Voices of the CFO: CFOs Find New Role as Collaborator-in-Chief

In order to keep up to date on what’s happening throughout the organization, chief financial officers (CFOs) must keep in touch with their own team, people from other departments and the company’s stakeholders.

Collaboration with others is also an important part of identifying processes that can be improved and then implementing the solutions.

During interviews for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” finance leaders shared some ways they promote collaboration.

Being Very Proactive

On the day he spoke with PYMNTS in December 2021, Rescale CFO Frank Colich said the company’s finance and human resources (HR) teams were preparing to have a virtual get-together.

Read more: Automating Mundane Tasks Frees Finance Teams for Value-Added Projects

Colich told PYMNTS he misses the in-person interactions people have in kitchens and hallways while at the office but realizes that it’s necessary for many to work from home. He said he makes a concerted effort to have regular check-ins with members of the team over Zoom or Slack.

“I want them all to feel part of the team, part of the company, and that their ideas matter as well,” Colich said. “You have to be very proactive to go ahead and make sure people are feeling they’re part of the conversation.”

Figuring Out the Most Effective Way to Communicate

Having been a remote-first company for a long time, with the finance team distributed on the East Coast and the senior leadership team spread around the country, Stack Overflow has experience in promoting collaboration.

Stack Overflow CFO Matthew Gallatin told PYMNTS in June that he has figured out the most effective way to communicate with the stakeholders, whether via Slack, a phone call or a Zoom meeting, so that he can provide the best service and build the best relationship.

Read more: Voice of the CFO: CFOs Take On Role as Efficiency Advisers, Help Connect Remote Teams, Stakeholders

With his team, Gallatin makes sure he engages with and remains accessible to his direct reports. Here, he aims to give them context around the organization’s objectives so they can do their job most effectively and independently.

Working with Flexibility

CommerceIQ remains fully remote while encouraging teams to have in-person meetings quarterly and bringing the entire company within each country — the U.S. and India — together every six months, CommerceIQ CFO Jaya Jaware told PYMNTS in May.

Read more: Economic Uncertainty Boosts Demand for Automation

Employees also travel to customer meetings if customers are open to meeting in person, Jaware said.

Beyond that, operations continue with a remote workforce.

“Do I need to be in the office five days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.? It’s not necessary at all,” Jaware said. “It feels like, at this point right now, my team is way more available to me on Slack and Zoom. That has given a lot of flexibility.”

Fostering Engagement

Fostering engagement in a work-from-home workforce is tough, but achievable, Riskonnect CFO David Rockvam told PYMNTS in July.

Read also: Voice of the CFO: Engagement Key to Taming ‘Great Resignation’ of Finance Teams

At Riskonnect, video conferencing and messaging tools have been valuable in keeping employees connected. Every people manager has an assigned weekly, one-on-one meeting with every other member of their team.

Beyond that, all managers are on a call with the CEO and different team members every two weeks, and there’s a full town hall meeting every month.

“All these things are really important to keeping your employees engaged,” Rockvam said. “They can be sitting in their homes sitting on [Microsoft] Teams with any company, so we want to keep them here, keep them happy — and those are real important things, we feel, to doing that.”

Forging Strong Partnerships

CFOs require a degree of salesmanship to be able to get their initiatives approved and implemented, Airbase CFO Aneal Vallurupalli told PYMNTS in September 2021.

Read more: The Role of Today’s CFO: Driving Change and Ensuring Resilience to Change

It’s especially important to forge strong partnerships with the sales team and go-to-market team leadership, Vallurupalli said.

“We have to think, ‘What can we, as the finance team, do to help you as a sales leader or marketing leader de-risk?’” he said. “We all have the best intentions for this company, so how can we help one another?”

“If I can help you by spearheading an effort in terms of digital transformation to help you make decisions faster about hiring that next sales rep in one region or another based on some data I have, then I’ve helped you execute on your goals.”

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