Today’s chief financial officers aren’t just closing the books; they’re often the ones writing the story.
That’s because as digitization continues to sweep across the business landscape it is transforming the role of finance teams from bean counters and scorekeepers to business partners and strategic architects.
Telecom giant Verizon is on the hunt for a new “CFO Plus” finance chief and is looking primarily for a well-rounded leader who could eventually succeed the firm’s current CEO, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday (June 12).
Part of the reason for the executive search is that Verizon’s big bet on ultrafast 5G wireless connections has yet to deliver its promised revenue growth, while rival network operators have steadily gained market share, according to the report.
A business partner CFO could be just what the firm needs to turn its fortunes around.
Read also: ‘Bean Counter’ CFOs Replaced by Corporate Financial Architects
The digital age has brought about a significant shift in the role of CFOs, empowering them to forge deeper connections with other parts of the business and leverage insights from the massive amounts of data their teams accumulate to inform change-the-business strategies.
“For a long time, finance was the reporter of what had happened in the past,” Jeffrey Noto, CFO at global communications infrastructure provider Zayo Group, told PYMNTS Tuesday (June 13). “Here are your results, go figure out how to be better. We’re now much more proactive and embedded in the business operations of the teams that lead to the outcome of the results.”
“Being able to take [cross-departmental] information and put it together in a way that uncovers new insights to help us either operate more efficiently by spending less money or operate more effectively, by providing better service to our customers at a better price point, [is the new reality of the role],” Noto added.
Noto is far from the only finance leader PYMNTS has spoken to who emphasized that taking an integrated approach to business growth planning is only becoming more important for CFOs as they look to drive value to their organization.
See also: 12 CFOs on How SVB’s Collapse Transformed the Finance Department
Part of the reason is that, as companies have evolved, data has become king.
“Every decision is made based on what the data output from the finance department is, or systems that finance has connections with…,” Kevin Held, CFO at cloud-based treasury and liquidity solution management company Hazeltree told PYMNTS at the start of the year.
And he would know. Running the finance team at Hazeltree is Held’s eighth time taking the CFO seat in a successful career spanning more than three decades.
Given today’s ongoing macro uncertainty, it couldn’t be a better time for the responsibilities of finance teams to shift to include providing their organizations with greater actionable transparency over cash flow and other critical business roadmap needs.
Helping accelerate this role transformation is the fact that CFOs are increasingly responsible for driving the digital transformation of the finance function, ensuring that it is equipped with the necessary capabilities and leveraging digital tools and technologies to improve financial analysis and reporting.
“[Y]our ability to invest in growth and be able to cultivate your technology … supports nearly all points of strategic differentiation,” Pat Dillon, CFO at intelligent supply chain platform Flock Freight told PYMNTS in April.
As PYMNTS has previously written, the emergent alignment of end-to-end accounting processes with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is expanding the ways CFOs can have an impact, arming finance leaders with valuable, real-time insights and positioning them as strategic partners to the management team.
Being able to work seamlessly with large lines of information to provide actionable business insights through technology is crucial for organizations to stay competitive in the digital age. And being able to surface good information at the right time to drive better decisions requires CFOs to implement good processes and controls over master data management to power efficient reporting.
“Traditionally, [information technology] has really delved into [that, but] it’s becoming a lot more important in the finance organization,” Manny Korakis, CFO at Presidio, told PYMNTS in September. “If you want to build things like data lakes and some interactive reporting, having the data line up becomes crucial.”
The transformation of the finance department and evolution of the CFO role beyond its traditional definitions is critical for organizations to win in the 21st century’s digital age.
Today’s rising generation of CFOs needs to focus on driving digital cohesion, ensuring that their finance function is equipped with the necessary digital skills and capabilities, and maximizing the value of their digital spending to achieve better business outcomes.
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