What Kind Of Person Can Be A Chief Financial Officer?

Everyone who does CFO must have it.

What kind of talent can be regarded as "omnipotent"? What abilities, intelligence and expertise should be installed in a CFO toolbox to cope with any industry, any company and any challenges?

In the eyes of CFO, the metaphor of "toolbox" may not be appropriate -- it is more like a magician's pocket.

It is no easy task to master these non professional skills. Not only do you have the power of a thousand eyes and ears, but you can also reverse time like superman.

But these can all be summed up as a common problem.

American Telegraph and Telephone Corporation and

First skill: make good use of time

Every executive feels that 24 hours a day is far from enough.

Overloaded work seems to be sparse in the financial field.

Stephen D D Young, CFO of time management consulting company and assistant equipment manufacturer Franklin Covey (FranklinCovey), told his employees to stop sending information that they thought was not important and just wanted to see if others needed it, Stephen.

This proposal has reduced the amount of data emitted by 40% over the past two years.

Yang said: "we divided the budget and the actual situation into two ways, not five, and we prepared ten different stock reports instead of 15."

Yang also handles e-mail very strictly.

He visits the inbox several times a day, but does not reply until the end of the work - unless the mail is urgent.

This set up a higher standard. Yang said that about 60% of the mail would not be opened.

ETS CFO CFO (Frank Gatti) also strictly classifying e-mail.

Gatti said that some e-mail is not so important. Besides the letter of our company CEO, the most important mail comes from investors and bondholders.

He said, "even if you don't know all the information, you have to reply immediately. You have to let them know that you have already begun to deal with it, and will contact them after you know all the circumstances."

Second skills: help your boss.

Every CFO has to deal with CEO, and how to make his boss happy is a skill that any ambitious financial manager must master.

"Building relationships with CEO is very important for CFO."

David Johnson CFO, The Hartford Financial Services Group, said (David Johnson) in Hartford.

Although a sound strategy depends on a variety of interpersonal factors, Johnson believes that honesty is one of the most important factors. As long as we are honest, we are likely to become CEO's trusted helpers.

Tony Panos, a consultant at Cornell University, has set up a course to help her superior skills in Cornell University. He said, "you have to understand the likes and dislikes of CEO, know what matters most important to him, know what criteria he has for him, and know what kind of value system he holds.

Any suggestion you should make should be consistent with this. You have to let him see that you are helping him achieve his goal.

He believes that even in the face of a very authoritarian CEO, the strategy will not change much, but he also suggests trying to find out the underlying causes.

He said: "despotic people are usually driven to some degree of fear.

First of all, we need to determine what this fear is, so that we can try to mitigate it. "

Third skills: learn to say no.

CFO is often referred to as "refuse experts". Compared with other executives, they are more inclined to prevent misguided project plans.

However, most CFO believe that negative opinions and even disagreements will not be intensely unpleasant as long as they are handled properly.

CFO Horizons (Elizabeth Boland) of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, an American preschool institution, points out that the proper way to deal with them is to tell them the facts and hidden risks rather than the last ones, so that people can feel that they are making decisions together.

Richard Fersen CFO of Eaton Corp (Eaton Corp.) also pointed out the importance of listening. He said, "you must listen carefully to others' suggestions so that everyone can feel the importance of listening to them." (Richard Fearon)

He also believes that if the company's management is sound, it will not be necessary for CFO to veto the proposal regularly because bad proposals were eliminated earlier.

Of course, CFO still has to say no time.

The most difficult situation, he said, is to face a plan that lacks revenue potential and is obviously not worth discussing.

She believes that patience must be maintained in this situation.

"We will never deny the plan until we have fully discussed all possible revenue opportunities," she said.

If none of these things work, you have to put your head in the towel.

Fersen said: "in this case, I usually ask him if he owns one hundred percent of Eaton's shares, what kind of decisions will he make?"

Fourth skills: auditing suppliers

With the increase of regulation and outsourcing, the third party consultants, contractors and service providers have become indispensable.

CFO Jeff Burchill (Jeff Burchill) of FM Global of property insurance company believes that under the influence of Sao Act (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), enterprises are becoming more and more dependent on the third party suppliers, and the choice of suppliers also involves more and more complexity.

In the past, this decision mainly depended on which company asked for the lowest price, and now the CFO of the listed company may have personal responsibility for the quality of the financial report.

Burchill said that the price may not be taken into consideration at all, but this responsibility makes CFO often have to choose in person.

This means that we should have a thorough understanding of various reference situations.

Bright Horizon's boss said that if possible, let his technicians go to third party advisers to know the details of the company.

After the basic work is done, we will gradually establish relationships and start from short-term projects to prepare for possible problems.

It is very helpful to maintain the relationship between the details of expectations and the setting of measurable standards.

Gatti of ETS believes that suppliers should provide concise and clear records, which can provide early warning signs for problems and provide more detailed reports per week or monthly.

He said, "you do not want to manage microscopically the work that has been outsourced, so you have to have the right reference points to measure them."

Finally, CFO must realize that the management of suppliers now involves more responsibilities, including at least responsible for the quality of internal control of suppliers.

Stephen Bainbridge, a law professor at California University, commented at a recent symposium that supervision of the internal control of his company was already very troublesome, and that monitoring of another company would be more difficult and cost would be even higher than that of Stephen Bainbridge.

Fifth skills: insight

CFO's unique position enables him to understand all aspects of the company, but this is no substitute for real insight.

"Some of the most complex decisions in the enterprise involve our participation and even leadership. One of our responsibilities is to surpass other people's horizons and foresee all the consequences that these decisions may bring."

Johnson of Hartford company points out.

Robert Mittelstaedt, director of the Business School of Arizona State University and director of two listed companies, also said that CFO needs to have enough analytical capability to take into account various possibilities, because after all, they know more about the financial impact of these risks than anyone else. "Robert Mittelstaedt"

Of course, analysis is the strength of many CFO, but Johnson believes that the most important thing for improving the insight of CFO is the difficulty itself. The more difficulties we have, the more insight we have.

He said: "only through unexpected predicament can we develop these skills."

Johnson had a deep understanding of this point. He had helped deal with fraud in Cendant, and had been a investment banker to deal with the company's bankruptcy. He had experienced quite a few crises.

He also keeps his vigilance by reading other companies' judicial audit reports.

Sixth skills: legal matters

No company can avoid legal proceedings, but this is still lingering in the US business community.

Patent infringement, employee discrimination, labor compensation, and the most formidable securities joint action cases are unavoidable practical problems.

Tatum (LLC Jamison), director of CFO services at Tatum LLC, pointed out that the real problem is risk aversion, and she has some simple safety measures.

"For example, we should prepare regular legal documents for" regular "businesses, such as customer contracts, confidentiality agreements, options agreements, etc.

In this way, if there is a situation beyond the norm, or if someone asks for a substantive revision of the conventional policy, the lawyer is the one.

Haber Said CFO (Harborside Healthcare) former CFO Bill Stefan (Bill Stephan) has also added a means of protection.

"We have a policy that field workers have no right to sign contracts."

The company, which operates 80 sanatorium, stipulates that only CFO and the internal legal adviser sign the contract.

Stefan also avoids the bottleneck of efficiency. His approach is to ensure that all documents are processed quickly - usually on the same day.

Establishing a good working relationship with your legal adviser, whether internal or external, may be a safety measure in itself.

John Lino (John Lino), partner of the Reed Smith LLP of the international Law Corporation and co chairman of the enterprise and securities business department, pointed out that lawyers can only work most effectively only if they maintain close contact with internal decision-makers.

He added that only in this way would lawyers be able to help companies "draw a line between legal compliance and financial compliance" in issues such as executive pay disclosure.

Stefan had a very close relationship with his internal legal advisers, and even himself became very sensitive to the dangerous signals in law.

Of course, companies sometimes need help from outside counsel.

"Especially when you are in a defensive situation - for example, a client threatens to sue you, or you receive a court summons that needs to appear in court."

Jamieson said.

In this case, the skills of CFO are quite important.

"It's like managing anything else," Stefan said. "The ideal candidate should be able to think about your interests, not just putting on airs or thinking about earning remuneration and reputation for himself."

He added that if you do not pay attention to this point, when the bill arrives, it will be regretful.

Seventh skills: communication skills

All stakeholders are increasingly looking forward to direct contact with CFO.

For CFO, both inside and outside the company, mastering different communication skills with different audiences will make financial performance better.

However, we need to make a lot of preparations to make ourselves able to represent the enterprises well in public.

Before the launch of Aruba Networks in March, the company's CFO Steffan (Stefan Tomlinson Tomlison) attended more than 20 telephone conferences, recording the questions asked by analysts, so as to cope with the situation easily when Aruba held its first conference call.

He realized that in answering questions, "proper tone and clear center are very important, especially on the phone", and from the commentary to competitors, "you can also see many hidden messages".

According to his description, in a telephone conference he attended, the executives of the company appeared to be too hesitant in answering certain questions, and the company was soon evaluated by analysts as weak.

Frequent phone calls, meetings, and public appearances may be exhausting, but Bright Horizon's CFO points out that the company still needs to concentrate.

"Sometimes you will take these jobs as a routine, and you will take it for granted to judge people's reactions," she said. "In fact, we should listen attentively."

If listeners are insiders, reduce terminology and use plain language.

"I have had many opportunities to work with many CFO who are not certified public accountants, and they can become CFO because they can organize financial data into practical information."

Bruce R Evans (Bruce R. Evans), managing partner of private Vc firm Summit Partners, said.

CFO is best able to provide some representative columns and graphs, rather than fill in numbers.

It is best not to speak too long.

"Maybe preparation is very complicated," said Mr gross. "But what the audience needs to know is just the title."

Eighth skills: set an example.

As the head of the financial department, CFO must play a leading and encouraging role and know when to act.

This is a delicate balance.

Joseph E Esposito (Joseph E. Esposito) is a newly departed CFO who worked in SolidWorks, a software company in Concord, Massachusetts.

Esposito pointed out: "CFO needs to prove its leadership, but at the same time, it should avoid interfering with other people's work."

This means providing guidance and advice from the perspective of executives, but also letting employees go to their daily operations.

Mr Brown also agrees with this view: "the title of CFO gives you the right to intervene in the work of other departments, but you have to make them feel that you are just a helper, and your intervention is to make them perform better."

But sometimes CFO has to get involved in arguments under pressure.

Esposito found that being a leader in short-term projects is a particularly effective way.

He said that as a certified public accountant, he often had the opportunity to lead a technology project, such as dealing with stock option accounting, and proved that his leadership also greatly reduced the burden on employees.

"This kind of work is really a mess for employees," he said. "They didn't know about it in the past and would not be able to contact again."

At the same time, little things will also play an important role.