There is no doubt that the CFO role requires wide-ranging skills and an ability to operate at a high level. The primacy of the financial function gives accountants in senior business an edge. But it is the ability to step out of the finance world and communicate the significance of the numbers that sets the CFO role apart.
Atif Mirza FCCA, CFO and head of finance at Airbus in Saudi Arabia, says that while excellent technical skills are a given, the ability to tell a cohesive story about the financials is critical.
‘You should have a solution-oriented mindset, and be decisive’
Organisational advocates
‘You should have a solution-oriented mindset, so you can explain why something is happening and what to do,’ he says. ‘You have to be decisive; you have to be clear. You are translating figures into information being used towards actionable business strategies.’
CFOs need to be more than just a conduit for the numbers, however. They must be advocates for the whole organisation. ‘Management needs to understand that as a finance person you are there to support and safeguard the company’s interests,’ Mirza points out. ‘Finance being a kind of watchdog makes our role closer to compliance.
‘If the management team thinks that you are there to support them and actually protect them by providing your advice, I think they really value that. If you just say “no” without explaining, I think that gives a very clichéd view of finance.’
Wider stakeholders
Taiwo Fowowe FCCA has the top finance role at Access Bank, listed in Nigeria and operating across 24 countries. He became CFO in 2021 and has worked at the bank for 18 years, serving previously as head of financial reporting and head of investor relations. He says that the number-one skill he needed to leverage on becoming CFO was stakeholder management.
‘As a CFO, you are at the centre of everything that is happening in the organisation. Whatever strategies, whatever process improvement, expansion, or whatever decision has been made at the end of the day all flows into the financials,’ he says. ‘So being able to manage the various stakeholder groups that are interested in the entity becomes a very important skill set.’
‘You have to act as a catalyst and be able to drive change’
That can require change management skills, too, Fowowe points out.
‘We operate in an environment where there are a lot of changes: new policies and new standards from an IFRS perspective, for instance. So you have to act as a catalyst and be able to drive change to ensure that the organisation makes the best out of those anticipated changes or developments in the market.’
Another example of a CFO role that calls for high-level skill in stakeholder management is Phindile Ndlandla FCCA, who is regional CFO at Letshego Africa Holdings, a pan-African financial and banking services company. Ndlandla was promoted from her previous role as CFO of Letshego Eswatini in April 2023; since then, she has been responsible for overseeing Letshego’s financial division in East Africa, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.
Coordinating across multiple jurisdictions requires a nuanced understanding of different cultures and regulatory environments. ‘Managing team dynamics successfully means keeping shared goals in mind while accommodating different ways of working. We seek to leverage each others’ strengths and make a concerted effort to share our respective areas of best practice so we learn from each other and avoid reinventing the wheel,’ she says.
Key partner
CFOs have one particular relationship to keep firmly in mind: their relationship with the CEO. ‘The CFO is the CEO’s co-pilot,’ says Muhammad Anis Younus FCCA, who has been CFO and corporate secretary at Al Fadhili Housing in Saudi Arabia for over six years. ‘It’s about building your strategic leadership and becoming a business partner.’
‘If you understand how the business units operate, you can translate that into financial decisions’
For Younus, cultivating skills for the role meant consciously developing strategic, communication and leadership skills. From the outset, he learned from his CEO and benefited from that support. ‘My CEO supported me; I kept on learning over time based on that belief in me,’ he says.
As a CFO, Younus values thoroughly understanding the different business units and assisting them with insight and information, rather than merely policing their performance against budget, for instance. ‘You have to go and sit with them to understand their issues,’ he says.
Mirza also stresses the importance of engaging with as many parts of the business as possible to gain a really strong grasp of their operational issues, which to him means visiting the shop floor and manufacturing sites in person. ‘It helps you so much in terms of understanding how a business operates; then you can translate that into financial decisions.’
Winning formula
So, what advice do these seasoned CFOs have for candidates?
Ndlandla recommends curiosity, passion and drive. ‘It is very important for CFOs to be self-driven,’ she says. ‘You are delving into the financials, diagnosing how you can add value and improve performance. It requires an analytical and curious mindset. And then you need that desire to make a difference – the desire to make things better.’
‘You need to be confident – and confidence comes from the investment you’ve made in yourself’
Mirza points out that candidates for the CFO role ‘should be able to take a high-level view of things, and have a forward-looking mindset and a willingness to learn continuously’.
Younus stresses the importance of developing a personal profile. ‘Be active on social media,’ he says. ‘This is your brand. Show that you have business knowledge.’
In addition, confidence is an essential attribute, Fowowe says: ‘Everyone has an opinion, whether you like it or not. So you need to be confident – and confidence comes from the investment that you’ve made in yourself.’
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