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Engaging with board members, communicating with stakeholders and leveraging the right skills in your finance team are all part of how a CFO delivers outcomes for a business. Gabriella Demetriou asked an experienced CFO to share her guidance on working with the board.
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The chief financial officer role has evolved to encompass a wider remit of responsibilities, from navigating a complex regulatory environment to staying ahead of emerging risks to acting as a strategic adviser for the business.
In this interview we talk to Claire Dudley-Scales, CFO at CP Holdings, a family-owned business that operates across seven different divisions. In her role, she is not only responsible for driving financial performance but also effecting efficient corporate governance, and being involved in technology, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.
We asked Claire about how she addresses the internal pressures in the CFO role, including how to work more effectively with the board, communicating with stakeholders, and what skills to leverage for effective performance.
What value does the board bring and how can they prepare for more effective discussions?
"I find my own board supportive. They challenge in a constructive way across the organisation.
The key to working effectively with them is to discuss issues well in advance of any meetings, and brief the directors on the direction that we would be recommending – and why. That's probably where I get more value, when I approach them for help to solve problems or for guidance on where we should be going as an organisation.
The other thing is making sure they’ve got good quality board packs and giving them the right level of information about our organisation. As executives, we could do a lot more to tailor and focus what we do."
How can a CFO create clarity for stakeholders and investors?
"As a family-owned business, our shareholders are part of our board. They're part of our executive team so they're very closely aligned to what we are doing as a board. As the CFO, my role is often to act almost slightly independently: to sense check some of the things being suggested and to act as a sounding board.
I might also bring in other third parties, whether that be advisers or people from the banks, to help the board find different ways of looking at things. Otherwise, you can be in danger of doing the same thing again and again, which isn’t necessarily going to drive the business and move it forward."
What skills support the CFO and the finance function now and in the future?
"Business partnering is really important. Being able to apply technical skills and information in the real world to help the business generate better performance or make better decisions is also absolutely key. Technology is becoming more of a specialist skill in that you need people with good data modelling and analytical backgrounds. But being able to understand how to use the outputs generated is equally important – and is sometimes a slightly different skill to being able to deliver that [information]."
"Communication – engage early, upfront and routinely with board members outside of board meetings, and use board meetings to deal with really key strategic items
Driving change – use the board to help drive change through the organisation and make sure you’ve got their backing
Understand how strategy and risk interplay – and make sure your finance systems and controls are designed to help deal with that
Challenge – CFOs are more inclined to stay technically up-to-date and aware of what’s going on externally when they have good industry bodies and networks feeding them; being able to challenge the way things have historically been done is key to the role"
The takeaway from our conversation was that CFOs being upfront and proactive in navigating their work with the board results in significant value. Within this, bringing the CFO’s continually expanding expertise to the table provides a useful sounding board to the conversation in the room, resulting in outcomes that drive the business forward.
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