In the traditional sense, Finance is about accounting, financial reporting, bookkeeping, analysis, and tax returns. Finance has become extremely dynamic over the past three decades. Finance, IT, and Operations are substantially more integrated driven by transparency, disclosure, and corporate governance. Decisions are driven by internal and external information. External information changes constantly at a rapid pace. These changes need to be fluidly integrated with internal information.
The Finance function has moved from boring “working with history” to becoming the dynamic “right hand” or “Wing Man” supporting the C-Suite, Senior Management, Shareholders, Stakeholders, the board of directors, and operational efficiency. That requires a team that can adapt and changes on the fly, that can integrate, de-integrate, and re-integrate all the financial building blocks required for supporting the organization successfully. It’s putting the Rubic’s Cube back into its perfect state in the shortest possible time, mixing it up again reflecting on agility, and putting it back in its perfect state.
Finance is not the main champion in the business. Finance provides a mission-critical role in supporting the business and organization. As organizations have evolved so have the role of the Analyst, Controller, and CFO. It’s someone that has to have the ability to understand how data flows and how it impacts decision-making and numbers. The “New Generation” Analyst, Controller, and CFO is a Conductor that ensures finance is delivering top performance. For that to succeed the Finance people have to have deep and varied experience across the spectrum of finance and not just sailing on academics that earned degrees and designation, it is all about book knowledge and integrating it with practical business solutions. Each business requires different solutions as each business’ development and transformation are totally different.
That’s me giving my depth and breadth in finance combined with diversity, continued education, and learning. Finance is not just about accounting. It’s that, but also blended with Corporate Finance, Investor Relations, Financial Modeling, having an affinity for Regulations and Laws, trade- and supply agreements, supply chains, procurement economics, climate economics, capital expenditure, capital investment, taxation planning, IFRS, GAAP & Disclosure, production efficiency, Sales, Rapid Enterprise Development combined with Operational Strategy (the flight plan). The CFO is the board’s most trusted advisor. To succeed is to be ahead by a century.