It’s one of the most common questions I get asked….”Andrew I am about to start a new FBP role have you got any tips for what I should focus on”.
So lets do this, what you should focus on in your first 90 days.
The first 90 days in any finance business partnering role (or any role) matter. Not because you’re expected to have all the answers, but because this is the window where perceptions are formed, trust is established, and habits are set – both yours and the organisation you have moved to.
Many finance professionals approach a new role believing their impact will come from quickly proving competence: improving reports, identifying inefficiencies, or recommending better decisions. In reality, the most effective finance business partners resist the urge to “fix” anything early. Instead, they focus on setting the foundations that allow influence to come later.
And to do this I will always come back to my framework: QUIET.
Not quiet as in passive – but quiet as in composed, controlled, considered.
QUIET stands for Quality, Understanding, Insights, Ethos, and Trust. These five elements should shape where you focus – and just as importantly, where you don’t focus – all of the time but even more so in your first three months.
Q for Quality: Get Under The Data Environment Early
Your credibility as a finance business partner will ultimately be anchored to the quality of the information you bring to the table. If the data is wrong, late, inconsistent, or overly complex, nothing else matters.
In your first 30 days, your priority is not building new reports – it’s understanding the data ecosystem you’ve inherited.
That means meeting with the key people in finance systems, reporting, and IT. Ask practical questions:
• Where does the data come from?
• What are the core ERPs, planning tools, and reporting platforms?
• Which reports are trusted – and used often?
• How do I extract this information from here?
You’re not auditing. You’re mapping. Your aim is to understand where quality lives and where it breaks down. This also helps you avoid one of the most common early mistakes: confidently presenting numbers that the business quietly doesn’t believe.
Quality information isn’t about perfection – it’s about risk management, consistency, and confidence. This can take some time but you have to get your hands dirty because if you can’t use the tools at your disposal efficiently everything else doesn’t matter.
U for Understanding: Get Away From Your Desk
If you stay behind your desk in the first 90 days, you are already behind. In fact its your #1 KPI, how much time you spend at your desk. It should be as low as possible.
One of the most effective disciplines you can adopt is booking one full day per month, for your first three months, to go into the business. No agenda. No spreadsheet. Just exposure.
That might mean a warehouse visit, a production line walk-through, sitting in on sales calls, going to a property, shadowing operations or customer service teams
The goal isn’t to become an expert overnight. It’s to build context. You start to understand how the business actually works, from activities not from outcomes.
You’ll also begin to see where financial language doesn’t translate. What finance calls “efficiency” might look like risk on the floor. What appears as “variance” may simply be seasonality that never made it into the forecast.
Understanding the business – and the people in it – changes the way you interpret numbers. And ensures the business doesn’t see the new kid on the block as a threat to their agenda.
I for Insights: Learn Where Decisions Really Happen
Insights don’t come from better charts. They come from understanding how decisions are made.
Early in your role, focus on identifying formal decision forums (leadership meetings, steering committees, investment reviews), informal decision points (corridor conversations, pre-meetings, stakeholder huddles) and who influences decisions versus who approves them is critical.
What are the stories in the business – are they fact or subjective?
What problems are happening right here and now. And how can you get involved to solve them.
Watch how information is presented. Notice what gets traction and what gets ignored. Pay attention to which questions change the direction of conversations.
This is also where restraint matters. Your first 90 days are not about being the smartest person in the room – they’re about learning how the room works.
The most effective finance business partners don’t overwhelm stakeholders with analysis. They bring fewer insights, framed clearly, tied to decisions. But that skill is earned through observation first.
E for Ethos & Mindset: Your Energy Shows Up First
Your ethos – how you show up – matters more than your technical ability in the early days.
In your first 90 days ask far more questions than you give answers, avoid making recommendations, even when they seem obvious, use email sparingly and prioritise conversations instead.
People are watching how you behave. Are you there to enable or to be correct? To listen or to impress? To understand or to diagnose?
A strong finance business partnering ethos is grounded in curiosity, empathy, simplicity, and comfort with ambiguity. You don’t need certainty early – you need perspective.
Taking notes. Reflecting. Connecting dots quietly. Asking open questions. These behaviours signal maturity and commercial confidence. They also prevent you from being prematurely typecast as “just another finance person with opinions”.
T for Trust: Build Relationships Before You Need Them
Trust is not built in meetings about numbers. It’s built in conversations about people.
Make it a priority to meet every stakeholder you expect to work closely with. One-on-one. Informal. No deck. In the first week
Before you even start your first day, tell the EA of the boss, to book in an introduction call with at least 10 people across the first five days. No agenda, just an intro.
If you don’t do it in the first week your diary will be filled with other things quickly and it will never happen. They wont miss you in the first week because you’ve never been there.
Ask questions such as:
• What does success look like for you this year?
• What frustrates you about finance?
• Where do you feel decisions get stuck?
• How can I best support you?
• What are you into outside of work (yes ask personal stuff it bonds people)?
Position yourself clearly – not as a gatekeeper or controller – but as someone there to help them execute their plan.
And if any themes keep getting repeated by different people, focus your attention on those things.
Early trust compounds. You want to be seen as a safe ally not a threat that will unravel others. When decisions get harder later, people will already know your safe. They’ll invite you in earlier, listen more carefully, and engage with the insights you bring.
The QUIET Advantage
The irony of finance business partnering is that influence grows fastest when you slow down at the start.
The first 90 days aren’t about visibility. They’re about foundations. By focusing on Quality, Understanding, Insights, Ethos, and Trust, you create the conditions where your voice will carry weight when it matters most – and that wont be in the first 90 days it will be in the weeks, months, years that follow
Be controlled, composed, measured rather than judgmental and hasty.
Get the first 90 days right, and the next 900 become far easier.
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