Beyond bean counting
Article Date: Feb 01 2007Some trends, however, are working against allowing the finance director a more strategic role. In particular, new accounting and corporate governance requirements are imposing new responsibilities, adding to pressures for a further division of roles between the chief financial officer (strategic) and the finance director (nitty-gritty) – at least in larger companies that can afford it.
As Jonathan Hook of accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers puts it, IFRS, which became obligatory for AIM companies in January, has been a ‘big challenge’, with its different treatment of goodwill, options, pension obligations and a string of precise, small-print requirements. ‘In truth, small and medium-sized companies don’t have the resources for anyone but the finance director to handle this,’ he comments.
Chris Thompson, the new CEO of the Inter Link food group, agrees. ‘IFRS places more responsibility at the feet of finance directors; the demands are much more rigorous than they used to be,’ he says.
Risk management
Meanwhile, quoted companies face the need to provide a ‘risk register’, showing what business risks they have identified, how they are monitoring them and what stage
they have reached at any time. And all companies, both public and private, are now confronted with the obligation to put a ‘business review’ into their annual reports, in place of the old directors’ report.
In addition to the traditional operating review, this must contain financial information and reports addressing health and safety and employee issues. ‘It encompasses far more detail about how companies function and it will force the finance team to be focused on all sorts of areas of business formerly seen as purely operational,’ he says.
Peter Lunio, director of business improvement at accountant Baker Tilly, says the initial impact of IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley threatened to reverse the trend towards operational roles and force finance directors back into a narrow, box-ticking role. ‘Auditors have become less friendly and investors are more suspicious, leaving the finance director out on a limb.
‘We are now “over the hump” on these changes,’ Lunio continues, ‘but as a result it’s now all less collegiate and more confrontational. The pressures are greater and the turnover in finance directors is higher than it was, as the job involves spending
ever more time striving to ensure there are no surprises.’
Linchpin and successor
The finance director is often considered the natural successor to the company chief, particularly in fast-growth companies. Chris Thompson of Inter Link took this route to the top himself and is emphatic that a finance director needs to be ‘the commercial eyes and ears of the business’. More than that, he maintains they ‘need to be aware of all the influences on a business before they make an impact’.
He goes on to argue that it’s the finance director who is in a position to see and understand all the links in a business, such as those between stocks, production, purchasing and creditors. ‘An excellent grasp of business dynamics stands you in good stead for the top job in the company,’ he says.
Now that FDs are developing the skills to be strategists, corporate financiers, legal experts, communicators and people managers, competition for high-quality players is fierce. Whether they retain the title, become chief financial officers or adopt some other transatlantic designation, Thompson says the role is becoming ‘an even better breeding ground for chief executives’.
As a result, Peter Lunio argues that the current climate is breeding a new type of FD able to be much more choosy about their career path, with the boss’s chair very much in view.
