The FP&A Board meetings have just begun and continue their European journey. This time, the tour of the International FP&A Board welcomed another roundtable of senior finance professionals from leading companies across different industries.
Thirty-six employees of such businesses as Coca-Cola, ECOLAB, Siemens Software, Schneider Electric, Swarowski, Credit Suisse, Lonza, and numerous other companies attended this FP&A Board meeting.
Figure 1: The attendees of the Zurich FP&A Board (the 9th of February, 2023)
Page Executive, our global recruitment partner, hosted the meeting in its beautiful location in central Zurich.
The discussion was centred on the increasing importance of the five crucial FP&A roles. Below is a brief outline of the key takeaways shared during this meeting.
What Are the Most Important Skills for FP&A Professionals?
Stefan Spiegel, CFO at SBB Cargo AG, facilitated the 13th Face-to-Face Zurich Board. The forward-thinking discussion started, and the facilitator asked the audience what, to their mind, critical skills for FP&A professionals were. As per the answers, a single word was not enough.
Indeed, the attendees mentioned the following skills quite often:
- agility;
- ability to deal with ambiguity;
- storytelling skills;
- curiosity;
- the ability to become a co-pilot to the business leader;
- the ability to become a business architect.
Figure 2: The participants of the Zurich FP&A Board (the 9th of February 2023)
Also, the International FP&A Board Members emphasised the importance of communication within the team. After lively exchanges on critical skills, the forum discussed T-Shaped FP&A professionals. We heard a productive debate. Some attendees stated that the importance of these skills shifted toward business partnering and effective communication, while others pointed out at necessity of developing technical skills and expertise.
Case Study: Who Are "Advanced Navigators" at On AG
Then Stuart Howes, Head of Group Controlling at On AG, took the floor and shared his insights regarding their FP&A journey. He delivered an excellent presentation on enabling FP&A effectiveness. According to Stuart, the key enabler is the credibility their team has built over time but not just chunks of data.
Insights from Informal Speakers
Marco Supplizi, Managing Director - Co-Head Coverage Finance at Credit Suisse, shared insights about the maturity of the Finance and Finance Business Partner teams at Credit Suisse and the important aspects to consider when building a team in a period of significant change and transformation.
Further, Marco shared his thoughts on how important it is to build people's core finance skills early in their careers. He also stressed how challenging it is in his experience to move Finance Business Partners back into core FP&A functions. It limits the opportunity to improve centralised processes based on the experiences built while working with Front organisations as a Business Partner.
Conclusions
The Zurich FP&A Board has signified the growing importance of building the best-in-class FP&A teams. This collaborative and insightful meeting ended with lively networking where the participants shared their impressions.
We want to thank Wolters Kluwer \ CCH Tagetik for sponsoring this event and Michael Page and Page Executive for hosting the meeting and their support with the organisation.
