I have to admit that when I first heard of Stewart Marshall’s personal brand as a “financial storyteller,” I thought the phrase to be a contradiction in terms. How could something as quantitative as finance serve as a basis for storytelling? Stewart has been gradually convincing me, as he does in this speech he did for Toastmasters. See how well he convinces you in this Q&A, which will run all this week.

Bio: Stewart Marshall is a financial storyteller. He helps organisations tell their story through numbers. Stewart brings out the financial stories and narrative of a business for senior executives and management to help them understand what they have, what their business needs and how it can thrive. As a Designated Management Accountant in Canada and the UK he has worked in organisations of all sizes, from CFO of a start-up to a Senior Finance Manager at Eastman Kodak. Currently he is working on building his own consultancy focused on Financial Storytelling.

Stewart is also a judge on various business case competitions as well as a judge and team mentor on the New Ventures BC Competition with prize-winning success. He is also the Chairman of the Vancouver Chapter of the Society of Certified Management Accountants. His own website is Stewart Marshall, Financial Storyteller, and you can follow him as @finstoryteller on twitter. [Photo credit: Kris Krug]

Q&A with Stewart Marshall:

Q: You wrote in an entry in your blog, “Personally I think in business we should be far more honest about what we are doing.” Can you cite an example — perhaps a company severely impacted by the current economic crisis — that should have been more honest and told a better story?

A: In business, both internally and externally we want our audience to believe our story. Yet storytelling is frequently looked at as “not serious.” Do we really need countless PowerPoint presentations, with countless numbers and diagrams with all manner of confusing arrows and boxes, just so we can do our email under the desk and ignore who is speaking?

Let’s look at Canadian Banks. Throughout the economic turmoil Canadian Banks seemed to have fared better than in most other countries. More prudent, they took less risks and consequently shielded the Canadian economy from the worst of the crisis. As a customer though, I feel their prudence and limited risk taking has translated into less lending and poorer customer service. The Banks’ assets may be protected but is this what the typical customer on the street cares about? These assets were once the customers assets and I’ve yet to see very much evidence that the Banks understand their role in encouraging economic stimulus.

Both businesses and their customers have a responsibility to each other. It needs to be transparent and honest. Making big assumptions about what customers want or what businesses can provide, especially without ever asking them, is dishonest on both sides!