Video: 10 Questions with WilsonHCG's Ken Bowles
Watch the video below to learn more about Ken Bowles, CFO at WilsonHCG.
Video transcript
[TITLE CARD] 10 questions with WilsonHCG's Ken Bowles
1: How did you get involved in finance, and how did you work toward the role of CFO?
I've always been good with numbers, and had an interest in business all throughout high school. Studied finance in college and actually ended up being a finance officer in the Army. So it's kind of been just all through that. I was lucky enough to land a role at GE to kick off my career, and because of that I was able to take many different roles across the organization that helped prepare me for a role as a CFO.
2: What hobbies do you have outside of work?
Well I have two young daughters, so I spend a lot of time with them. So lots of different activities, lots of fun stuff. But outside of that, I also like to fix things. So I do a lot around the house. I also have two old Land Rovers that I work on as well.
3: What's a piece of advice you'd give someone starting their career in finance?
A piece of advice; no job or task is too small. Take every opportunity that you can get and really try to stretch yourself beyond the role. Particularly early on in your career, try to seek out roles that are across every different area within finance, because you'll always be able to lean on that later in your career.
4: Are you an early-bird or a night-owl?
I guess I would say early bird, though not too early.
5: What's your favorite way to begin the day?
When I can, I like to start it off with just a run or a walk if that's possible. Grab a cup of coffee, sit down, read the news, and the business news, find out what's going on, what happened overnight.
6: What are you most looking forward to as a member of the Tampa Bay Business Journal Leadership Trust?
I'm excited to be able to lend my experiences to others and to be able to provide some new insight to them, but I think the most important thing about the Leadership Trust is that you're able to talk with people that are from different organizations outside of our business, and outside of our industry, and get their perspectives and just give get a better well-rounded view of what's going on.
7: What's your go-to coffee order?
I am pretty easy when it comes to coffee; just plain coffee with a little bit of sweetener.
8: What has been your favorite contribution to the culture of WilsonHCG?
I've enjoyed working with the Operation Transition team and also because that's a pretty important organization trying to help out Veterans get new jobs and transition from being in the military into the business world. I think also, just really just helping out the Finance team. Helping Finance become better business partners and not just a back-office organization. If you look at the support functions, like People & Culture, like Finance, they have a lot of business experience, and they can bring a different perspective to some of the strategic successes we have across the business.
9: What's your favorite number?
My favorite number is three.
10: What should organizations do right now to best position themselves for the next 1-3 years?
It's nothing new, but it still needs a lot of work across a lot of organizations. My view is embrace automation. In Finance particularly, there are a lot of transactional transactions and transactional work that take up the majority of the time for most people. We need to free them up so that the finance organization can focus on things that help the business grow and be better thought leaders.
I've always been good with numbers, and had an interest in business all throughout high school. Studied finance in college and actually ended up being a finance officer in the Army. So it's kind of been just all through that. I was lucky enough to land a role at GE to kick off my career, and because of that I was able to take many different roles across the organization that helped prepare me for a role as a CFO.
2: What hobbies do you have outside of work?
Well I have two young daughters, so I spend a lot of time with them. So lots of different activities, lots of fun stuff. But outside of that, I also like to fix things. So I do a lot around the house. I also have two old Land Rovers that I work on as well.
3: What's a piece of advice you'd give someone starting their career in finance?
A piece of advice; no job or task is too small. Take every opportunity that you can get and really try to stretch yourself beyond the role. Particularly early on in your career, try to seek out roles that are across every different area within finance, because you'll always be able to lean on that later in your career.
4: Are you an early-bird or a night-owl?
I guess I would say early bird, though not too early.
5: What's your favorite way to begin the day?
When I can, I like to start it off with just a run or a walk if that's possible. Grab a cup of coffee, sit down, read the news, and the business news, find out what's going on, what happened overnight.
6: What are you most looking forward to as a member of the Tampa Bay Business Journal Leadership Trust?
I'm excited to be able to lend my experiences to others and to be able to provide some new insight to them, but I think the most important thing about the Leadership Trust is that you're able to talk with people that are from different organizations outside of our business, and outside of our industry, and get their perspectives and just give get a better well-rounded view of what's going on.
7: What's your go-to coffee order?
I am pretty easy when it comes to coffee; just plain coffee with a little bit of sweetener.
8: What has been your favorite contribution to the culture of WilsonHCG?
I've enjoyed working with the Operation Transition team and also because that's a pretty important organization trying to help out Veterans get new jobs and transition from being in the military into the business world. I think also, just really just helping out the Finance team. Helping Finance become better business partners and not just a back-office organization. If you look at the support functions, like People & Culture, like Finance, they have a lot of business experience, and they can bring a different perspective to some of the strategic successes we have across the business.
9: What's your favorite number?
My favorite number is three.
10: What should organizations do right now to best position themselves for the next 1-3 years?
It's nothing new, but it still needs a lot of work across a lot of organizations. My view is embrace automation. In Finance particularly, there are a lot of transactional transactions and transactional work that take up the majority of the time for most people. We need to free them up so that the finance organization can focus on things that help the business grow and be better thought leaders.
