Every challenge is an opportunity for growth. As a child I loved math. I had an insatiable desire to explore new ways of thinking and challenging myself, so much so that I was thrilled in 4th grade to land one of the top places in the National Math Olympics in Albania. My experience as a young child immigrating to the U.S. with my family showed me that as humans we have the ability to accomplish anything we commit to. We can see astonishing results with hard work and not being afraid to ask for help when needed. While we faced challenges adapting to a new culture, our willingness to adapt, combined with the amazing help of the community around us, helped us create a life even better than we had imagined.In the last two decades as a finance professional, I have looked for opportunities to challenge the status quo and find ways to make improvements to existing processes. My deep sense of curiosity combined with my strong analytical skills allow me to see patterns where others see chaos, and I have been able to create simple solutions to seemingly complex problems. As a team leader, I have encouraged people working together to take chances and bring their talents forward to create new solutions. In my early days leading FP&A, the organization was going through a major strategy change. The finance team was overtasked supporting budgeting and operations leads, leaving very little time for actual analysis. We used a patchwork of systems and over-relied on Excel. Collaboration was nearly impossible. Frustration and burnout were growing.Understanding the capacity of new financial technology tools, I initiated a pilot program to test a few of these solutions. We wound up finding a solution that not only solved existing pain points but uncovered new value-adds, including cash-flow forecasting and real-time labor reporting - a tremendous value to the operations team.Streamlining the operation allowed us to focus on developing our talented and diverse team, which supported me in my role leading M&A. As a team, we successfully closed on 3 acquisitions including the $1B Able acquisition, increasing top-line growth by 20% in 18 months and delivering impressive synergies.As Ayrton Senna once said “You cannot overtake 15 cars in sunny weather, but you can when it’s raining.” With disruptions and volatility becoming the norm, organizations need to take bold yet cautious steps to seize long-term upside, while minimizing risk. I look forward to bringing my innovative finance transformation mindset to help organizations drive long-term shareholder value.