The Controller as Lean Leader

Having begun her professional career as a high school mathematics teacher, Sue Elizabeth Sondergelt gained insight into something other than numbers, namely, soft skills and people skills-skills that she learned, upon entering business, most other financial professionals did not have. After going back to school to earn an M.S. in Accountancy and her CMA (Certified Management Accountant), she went to work for The Wiremold Company, a world-class organization and textbook case in Lean and Lean accounting. Then, after 15 years of service in operations and finance in two manufacturing conglomerates, Sue semiretired, and went back to education as an adjunct at two universities, one online and one brick-and-mortar. It was here that she realized that the behavior we see in business today is "learned" behavior, and that it has been learned, both by engineers and by accountants, at our universities. Sue believes Lean accounting will never become a valid, well-utilized, and respected cost management system until we begin to teach it in our accounting texts and curricula, including our MBA programs, at all universities. Since 2007, Sue has been the creator of the innovative new Lean Beans program on Lean accounting, and owner of Lean Beans LLC, an education and consulting group in Lean accounting. She has delivered her highly respected seminar, "Lean Thinking for Accountants Sustaining Corporate Growth," for over three years and in 30 major U.S. cities, to assist CPAs in fulfilling their continuing education requirements in cost management. Today she spends most of her time assisting small manufacturers in their Lean accounting journey. Her new book, The Controller as Lean Leader: A Novel on Changing Behavior with a Lean Cost Management System, brings together the good, the bad, the ugly, and the humorous from all of her experiences. She presents information in a way that will change the way you think. She creates surprising and compelling visuals to change the way you feel about finance in business today. She guides readers through the first three principles of Lean, which are so crucial to the successful implementation of the Lean cost management system. Then she guides the reader to understand how only a Lean direct cost management system will drive the correct "behavior" to sustain a Lean change management initiative and change the culture in any organization today.