At the sweet spot

While the new job is absorbing, the move has created something of an inner conflict for Siahkoohian. Drinking chocolate is fine, he says, but it’s not the same. ‘It can’t replace coffee,’ he jokes.

Now happily immersed in the chocolate business, Siahkoohian now works from the company’s office in Kumasi, Ghana.

Beauty to beans

It has been quite a journey. Just four years ago he was CFO of beauty business Dabur International in Tehran where he also served as an audit committee member for both Saba Power and Sepahan Oil. In his spare time, he was teaching accountancy students working towards their ACCA qualification.

Having guided himself through the ACCA programme, becoming a member in 2018, he is now a champion for the qualification. ‘ACCA is my green card, my pass key. It has given me confidence that I know what I should as a CFO or a finance person, because ACCA syllabuses are live, they keep updating.’

It was a chance encounter in 2022 that saw Siahkoohian recommended to Olam, and soon after, accompanied by his wife, he was on his way to Africa and a new post in the food ingredients industry. ‘We saw it as an adventure,’ he says. And it is one that has paid off: last year he won ACCA Africa’s CFO Award for Sustainable Finance Leadership (read the AB article ‘Award-winning finance leaders’).

The recognition is a clear sign that Siahkoohian has taken this life change in his stride, bringing natural good humour and enthusiasm to bear in a new environment and on an industry that presents considerable challenges.

Price control

Cocoa is highly regulated in Ghana (which makes the market sensitive to political change, another complicating factor for the business), with the government setting wholesale prices for hundreds of thousands of small growers through the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).

Under the wider regulatory framework, which is intended to uphold quality standards, ensure transparency, and prevent illicit trade, Olam buys cocoa beans through its licensed buying operation and supplies them to COCOBOD. It then sources the same beans and either processes them into chocolate liquor for use in the food industry or sells them directly to manufacturers in a process designed to offer customers traceable and sustainably sourced cocoa.

Clients include confectionery giants Mondelez, Hershey, Lindt, Nestlé and Mars. Most of Olam’s business is with Europe and the US, but product is also shipped to the Middle East, Japan, China and other parts of Asia. Around one in five chocolate bars globally are made with cocoa product supplied by Olam.

The combination of a highly regulated market and a product with fairly volatile demand and pricing makes for challenging work. The variables in the cocoa industry are so changeable that Siahkoohian says data analysis performed three days before month-end closing can easily be out of date. ‘We need analysis every single day,’ he says. ‘Every day we need to monitor, and every day we need to observe the changes.’

AI axis

Last year, the business enhanced its data capability by introducing new management technology with a significant AI component. It is a move Siahkoohian has embraced with a passion. ‘I am an IT geek,’ he declares. ‘I love data. Every day I use AI. AI is my teacher.’

Where once the morning would start with extensive internet searches to find the latest news on the global economy and business, Siahkoohian now knows enough to create ‘agents’ that collect the web news for him.

The time freed up can now be spent on developing his team and discussing key issues and policy decisions. It also gives him more opportunities for detailed scenario planning which, in turn, produces better decision-making.

Mostly, though, it means he can concentrate on areas of the business where he can create more value. ‘As CFOs, we are now more agile,’ he says. ‘We are no longer bookkeepers, not even business partners. We are in the centre of the business – we are driving decisions.’

Just as the business faces major geopolitical and sustainability risks, so the profession faces AI risk, he says. ‘CFOs need to learn about AI and adopt the technology. Some think they don’t need to learn how to engage with AI, but I think that is a risk for us. If they don’t keep up, CFOs will lose their jobs because of AI.’

Pillar of sustainability

While Ghana is less prone to climate change than some countries and has, in fact, seen bumper crops of cocoa thanks to increased rainfall, sustainability is a priority for Olam, with traceability a key focus. Clients want to know where their raw ingredients come from and how they were processed. As well as providing real-time daily data updates for the business, the 20-strong finance department that Siahkoohian oversees is a key pillar of the business’s sustainability projects, supporting it with data tracing and reporting. 

On sustainability, he is emphatic. Olam has invested in sustainability and traceability because of broad demand, which places finance in a pivotal position. ‘Finance is the hand of sustainability,’ he says, because traceability comes from data and it is finance that holds that data. ‘We are key sponsors and play a decisive role.’

Coming from someone who has won an award for sustainable finance, those are insights well worth considering.

‘According to my philosophy,’ he adds, ‘I think we are here to have impact.’