Professional portfolios have always been the expected norm for creative, visual occupations, everything from computer-aided design, photography, artwork, interior design to runway models. Until recently, this was not an option for the finance professional, a non-visual occupation. Finance professionals have typically taken the approach to lengthy résumés, detailing employment history and outlining routine tasks performed.

Strong programming skills (R, SQL, Python, VBA) are coming up frequently as requirements to be successful in FP&A. Those who have not caught up with this yet need to do so. 

What about strong people skills?

My aim in this article is to proffer suggestions for assembling members of an FP&A team. This is the team that will ensure an enterprise is resilient enough to navigate competitive threats, technology disruptions, regulatory effects, and can adapt to broad market dynamics in this 4th wave of the industrial revolution. 

Generally, certified accountants have not had a reputation for deep involvement with operations, marketing, and sales management nor being a strategic advisor to their executive team, although articles by the media, consulting firms, and IT analysts have been claiming this is a trend and direction for them.

FP&A professionals work in an environment that requires communicating with a wide variety of people. This requires us to be adaptable to communicate effectively with all these different audiences. There are some things we can do to ensure we are consistently and reliably on point by tailoring our communication to each audience.

What is the Holy Grail for any leader? For me, it is to create a high-performance team AND to sustain that team over time through high-performance leadership. That is not easy to do, so when we get the chance to learn from someone who has managed to do it really well, we must pay close attention. In this first “FP&A Talks” we’re speaking to Fredrik Hedlund, Senior Vice President and CFO for Global Connect at Nielsen. Fredrik is one of the few senior leaders who has truly invested in creating a high-performance leadership team and it shows. “FP&A Talks” is a new series running on fpa-trends.com featuring senior leaders in Financial Planning & Analysis who share their views on how we can create a world-class FP&A department.