Adam Larson: 00:05

Welcome to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson, and today I'm joined by Ilyai Ilienco the CFO at Halen and a member of IMA's global board of directors. Ilyai has made a name for himself helping businesses grow smarter and stronger. From starting his career in hospitality bookkeeping to working with global nonprofits, he brings a unique perspective on scaling organizations at every stage. In this episode, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of what really makes a business scalable, breaking down lessons learned from both massive enterprises and nimble startups.

Adam Larson: 00:34

We'll explore the power of brand identity, how to find and leverage marketing opportunities, and why it's crucial to stay connected both as a leader and as a team, even as technology like AI transforms the way we work. So whether you're running a firm, growing your career, or trying to future proof your business skills, this conversation is packed with real world insights that you won't want to miss. Let's jump right in. Well, Ilyai, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. And I know we're going be talking a bit about scaling businesses, which is you're an expert in, but, you've been a member of IMA for a while, and I wanted to just talk a little bit about your journey, your career, because everybody has a different career journey and I wanted you to share a little bit of your career path with the audience and then what led you to focusing on helping businesses grow.

Ilyai Ilienko: 01:27

Sure. Thank you very much for having me, Adam. It's a pleasure to see you again. My career began very early, so I started working full time when I was 17. So in that regard, given that I'm in my mid-40s, I've done a lot and have been at a lot of companies.

Ilyai Ilienko: 01:49

And initially when I was 17, I started working at a restaurant at a very, very large hotel, and I did bookkeeping there. I saw how a quick, high volume business that's focused on people works. From there, when I went to Brooklyn College, I was an assistant manager for a law firm. So different niche, different type of environment, but it gave me exposure to the law world. Following that, upon my graduation from undergrad, I went to a global nonprofit, a very large global nonprofit.

Ilyai Ilienko: 02:31

And there I actually... We manage one of the portfolios with Bernard Madoff, if you're listeners or you recognize Yeah, we can go into that. That gave me a huge perspective on nonprofit governance, where money is put, invested, how tax advantage planning works. From there, I always wanted to be a CFO, CPA, so I went to Deloitte, the brand, get exposure. At Deloitte, a number of very high level engagements, worked with very, very high level senior partners, managing directors, the Office of General Counsel.

Ilyai Ilienko: 03:14

So we handled all of the SEC, PCAOB regulatory inquiries on behalf of all of Deloitte US clients. And obviously picked up a lot there. From there, my connections led me to Credit Suisse, where I went and did investment banking, centralized a lot of US accounting for derivatives. At that point, I already graduated with a double MBA from Fordham University and was almost done with my CPA. And from there, I started working on smaller businesses, having had all those takeaways from large established businesses and how they do things.

Adam Larson: 03:52

So what was that like going from these massive businesses down to smaller businesses? Because I've talked to some people before, and it was almost like a culture shock because you have these huge businesses where maybe your CEO, you only see them once a year because they live in a different location or there's all these different dynamics there. So like a small business where the CEO is just next door and you can go to their office anytime and chat with them. It's definitely a culture shock. What was that like moving from one to the other?

Ilyai Ilienko: 04:20

It wasn't necessarily a culture shock. It's a very huge complexity transition. So for example, when I was at the law firm, you see how the controller, you see how the founders operate, you get a lot more insight into the business and what the founders are thinking. When you transition from there to global nonprofit or Deloitte or Credit Suisse, you are many levels removed from decision makers. Even though your seniority is up there, you still don't know exactly what you were referring to.

Ilyai Ilienko: 05:01

There's a lot of siloing, there's a lot of levels, So you have to meet with counterparts to actually get to understand their portion of the business. It wasn't a culture shock, it was an adaptation to the complexity that's going on around you.

Adam Larson: 05:19

Yeah. So let's talk about that complexity because you kind of have to understand that complexity when you're helping businesses scale. So what are some of those complexities that you had to kind of peel away to understand better so that you could help organizations scale when you get to that point?

Ilyai Ilienko: 05:36

Sure. So I'll give you, I can give you a couple of examples. At Deloitte, I was one of the key engagement members that was responsible for putting together and rolling out an engagement management system for all of Deloitte worldwide. So for every office, for every engagement, this system was going to be used internally. We had 15 developers that were reporting to myself, and then I was reporting to the managing directors and partners.

Ilyai Ilienko: 06:09

So for example, the engagement management system, it's software, but you don't think about it from the perspective of, well, the client folks have to go, have to use this platform to manage engagements. They have to see everything that's in there, so you have to satisfy the internal user needs. A client has to understand how the platform operates, but furthermore, you have complexity in terms of what if the regulator, SEC or FBI or the Department of Justice want to go after your client's files, for example. You have to produce those files. How does that operate?

Ilyai Ilienko: 06:54

How do the controls and the governance exist? How do you put it together and who's involved? And similar to Credit Suisse, centralizing all of the accounting, What happens at an investment bank behind the scenes? Who actually puts things together and how are things reported on? So that's some the complexity.

Adam Larson: 07:18

So when you go from like the massive business that you've seen that complexity and figure out who's doing what to like a smaller business where it's probably like one or two people doing everything, How do you kind of manage that? And especially when you're helping somebody scale because a lot of times maybe there's not enough funds to get more people or you have to do a lot more with less. How do you kind of build upon that when you're working with organizations?

Ilyai Ilienko: 07:48

That's a great question. So I think having gone through almost two decades and very large businesses, large businesses give you the opportunity to see how a mature company that's a great name brand, that's really made it, how do they operate and what do they do well and what is necessary? Then you take those little bits and pieces of knowledge of experience and you apply it to a smaller company that doesn't have, just like you said, Adam, doesn't have all of the resources. You start taking those resources, for example, from your team part time to try to start emulating the structure and the position of what we had, for example, at Deloitte or Credit Suisse, And you start seeing opportunities where you can fill the holes and you can make client deliverables better. You can make the environment more secure.

Ilyai Ilienko: 08:53

You can put governance, improve communication, so on. It's all lessons and takeaways from experience.

Adam Larson: 09:00

Yeah. Well, I think you touched on something that's really important. It's kind of brand identity. Because when you hear household names like a Deloitte, like a Google, like an app, like you hear these names that everybody knows. But when you get to small and medium sized businesses, they're definitely...

Adam Larson: 09:14

They're not name brands. They're not they're not, household names that you hear. And so how do you... Like, how do you kind of start building those blocks to getting that brand identity for a growing company? Because I feel like it's one of those things where it's easier said than done, but it's probably small things that they can do to slowly get their name out.

Ilyai Ilienko: 09:34

Sure, absolutely. This is part of what I focus in, in my practice in terms of scaling brand penetration. When people think about brand management, brand identity, a lot of people may think of the Nike sign or your design, that's not what I mean by when I talk about... Well, you and I know that, but that's not what I mean when I talk to the outside world. Brand management and market penetration and scaling means inhabiting and coming into the spaces where your clients live, where they appear.

Ilyai Ilienko: 10:20

So for example, we can take the Institute of Management of Accountants. There are a lot of accounting, bookkeeping services firms that are part of IMA. Why are they part of IMA? Well, because IMA has an exceptional brand. It delivers exceptional value.

Ilyai Ilienko: 10:42

So those companies rotate in that ecosystem because they want to be with the Adam podcasts of the world, with the Ilien, with the rest of the global board and so on. So if you align yourself with a stronger, more powerful forces, you can meet the people, the more mature people, the more mature companies that you want to be part of in a social circle. Does that make sense? I mean, example, align yourself with IMA, you don't just put on LinkedIn, I am Adam, I do great podcasts, and just keep doing that week after week. No, you align yourself with exceptional individuals, exceptional frameworks, and exceptional businesses.

Ilyai Ilienko: 11:32

So

Adam Larson: 11:33

So when you're when you're a small business, you know, I think it sounds like you kinda have to figure out who you are before you can kind of align yourself with those things. And is that part of how you help them is like, okay. Who are we? Like, what is our why? What are we doing?

Adam Larson: 11:46

Do you have to kind of figure that out before you can kind of get your identity out there, your brand identity out there?

Ilyai Ilienko: 11:52

I think that the way that you ask this is even more eloquent and better than when I put it together.

Adam Larson: 11:59

Okay.

Ilyai Ilienko: 12:01

But yes, but this is your MO, this is your profession. I go to... When we speak with younger businesses that are trying to scale, that are trying to kind of identify their foothold, I ask them, who do they want to be in two years, in five years? So a lot of owners, a lot of founders, they think they have a great product, they think they have a great idea, they can deliver what it is, but no one knows about them. So you can't keep sending the same messaging on LinkedIn and expect different results.

Ilyai Ilienko: 12:38

That's madness. So you'd have to find out what companies are you aiming to be within two or five years. Let's look at their messaging. If you really like their messaging, what do their founders say? How do they position themselves?

Ilyai Ilienko: 12:53

Let's go on LinkedIn and just do some research. See where the founders inhabit, where do they present, what do they write, who do they speak with, and how do they position their website, their company, who do they partner with, who do they align with? IMA, for example, other institutes, other associations.

Adam Larson: 13:13

Yeah. I I think that's interesting where you're you're looking at these other markets. And then when you're doing that research, you know, probably the the the the that gets thrown around is things like market penetration. Like, hey, where's our market penetration? How are...

Adam Larson: 13:26

What are the numbers? I'm sure that's a number that, like, CFOs and CEOs are asking their folks and even founders are asking. But when you're when you're in a small to medium sized businesses, there's a lot of crowded markets out there. You're saying, hey, I want to do x, y, and z. Like, if you wanted to do a a...

Adam Larson: 13:42

For example, let's say you have... I want to make an ERP that's AI focused. And you start looking, you're like, oh, there's the rillets, there's the campfires, there's this one, there's that one. Like, you have all these... You're all these other ERPs that are popping...

Adam Larson: 13:56

That have already popped up. And you're like, but I want to get in there. You know, what does it look like when you're trying to make ground in in a in a crowded space? You know, do you need to relook at what you're offering? Or is it like, hey, I can make my own way.

Adam Larson: 14:09

What does that look like?

Ilyai Ilienko: 14:10

I think it's a I think it's a blend of brand identity, what your original thought process was, what you had in mind when you started it. As you're going through this process of bringing this idea or this ERP platform, as you are trying to create this idea, as you're bringing it out into the market, as you're looking at competitors, you start seeing low hanging fruits and things where you can say, I see that this company has an implementation plan that's such, but our specialists and our platform allows it to do it this way. So let's tweak the implementation, the road to the implementation, for example. Let's get ideas of low hanging fruit, tweak them, adopt them, make them our own.

Adam Larson: 15:08

So does that eventually change? Like because you mentioned, like when you're talking to founders, they have their five year plan. They look, we have this great product. When you're doing those low hanging fruit, does that eventually change that five year plan? Do things eventually change because you're realizing, hey, we need to adjust how we're doing things or does it just make the five year plan stronger?

Ilyai Ilienko: 15:26

Sure. I think it's part of our discovery of our two year, three year and five year plan. So when we start conversations, we say, well, we're a small bookkeeping or we're a small accounting firm. Who do we want to be? Who do you know of that has not three offices, but seven offices, nine offices?

Ilyai Ilienko: 15:52

And what can what can we this is who we want to be in five years. What can we learn from them? What did they do to get there? And that's how we start structuring our plan. And initially, when you're just starting to build brand identity, starting to scale, you have low hanging fruits everywhere to improve your communication, to improve your go to market strategy, to improve your product delivery, your communication, your governance.

Ilyai Ilienko: 16:26

There are low hanging fruit all along the way. There's going to be more low hanging fruit than you can consume. So as you're starting to consume the lowest hanging fruit, that's how your brand identity starts forming. And as you notice, you're already half a year into it, one year into it, and things snowball very quickly when there's consistency.

Adam Larson: 16:50

So it's like your five year plan is almost like a living document where you're constantly evolving as an organization to make sure that you're meeting the needs of your customers and also being able to penetrate the market and making sure that you're putting it out there? Because obviously everybody has, like, this is the thing I'm offering, but how you present it and how you get it out there is what's evolving as you're scaling.

Ilyai Ilienko: 17:11

Yes. Yes. So we, Obviously every business has our weekly to do lists, we have our cash forecasts, we have our partnership meetings with our clients and things, week, month, whatever, but we have to keep an eye the longer term plan, the three to five years. So we do have this week, we do have this month, we do have a cash crunch, but remember, we want to also partner and be in the same space as, for example, IMA or some other brands. Let's manage the week to week and the month to month and handle the clients as best as we can, but don't take your eye off the five year plan.

Ilyai Ilienko: 17:59

We still have to create those partnerships and we still have to continue to break into the industry to penetrate it.

Adam Larson: 18:07

Yeah. So I, you know, want to have the... I wanted to ask you also about kind of your role on the IMA board. You know, you've been a board member. I'm not sure for how long we'd...

Adam Larson: 18:20

You can share that. But how is that... How has your connection to the IMA board kind of shaped, you know, how you help organizations and the challenges that you're facing? And even how have you been able to kind of give what you've learned back to the IMA board as well? Because it's an interesting, you know, being able to be a part of the board or something like IMA.

Ilyai Ilienko: 18:39

Sure. I'm on the board of regions, and I'm on the board of regions since my second or third year. I volunteer with IMA across a number of levels. I'm on the volunteer and engagement committee, which allows me, gives me the insight to see other players in the industry, who IMA partners with, how we spread the word, IMA's communication with regulatory bodies and other participants in the industry. The ethics committee position allows me to have insight in terms of the ethical approach to our industry.

Ilyai Ilienko: 19:23

How does that impact technology, AI, other things like that? The Board of Regents role allows me to see what it takes to become a professional credentialed accountant? Where is our profession heading? How is the evolution of our licensing certification process works? Where is the education going?

Ilyai Ilienko: 19:55

What do we need for students who are coming out of universities to prepare them, to pull them along further? Because that's a large part of what IMA does very well. It takes professionals and it brings them to the next level. So it gives me a lot of these, not just internal, but also external vantage points. And mind you, I'm also on the board of a local university in South Carolina here.

Ilyai Ilienko: 20:20

So I have a lot of perspectives, not just from small business and not just from the IMA board, but also from academia and my presence there. What all is necessary to create a fine functioning industry professional.

Adam Larson: 20:41

What's one of the biggest leadership lessons you've learned from being on a board?

Ilyai Ilienko: 20:44

One of the biggest things is I've learned how to be patient, how to really listen and try to give the benefit of the doubt while doing all the listening to peers. Because sometimes, at least I myself, sometimes find myself preemptively either offended or thinking that, Well, this individual, we're not in agreement. No. You have to take a step back, pause, really listen to the person, ask some follow-up questions, try to understand how things work and why they work. And that's one of the reasons why, for example, IMA doesn't invite people to be at the board level from the get go.

Ilyai Ilienko: 21:38

Why? Well, you have to come up through the ranks, not because it's your grunt work, but because you have to understand the organization, the participants. And that's how I myself penetrate the IMA market, for example, successfully. I received my CMA in 2020, and five, six years down the line, I'm sitting here with you, which is fantastic, and I'm at the board level, I was able to penetrate IMA and kind of bring value to IMA.

Adam Larson: 22:11

That's amazing. And I love that you've been able to see that value because I feel like so many times we get into... Especially in smaller businesses, like just bringing the conversation back to smaller businesses.

Ilyai Ilienko: 22:22

Mhmm.

Adam Larson: 22:22

When there's less people, sometimes there's not as much of a diversity of thought and experience, and sometimes it's harder to help them see outside of what they're doing. And so, you know, and maybe maybe we can talk a little bit about common mistakes that you've seen when... And when... Especially when those businesses are starting to scale, because I feel like when you have that that tunnel focus, it's harder to see red flags, it's harder to see where you can penetrate things because you just don't have the experience or understanding of what's happening.

Ilyai Ilienko: 22:54

Sure. Well, I mean, take a company that has four founders, four founders have only four perspectives. So, you're right in the sense that you don't have the same controls, the same guardrails, you don't have the number of levels of professionals where if things do fall through the cracks, someone is going to catch it. No, at a smaller company, you have a smaller suite of founders, but the opportunities to create something, to apply something, to be very nimble, to reach out to a partner firm and say, Hey, let's hop on a call and see how you were doing this implementation, for example. How are you going about your operations?

Ilyai Ilienko: 23:44

Smaller companies are much more nimble. They can implement things much faster.

Adam Larson: 23:56

So they can they can implement things much faster, but does does their identity as an organization have to... Like, does it evolve as they're kind of going through that growth? So you're implementing things, implementing things, and other things, and obviously, that eventually changes the look of it. Does that does that cause disruptions in the growth?

Ilyai Ilienko: 24:16

It does, of course, absolutely. Hyperscaling. So for example, when I was at Synergy Partners, we went from three employees to a team of 30, from under 1,000,000 to over 20 in the division that I scaled. Absolutely. Things break, things fall through, things fall through.

Ilyai Ilienko: 24:38

But we have to remember our vision. We have to remember our vision for when we started. The processes are going to get more complex. There's going to be statements of work process that are going to be involved, more controls, more things, but more processes and more complicated processes don't mean that your soul or the initial kind of founder's view of the business has to be lost. So it's about getting the right people on the bus and driving that bus in the direction of the five year plan, and dealing with putting in complex processes at the same time.

Adam Larson: 25:27

What's it like when you're working with founders, whoever having trouble letting go and letting other people help them grow and do the work? Because I'm sure that that happens often.

Ilyai Ilienko: 25:36

I think that that would fall under the founder buy in and sort of control and the management style that a particular founder or a set of founders have. I've experienced that you absolutely must have founder buy in and not just buy in where it's rubber stamping, but actually having the founder understand why this is going to be beneficial to back it. Because a small company cannot scale and cannot improve its brand identity if the founder has his eyes on a different price. If the founder doesn't think that, for example, what you're doing in terms of penetrating other professional spaces, if that's important, if the founder only thinks about sales, for example, well, have to be on the same eye to eye. That's why I say founder buy in is exceptionally important.

Ilyai Ilienko: 26:51

So,

Adam Larson: 26:55

let's say somebody's been listening to this conversation. They're either a leader, a founder, or they're maybe trying to grow their team, and they're kind of overwhelmed with this idea. What's what's maybe... What's a couple pieces of, like, what's those... What are those first couple steps that you want them...

Adam Larson: 27:08

Of advice that you want them to walk away with, like, hey, this is step one of what I need to do when you start scaling my group, my organization, my business.

Ilyai Ilienko: 27:17

I would suggest companies take a healthy step back. So when you have a small number of founders and they are focused on, for example, a bookkeeping or an accounting firm, they know that the services that they provide is great. So all they do is just they keep on hammering the same reach out tools, for example, Upwork or LinkedIn. But you have to take a step back and really identify what your company's strengths are and where you want to be. And again, I'm going to go back to how did the company that you really admire, how does your role model get to be in that space?

Ilyai Ilienko: 28:12

And you really work on identifying how did they make the space their own? What part of organizations are they? What is their founder's voice? It's not just you have a great product or you're performing great services. That's not going to cut it.

Ilyai Ilienko: 28:31

You have to let people know, and people don't just come knocking on your door if you say, I have a great product. No, they have to trust you. They have to understand that you are going to support them and be in this with them, so you can't just go in expecting, Oh, I have a great product, people are going to buy it. No, it's about relationships, goodwill. Well,

Adam Larson: 28:58

is about relationships. And I think that's something that people are realizing, especially in the age of AI, how important human connection is and how important relationships are. And so maybe we can just kind of in the... As we're wrapping up the conversation, I wanted to kind of talk about what is the impact of AI on scaling and also how important it is to continue having those having those human connection relationships so that way you can build that trust. Because, you know, if you connect with somebody through an AI marketing thing, you're not necessarily building that connection, that human connection, you've just maybe got a lead, but you still have to build that connection as well.

Ilyai Ilienko: 29:34

That's right. So I think, and I'm going to do a shameless plug for IMA. We have a September 30, Professor Ahmad and myself of the Small Business Shared Interest Group and Technology Shared Interest Group, we're going to be doing a webinar on AI of all things. I think that AI is a fantastic tool, and just like Excel back in the day, AI can empower you to do a lot of things faster and make a lot of mistakes just as fast. So it'll compound the results of what you're doing.

Ilyai Ilienko: 30:14

If what you are doing is misaligned, then you are going to have effects snowball very quickly because it's an automation tool and it takes very little time to snowball. Plus what you also said that AI is impersonal. So once you do use AI to make some kind of a target identification client, you still have to show up as a human and try to understand what are your clients' pain points? What are they working on day to day? AI is not going to be able to humanize your business, humanize your approach, so that's going to stay with the founders and their messaging.

Ilyai Ilienko: 31:04

They're messaging for the care of the industry and their clients.

Adam Larson: 31:08

Yeah. Well, awesome. Well, Ilyai, you've got such wonderful experiences, and I really appreciate you coming on podcast, sharing that with our audience, and just having a chat with me today. I really appreciate you coming on.

Ilyai Ilienko: 31:20

Thank you very much, Adam. It was a pleasure. I hope to speak with you again.

Announcer: 31:25

This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.