The beauty of starting a new job in the same industry and function is that it’s all the same.
Sure, there are different people, problems, and politics.
But generally, the business strategy is the same.
Which means I was able to dust off my trusty FP&A OS and Finance Manager playbooks and get to work.
I’m knee deep in the assessing and designing phase of the new role. But I already have a few big themes I’m charging forward on… and I couldn’t wait any longer to share them with you.
Here’s 3 lessons now that I’m 45 days into my shiny new Head of Finance role at Farmers Insurance:
I finally put my FP&A OS book on amazon to purchase as a paperback!
Better late than never.
If you’ve already bought the ebook, skip this unless you really want the physical copy.
For those of you (like myself) who hate reading digital books, this is for you.
Lesson 1: Talent management is the #1 skill
Each one of us has natural talents.
These are talents we lean on daily and get frustrated when others can’t figure out.
Because they come naturally to us, we don’t appreciate how difficult they are for others.
This is how I feel about talent management for myself.
It’s so simple to me:
Recruit the best people you can
Create compelling roles for everyone
Set clear expectations
Tie those expectations to peoples’ career ambitions
Give transparent coaching on gaps/successes
Repeat… forever
That’s the talent game.
However, every team I have taken over in my career I’ve seen a negligence of leadership from my predecessors (yes, I mean every single one).
Which means I typically inherit a great team full of super talented but underutilized people.
This role is no different.
My path forward?
[see above list]
I’m spending a lot of time casting vision for what excellence looks like in a finance team of this size in this industry, what kind of work we should be doing, and how we’ll get from where we are to where we’re going.
Every week I reinforce that vision knowing it’ll take time to sink in.
And while I’m the one personally raising the bar on our performance, I’m also offering my calendar for 1:1 coaching to help everyone get where we’re trying to go.
My goal is to be the best finance team for personal lines insurance in the industry. Period.
My team knows that, I presented it to the entire finance department at our town hall, and now we’re officially now on our way…
Lesson 2: “Finance” isn’t a common definition
Here’s what I mean…
Who owns reporting for non-financial KPIs?
Who owns forecasting product-level outcomes?
Who owns measuring if an initiative is working?
In my mind it’s clearly Finance.
But that’s not universal. And this role is no different.
A lot of processes and outcomes I would have expected to be owned by finance are being done in the business.
The worst part?
The business has been doing it this way for decades.
It’s forcing me to be thoughtful about my team’s role in the overall organization and how we might start to take back ownership of processes I feel are ours to own.
Here’s my approach:
Keep assessing - I’m only 45 days in which means I’ve barely seen 1 monthly cycle. I need to look for pain points with the business or opportunities to gradually take ground. Not rushing, but looking for open doors…
Step through open doors - As we’re going through the annual planning cycle, I saw an opportunity to take back ownership of assessing our forecast output against the 2026 plan. This seems small, but every little opportunity like this is a stepping stone. And if you own the spreadsheet, you own the storyline. That’s exactly what happened.
Force my vision - Unfortunately I’ll have to add work to an already strained system (lots of demands on my team, not a lot of capacity). But the work I’m forcing is all high-value work we should have been doing. And my request to the team is to cut back on things that are low-value. A great example of this is how I’m asking the team to build an enhanced reporting suite where we’re independently monitoring initiative success. This work will take priority over miscellaneous report enhancements that are nice-to-haves requested by the business. I’m okay making that trade and telling slightly annoyed business partners why my report comes first.
Lesson 3: Insurance goes in cycles
For as confusing as insurance can be, at least it’s predictable.
It goes in cycles - between hard and soft markets.
Why does that matter?
Because if you can spot which cycle you’re in, you’ll know how to manage the business.
And in a finance leadership position, that’s everything.
We’re entering one of the softest markets we’ve seen in a while.
Consumers are shopping
Rates are dropping (seriously, my auto rates just went down!)
Insurers are making money
Everyone wants to grow
Very simply, my job has 2 main components right now:
Help the company grow
Make sure our growth doesn’t put us in a bad place
So while my primary focus with leadership is emphasizing our growth trajectory… I’m spending time behind the scenes ensuring we have the right forecasting and reporting in place to avoid growing unsustainably.
Nobody will see that reporting for a while, but it’s my job to keep an eye on the health of the business and raise the red flag if things look bad.
How does it feel?
Every day I feel like I’m just scratching the surface.
1,000 things are not where I want them.
But I sleep great at night.
How?
Because I’m focusing on the top 20% of stuff that drives 80% of the outcomes.
That doesn’t mean I get to be lazy or negligent. But it does give me peace if we’re on track to nail the most critical things for the rest of 2025.
How we can help:
Build your own FP&A Operating System so you can drive more impact through a best-in-class FP&A process.
Looking to elevate your FP&A leadership skills? Steal our Finance Manager Playbook to help you drive a healthy, high-performing finance team culture.
Get step-by-step video instruction on designing your perfect FP&A Flywheel. It’s the exact process we use when transforming FP&A teams.
Brett Hampson, Founder of Forecasting Performance
