GrowCFO Show

GrowCFO mentor Catherine Clark often finds assertiveness to be an issue when she is helping aspiring and new CFOs. She tells Kevin Appleby why that is and what you can do to be more assertive. Catherine and Susana Serrano-Davey recently covered assertiveness in the GrowCFO Women Finance Leaders group and on this episode of the GrowCFO Show she shares the key messages from that session Why do some CFOs find it difficult to be assertive? Catherine believes that the rout cause of a lack of assertiveness is closely tied in to a lack of confidence and to imposter syndrome. We covered imposter syndrome in Episode 15 of the GrowCFO show Often the new CXFO hasn’t risen to be co-pilot to the CFO, instead one of the other c-suite members is first among equals on the board and has more influence both in the room and with the CFO. A new CFO may feel unworthy because she is underpaid, and does not feel on an equal footing with the rest of the leadership team. What can you do to be more assertive? We discuss a number of things you can do to become more confident and more assertive. These include: Improve the quality of relationships, take time to get to know people better and understand their problems Make time to think and reflect, often there’s more than one way to approach the situation and you need the right game plan Understand the other persons viewpoint, find out the root cause. Often the immediate issue you are addressing isn’t the route cause to their resistance You can’t change the other person, but you can change your own behaviour. If you keep approaching things the same way and don’t get results then doing more of the same rarely works. The DEAR technique to be more assertive Catherine has an interesting model to help you be more assertive. There are 4 parts to the request you want to assert D = Describe the situation Start by describing the situation as you see it to the other person. “It appears that…..” E = Express your feelings Next, bring emotion into the conversation. “This makes me feel……… A = Assert your belief need or want. Make sure there’s an action. Not a place to say sorry. Be clear what you need from the other person. “I would appreciate you doing……” R= Reinforce other person Let them know you appreciate them. A thank you in advance is a great way of getting the action you want. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Mike Whitmire is CEO and founder of FloQast. He’s based in Los Angeles and is a CPA turned Entrepreneur. Mike loves building software that helps accountants go home early. Mike and Kevin catch up to find out how you can use technology to improve the culture in your finance function. About Mike Whitmire Mike founded FloQast in 2015, but it isn’t the first venture he’s been part of. He was previously senior accountant at Cornerstone OnDemand during their successful IPO. His earlier background is at Ernst & Young where he started as an auditor and specialised in working with media companies in the LA area. Kevin thinks this was a ploy to get himself on screen in some major production or other! What is FloQast? FloQast is the leading provider of accounting workflow automation created by accountants for accountants to work smarter, not harder. By automating common accounting workflows and helping to streamline and make them more efficient, FloQast is the place where accounting teams want to work so they can focus on what matters most, even when that’s just going home on time. What does Mike Whitmire look for in a CFO? FloQast are currently recruiting a CFO to work alongside Mik. I asked Mike what he thought made a good CFO and what skills he’s looking for. He gave me a great insight. Mike recognises 3 types of CFO, all of which are good. He wants one particular type. Listen in and find out why? Technology driving culture Mike Whitmire is passionate about people, and believes technology needs to support the workforce and make people feel part of the team. He understands that millennials really want to know how they fit into the big picture. Having an engaged workforce is important, and creating a great team and culture are core parts of this. FloQast introduces a transparency into the finance team, everyone sees what everyone else is doing and it introduces a new dynamic. Peer pressure! Mike explains this in far more detail in the audio recording. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Do you feel that you are delivering your full potential within your finance leader role? During this week’s episode of The GrowCFO Show, I talk to GrowCFO’s Founder and CEO Dan Wells. Dan explains how your CFO Programme will help you to maximise your performance within your finance leader role. What is the CFO Programme? The CFO programme is a blend of workshops, self assessment, and online learning. This programme will take you from being a back office function leader to becoming the co-pilot to your CEO. There are two elements to the programme as described below: Nine group mentoring sessions lasting 90 minutes covering our nine modules over a six-month period. We deliver these online with a maximum of six people. Each session is run by an experienced CFO and professional mentor, with additional input from other CFOs and also CEOs. During these sessions, you will also build up a strong peer group buddy support network. Six months of one-to-one executive mentoring support from an experienced CFO, with flexible timing. Each session lasts for 90 minutes, including a bonus up-front strategy session. You will also get ad hoc support during this period. In addition, you will benefit from a strengths assessment, workbooks and tools to support your mentoring journey. What are the key activities in the CFO Programme ? There are three key topics within the programme: Catalyst for Change helps you to transform your team into an essential business function that creates value and transforms operations. Strategic Business Partner supports you to deliver data-driven strategic insights to challenge the Board, influence strategy and drive key decision-making. Inspirational leader will develop you into an externally-facing leader, a vital Board member and the co-pilot to your CEO. We’ve broken down each of the three sections into three modules, giving nine modules in total. You can find out more and take your first steps to join the programme here: Here is a diagram that provides an overview of your nine modules: What will you achieve? Our CFO Programme will help you to: Discover and work with your areas of strength and development objectives; Determine ways to overcome any barriers to your success; Provide different perspectives when thinking through issues; and Improve your knowledge and confidence to maximise your performance. Mentoring is a great way of supporting your development and personal growth by ‘stretching’ you, helping you to move out of your comfort zone and closer to your full potential. Who is the CFO Programme designed for? Our CFO Programme will appeal to passionate finance leaders who are keen to develop a well-respected finance function that provides vital support, influence and value creation across your business. To qualify, you should be leading a finance function and reporting into the board. For example, acting as the CFO, Head of Finance, Finance Director, VP of Finance). You may be fairly new into the role or still learning the traits of becoming a successful CFO. Participants understand the importance of investing time to help achieve your full potential. Alongside your peers, you will become the best version of yourself and act as a positive role model who challenges the status quo. You will also learn how to develop a mindset for success, whilst living by your values and demonstrating a willingness to expand your perspectives. Who leads the CFO programme? All activities are led by an experienced CFO and professional mentor. Our mentors are experienced CFOs who have made the journey before, conquering the challenges that our mentees will face. Think of us as your motivator, sounding board and biggest supporter – your number one career buddy! The programme will also feature various guests who can provide additional perspectives across several of the workshop modules. How long does the CFO Programme last? The programme lasts for six months and requires a time commitment of around one hour per week. Your peer group workshop dates will be communicated to you in advance so that you can fit them into your diary. Each of these will be arranged around your existing commitments to avoid any clashes. Participants can also select the most convenient dates for your individual mentoring sessions by liaising directly with your mentor. How do you get started? Finance leaders should click here to fill in our short online enquiry form. You will then receive a message from a member of our GrowCFO management team to schedule a call. Following that, you will be able to make an informed decision about whether this is the right programme for you.

Iain Nairn is an experienced insolvency practitioner. In this episode of the GrowCFO Show I chatted to Iain about the role of the insolvency practitioner. Why and when and why a company should call on his services? We also took a look at the state of the economy following Covid-19. We discussed how great the negative impact on business actually is. Listen to the podcast to find out more. About Iain Nairn Iain Nairn started his career in corporate recovery and insolvency. He has also been a finance director, an business development manager and an investment manager. He now heads up the team in North East England for Leonord Curtis Business Solutions Group. Iain is an accomplished sportsman. He is very proud to have been captain of the England Physically Disabled Cricket team. Iain lead them to victory in the inaugural multinational cricket tournament for people with disabilities in 2015. The team then went on to win the World Series in 2019. When might you use an insolvency practitioner? If your company is experiencing financial distress, you may be considering appointing the services of an insolvency practitioner. The insolvency practitioner will help you navigate your current situation. For most CFOs its unlikely you have dealt with an insolvency practitioner before. You may be unsure exactly what they do. An insolvency practitioner can add a lot to your business if engaged at the right time. During the early stages of financial distress the role might be vital to saving your business. What is an insolvency practitioner? An insolvency practitioner is someone who is licensed to act on behalf of companies and individuals. He will act when they are facing insolvency or acute financial distress. Practitioners are also able to help directors of solvent companies who have chosen to liquidate their company. In the majority of cases, a company director will voluntarily approach an insolvency practitioner. In matters of compulsory liquidation, the courts will appoint an Official Receiver who will act as the provisional liquidator. They may later request that an insolvency practitioner be appointed to take the liquidation forward. Is an insolvency practitioner the same as a liquidator? A liquidator is one of a variety of roles an insolvency practitioner assumes. The role depends on the case they have been appointed to deal with. In matters concerning limited companies, the three main roles an IP will undertake are as follows: Liquidator – Acting as a liquidator in both solvent and insolvent company liquidations. The insolvency practitioner’s role here is to realise company assets and ensure these are distributed appropriately to creditors. In insolvent liquidations such as Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidations, creditors typically comprise of suppliers, banks, and other lenders. In an MVL, which is the liquidation of a solvent company, directors and shareholders are often in line to receive the proceeds. Administrator – An insolvency practitioner will be appointed the administrator of a company in both administration and pre-pack administration cases. They will work to realise a better outcome for creditors. This is through arranging a sale of the company or facilitating an ordered shutdown of the business. Nominee and Supervisor – In Company Voluntary Arrangements an insolvency practitioner will take on the dual roles of nominee and supervisor. They will first act as a ‘nominee’ and will be responsible for putting together a viable proposal for the CVA. A Statement of Affairs (SOA) will be produced. Creditors will be informed how much they could expect to receive should the CVA be implemented. Once the CVA has been passed by creditors, the insolvency practitioner will become ‘supervisor’ of the agreement. He will oversee matters throughout the duration of the CVA. The ongoing performance of the business will be monitored to ensure the company remains on track to complete the CVA. Hopefully the company will emerge with a good chance of enjoying a successful future. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Catherine Clark leads GrowCFO’s mentoring team. One thing Catherine discusses regularly with her CFO mentees is how to create more thinking time. Finding the space to think is so important in so many areas. In particular thinking time impacts the quality of the decisions you make. So in this episode of the GrowCFO Show we’re going to talk about decision making and lack of thinking time: Why is thinking time important for you as a CFO what can you do to increase your perspective and enhance your performance How can you reduce the stress that comes with lack of time to think things through. What are the main issues Catherine explores with her mentees? The lack of thinking time comes up under a number of different guises. The main issues that Catherine explores include: Proving you can think and act strategically as a leader Balancing the day to day with strategic focus Being stuck in the weeds and unable to see the bigger picture A struggle to communicate succinctly The good news is that there’s plenty you can do to better equip yourself. Lets take a look in more detail. Why is thinking time important? Clarity of thought gives you a wider perspective. It reduces overwhelm, and allows you to focus on what matters. You need to make smarter decisions. The right decision is critical particularly in times of change. You can add greatest value to the business by making more of the right decisions. Doing more of the day to day rarely adds value. You are likely finding yourself in a period of huge change. The last 12 months has seen many businesses rethink the way they operate. Its often been a financial imperative so the business survives, and you the CFO have been more involved than ever before in the new ways of doing business. Not only is your business model changing, so too are customer expectations. Your relationship with employees and how they work has changed, and will likely change again in the new normal. Ongoing change will mean you need to continually adapt your business strategy. You will need to make critical decisions quickly. Pressure to perform impacts thinking time Some pressure is good for you, focussing your mind. This motivates you to take action. Too much pressure can do the exact opposite. Too many hours leads to a drop in performance. This pressure will impair attention, your ability to multi task and your ability to think clearly. Your decision making ability suffers. Stress narrows your focus and perspective. The fight or flight instinct kicks in. Everything looks worse than it is. You forget the resources you have at your disposal and the possibilities available to you. Catherine finds that this is the key area most people need to focus on. Catherine and I explore this in much more depth in the audio recording and give a number of strategies you can use to both reduce stress and create space. Listen in to find out more. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Susana Serrano-Davey is an experienced finance leader, mentor and coach. She even ran her own business for a while. Susana is joining the mentoring team we have here at GrowCFO. On this podcast I catch up with Susana to find out more about her. I also asked her “What makes a good finance leader?” About Susana Serrano-Davey Susana is a Spanish national, and currently lives in Marbella on the Costa Del Sol. She is a Chartered Accountant and a PwC alumni. Her experience includes roles in financial control at Tui Travel and CFO at Cash Converters Espana. You can find out more on LinkedIn. What makes a good finance leader? Susana has been, and still is, a CFO. She has worked with many senior finance people. She mentors both business leaders and finance leaders. Who better to ask “What makes a good finance leader?” Naturally, Susana gave me some good answers. Her initial take was around what makes you the CFO special: Pursue your own authenticity and build on what you have. Don’t be afraid to bring skills that aren’t on the traditional list of finance leader skills Understand who you are in addition to all the training you have. This will help you to shine A good finance leader knows his strengths and plays to these. You will know things you are weak at, and you need to recognise these. Theres nothing wrong with delegating or outsourcing things you don’t like doing or aren’t strong at. Even core finance skills. The GrowCFO competency framework identifies 45 areas. You can’t be equally strong in all 45, that’s just about impossible. If you are weak at something you might develop yourself and become mediocre. On the other hand, if you are strong at something and like doing it you can develop yourself to mastery. Which is the better use of your own limited personal development time? What makes a good team leader? Can a finance leader be good without being a good team leader? Susana thinks not. You need to invest time in your team. What makes a good finance leader be a good team leader? Susana gave us some pointers: understand their strengths and weaknesses Difficult to do when the typical CFO has back to back meetings and a never ending to do list. Don’t believe you have all the answers. Listen to your team, they often know what’s going on better than you do. Have a vision, but be prepared to modify this. Take your team on a journey, as long as you are moving forward you don’t need to worry too much about the ultimate destination. Be aware of your personal style, and be aware of the culture of your team or organisation. You can’t change your personality but you can tone certain things down where necessary. What makes a good finance leader a good co-pilot for the CEO? To be a great CFO you need a first class relationship with your CEO. You need to be a true business partner with the CEO. This means going well beyond just looking after the financial numbers. It means going further than just giving a finance perspective on things. A great CFO will understand the business, and will bring commercial insight along with his finance skills. You will need to compliment the skills the CFO has, so that your joint skills are rounded. We discussed how you build this commercial acumen. Susana has some great insights, and to find out more then listen to the audio recording of the full show. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars.  Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes.  You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

Abu Ali is a partner in a Newcastle based corporate finance boutique, WilliamsAli. He provides strategic M&A and funding advice to business owners and investors. Abu joins Kevin Appleby on the GrowCFO Show to explain the role of a corporate finance advisor, and the value that working with an external specialist can bring to your business. About Abu Ali Abu Ali qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Teeside based Clive Owen & Co. He soon left the world of audit to pursue a career in corporate finance. He gained his initial experience with Ryecroft Glenton Corporate Finance before moving on to become a director at Baldwins. Running is own practice was always Abu’s ambition, and in early 2019 he became one of the founders of Leathers Corporate Finance. In April 2020 Abu and his partner Phil Williams exercised an option to complete the buy-out of Leathers Corporate Finance. This included a full rebrand to Williams Ali and relocation to new offices within Newcastle.  WilliamsAli offers a focused, high quality service to help businesses and their shareholders realise their ambitions.  The team has extensive deal experience acquired over many years. They take a leading role in transactions. These include business sales, MBOs, acquisitions, private equity transactions and fundraising. What is Corporate Finance? Corporate finance includes a wide range of activities. Abu talked through the variety of activities he supports. He advises a variety of different people. These include: Shareholders on the sale of their business. Management teams on Management Buy-Outs. Acquirers on the identification and purchase of acquisition targets. Business owners on company valuations. Abu tells us that it’s not just about giving advice. There are many more practical activities he gets involved in. These include: Helping business owners prepare their business for an exit. Helping entrepreneurs prepare business plans to attract the funding needed to start up or develop their existing business. This might be in the form of equity, debt or grant funding. Assisting companies in defining and documenting their corporate and growth strategy. Who is corporate finance for? Raising funds for clients is a major part of Abu’s role. But Abu doesn’t just work with businesses that need to find funding. Some of his clients are very well funded. Clients may be looking to make acquisitions, and have funds available. Identifying the right acquisition becomes the challenge. Abu spends about half his time helping businesses to sell. People typically don’t know what their business is worth . They also don’t understand the process of selling and need help. Working with these clients Abu becomes an extension of the management team. He often takes a project management role from start to finish of the transaction. How do you find a buyer for your business? You can’t put a “for sale” sign up outside your business. Selling can often be a covert process to maintain confidentiality. Abu often finds that its necessary to make sure staff, customers and suppliers don’t know a business is for sale until the right time in the process. Often the right time might be when the deal has been done. Research is very important. Abu will spend a lot of time identifying potential buyers and developing a short list. To do this Abu needs to be well networked, and able to talk to his network about any opportunity he has with discretion. The network that Abu has built is different from one you would typically build as a CFO. This is one reason why a business with a very strong CFO might still engage a corporate finance advisor. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favourite podcast app. The show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Google podcasts and many others. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. You can join GrowCFO as a free member today and take part in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members also have access to our extensive training centre. Here you can enrol in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programmes. You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

We’re back after a short break with season 2 of The GrowCFO Show. Ajmal Mian and Kevin Appleby discuss the future of the high street and the impact this will have on the CFO in the first podcast of the new season. About Ajmal Mian Ajmal Mian is currently Director of Finance at SURREY SKYLINE LTD. Until recently he was CFO of Blacksheep. Blacksheep is an independent and award-winning design agency, specialising in interior design, strategy, branding and graphics. Ajmal had overall responsibility for finance and operational aspects of the company including, HR, Legal, and IT. Whats happening on the High Street? During the last 12 months we’ve all become accustomed to shopping online. There are still things many of us would rather do in a physical shop, such as try on shoes and clothes before we buy. There’s still a big role for the high street as the world opens up again, but it will look quite different. There’s likely to be a whole load of excess property that needs to find an alternate use. Who are the winners and losers? There’s an attitude difference between older and younger shoppers. Millenials generally have a different mindset when it comes to buying on line. They are much happier to buy and return goods than try it on before you buy. Ajmal believes that it is this difference in buying preference that will trigger changes. The shop with no online presence will have very little future, while the businesses that can successfully combine online with bricks and mortar will win. Cashflow squeezed by the pandemic will mean businesses carry less physical stock. Highly specialised businesses that need to carry a big range of items will become less and less viable as local bricks and mortar businesses. Stores that can carry a small sample and have a bigger selection online will be the winners. “you want that suit in black sir?” “Thats fine, we can have it delivered to you tomorrow. Try the blue one we have on display for size” The high street as a future workplace What happens to the spare capacity on the high street? Ajmal believes there’s a future for semi remote working. Expect to see the increase in co-working spaces on the high street. We’ve all worked in Costa or Starbucks. Expect that model to flip, you pay them for a guaranteed workspace and you get your coffee for free. You might rent an office in the workspace, either for a full week or part of your week. This means you don’t commute all the time to your business premises. Instead you just go as far as your local high street. The new high street and the CFO You, as a visionary CFO should be thinking about the impact of this already. Are you set up to have your team working remotely for at least some of their working week? We believe that model is the future. It will be less about working from home and more about working from a properly equipped and connected local workspace. Are you ready for the impact on the supply chain? How will long term changes toward selling online or supplying customers direct from big warehouses impact your business. Theres nothing new about just in time supply, but its likely to go to a whole new level. The challenges of virtual working Virtual working doesn’t work for everybody. Kevin Appleby asked Ajmal about the challenges of managing and developing staff that aren’t at the next desk. Technology will have a huge role to play in this, and online learning is one of the big growth areas of the next few years. We talk about the future of the finance function every week in GrowCFO There’s a free zoom session nearly every Tuesday lunchtime where we talk about the latest developments in systems, people and processes. All you need to do to attend is join the free GrowCFO community today.

Paul McKoen is a very experienced CFO. His career has given him experience in a number of industries and includes just about every aspect of the CFO role. We talk through Paul’s career, and highlight a some interesting experiences of the CFO needing to make an impact very quickly in a new CFO role. Paul talks about the times where a fresh pair of eyes and some cross-industry experience made a real difference to his new employer. It’s quite a journey! Paul McKoen qualified at the Ford Motor Company Paul started his career at Ford where he gained his CIMA qualification and spent 11 years in finance, including an overseas role in Cologne. During this period, Paul worked his way up to middle-management grade. Paul experienced first-hand the huge impact of the introduction of technology solutions and the evolving effect that this can have on the finance role. The vast majority of Paul’s experience has been on-the-job training. For example, learning from bosses, peers and other role models. Paul has experienced many new CFO roles During his career, Paul has experienced many new CFO roles and Finance Director roles. These include divisional roles at Serco, Vertex/United Utilities and Balfour Beatty. Paul has also performed group CFO roles at Tradaq, B&M Retail, Value Retailer and Silentnight Group. Within these roles, Paul achieved many milestones such as delivering fundraising, acquisitions and successful company exits. Adding value within a new CFO role During one of Paul’s new CFO roles, he supported the CEO to determine why they were losing too many bids to competitors. This involving challenging the business and providing a new set of eyes regarding what was actually happening. For example, Paul carefully reviewed the assumptions being applied towards costing analysis and pricing. Accordingly, Paul identified a flaw in their assumptions that significantly reduced their pricing going forward. In summary, don’t be afraid to ask the obvious questions and to challenge the answers provided. Making an impact in a new CFO role Paul previously took on an interim CFO to support a fundraising process. The investors had challenged management due to concerns that their profit forecast was overstated by £3 million. Paul compared the sales forecast figures to the actual figures during the previous few years. Accordingly, he identified that the sales team were over-forecasting sales numbers by £10m. Applying a 30% margin resulted in a profit overstatement of £3m. This is a good example of how you can gain strong experience very quickly within a new interim CFO role. How to approach a new CFO role During your first 100 days, CFOs will have an up-front honeymoon period. This provides you with a fantastic one-off opportunity to spend lots of time with people and to ask the stupid questions. You are likely to identify some quick easy wins during these discussions to make an early positive impact within your new CFO role. GrowCFO‘s Future CFO Programme covers how to approach a new CFO role within Module 9 called Your first 100 days. Paul has a strong example of this from one of his previous new CFO roles. He spent the first few weeks asking everybody what does and doesn’t work. His findings identified various outdated strategies that were now causing a negative impact within the business. These insights allowed the business to adjust their approach and double sales during the next few years. This is a great example that shows the benefits of providing a fresh challenge within a business. Helping the next generation In summary, Paul has had an incredible range of experience during his career. He is keen to share these with the next generation of finance leaders to pass on the key learnings from his many successes. In addition, Paul has learnt how to solve problems effectively and has developed techniques to help him to relate to other people. He has also learnt how to bounce back from various setbacks. For example, Paul is familiar with the pain of redundancy and how to overcome this. Paul looks forward to getting more involved within GrowCFO and to positively contribute towards the community.

GrowCFO has created a CFO Competency Framework that covers the key skills required to become an effective finance leader.  This is rapidly becoming the global toolkit to help finance leaders benchmark their skills and competencies against their peer group.  It also acts as a CFO Readiness Toolkit to help the next generation of aspiring CFOs. During this podcast episode, Dan Wells and Kevin Appleby discuss the purpose of the CFO Competency Framework.  In addition, we discuss how it is helping so many finance leaders to accelerate their learning and development. CFO Competency Framework’s purpose GrowCFO noticed that there was a huge gap in the finance leader ecosystem.  Nobody had previously produced a global competency framework to help finance leaders benchmark their existing skills against those required to become a CFO. Senior finance professionals were struggling to identify their skills gaps and to prioritise their most important learning and development objectives.  As many people say, “You don’t know what you don’t know!” Our CFO Competency Framework is designed to deliver many important purposes. Identify the skills gaps to be addressed by the next generation of finance leaders. Assist CFO job applicants to become self-aware candidates with a proper development plan. Help first-time CFOs to become more impactful within your role. Highlight opportunities for the CFO to create value and achieve your company’s vision. Determine the difference between the CFO role and versus Finance Director or Head of Finance. Filter GrowCFO’s activities to help experienced CFOs to fulfil your annual CPD requirements. Map your competency assessment ratings into online courses, lessons and workshops. Benchmark your competency levels against your most relevant finance leader peer group. It is no surprise that many finance leaders are already using the GrowCFO Competency Framework to accelerate your career progression. How did we build the CFO Competency Framework? GrowCFO has a huge network of aspiring finance leaders, first-time CFOs, experienced CFOs, CEOs, Chairs, NEDs, other C-Suite members, advisors, investors and recruiters.  We held focus groups with representatives from these communities to determine the required competencies for the modern-day CFO. GrowCFO also consulted with a huge number of GrowCFO members to obtain people’s views and feedback.  We worked with technology experts, graphic designers and programme developers to build a market-leading digital CFO Competency Framework that operates on a self-serve basis. Following this, we engaged inspirational CFOs to create a huge number of competency lessons that are located within our world-class learning management system.  We have mapped each of our CFO competencies into online training courses and regular workshops.  This allows finance leaders to efficiently generate your tailored learning and development plan to further develop their skills and address their biggest challenges. https://youtu.be/6Kk9Yz2ax5s How is the CFO Competency Framework structured? Our CFO Competency Framework contains three categories: Foundation, Implementation and Impact.  These help you to preserve value, create value and maximise value throughout your role. Each category comprises three competencies, giving a total of nine competencies across the framework.  These competencies are inter-connected and you will often be using many of these concurrently. Each competency contains five different skills.  Therefore, the GrowCFO Competency Framework contains a total of 45 skills that are relevant to a typical modern-day CFO. There is a lot for finance leaders to master and our framework will constantly evolve over time, in line with the ongoing evolution of the CFO role. Foundation category The Foundation category contains three competencies: Governance and Control, Operational driver and Financial Planning & Analysis. These three competencies form the foundation for your future success within the role and are critical towards preserving value within your business. Implementation category The Implementation category contains three competencies being: Strategic Business Partner, Catalyst for Change, and Fundraising and M&A. These competencies represent your ability to deliver the company’s business plan and to create value in your role.  You are likely to be combining your hard and soft skills with a powerful effect. Impact category The Impact category contains the following three competencies: Leadership, Commercial mindset and Soft skills. These contain many of the advanced competencies that really make you stand out as a top-quality finance leader.  These are harder to learn but allow you to maximise the value that you create across your firm. The nine competencies The following section provides more insights regarding each competency: Governance and Control Governance: Deliver your Board responsibilities and produce Board pack reports. Ensure director compliance and conduct. Risk management: Implement policies and procedures. Monitor control frameworks and oversee committees; Compliance: Perform financial and non-financial reporting. Comply with regulatory requirements such as legal, tax, statutory audit and internal audit/reviews; Closing the books: Optimise your period-end close procedures. For example: process journals, form valuations and make judgements; and Treasury: Oversee cash management and treasury policies. Manage foreign exchange and implement hedging arrangements. Operational driver Lead operations: Oversee specific operational activities. For example, Finance, HR, Legal, IT and Facilities; Implement and integrate systems: Identify systems, implement new technology solutions and integrate applications; Optimise processes: Review business processes to determine how best to simplify, automate and streamline their associated activities; Embed finance across the business: Develop relationships across each department and put finance at the heart of the business; and Capture data and create dashboards: Understand what your audience wants. Extract data and report it in the most user-friendly manner. Financial Planning and Analysis Allocate capital: Divide up your company’s financial resources and other sources of capital in a manner that generates the maximum return for your shareholders; Build financial models: Create a short-to-medium term model to forecast your financial performance and KPIs based upon your strategic plan; Create investment cases: Challenge and support investment cases to determine which initiatives to support; Analyse data: Apply your financial perspective and commercial awareness to scrutinise both financial and non-financial data; Manage outcomes: Manage outcomes of budgetary performance during each financial period. Take mitigating action where required. Strategic Business Partner Influence strategies: Deliver data-driven insights, generate new ideas and influence the business plan; Support decision-making: Support your teams and facilitate problem-solving. Provide a financial perspective, create collaboration and drive decision-making; Become a critical voice: Challenge the management team and Board. Also, become an influential voice across the wider firm; Manage stakeholders: Be the main point of contact to internal and external stakeholders. Provide regular updates and generate confidence in your business; and Be the co-pilot to your CEO: Work closely with your CEO to communicate and deliver the business plan across your organisation. Catalyst for Change Identify profit and cash initiatives: Combine your financial knowledge, commercial awareness and business relationships to identify opportunities that improve financial performance; Oversee and drive business change: Lead and oversee change initiatives that deliver the key objectives within your business plan; Finance transformation: Design and implement a medium-term collection of finance projects that deliver a pillar of your company’s key strategic objectives; Restructure business operations: Deliver significant business change such as merging operations and carving out business units. In addition, consider restructuring teams, integrating new businesses and outsourcing processes; and Monitor effectiveness of change: Regularly monitor the impact of change initiatives against your intended targets and implement any mitigating action to deliver the planned outcomes. Fundraising and M&A Identify and evaluate opportunities: Work with your management team to develop your fundraising and M&A strategy. Also, understand the components of value creation, identify opportunities and create investment cases. Accordingly, determine returns on investment and de-risk your activities; Perform valuations: Build valuation models using a range of approaches. Determine valuation ranges and returns on investments. Assess the transaction’s impact on your financial model and its value for money; Fundraising: Lead fundraising rounds and negotiate terms. Co-ordinate advisors, manage stakeholders and complete deals; Making acquisitions: Perform a key role in acquiring companies and assets. Lead the deal process, work with advisors and integrate acquisitions; and Exit readiness: Implement the necessary actions to prepare your business for an exit and play a key role in the sales process. Leadership Lead your finance function: Determine your purpose, structure your finance activities, shape the team and deliver your responsibilities; Become a C-Suite business leader: Enable the vision and set the right pace. Share the bigger picture, monitor activities, collaborate, keep people informed and help people to succeed; Manage people: Determine your people plan throughout the business life cycle. Accordingly, recruit, manage and motivate your workforce. Align your teams and create self-leaders; Drive the culture: Promote your desired business culture, act as a role model and exhibit the right values. Champion diversity and inclusion throughout your business; and Represent your business externally: Build trusted relationships and generate confidence with external stakeholders. For example, shareholders, investors, customers, suppliers, regulators and market analysts.  In addition, get involved in public relations activities and support third party negotiations. Commercial mindset Understand your business: Learn all about how the business works and its previous journey. Understand why things are done in a certain way. Determine how decisions are made and identify any internal politics. Be aware of your customer offerings and what is currently happening; Develop market knowledge: Build up your knowledge of rival products, your competitors’ activities and market trends. Understand the impact of emerging business models, new entrants and market disruptors; Tell the financial story: Utilise your commercial awareness to tell the financial story. For instance, link data trends to commercial activities and demonstrate what is driving the financials; Drive growth: Help to identify new sources of growth such as new products, expansion into other markets and M&A; and Maximise shareholder value: Think like an investor to balance short-term earnings versus long-term growth. Identify profit and cost drivers and review the customer value proposition. Manage the profit and loss account and perform value chain analysis.  Respond to market threats, terminate non-profitable activities and dispose of non-core assets. Soft skills Communication: Communicate effectively in a calm and controlled manner that spreads confidence amongst your audience.  Deliver storytelling in an engaging manner. Tailor this to your audience to make it interesting, relevant and digestible.  In addition, influence your listeners and demonstrate active listening during conversations.  Develop strong presentation and writing skills; Relationship-building: Build a strong network and develop relationships with senior colleagues, individual teams and external stakeholders.  Understand individual behavioural traits and build up your awareness of different personality types.  Develop strong emotional intelligence and self-awareness to thrive during difficult conversations and challenging situations. Obtain people’s buy-in during project management and change management initiatives; Gravitas: Demonstrate charisma and self-confidence through your tone and style of interactions with other people.  Encourage, influence and reassure others; Trustworthiness: Generate trust and confidence in everything that you do. Deliver quality, meet expectations and keep your promises. Communicate with a combination of authority, presence and impact; and Personal effectiveness: Work proactively with a clear vision and determination.  Multi-task under pressure across a wide range of tasks, whilst generating ideas and solving problems effectively. Possess a range of characteristics including being driven, resilient, agile. Also, be adaptable, creative and bold when required.  Become a self-learner who takes the initiative and exercises strong judgement when required. There are detailed guidance notes covering each of these competency areas within your CFO Competency Framework. Completing the CFO Competency Framework Your CFO Competency Framework is incredibly easy to complete and takes around ten minutes.  It is a digital toolkit which has received extremely positive feedback from your finance leader community. The framework contains an overview of the GrowCFO competencies and has dropdown menus for each skills topic.  You will be asked to rank yourself by selecting your current level against each of the 45 skills topics. Your GrowCFO management team have produced guidance notes to help determine your current rankings.  For each skills topic, you should select either no experience, basic level, intermediate level, advanced level or not relevant to your career. You then submit your results and start getting excited about reviewing your summary report. CFO Competency Framework summary report Upon completing the survey, you will receive an email containing a summary of your results.  This summary report helps you to easily identify your skills gaps to include in your career development plan. The report clearly maps your personal development action plan into GrowCFO’s activities. This helps you to prioritise completing your most relevant online lessons, courses and workshops. Your CFO Competency Framework summary report also benchmarks your ratings against GrowCFO’s finance leader community. Benchmarking Many members of the finance leader community are completing your CFO Competency Framework and we are already receiving responses on a daily basis.  This provides us with a huge amount of anonymous data that we can use to benchmark you against your most relevant peer group. Within the survey, you will be asked to specify the nature of your current role and your level of seniority.  You will also provide your company’s ownership category, size bracket and industry sector. This information allows us to tailor your benchmarking report according to each of the above.  Therefore, you can feel confident that you are being benchmarked against your most relevant peer group.  This is all done on an anonymous basis to protect your data privacy. CFO Competency Framework link Aspiring and existing finance leaders should log into growcfo.net and then click on Training Programmes to access your CFO Competency Framework.  Please message Dan Wells or Kevin Appleby if you have any questions.