Before I ever opened a textbook, my first finance classroom was my father's office.
He was the CFO of a major mining company in Peru, and like me, he started in auditing. On the days he took me along, I don't think either of us realized he was training me. I was just watching him work.
The work looked nothing like mine does today. No computers. The ledgers were physical books, written and balanced by hand. Accounting alone was a department of about thirty people, and he led them, closing the books of a large operation on paper.
With my father, at the company club. Peru.
When I went to the office, he would always take me to the company club afterward for milk and cookies. This photo is from one of those afternoons. At the time it was just a treat with my dad. Looking back, it was all part of the same thing. He was quietly showing me a world: the people, the responsibility, the way you carry yourself when the numbers are yours to answer for.
I came of age right on the fault line. I studied on those same physical ledgers, then watched the profession jump to accounting systems almost overnight. Now I'm living the next shift, putting AI to work in how I build models and analysis. I have been on both sides of every one of those breaks.
The lesson was never a lecture. It was presence. Two generations, the same calling, and a path I inherited long before I chose it.
Thanks for taking me to the office, and to the club, Dad.