of the clinker they bite into.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to this trend, half a million Clinker bags were

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Speaker 1: sold in September and they sold out entirely in October.

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Speaker 1: And finally, Meta, the parent the company of Facebook What's

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Speaker 1: Up on Instagram, plans to raise thirty billion dollars in

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Speaker 1: funding with their biggest ever bond sale. Meta reported that

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Speaker 1: these funds will be used to develop AI products and

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Speaker 1: data centers. That's it for me today. I'll pass it

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Speaker 1: over to Breton Justin for their fascinating conversation with Angered.

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Speaker 2: Thanks V.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to what the flux in conversation today we have Angodswing,

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Speaker 3: the Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand and global

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Speaker 3: Chief strategy officer at Zero. Zero, of course, is the

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Speaker 3: cloud based accounting software that started in New Zealand, listed

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Speaker 3: in Australia and now has over four point four million

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Speaker 3: subscribers across one hundred and eighty countries. I'ngod joined Zero

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Speaker 3: back in twenty twenty one, bringing with him experience from

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Speaker 3: a thirteen year stint at Deloitte. He was elevated to

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Speaker 3: the global strategy function in twenty twenty three, and late

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Speaker 3: last year he took on leading Zero in Australia and

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Speaker 3: New Zealand, which is Zero's biggest region. Welcome to what

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Speaker 3: the flux in conversation NG.

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Speaker 4: Good, thank you justin Thank you, Brett. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 4: I'm excited to be here. So do you want to

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Speaker 4: give us a little bit of background? Sure, yeah, I'll

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Speaker 4: try and condense it into a nutshell. I studied computer

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Speaker 4: science and business. I was always really interested in technology. Yes,

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Speaker 4: I was that kid at high school that was a

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Speaker 4: nerd playing around with software and tech, and so they

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Speaker 4: always fascinated me. But for me was the intersection of

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Speaker 4: business and technology. So how were you using technology for

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Speaker 4: what outcome as opposed to technology for its sake? And

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Speaker 4: when I started working at IBM as a contractor and

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Speaker 4: part of my student placement, it was in technology consulting

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Speaker 4: and we were redoing lots of back end systems. I

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Speaker 4: had a great time. It was a lot of fun.

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Speaker 4: The thing that niggled at me, though, was no one

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Speaker 4: could answer why we were doing it right, and I

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Speaker 4: was like, wait, hang on, I really wanted technology to

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Speaker 4: be the driver to make lasting change or on impact

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Speaker 4: for a business or the world. But I want to

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Speaker 4: be at that decision at the front, which is why

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Speaker 4: did we implement and decide to go on a three

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Speaker 4: year journey to replace all these back end systems. So

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Speaker 4: I quickly learned that there was this job profession called

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Speaker 4: management consulting, which helps business leaders decide what they want

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Speaker 4: to do with their company. So started at Deloitte in

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Speaker 4: that space and the culture really resonated with me. And

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Speaker 4: this is probably a through line through lots of different

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Speaker 4: companies I work for, which is a bit of that

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Speaker 4: kind of underdog story a lot at the time for many.

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Speaker 2: That may or may not know was four of the

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Speaker 2: Big Four.

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Speaker 4: There's lots of newspaper articles at that time of like

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Speaker 4: is it just the big three that are going to come?

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Speaker 4: And you know, before even I joined, there was a

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Speaker 4: new leadership team that was really turning it around, and

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Speaker 4: so there was this great culture and mentality of like,

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Speaker 4: we're going to prove people roll. I worked with a

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Speaker 4: bunch of great leaders, great people, and I justin you

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Speaker 4: worked in this industry. I think a lot of people

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Speaker 4: sometimes say like, oh, for my sins.

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Speaker 2: I was we do hear that a lot.

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Speaker 4: I work with a badge Like, I think it is

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Speaker 4: some of the best training you will get. Different people

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Speaker 4: will enjoy it for a different period of time. You

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Speaker 4: learn a lot of really good skills that I still

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Speaker 4: use to this day, and so enjoy that for a

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Speaker 4: period of time, and then I really got the itch

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Speaker 4: that I was even though I worked on digital strategy

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Speaker 4: projects or other things, I really felt i'd got away

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Speaker 4: a bit from technology, the thing I really enjoyed. And

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Speaker 4: so I thought, hey, maybe it's time to move overseas

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Speaker 4: into VC.

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Speaker 2: And you know, one of one million people that want

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Speaker 2: to do that at that time.

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Speaker 4: And so, working with a partner at Delott, Damian Tamplin,

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Speaker 4: he said, hey, what if Delot would set up a

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Speaker 4: corporate venture fund?

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Speaker 2: Would you do it? And I thought, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 2: why not?

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Speaker 4: And so did that for a few years, ran their

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Speaker 4: strategy and transformation teams as well, and then Damien actually

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Speaker 4: ironically joined zero was their chief strategy officer and came

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Speaker 4: knocking a couple of times, and again similarly I said, well,

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Speaker 4: he's an opportunity to working from Australia, really shape a

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Speaker 4: global narrative, and so made that leap, as you said,

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Speaker 4: took the chief strategy office a role on about two

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Speaker 4: and a half years ago.

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Speaker 2: We reset the strategy, we built.

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Speaker 4: A new kind of exec team and been executing against that,

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Speaker 4: and then more recently took on this.

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Speaker 5: Roll I'm talking about when you were starting out, did

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Speaker 5: you imagine yourself leading a company, an accounting software company

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Speaker 5: like zero one day?

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Speaker 2: Definitely not.

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Speaker 4: I do get asked many times like was this part

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Speaker 4: of the master what is the master plan? And I

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Speaker 4: can tell you there is no master plan, and that's

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Speaker 4: probably contrary to it seems ironic for someone that's the

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Speaker 4: strategy consulting and you always say, like set your vision

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Speaker 4: and goals, but there is no master plan. And I

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Speaker 4: think a really you know, a key reason for that

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Speaker 4: was I found and I observed early on people would

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Speaker 4: get really excited about titles or roles or labels with industry.

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Speaker 2: You know, I really want to be this industry. I

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Speaker 2: really want to be that title. And the reality is you.

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Speaker 4: Learn that different roles in different companies kind of do

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Speaker 4: different things. There are some things that are similar, like

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Speaker 4: the same strategy officer role title in one company can

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Speaker 4: do different things to in another. And I think if

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Speaker 4: I had followed and said like, hey, you know, I

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Speaker 4: don't like I did not like accounting it. If I had,

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Speaker 4: if I had kept that label in my head and

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Speaker 4: I use that as my decision set, then what a

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Speaker 4: wasted opportunity that I've been able to go after. So,

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Speaker 4: you know, I always tell people when you're trying to

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Speaker 4: think of your next step in your career, don't focus

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Speaker 4: on the role. Yeah, focus on the title, and definitely

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Speaker 4: don't focus on what you think other people think is

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Speaker 4: a wait to do. Because whatever job you will do,

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Speaker 4: there are crappy parts to it. You both know that,

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Speaker 4: and there's hard parts to it. It's like hard work

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Speaker 4: and so but the time that it's hard, if you

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Speaker 4: love what you're actually doing and why you're doing it,

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Speaker 4: you'll get through it. If you're doing it because you

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Speaker 4: just want to or someone told you do, it's like

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Speaker 4: it's a grind for sure.

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Speaker 5: Now I'm good. We have covered Zero many times on

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Speaker 5: the pod. We know it started in New Zealand and

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Speaker 5: Australia but has always had a very ambitious and global plan.

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Speaker 5: What would you say, in your experience, has been the

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Speaker 5: most challenging aspect of scaling Zero internationally?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Well, fun fact that actually Zero pretty much entered Australia,

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Speaker 4: the UK and the US that practically that's not interesting.

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Speaker 4: So it just shows you the vision that Rod had,

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Speaker 4: the founder of Zero, the ambition he had, and you know,

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Speaker 4: thanks to him we are where we are today for

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Speaker 4: having that kind of big picture ambition from day one.

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Speaker 4: I would say the biggest that we learned as we

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Speaker 4: relooked at our strategy, and it seems ironic, was focus

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Speaker 4: to scale globally. We actually needed to do less in

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Speaker 4: a few places really well. And that I think is

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Speaker 4: always the hard thing when I was advising other companies.

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Speaker 4: You know, if you're looking for growth, often people believe

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Speaker 4: more things in more places with more customers logically mathematically

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Speaker 4: should equal more growth, right the challenges You've got to

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Speaker 4: be able to execute it, sure, and it's hard to

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Speaker 4: execute lots of things and lots of places.

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Speaker 2: Really really well. And we're in a very competitive global environment.

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Speaker 4: So I would say that that has been I think

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Speaker 4: that's a little lesson for everyone, but I think as

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Speaker 4: we've come on this journey, it's been something that's definitely

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Speaker 4: helped us unlock execution of the last two years is like,

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Speaker 4: you know, we talk about it publicly in our investor

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Speaker 4: presentation of our strategy. It's like, what are the three

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Speaker 4: big jobs in the three markets we care about most?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you've touched on growth a lot now.

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Speaker 3: We have spoken about the growth of Zero and just

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Speaker 3: growth in general for tech companies, but for people who

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Speaker 3: aren't keep in finance. Zero speak a lot about the

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Speaker 3: rule of forty. So can you explain to our audience

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Speaker 3: what that means and why it's become such a big

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Speaker 3: focus for Zero's performance. Yeah, I think we're like a

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Speaker 3: lot of technology companies, had this moment right or during

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Speaker 3: COVID and not like any boom time in any economic cycle,

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Speaker 3: when you've got a lot of cash, people reward top

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Speaker 3: line growth, revenue growth, and they understand that you might

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Speaker 3: need to invest today be negative free cash flow, but

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Speaker 3: longer term we will get growth. And of course there

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Speaker 3: was a market correction, as there always is, and you

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Speaker 3: know it goes in waves, as you both know. So we,

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Speaker 3: like all other companies, had to say, hey, how what

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Speaker 3: is sustainable growth? And you would say so at that time,

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Speaker 3: Like lots of companies, we said, hey, the rule of

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Speaker 3: forty is a good and it's a well understood measure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So the reason it's also helpful is investors understand it.

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Speaker 4: You can point to it, and you've talked about it

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Speaker 4: on the pod. But obviously very quickly it's like top

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Speaker 4: line growth with your free cash flow growth and people

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Speaker 4: might use different underlying profit metrics. You know that, but

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Speaker 4: that's the simplicity of it, right, like are you turning

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Speaker 4: enough bottom line profit as you grow? And it's add

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Speaker 4: those two things together and if that the growth rate

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Speaker 4: of those two things, you know, gives you your outcome

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Speaker 4: the reason and I think we've now even evolved as

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Speaker 4: many companies have to like the rule of X, which

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Speaker 4: is actually the market does reward growth more than it

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Speaker 4: rewards pure cashal so you can have that ratio differently.

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Speaker 4: I could be growing at five percent and thirty five

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Speaker 4: percent custurer religion, or i could be at a twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: I'm probably better.

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Speaker 4: Rewarded from the market than five percent growth. And again

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Speaker 4: there's no right or wrong, but we and so there

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Speaker 4: is there's public articles about the rule of X and

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Speaker 4: how for every dollar, if you can drive better growth,

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Speaker 4: you will be rewarded. And why do we care about it?

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Speaker 4: I guess this is the other essence to your question,

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Speaker 4: because it tells us that therefore we are investing the

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Speaker 4: right amount or an appropriate amount to go after the

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Speaker 4: opportunity that we've had, and it helps keep you in.

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Speaker 2: Check and balance.

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Speaker 5: Is there a specific opportunity or a very bold idea

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Speaker 5: that you're thinking about for Zero in the next few years.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think what we see from our

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Speaker 4: small business owners, the accounts and bookkeepers that we work

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Speaker 4: with and partner with.

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Speaker 2: Time is the thing.

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Speaker 4: But there is only so much time you've got to

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Speaker 4: run your business, both running it, growing it, thinking about it,

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Speaker 4: raising money whatever it might be, or bootstrapping it if

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Speaker 4: that's what you do. So you know, obviously Zero's purpose

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Speaker 4: and mission is to give small businesses back that time

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Speaker 4: to do the thing that they love doing most. You know,

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Speaker 4: we say, is to make lives better for small businesses,

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Speaker 4: their advisors and the community they operate in. And it's

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Speaker 4: such a great north star because it's kind of never ending.

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Speaker 4: And so when you say, is there a big idea

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Speaker 4: we're working on now, it's like the next iteration. So

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Speaker 4: obviously cloud moving a lot of things to the cloud

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Speaker 4: gave a lot of opportunity. And now I think as

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Speaker 4: surprised AI comes in, we.

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Speaker 2: Wait for that word to be dropped.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we're on that next curve where we

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Speaker 4: can take advantage of it. But what I love and

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Speaker 4: the reason you know, we think about this is I

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Speaker 4: hear stories we have we having an advisory group and

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Speaker 4: there's actually a member of that advisor group called Kellie

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Speaker 4: Garrett who used to work at Deloitte. We never quite

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Speaker 4: cross paths, but we're there at a similar time. And

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Speaker 4: when you hear her, and she's one example of many

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Speaker 4: stories of people that used to work at larger firms.

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Speaker 4: And my brother's one of them who's also a man

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Speaker 4: who could take software like zero and say, hey, I

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Speaker 4: can start my own business at a fraction of the cost. Now,

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Speaker 4: so that initial capital investment I need for tax software,

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Speaker 4: practice software I can pay.

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Speaker 2: By the month.

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Speaker 4: My small business customer might pay and invite me in.

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Speaker 4: And so what that really, you know, the great thing

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Speaker 4: is that unlocked a lot more entrepreneurship for small business owners.

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Speaker 4: We're also accountants and bookkeepers who could be small business

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Speaker 4: owners to take control of their life, spend time with

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Speaker 4: their family, you know, run the practice how they want

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Speaker 4: to run it, when the clients they want to win.

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Speaker 4: And so when you hear those stories, it's phenomenal and

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Speaker 4: a lot of it it's because they get that time back.

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Speaker 4: And so you know, the next idea to your question

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Speaker 4: is like, how is ai going to help create that

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Speaker 4: digital workforce for them, And I say for them, because

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Speaker 4: of course there's all the concern.

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Speaker 2: About like will it replace people?

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Speaker 4: But I mean if you look at the accounting and

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Speaker 4: bookkeeping in history as a starting point, they can't get

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Speaker 4: enough people in the door. So you know, we really

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Speaker 4: think about, like what is the agent we could give

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Speaker 4: them that essentially helps them do the job for the

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Speaker 4: person they needed to normally have hired, but they can't

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Speaker 4: hire because it's harder to get people in that industry today.

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Speaker 5: And now we would love to move to our flux

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Speaker 5: Five questions. These are questions that we ask all the

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Speaker 5: business leaders that we get to speak to on the podcast.

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Speaker 5: First question is, if you weren't leading zero, what's a

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Speaker 5: job that you would secretly or not so secretly love

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Speaker 5: to try.

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Speaker 4: You know, I be a part of a band when

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Speaker 4: I was younger. If be a successful musician, I love music.

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Speaker 4: If that was something I would make a career out of,

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Speaker 4: I'll probably.

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Speaker 2: Nice.

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Speaker 3: And I get is there a leader that's inspired you

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Speaker 3: the most? It can be either inside or outside of business,

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Speaker 3: with someone who's really left a mark on your personal

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Speaker 3: or professional career. Yeah, I think this question us often

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Speaker 3: there's not one. I think I've always tried to look

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Speaker 3: at what are the attributes? And I would say actually

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Speaker 3: equally from people that sometimes people don't look up to,

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Speaker 3: because actually, I truly do believe this, they often have

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Speaker 3: great strengths that people may be looking past, and so

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Speaker 3: I really try and look for like, what is this person.

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Speaker 4: Really good at? Could I be better at it? And

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Speaker 4: does it help me? It goes back to this very

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Speaker 4: personal thing. Does it help me do the thing I

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Speaker 4: want to do? And I want to be great at

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Speaker 4: something just because it's a nice tickbox. And hey, that

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Speaker 4: leader is really good at public speaking for example. That's

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Speaker 4: not a means to an end. So no specific leader,

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Speaker 4: but I always try and look for specific traits from

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Speaker 4: multiple leaders.

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Speaker 5: Is there a failure or a setback that you can

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Speaker 5: now look back on as a turning point in your career.

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Speaker 4: I would say that the desire to try and do

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Speaker 4: a lot yourself and not ask for help because you're

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Speaker 4: so proud or you want to show that you can

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Speaker 4: do it all. And I've got a good wake up

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Speaker 4: call and I've got a performance review that where I

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Speaker 4: thought like, hey, I've worked really hard and I've got

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Speaker 4: a bit of an average review because the insight from

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Speaker 4: that leader was You're not going to scale if you

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Speaker 4: and that's stuck with me and I still have to

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Speaker 4: try and work on that to this day.

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Speaker 3: I get We speak to a lot of business leaders

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Speaker 3: who have a whole range of different daily habits or rituals.

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Speaker 3: Are there any habits or rituals that you like to

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Speaker 3: do each day that set you up for a strong day.

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Speaker 4: I probably am. Every mindfulness coach is worse than men,

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Speaker 4: and I like to do this. So just to be clear,

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Speaker 4: this is a bad habit. I do wake up and

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Speaker 4: I look at my phone straight away, and I'll tell

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Speaker 4: you why. For me, especially we work in a global

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Speaker 4: context and environment, it allows me to very quickly understand

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Speaker 4: and triarche something happened overnight. I'm going to have to

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Speaker 4: change what I need to do today or this week

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Speaker 4: as a result of it. And by doing that really quickly,

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Speaker 4: and I'm just lucky it doesn't stress me out seeing that,

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Speaker 4: and so I use that as a method to go

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Speaker 4: out great, Today's going to look exactly like I did today,

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Speaker 4: Or I need to get ahead of a couple of things.

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Speaker 4: I can now start moving them around.

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Speaker 2: So for me.

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Speaker 4: Actually, it really helps me mentally set up success.

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Speaker 3: Nice.

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Speaker 5: One last question from us, what is the best investment

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Speaker 5: you've ever made? Now, it can be money, but also

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Speaker 5: it could be your precious time or your precious energy.

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Speaker 4: Best investment I have ever made is who I don't

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Speaker 4: end up marrying, and it wasn't intentional. We met each

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Speaker 4: other one with sixteen, so there's no light. Again, there's

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Speaker 4: no master plan, but I would say finding a partner

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Speaker 4: that pushes me, balances the things that I don't do

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Speaker 4: particularly well and actually pushes how we think about how

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Speaker 4: we invest for the future. I'm a person that generally

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Speaker 4: I can be happy with very little and so, but

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Speaker 4: just you know, someone to help push you push me

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Speaker 4: in my thinking.

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Speaker 2: It's probably my first investment. Awesome and good.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for joining us on what the Flexing Conversation.

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Speaker 3: Loved hearing about your journey so far and also some

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Speaker 3: of the exciting things to come for your career, but

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Speaker 3: also for zero as well. So maybe we'll have to

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Speaker 3: check back in five years and see if your crystal

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Speaker 3: ball was accurate.

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Speaker 2: Love to be that. Thank you by