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.
The mission of the International FP&A Board is to guide the development and promotion of best practices in global FP&A, identify and support new trends, skillsets and innovations.
On 11th May 2017 the Zurich FP&A Board gathered 36 senior finance practitioners from such leading local and global companies as Barry Callebaut, Cembra Money Bank, Citrix, Credit Suisse, Ecolab, EF Education First, GE, Gedeon Richter, MAN Diesel & Turbo, Medtronic, Quintiles IMS, Swissport, TE Connectivity, Xylem, etc. The important subject of Effective FP&A Organisational Structures became the main focus of the third FP&A Board meeting in Zurich.
On 20th April 2017, 20 FP&A professionals from such companies as Barclays, Coats, the Economist Group, Kraft Heinz, NetApp, Starbucks Coffee Company, Visa, etc., participated in the 16th London FP&A Board meeting.
One of the more important qualities of FP&A practitioners is curiosity. Curiosity, a strong desire to know or learn something, is affected by the types of questions asked. It is the types of questions that determine how much FP&A practitioners want to know or learn. One type of question is “what.” The purpose of asking “what” is to acquire information. Acquiring information can be in the form of financial numbers like revenues, expenses, and cash flows. Acquiring information can be in the form of non-financial numbers like the amount of time companies receive or make payments. Acquiring information can be in the form of qualitative data like comments from customers, names of products, or types of services provided. Asking “what” helps FP&A practitioners know about the environments where they work but knowing is not enough. FP&A practitioners need to ask questions that help them learn about the environments where they work.
So, you are a C-suite executive, Vice President, Director, Manager, Senior, or Staff financial professional and you just had a high potential and high-performance team member or members move on to greener pastures. Or you aspire to be a high potential and high-performance employee and looking for success factors to take your game to the next level. Well, look no further than this post.