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CFO – You Gemini You!

The Two Faces of the Chief Financial Officer

As the world order of business and corporate dealings changes so does the traditional book-keeping function of the Chief Financial Officer. In fact, if they have their heads stuck in the books, they are bereft of at least 70% of their functional duties. In 2011, Deloitte came up with the concept of “The Four Faces of CFO” theorizing that CFOs typically fit into four categories: 

1. Responder – the one who supports company strategy development by helping business leaders to quantitatively analyse financial implications of different strategy choices

2. Challenger – the one who examines the risks to and expected returns on different strategy alternatives. This CFO seeks to minimise risks, hence is trained to look at the glass half empty and is inclined to say “no” a lot more to risky innovation.

3. Architect – the one who shapes strategy choices and applies finance strategies to complement and maximise the value of the strategy. So, in essence they find a way to make the strategy successful in financial terms.

4. Transformer – the one who becomes a lead partner to the CEO in moulding and implementing future business strategies. This CFO addresses core questions around shifting product market mix, delivering value and creating distinctive capabilities to provide the best operational and financial options.

In all honesty, while most CFOs fit into the Transformer category, in practical life, the role changes according to the changing needs of the business and the working style of the CEO. And this is what got me thinking. Are there set categories that we can fit the CFO role into. Although my first instinct was to say that the modern CFO will inevitably move between styles depending on the needs of the organization, on talking with my peers, I realised that there are two faces to the CFOs:

Mediator of Change

Once the C-Suite has decided a direction for a big change or a strategic direction, the CFOs then use their financial skills to make it viable and utilize the resources to operationalise it. 

Being the Realist

While there is no growth or change without a certain level of risk, the CFO plays the role of the devil’s advocate to make sure that the risks are minimized and mitigation measures are put in place to reduce the financial losses that could occur in case the strategy went South. 

It is my experience that both of these are the roles that a CFO plays during the course of this work life, and both are not exclusive to each other.

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WILL TECHNOLOGY TAKE OVER THE FUNCTIONS OF CFOs?

The world of tech is going through exciting and tumultuous times. The evolution of artificial intelligence and machine learning is scaling new heights. This in turn is igniting development in self-learning algorithms, autonomous cars, and virtual assistants. Blockchain is expanding way beyond the financial industry and creating a plethora of future opportunities. The stage is already set for a burst in information technology trends with Big data as the common denominator between all upcoming technologies. 

These technology growths are not coming without questions being raised, some valid and some disturbing. Gene-edited babies faced a severe public backlash and the Cambridge Analytica data scandal even brought Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the stand.

What is growing is this sense that technology will be the silver bullet. 

From factory assembly lines to long-distance trucking, the automated, robotic future is the new way of the world. So much so that some tend to believe that there will be no aspect of life left that will not be automated. This thought process extends to fears that executives will be phased out entirely by automation.

In my personal experience, though automation is indeed the future, businesses and companies will always need humans, always need leadership and emotive thinking. Those tasks that are predictable and repetitive are more conducive towards automation. 

In this vain it can be safely said that the duties of CFOs will not be automated any time soon. There are some very compelling reasons behind this statement which include the fact that soft skills are very difficult to automate; humans prefer to deal with humans; and, its it is virtually impossible for machines, at this time, to adapt quickly and in a timely fashion to new, unexpected and immediate situations. While, finance is a science, it requires flexibility, adaptability, and creativity in bringing balance in the matters of finance. 

Automation can be used but has to be done responsibly and without giving up the human touch, phasing it in gradually, strategically and with a consciousness that it is not 100% reliable or responsive to the changing needs of this world. There will always be unexpected problems that need a human mind to solve or required leadership that needs provided to the teams working on tasks.

So while some accounting and finance jobs can and will be automated the leadership is less likely to see automation in the near future. Advising, analysing, communicating, problem solving, producing visualisation, team building, persuading and negotiating are skills that are very human and cannot be fully replicated by any machine.

Not to be complacent about the fact that CFOs are not becoming redundant, but I am confident that we are not as much “at risk” as some hypers might want us to believe.

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