It was an honour to recently welcome Anastasia Sharonova, the Chief Financial Officer Asia Pacific at Coty, to the EMEA Recruitment podcast.

“I don’t think about the failure, I’m envisioning the success.”

Anastasia spoke to our Founder, Paul Toms, from her home in Singapore, where she moved to last year. With her 15 years’ experience in Finance, Paul wanted to know what keeps her motivated and challenged.

Anastasia is motivated by the challenge itself; of achieving company objectives, transforming the organisation and implementing new ways of working. She faced her greatest challenge when moving to Singapore with a young daughter. Not only was this a challenge on the personal side, but Anastasia had never worked in the Asia Pacific market before – there were different cultures and customers to learn about.

It’s her “risky” mindset that enabled Anastasia to make this decision. She knew that she’d succeed, based on the way she approached the challenge.

We also discussed the “magical mindset” that you need to succeed in Finance and whether we’re all born with this – Anastasia has a fantastic analogy to her baby daughter learning to walk.

Anastasia also reveals her secrets on how to generate a lot of new ideas for the business and what a typical working day looks like for her. She has some advice on managing different timezones and factoring this into your day. 

We explored the impact that Business Intelligence (BI) and Data may have on the Finance function. Anastasia believes that we don’t have the luxury of time in today’s world, with priorities changing sometimes from day-to-day. However, she isn’t worried about jobs in Finance becoming at risk; the nature of the work will simply change, she explains.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis that the world is still faced with, Anastasia has seen many companies and leaders change the way that they work. She offers the most important attribute that she believes great leaders need during this time, as well as discussing who her mentors have been throughout her career in Finance.

If you’d like to find the most interesting part of the episode for you, please use the timestamps below:

01:50: Being motivated by the challenge
05:50 Taking the risk to move to Singapore
07:20: Anastasia’s magical mindset
10:40: How to generate fresh ideas for the business
15:00: Anastasia’s typical working day
18:40: Why BI is critical for the Finance function
21:40: How the nature of the Finance role is changing
22:55: The attributes needed to be a great leader
25:35: Anastasia’s mentors
27:40: How to reach out to Anastasia

To listen to the full episode, click on the player below:

Alternatively, you can follow this link: https://emearecruitment.libsyn.com/emea-recruitment-podcast-77-the-magical-mindset-for-success-in-finance-anastasia-sharonova

If you’d like to reach out to Anastasia, contact her on: [email protected]

Thank you to Operation Smile for partnering with us on the EMEA Recruitment podcast. We’re proud to raise awareness and vital funds for the work that Operation Smile does to deliver life-changing surgery to children and adults with cleft lip and palate. If you’d like to find out more, please click here: https://www.emearecruitment.com/pages/operation-smile

The EMEA Recruitment podcast is hosted by Paul Toms, our Founder, and Jenny Callum, Associate Director.

To find out more about our services, visit our website: https://www.emearecruitment.com/ 

You can also follow us on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emea-recruitment-limited/ 

If you’d like to connect with Paul, visit his profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paultoms/ 

Or Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennycallumemea/ 

If there are any topics that you’d like us to cover in future episodes of the EMEA Recruitment podcast, then please get in touch via LinkedIn.