The CFO is commonly considered to be the sparring partner to the company CEO. Traditionally this implies a physical vicinity of the finance department to the CEO. However, during my career, I have found more and more finance organisations where remote working is prevalent. I can identify three models.

In this article, I will discuss the challenges finance teams face in Asia Pacific and some insights to how we can manage remote FP&A teams. These challenges are mostly similar to other regions where teams are away from headquarters and scattered in various locations.

2020 has been the most difficult year in modern history. As Einstein said, “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”  This survey we believe offers hope, insight, and a much-needed reality check on where FP&A is today.  It also forecasts what needs to happen for FP&A teams to develop their best practices from theory into reality.

In this article, I will share several challenges and dilemmas in building a strong FP&A department and also describe how they can be overcome. I‘ve gone through this process in 3 different companies as a Head of FP&A, so I can give my observation and say what are the crucial conditions to make the FP&A department successful and to minimize the ambiguity. 

Networking; the mere mention of the word is enough to strike fear into the heart of many finance professionals. Perhaps we view it through a prism of insincerity; repeating to ourselves that finance is a technical role and hard work and ability will get me where I need to go.

The increasing levels of business partnering and integration, new opportunities in functions outside finance are becoming possible. Having personally witnessed some successful cross-functional movements by FP&A professionals, I am a strong believer in the capability as well as the value of such movements.