After leading Finaccurate's accounting team spread across India, El Salvador, Canada, and the US, this CEO discovered her biggest growth blocker wasn't geography, it was her own assumptions about what remote teams could do.
Most finance founders think that building organizational culture and leadership structure requires everyone under one roof. This CEO was running a 20-person accounting firm across four countries and assumed she needed a "large team" in the same office to implement real strategy.
Three days later, she had a functioning leadership team, weekly sync meetings locked in, and her first strategic plan that the entire company actually understood.
The breakthrough? Realizing that remote doesn't mean disconnected—and that she'd been drastically underestimating her team's capacity to think strategically, not just execute tasks.
Here's exactly how she went from carrying the weight of every decision on her shoulders to leading a structured organization with clear delegation, ownership, and culture.
My name is Jayanthi Ganapathay and I'm the CEO of Finaccurate, a full-service accounting and bookkeeping firm. We work with growing businesses across multiple industries, and my team is completely distributed—we have a large back office team in India, team members in El Salvador and Canada, and a few of us in the US working remotely.
When I started working with System & Soul, we had about 20 people, but I didn't really think of us as having a "team" in the organizational sense. We were more like scattered remote workers executing tasks. I was doing all the strategic thinking myself, and honestly, I thought that's just how it had to be with a distributed setup.
I had a lot of hesitation signing up for the program. My team is scattered across multiple countries and time zones. When Jon started talking about organizational structure, culture, building a leadership team—all of that—I thought, "I have to have a large team in one location to implement these strategies."
I genuinely thought maybe I wasn't the right candidate. How do you build culture when your team is never in the same room? How do you create a leadership structure when everyone's remote?
But even before day one of the workshop, Jon challenged me on that assumption. He asked: "You have a team of 20 people. Why are you not even considering them? You do have a team. And you can still build a culture, even though they're remote."
That reframe hit me hard. I realized I'd been dismissing my entire team as incapable of organizational thinking simply because they weren't sitting next to me.
Day one completely changed my perspective. We did this exercise where we created an organizational chart—not based on who reports to whom, but based on the functional areas of the business. We identified key roles like operator, functional heads for different departments, and all of that.
As we went through the exercises and I heard my team's perspective and ideas, I realized there was so much I didn't know. So much they were capable of that I'd never tapped into.
One moment really stands out: Jon stopped me mid-workshop and asked my team, "How many of you have seen this strategy spreadsheet?" He was talking about a growth plan I'd built a year ago.
Everyone said no.
I had built this comprehensive strategy—five different growth plans for the organization—and I'd never shown it to anyone. I thought it was all on me. My job to create, my job to execute. But the team was just getting delegated tasks without understanding where we were going as a company.
By the end of day three, my staff told me they finally understood what I was thinking as a CEO, where I wanted to take the company, what their role was, and how we're impacting clients. All of that became clear through these exercises.
By the end of the workshop, we had:
A Leadership Team
I identified functional heads from within my existing team. People I'd been underestimating suddenly emerged as leaders. One team member from our AI and RPA department surprised me by sharing that his goal was to create a product that doesn't currently exist in the accounting industry. He'd been thinking strategically all along—I just never asked.
Weekly 90-Minute Sync Meetings
We scheduled our first meeting before the workshop even ended. But here's the key: these aren't about client deliverables or task updates. These 90 minutes every Friday are purely for growth, new initiatives, and strategic thinking. S2 Sync gives you the framework and tools to make these meetings count.
Clear Delegation Based on Talent
Everyone got assigned specific responsibilities based on the feedback they shared during the workshop. Not just tasks—actual ownership of functional areas.
Our Hedgehog Concept
This was huge. Before the workshop, I had five different growth strategies I was trying to pursue. Through the exercises, we identified our one thing—our "hedgehog concept"—that drives everything.
For us, it's the 45-minute impact meeting I have with prospective CEOs and business owners. We realized that getting someone to that meeting is what converts prospects to clients. That's what drives organic growth. So instead of spreading our energy across 10 different marketing tactics, we now focus everything on getting qualified prospects to that one conversion point.
Completely. Before, I thought delegation meant assigning tasks. Now I realize delegation means sharing context, strategy, and ownership.
I used to carry everything on my shoulders. Now, when an email comes in from a client—even if I know I could handle it quickly—I stop and think, "Who on the team could do this? Who should own this type of decision?"
The delegation part really stuck with me. Most of it was me underestimating the team. I can now brainstorm with my team. They have ideas. They want to contribute at a strategic level, not just execute.
My staff said that by the end of the workshop, they finally understood:
Before, it felt like I was just delegating random tasks. They didn't see the full picture. Now they understand the "why" behind what we're building.
We're now using S2 Sync to keep these weekly meetings focused on vision and strategy instead of just task management.
One team member told me he wants to contribute by creating something new in the accounting industry using AI. That ambition was already there—I just never created space for him to share it.
We've had our weekly sync meetings running, and they're completely changing how we operate. Everyone has accountability. We're working on the initiatives we identified in the workshop, but we're also using that 90-minute block to think about other growth opportunities.
Before, our meetings were always about client work—deliverables, deadlines, putting out fires. Now we have dedicated time to think strategically as a team.
I also feel lighter. I'm not carrying the weight of every decision anymore. I have a leadership team that understands where we're going and can make decisions aligned with that vision.
Stop using geography as an excuse. Your team is more capable than you think. Remote doesn't mean you can't have structure, culture, or leadership.
The barrier isn't that your team is distributed—it's that you're not involving them in strategic thinking. Share your vision. Ask for their ideas. You'll be surprised by what emerges.
Also, get an outside perspective. Sometimes you need someone to challenge your assumptions. I thought I wasn't ready for organizational structure. Jon challenged that on day one, and it completely shifted everything.
Now that we have this structure in place, we're focused on executing our growth strategy as a unified organization, not just me and a bunch of task executors.
We're doubling down on getting the right prospects to that 45-minute impact meeting. Everything else is supporting that goal. And with the team understanding where we're going, we can move much faster.
I'm also continuing to push myself on delegation. Every time I catch myself thinking "I'll just do this myself," I stop and ask: "Who on the team should own this?"
The biggest result is cultural. My team feels like a team now. They understand the mission. They're thinking strategically, not just tactically.
Operationally, we've eliminated so much of the bottleneck that was me. Decisions are happening faster because the leadership team has context and authority.
And personally? I'm not burned out anymore. I was carrying everything alone. Now I have a structure that supports the business, not just me working harder.
If you're a founder or CEO dealing with similar challenges—feeling like you're carrying everything, wondering if your remote team can ever operate like a real organization—the same framework that worked for us can work for you.
Learn more about System & Soul's approach
Building culture and leadership structure in a remote team isn't about location. It's about creating the right systems for collaboration, sharing your vision, and trusting your team with strategic thinking—not just task execution.
If a 20-person accounting firm spread across four countries can do it, so can you.
Personally, I find that leading a team can be so rewarding when you have the right structure in place. But without it, it's lonely, overwhelming, and draining.
Because let's be honest—if you're running a growing company, everyone's asking you questions and expecting you to have all the answers, all the time.
But what about the difficult questions you have as you scale? The strategic decisions that keep you up at night? The feeling that you're the only one who can see where the company needs to go?
This is where System & Soul comes in.
Running a company means everyone expects you to have all the answers. But what about the questions keeping you up at night?
System & Soul transforms scattered operations into structured organizations with clear leadership—even with remote teams.
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