Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.
Name: Kyle Klimusko
Title: Finance Manager
When did you start working for CS? I was a temp hire in 2010, and then rejoined the company in February 2014.
What position did you start in? I started as a financial analyst.
What is your current position? Finance Manager.
How have your priorities and responsibilities changed and shifted with each different position you’ve held with CS?
My role started off doing various internal analyses for the company, and has slowly added additional responsibilities which now include inventory management and KPI reporting.
What is your favorite part about your workday?
My favorite projects involve the creation and use of dynamic models. Those involve a bit more creativity than other aspects of my job, but ultimately pay off in time savings and being able to compare multiple financial scenarios quickly. I find these projects more interesting.
What would you say is your greatest accomplishment so far with your career at CallSource?
A few years ago I helped identify significant inventory savings at the company, which is probably the biggest single project in terms of direct ROI. Most other projects are simply creating reports to present information to management for decision-making.
I’d proclaim you an Excel Wiz – even though I am proficiently terrible at Excel. How long have you been working with it and do you have any lesser-known tip or trick for us?
Thank you for the compliment! While I get that looking at a wall of numbers can be intimidating, you really just need to jump into it and you will find it quite easy to use. Excel is just a very large calculator for which you need to understand two things. One is just basic math operations, and I mean the basics…equal sign, plus, minus, divide, multiply, sum, and lookups. Two, you need to understand relative and absolute referencing, which is how moving a formula changes which cells it is referencing to. If you understand these few items, you can do most things in Excel that you will ever need to do.
The wizardry is more of an illusion. I learned which buttons to press on the calculator, and then the shortcuts Excel provides to do those same operations more quickly.
When I was hired at CallSource as a temp in 2010, I was able to spend some time playing with the calculation functions in Excel which taught me those basics I just described. If you put in just a little time on the internet asking “What are popular Excel functions” or “What are the best Excel shortcuts”, you can very quickly improve your Excel skills. The key is just to do a bit of research while playing with data.
Do you have a special or interesting CallSource story that is one of your favorites?
I like going to Corporate Games every year and participating in volleyball, bowling, and the 5k race. We won a gold medal in beach volleyball a couple years ago, which was a highlight from these events.
I’ve played volleyball with you for the past few years during our “Corporate Games” outings that we do against other companies in the area. You get very into it. What’s your favorite sport to play?
Volleyball was the sport I played in high school, so that is really my favorite. The sport I play the most of now is bowling.
We’ve also had some pretty competitive Fitbit weekly step challenges…what I’m getting at is that you’re quite competitive. Why do you think this is?
If I see it as a competition, then it follows that I should do my best to compete. For me, competition incentivizes improvement, which I am personally a fan. Beyond that, competing is a lot of fun. I would not really describe myself as overly-competitive.
Hah, ok ok! Competitive in a good way – not negatively. Do you watch any other sports besides those that you enjoy playing?
I enjoy playing any sport, and I have tried most of them. I never played soccer, but I love watching the international soccer tournaments and am a fan of the US and England teams. England had a great run this year in the World Cup so I had a lot of fun with that.
I also enjoy watching golf, and I do not regularly play golf. Call me crazy but I really like watching the Tour de France every year. I do not spend time watching any other sports unless going out with friends.
How about food…I’ve heard you’re a foodie and I know where we live here in Southern California has quite the array of food. What are some of your favorites?
I would not describe myself as a foodie, but am not exactly sure what the definition of that is. I like eating and I eat too much, but I am perfectly fine eating the same thing for lunch and dinner all week. Recently I became a fan of prepping all my meals for the week in one go. If I am treating myself, which happens more than it should, I would go to poke, sushi, or a chicken wing restaurant.
Lastly, I also know that you like to travel. Where did you last go, and where is on your bucket list?
I have been fortunate to have already done a lot of traveling. I studied in England for a year, and used that as a base for adventuring all around Europe and I even made it to Egypt. This year on a whim I went hiking in Colorado. Some bucket list trips would be hiking to base camp on Everest, a meditation retreat, spending time in any wine region, and Japan.
