NBOA President and CEO
This August we hit a milestone with the Net Assets Podcast: 25 episodes! It’s truly been a pleasure speaking with so many independent school business leaders across the country. I think it’s particularly fitting that this milestone episode features this year’s Ken White Distinguished Business Officer, Ann Marie Tidona. Tidona has served as director of finance, operations and strategic projects at Friends Academy for 27 years and been an incredible resource to the NBOA community in that time.
During our conversation, Tidona shared how her approach to data has evolved over nearly three decades in independent school leadership and offered valuable insights on helping trustees and school leaders focus on what comes next. She shares what she knows about hitting the sweet spot between too much and too little data to capture stakeholders’ attention.
Below is an excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the full episode here:
Jeff Shields: I remember being in a session years ago led by a business officer that was super excited about sharing their data. And it occurred to me as a person in the audience: Don't tell me everything you know, tell me everything I need to know.
You’re talking about being judicious with your use of data, answering the question and not going overboard. You don’t need to dazzle people with all of the data. It’s more effective when you keep it focused. I bet that's a skill you've refined over time, right?
Ann Marie Tidona: Most definitely.
Shields: And that sounds like great advice for business officers as they use data and as they think about it. In that regard, what advice would you give business officers who want to make their data more useful, not just more impressive looking, but actionable?
So when I look at the data, I will process what's happened, but what I'm really trying to do is say, Based on this data, what's next for us?
Tidona: I think what's different now is that it’s less about reporting and more about forecasting and strategy. It’s a shift from what happened to looking at what's next.
So when I look at the data, I will process what's happened, but what I'm really trying to do is say, Based on this data, what's next for us?
Shields: That's very interesting. You’ve talked about your interest in forecasting through demographic projections, and likewise, this approach helps keep your trustees future-oriented, which I think is always the goal of their discussions, right?
Tidona: Yes. And it’s also thinking, if we have this data, what kind of strategy comes out of it? If we hit certain numbers, is there something that triggers the execution of an action?
I've also played around a lot with executive summaries, and I've been using AI to do a lot of different things for different constituents. Some people can take your financial reports and understand the budgets and audited financials. But on a board, you have a whole complement of people, and not all of them are finance people.
So I've been doing audio podcasts of the financials, creating a narrative they can listen to before the board meeting. I've had so many non-financial trustees tell me it was valuable and helpful because they felt more confident going into the board meeting and asking questions about the finances. It was delivered in a way they could better understand than simply receiving the standard board report package.
Shields: I think I'm going to steal that idea from you. I think that's brilliant, and I hope other people listening take advantage of that.
You can listen to the full conversation here on NBOA.org or on any podcast platform.
I would be remiss in this blog about leveraging data not to call out that data entry is now open in DASL for Foundations Data as well as DASL/BIIS Financial Operations Data. When NBOA members participate in this data collection effort, you can tap an array of custom-built financial analysis tools in the BIIS data analysis platform that will help you distill what’s most important in your financials as well as clean and clear ways to share those numbers with fellow leaders. Please join the nearly 800 schools who make entering their data in DASL/BIIS a priority and help us serve you even better with reliable financial data and analysis in the year ahead.
Enjoy either the last week(s) of summer or the fresh faces coming into school for a new year!
