Hearing other voices in the workplace: Keisha Dzata

Keisha Dzata, a senior financial analyst at Home Depot, discusses the importance of hearing other voices in the workplace and the value of internships.

She holds a degree in accounting from Harbert and serves on the Black Alumni Council. Keisha also mentors Harbert students.

Transcript

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Narrator:

Welcome to the Harbert College of Business Podcast

Currie Dyess:   

War Eagle and good day! Its your hosts Currie Dyess and Sarah Gascon. Today we’re joined by Ms. Keisha Dzata. She discusses the importance of the Black Alumni Council, the obstacles of diversity and inclusion, the value of the Auburn network, and strategizing your value and leveraging your position to obtain the partnerships, relationships, and sponsorships for creating the career you want.

Sarah Gascon:

Keisha, thank you for joining us today on another episode of the Harbert College of Business podcast. Welcome we are really excited and happy to have you here. You graduated in 2010 from Auburn University. How did you actually get to Auburn University?

Keisha Dzata:  

I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, not far away. That's important for later. So I was actually going to go to Florida State, which is where my dad went to college. And my parents met in Tallahassee. I had already accepted. They paid my deposit. I was going to Florida State, but I had a physics test that morning that I was not ready for. So I was like, "How do I get out of this physics test?" So my high school allowed you to have an excuse to absence if you were doing a college tour so I went to Auburn to give myself a few extra study days, and no, I fell in love with it. I actually applied in maybe April a senior year, which is super late. I definitely thought I was going to get wait-listed, but got in and did not get housing, which was totally okay, because I didn't want to live in a dorm anyway. So that all worked out.

Sarah:  

You went into the field of being a little bit more specific in terms of your financial advising. So initially you started off in a project position, is that correct?

Keisha: 

Yeah. So it's a little interesting when I first came out I actually supported supply chain, which the job was interesting. I'll definitely give you that, but it wasn't what I went to school for. I enjoyed it. I did that for two years and then I transitioned more into the financial analyst side of things, which is really what I went to school for. I liked that experience. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely been helpful as I started to do other things. Like a typical millennial I've worked several places. So just having that experience has been good.

But yeah. So since about 2013 I think I don't have my resume in front of me, but I think I've been in some form of being financial analyst since then. I've worked at this point four companies most of which you've probably heard of very different industries, but the work itself is around the same. I tell people whether I am selling airline seats or selling hammers or selling mattresses or selling fizzy water a lot of the work is the same even though the industries are very different. So transferable skills huge there.

Currie:               

So what is it that you like most and what is it that you like the least about the field that you work in?

Keisha:

I really enjoy partnership. I enjoy building strong relationships with my business partners. Of the four major jobs I would say that I've had three of the four I've had direct business partner. So I am your finance person. You run a portion of the business. So when you have questions about, "Hey, I have this great idea does this make financial sense?" I'm the one that tells you yes or no. That's the part I love. The one time that I had a job that didn't have business partners I did not last there long. I did not enjoy it at all.

I enjoy partnership. And just being able to help someone see the financial side of some of the decisions that they make, which is good. Most of the time it's a, "Yeah, this looks great. Let's get you through funding for this. I think this is a great idea." And much fewer times it's a, "Well this one doesn't necessarily make as much financial sense. Maybe if we tweak some of the inputs, maybe we can get it there." And other times it just been flat outright no, which those are always awkward, but necessary conversations.

Sarah:                

So what would you say motivates you to do great work? I know some students have challenges with that. What advice would you give them and specifically what motivates you to do great work?

Keisha: 

So the advice I would give them first, which is good advice that you need to find something to motivate you. And sometimes motivation isn't all that you need sometimes you just need a little bit of discipline too. Because every day you're not going to be motivated. Every day you're not going to wake up and say, "This is the day I'm going to conquer something and excel." Like, I mean, that's just not... What we do isn't that cool. So some days you just need to be disciplined in what you think your job needs to be. So for me it's always around my brand is important to me, and how I'm seen as a professional and someone who is constantly adding value to the organization is important to me. So even when projects aren't that great, or business partners are particularly challenging, or any other thing that makes me a little less motivated I am at least disciplined in knowing that my personal brand is important to me. And I want to make sure that at all times I'm seen as someone who adds value.

Sarah:  

Is that something that you had to learn how to develop, or is that something that you learned during your time here at Auburn?

Keisha:

A little bit of both. One of the things that they tell you but don't tell you when you're in school is you learn a lot of the basics there, but how you do your job you definitely learn at your job. Every company has a different way of doing things. They have a different way of looking at things. So you learn that on the job. So adding value I think is something that you learn at work. Learning what value is, learning how to add it it's something you learn at work, but the importance of that I think you learn while you are an Auburn student. We frequently tell students that this is why you're here. Particularly in this type of role you're here to help either increase sales or decrease costs. One of the two. So I learned that in college, but how to do it and how to implement it I think it's definitely company and role specific.

Currie:              

You are now a part of the Black Alumni Council. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that is? What does it mean to you, and what does it mean to future students in the future of black Harbert College of Business graduates?

Keisha: 

Ooh, that's a big one. So what is the council going to do?  Basically, and Maxine Hudgins who actually would have come with me is our faculty liaison. And I wish I had like the actual, "This is what we're doing in front of us." So she won't get on me about saying the wrong thing. But basically what we're trying to do is make it a better experience for black alumni of Auburn. And what does that mean? It means a lot of different things. So obviously we want to increase engagement numbers. And by engagement I mean we want to increase the number, not necessarily the dollar amount although that as well, but let's first talk about just the sheer number of black alumni who are giving back to Auburn.

And everyone's definition of how to do that is different. So for my experience what I noticed is that a lot of my classmates when I was in school did not have a great experience being a black student at Auburn. They did not get that endearment that some of the rest of us got. So then they don't feel obligated to give back in the way that some of us who had super positive experiences do. So I think everybody had their own idea of how they want to tackle that overarching issue. But for me, I want to look specifically at the experience of black students while at Auburn. It's different. Like we're in a different world, a lot going on around social justice. So now it's definitely the time I think to tackle some of that.

And when we talk specifically about Harbert I tell everybody, I think there were four black women to graduate in accounting in 2010. I know the other three, but it's that we want to increase some of our diversity numbers. We got some work to do. And I'm not just talking about black students, but I'm talking about all students who identify themselves as a minority. There are not a lot of us in business in general. And I think that the college kind of represents a microcosm of what you're going to see in industry, and neither of those numbers are okay. So to me personally those are some of the things that I want to work on. And there's someone else on the council who graduated. Don't give me the line about her graduation year, but she too was a Harbert graduate and she is a black woman, and also interested in those things. So those are some of the pieces that we're going to try and tackle during a really strange, strange, strange time in the world, so.

Sarah:  

So how do we increase diversity within the Harbert College of Business?

Keisha:

So many people have different opinions on that. I will speak personally something that I am passionate about is funding. One of the reasons why there are less white students in general in college let alone in the college of business is it a funding issue? So years and years and years racism has given a lot of wealth gap between black and white households. So a lot of black students just simply cannot afford to go to college. So those who can get to college are more likely to go into other parts of the university that are able to give them additional scholarship dollars.

So we've seen this program work in other colleges. We have certain industry professionals like certain companies who are specifically targeting, "I want to allocate X number of dollars for minority students." And along with that you have to keep your GPA up. You are more than likely going to do an internship with this company. So it kind of benefits both the student and the company as a way to kind of incent those students to stay in the college of business, do well, matriculate, and leave, because that's the other issue is that matriculation rates are not that great. So if you look at freshmen diversity numbers, they're X, but by the time you get to senior year it's very different. And a lot of that is because students have something happened in their lives that will force them financially to have to pull out of school.

So I think that funding is huge. If we can get a handle on that I think that's a good portion of it. And this is something else that I am taking on. I just wish that there was more examples. Like we talk about representation a lot just in media of seeing more black people. I think we need to see more specifically black alumni giving back being present on campus so that students are able to see, "Oh, look, she went to Auburn and she majored in accounting and look at what she's done, or look at what he's done, or look at what any of these people have been able to do." And I think that representation is a little more endearing so we might be able to get some additional people that way.

Sarah:  

It's also nice to have the alumni come back to be guest speakers or in either in the classroom or program setting that-

Keisha:

Yeah. I've done some guest lectureships before. So fun. I don't know how we're going to do that now. I guess we're going to do that via Zoom. But yeah, I've done that before. And it was actually a lot of fun, students enjoyed it. They have really good questions and just making yourself available. The mentorship program is huge and just students having the opportunity to, "Hey, I have this specific question about this industry." Let me see if there's someone in the network that can help you with it.

Sarah:  

Currie and I have spoken a number of times about networking and how important that is. One of the most important things is learning how to network, asking the right questions, thinking critically, how to actually apply it and to utilize the Auburn alumni association and the Auburn family.

Keisha:

No, it's huge. And we have Auburn people like to look out for other Auburn people. I was hired into my current company by an Auburn grad. And out of the stack of resumes that she had I was the only one that was an Auburn grad. So she was like, "Oh, let me look at this first." So it definitely doesn't hurt. And I don't feel bad about that, because the Georgia kids take care of the Georgia kids. But yeah. So tapping into your network is huge. We do talk about that, or at least they did when I was in school at Auburn about how important it is to build your network. But there's still a lot of ambiguity around how and where do I start? So the mentorship program is huge for that reason I think. It gives everybody just a starting point of, "Okay, so this is the one who is volunteering their time to talk to me. Let's talk to this person."

Currie:              

That's great advice, but can we unpack that just a little bit? You said there's a lot of ambiguity around that and it's such a critical skill. You've worked for several major corporations in a pretty highly leverageable position. So is there any advice you could give, or do you have any suggestions for how they can grow their network and utilize it and cultivate it?

Keisha: 

First things first especially in the Atlanta market, because we're not that far from Auburn almost all companies have at least some kind of Auburn network. You need to get plugged into that immediately. I worked somewhere else in the Atlanta area where the CFO was an Auburn grad, and he used to take us to lunch once a quarter. I always went, because it wasn't just financed kids it was people from all over the organization. So just that opportunity to talk to people is huge. I would also tell you everybody needs a sponsor, and it's weird because it's an awkward thing for you to first broach like, "Hey, do you want to be my sponsor?" So I would first tell you that you want to make sure that you are performing well. No one wants to sponsor a loser.

So first of all you want to make sure that you're performing well and that you are providing value. We talked about that and that you have some wins that that person could speak towards, but every networking opportunity that you have at work take it. A lot of companies have talked about that as part of their overall development of their employees. So they're providing you with opportunities for that. There's small group networking, there's happy hours. There are things like structured opportunities for you to seek that out. You need to go to every single one of them, even when you don't want to you still need to go, because just the opportunity to meet people is so important. I would also tell you to volunteer for stuff. Our full time jobs are a lot of work and I will not pretend that they are not not, but there's always other things that can be done within the organization.

At my current employer we have a committee that's basically it's called VOA Voice of the Associates. So this committee basically works to make sure that everybody on the team is happy. So we're planning community service events, we're planning development opportunities. We're planning, everybody gets lunch. Especially during this weird virtual time we're sending out care packages. So those are the types of things that you do in addition to your work, but it allows you to get that exposure, and it allows you to meet other people and work well with people who you wouldn't normally work with. So I would definitely tell you that anytime there are soliciting volunteers for anything just find a way to do it it's worth it. Even if it is additional work.

Sarah:                

So let's get into your role now as a senior financial analyst. What does your financial analyst reporting process involve?

Keisha: 

Oh, goodness. So it depends on what you're doing. So in current role I have a team of maybe 15. Nope. It's more than that. Not important. I have three distinct teams that are responsible for certain expenses within the P&L. So I help them with their monthly reporting. So every year we do this huge exercise where we do plan for the entire year. So you plan it's basically a budget what your expenses are going to be for the year. So every month we close, you do your accruals. You do all of your reporting to see how far you are from plan. We do weekly forecasting. So if something happens that we know now that we didn't know we did plan that needs to go into forecast. Any kind of special projects that they might have that require funding all of that has to come through me. So it depends on the week, but mainly I am helping people make decisions. Mainly.

Currie: 

I would say that's pretty important. So what are some key factors, financial and analysts should consider when evaluating prospective investments?

Keisha:

So when we look at projects at work we're always looking at two things NPV and IRR. So what is the net present value? So we spend money today. What is the present value of that over the life of the project, and Internal rate of return. You're spending money today what is your return on that? Most companies have a certain threshold and if it's over that amount then the project is green-lighted. If it's under that amount then it's probably not going to go. So those are the main two things that we're looking at. And it's important to note that both of those are capital. So if we're spending capital to get a project done. Well, we are doing expense projects that's a different set of metrics and it's mainly around even. So whatever you spend, are you going to break even, or save money on the savings? And if the answer is yes, then you're probably going to get the money. And if the answer is no, you're probably not.

Sarah:  

So can you explain a period of time in your career where you helped your business avoid a bad investment or financial decision?

Keisha:

Yeah, I'm going to be as broad as I can possibly be. We were approached by a vendor to get the special widget. Okay. These specific widgets that were supposed to look really cool in the stores. And they were supposed to save us all of this money on water expense and all of his other things. Only one of those things proved to be true. And that was that they looked cool, but financially it didn't make as much sense. So we had to scale back that project in a major way, because it wasn't going to pin through no matter how we looked at it, but they do look cool. If the purpose of the project was whereas they had something that looked aesthetically pleasing success. If the purpose of the project was for us to save money didn't happen.

Currie:

Based on your experiences and what you know about the industry what do you think would be a great opportunity for students who are interested in being a financial analyst?

Keisha:

I would tell you to intern. Something that Harbert hasn't done that wasn't a thing when I was in school is that there's a mandatory internship now. And I think that's so important, because everything seems cool on paper, but until you've actually done the work you don't really know if you're going to like it. So I would tell everybody to try and seek out an internship. A lot of the major companies around Atlanta have summer internships. We even did a program this year that was virtual. So some of the impediments that some students have to take eight internships mainly around housing for the summer. That wasn't an issue this summer. So it would have been a perfect time for as many people as possible to intern. So I would tell you to intern, because then you're going to get actual, real world experience on what we're doing.

All of our interns have a project over the summer, which I mean it could be a big and Lafayette how do we reforecast hourly wage for all of our stores over a year? It's big project. Or it can be as a lot more figure really focused like, "Hey, we're up 30% in HVAC spend for the year why? And how do we mitigate additional spend?" So being able to be in the role, dealing with the data, figuring things like this out would better equip anybody to come into a role a full time offer providing value a little sooner. And it also lets you know that this is something that you want to do, because I mean finance it's not for everybody. At times it can be a little dope. At times it can be really stressful. Lots of competing priorities. When you work in finance you have your management and the people that you answer to, but you also answer to your business partners. And sometimes they don't really get along. So like managing conflict. I would tell everybody it's such an important skill.

Sarah:                

You are very impressive, and you have a very impressive resume. And as you continue on with your career what is next for you? What are your next steps? And where do you see yourself in five years?

Keisha:

I guess in five years I'm taking a manager level position. I'm actually going to be doing something completely different in the business still in finance, but I'm headed currently at support operations, but I'm headed to supply chain. So within five years I should be a senior manager. I should. If I'm a rising star I might be a director, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think I'm probably going to be a senior manager. That'll be just fine with me. And I don't know. I definitely still see myself at current employer. I really like the company. I've really like the culture. There's so many different things that you can do. So many different pockets of the business that you can explore. So I definitely going to take the pay leaving. So yeah, just working, continuing to find ways to provide value. Yeah. I think that's a good answer.

Something else I would tell people figure out how far you really want to go. Because when I first started out, I was like, "Oh yeah, I want to be CFO." Now I'm like, "You know what I don't want to be that high. I'm good." So one of the things that I enjoy is having time to work on other things and develop other people. And I think I would lose the opportunity to do some of that if I was responsible for all of the finance fortune company's. That's lofty.

Currie: 

Right. Yeah. You got to always figure in those opportunity costs.

Keisha:

Yeah. Yeah. So it's good. And I mean there's so many different options you won't get bored. You don't need to have to be CFO to be constantly entertained and constantly challenged.

Currie:

Keisha Dzata it's been fantastic talking to you and we've loved every minute of it and speaking to you of course. How can we, and how can our listeners and the rest of the Auburn family, how can they keep up with you? Keep up with your work, or even get in contact with you to get some of that mentorship advice?

Keisha:

Yeah. So I have a LinkedIn. I would tell everybody to find my LinkedIn. And I think it has my email address on there. I respond to anybody who wants to email me. I mean, it's just an email. You can try out with me. I am a stranger to those people. So try it with me. See if you're good at this, but yeah just add me on LinkedIn. I do respond to emails. It'd be a great way for everyone to just see what's going on. But I do want to make myself available and if there's anything I can ever do for another Auburn student or alumni if it's in my power I will absolutely do it.

Sarah:  

It has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Well we appreciate your time and War Eagle.

Keisha:

War Eagle.

Currie:              

Thank you so much. War Eagle.

Narrator:

Harbert, Inspiring Business.