Who is 2020 CFO?  The CFO’s are now moving from accounting to accountability and not just for financial performance, but also for customer centricity, cutting-edge technology, workforce excellence and fostering a high-performance culture. They are the number wizard, the generalist, the performance leader, and the growth champion.

Communication is a key soft skill that FP&A professionals should master. Getting it right the first time enables FP&A professionals to be more effective and efficient. What are the top 10 considerations for effective FP&A communication?

One important skill finance professionals are never taught during their formal education is the power of personal engagement with operations and using these relationships to deliver bottom-line value. There is too much focus on models, processes, procedures and systems without regard to the fact that all these have to be developed, operated and interpreted by people. 

There are three critical roles in every balanced FP&A Team: the Architect, the Analyst, the Story Teller.  How balanced is your FP&A organisation? 

 What does it take to become a good or even great FP&A professional?

The article describes those QUALITIES that I have found in people who I have worked with, worked for and who have worked for me in an FP&A domain that I found to be particularly effective in driving the FP&A agenda forward within their responsibility domain.

The information age is forcing the office of the CFO into a more data-driven, strategic role away from the back-office accounting role of the past. For CFO’s to be successful, they need their FP&A teams to step out of the data collection and validation and play a larger more strategic, customer facing role.