At FinNext 2020, finance and leadership expert Amy Vetter will share her insights on how FP&A professionals can embrace innovation, allowing them to become strategic partners.

The CEO of the B3 Method Institute and DRISHTIQ Yoga, Vetter is also a corporate board member, author and host of the podcast, Breaking Beliefs. She's been named one of the most powerful women in the accounting profession multiple times, and was the Audience Choice Award Winner for her TED Talk Disconnect to Connect.

She recently joined the AFP Conversations podcast, where she provided tips on how financial professionals can become “cherished advisors.” These are five tips that she provided.

Take time to yourself in the workday and don't feel guilty about it. “One of the things that happens in our profession is that we work so hard that we feel guilty sometimes to take time for yourself. It isn't selfish to take time. It actually helps us to interact in the workplace better, to interact in our family life as well and control the energy that we put out in the world.”

At the beginning of your day, pinpoint one to three things that must get done. That'll help you figure out which things can wait. “One of the things that you have to do is, at the beginning of your day, really understand what the one to three things are that must get done that day. What are the things [you need to finish] so at the end of the day you feel like you got something done? Because a lot of times, a day keeps coming at us and we get to the end and know we were really busy, but can't even say what created that busyness. So it's important for us to actually take that time to review an intention for the day of what we want to get done.”

It’s okay to turn down a meeting. “We have to get better at owning our own time. If we had something planned during that time and we still take a meeting even though we weren't planning to, the problem is we show up to that meeting frustrated or stressed out because we really didn't want to be there. We had planned to do something else, but that person that set the meeting doesn't know that. You accepted the meeting. So it's up to us to make sure that we are vigilant about our calendars, that we are setting time aside, not only for meetings, but we're also setting time aside to get our own work done or to take a walk or whatever we need to do to make sure that we reset during the day so that we can show up the way that we want to.”

If you’re the one calling the meeting, be mindful of your coworkers’ time. Shorter meetings tend to be more productive. “Not every meeting needs to be 30 minutes or 60 minutes. It can be 25 minutes or 15 minutes. The thing about meetings is, when you set a time, people will use it up even if they're repeating themselves. So it's up to us to limit that time, and make sure we get the most important things out of it that we want.”

Becoming a cherished advisor is something you have to earn. Connected leaders lead by example. “The reason I came up with the term ‘cherished advisor’ is because being cherished is something that you have to earn and it's someone in your life that you can't imagine not having. So if you start creating that relationship in your career with other departments and with people that you work with, what that means is, they can't imagine not having you as part of the company because of the value you create. Most value is created through communication, and communication is key for us to continue to work on and feel comfortable with. [You have to have] those hard conversations when you have too much on your plate so that you don't do something halfway, and you're giving it your full attention—not rushing to get it done and then not feeling good about the work that you did.”

The full interview with Amy Vetter is available here. And don’t miss her closing keynote speech at FinNext 2020. Register for FinNext here.