Phil Trueman, CFO, Monadelphous

Craig Amos: Welcome to 10 in 10. My name is Craig Amos and I'm a partner in the Corporate Finance team at RSM in Perth.

In the 10 in 10 series, we sit down with Australia's leading CFOs and explore the experiences and perspectives they've gained throughout their careers, all in just 10 minutes and 10 questions.

Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by Phil Trueman, Chief Financial Officer at Monadelphous.

Monadelphous is an ASX 200 company synonymous with some of Australia's largest resources, energy and infrastructure projects. Phil has been with the business for more than two decades.

Phil, thank you for joining me.

Phil Trueman: Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here.

Phil Trueman: I have a very strong sense of justice, so I think I would have enjoyed being a lawyer. A long time ago, I did think about entering the legal profession, so that could have been an option.

I also got to the point where I'd actually prepared my resignation because I was going to go back and study medicine. So, if it wasn't law, I think I would have followed my dream, which would have been to be a paediatrician.

Phil Trueman: My 25-year-old self was a long time ago. I'm now 53.

As my career has gone on, it has become much more about a leadership journey. It's been a lot more fulfilling than I ever thought it would be.

Being able to engage and motivate a team of people has made it a very fulfilling career. I've been surprised by how much I've enjoyed it, how much I've loved the challenges and how much I've learned from my failures, far more than I could ever have imagined.

Probably the other thing I've learned since I was 25 is that you may be the boss at work, but you'll never be the boss at home. I think that probably resonates with a lot of people.

Phil Trueman: The easy answer is that I use my financial experience, but that's really not the key value I've gained from my career.

Having had a long career, I've had a lot of experiences, both good and bad.

I was very fortunate once to sit next to a very high-profile director at lunch. What really struck me about him was how humble he was.

One of the things he said to me was to enjoy your career and the challenges that come with it, but that the real satisfaction he got from life was being able to take what he'd learned throughout his career and share it with the community.

That includes the skills to engage people, focus on what they're really good at and give them opportunities to reach their potential.

Being able to take what I've experienced throughout my career, set people off on a path, support and guide them, and pick them up when they're struggling has given me a real amount of satisfaction.

Phil Trueman: It's not only about being a better CFO, it's about being a better person.

From a work perspective, you don't necessarily have to have all the answers.

You're far better served by having a really strong, knowledgeable and loyal team of people around you, so that when times get tough, you can ask for assistance.

I also went on a leadership course run by the Australian Institute of Management, and it was a real eye-opening experience.

My biggest takeaway was that, to really get the best out of people, you've got to understand what's important to them and what drives them.

It also enables you to identify the things they're really good at that you may be less proficient at.

Nobody is perfect. Nobody is good at everything. You need a team of people around you who are able to fill in your gaps.

Phil Trueman: One of the key roles of a CFO is to help build a business that will sustainably grow into the future.

That means you need to be more strategic, not only in how a business operates but also in how you enable succession planning.

You're not only trying to set the business up to make money. In a contracting business especially, you're also trying to set the business up not to lose money.

So, a lot of it comes down to risk management.