• Gary Dolman & Karen Rudich, NED & CEO at ELEMENTARYb


• 20.09.2021 06:15 pm
#ELEMENTARYb

Gary Dolman, co-founder and CFO of Monzo, now NED at Fintech start-up ELEMENTARYb, and Karen Rudich, CEO of ELEMENTARYb discuss the non-numerical nous needed to be a successful CFO, from both the CFO and CEO’s perspectives. 

Becoming an effective CFO - Gary Dolman

The relationship between CEO and CFO must be solid. Successful partnerships are greater than the sum of their parts, combining different but complementary skill sets, making the pair much more effective together.

CEOs are often dynamic, creative people who are focused on growing the company. They will often be great sales people but not always practical executors. They passionately produce new ideas and initiatives. The job of the CFO is to assess these ideas, objectively identifying the ones that simply won’t work, those that work with adjustment, and those which are realistic as well as exciting, meriting prioritisation. To achieve this the CFO must have the ear and trust of the CEO and be willing to stand their ground when they strongly believe something. 

Develop your own career and don’t overlook the non-numerical skills 

If a person has ambitions to be a CFO and has trained as an ACA, the next thing to do is to honestly assess their skill set. Whilst being an ACA provides great background, it takes many years of experience and the acquisition of additional skills to become an effective CFO.  The  modern CFO role is defined by the ability to readily step outside of comfort zones and think more strategically, and more holistically about an organisation.

My advice to any qualified accountant who, for example, may be leaving the audit world, would be to look to work in, or head up, a Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) function. This is where the questions around “what are the numbers saying?” and “what levers can we pull to maximise success?” are presented and answered. The person should consider whether they should consider completing an MBA. Taking a short sabbatical and attending a full-time MBA course can yield significant benefits and develop the business skills and insights needed to excel as a CFO.

The other piece of advice I would give to an aspiring CFO is to find a mentor to help plot their path to being a CFO. The mentor should challenge the mentee, pushing them to build on their skillset. Part of that is ensuring that the person is learning leadership skills such as how to motivate and influence others, how to empathise with people in different functions of the business and how to build trust. 

How to find the ideal CFO (or grow your own) – Karen Rudich

Long gone are the days when good CFOs just crunch numbers and manage finances. Today, I believe emotional intelligence and communication skills are extremely important in the role.  A good CFO also needs to be a leader, a critical and strategic thinker, an adjudicator, a facilitator and sometimes enforcer of an agreed strategy. They should be another figurehead of the company, not just to investors and advisors, but to their own workforce. 

It can be rare to find all of those qualities in just one person, but there are things CEOs can do to help their CFOs develop these skills, beyond sending them on external training courses.

Encouraging development

As a CEO, I’ve always encouraged ‘open challenge’, where I expect my CFO to ask tough questions, even if they’re not related to financial matters. I invite them to diverse workshops, planning sessions and client meetings, as well as asking them to spend time with other functions of the business, so they can get a wider understanding and expand their strengths ‘outside of the spreadsheets’.  The diversity of thinking which comes from that is critical to helping the business - and to help the CEO see different perspectives.  Having run fintech software companies for a few years, I now make it a matter of course to include our CFO in initial design workshops. It’s amazing the times their ‘CFO lens’ has led to pragmatic and user-friendly functionality, even if the software is not being designed for a CFO user.

As with many CEOs and entrepreneurs, I am always looking far away at end goals, often looking way past obstacles that need to be overcome through critical thinking and data analysis.  A good CFO needs to encourage all these ideas, be optimistic, but also sometimes be the realist that keeps us on track with core objectives, saying “That’s great, but first...”

A great start in developing communication skills is explaining to a team why their work is important. I still remember a CFO when I was a junior, who took the time to explain how some difficult work I was doing fed into the wider business.  This helped me understand that my contribution was valuable and it taught me a lesson in communication I’ve carried forward.

Recruiting the ideal CFO

When recruiting a CFO, I look for those who ask questions not just about the financial figures, but about the organisation itself, its people, its culture and how it really operates.  

When considering job specs, or when briefing a recruitment firm, I always request curiosity as a desirable trait. Some experience outside of the finance function within a career is also useful, perhaps showing a wider view of how a business is run.  As an example, at a previous company, we avoided a mishap with strategic plans because our CFO had worked in Operations at another firm in the country we were expanding into. They understood that assumptions of people and time effort would actually be significantly higher than expected as regional practices tended to ‘ballpark’ headroom within estimates.  This avoided a major credit shortfall in our expansion plans, all thanks to a CFO with diverse experience.

I also look for those who ‘roll their sleeves up’ and lead their team from the front, rather than just delegate – this creates a sense of ‘we’re all in it together’ which builds team cohesion and loyalty.

So if CEOs are struggling to find the ideal CFO, with the diverse skills they need to be exceptional, I’d say, why not ‘grow your own’?