We use first and third-party cookies for analytical and statistical purposes and to show you personalised advertisements based on a profile compiled from your browsing habits (e.g. pages visited). For more information, click on our Cookie Policy. You can accept all cookies by pressing 'Accept', you can reject all cookies by pressing 'Reject', or you can customize your choice by pressing 'Manage'.
Strategy and innovation
CFO Frontline Report: This is what CFOs look like and how they imagine themselves in the future.
A more sophisticated CFO who gains positions by leading the business' digitalisation process and strengthening the capital structure to be able to weather the storms ahead.
The most prominent CFO Frontline Report se avanzaron el pasheadlines were presented last Thursday, 17 March at the conference “ado jueves 17 de marzo en la jornada “To find out the future of the CFO, listen to those who are leading it”. Five CFOs -Endesa, Opticalia, Barceló, Green Energy and Bankinter- spoke at the session, the experience of a CFO turned CEO, Ana Clavero, was heard and Loreto González, an expert in the difficult responsibility of selecting financial directors for large companies, outlined some key ideas.
The discussion turned inevitably to the war, the pandemic and how we have entered a new era where predictability is the exception and where change and volatility are the norm.
It was also the stage for the launch of the communication, meeting and training channel for directors and financial professionals that Bankinter has created: CFO Forum.
As Jacobo Díaz, Chief Financial Officer for Bankinter, pointed out at the start of the session, it is a space where good practices can be shared and where the CFO can gain visibility and convey the new strategic role he plays in companies.
And what could be better than allowing those involved to voice their opinion, which is precisely the objective of the first edition of the CFO Frontline Report, a national survey in which 150 chief financial officers from Spanish companies with a turnover between 5 and 50 million euros participated and which sheds light on the main traits of the CFO of the future. The survey will take place annually and over the years to observe and detect trends.
A report, as pointed out by Laura de la Quintana, journalist for El Economista and event moderator, which aspires to be a national benchmark for financial directors.
Download 2022 CFO Frontline Report
Ana Clavero: the CFO who loved numbers and believed in people
As a child, Ana Clavero dreamed of numbers, although what she really wanted was to discover what makes people tick. The most natural thing would have been to study Psychology, but she soon understood that understanding people was more difficult than doing it with numbers. So, with her Business Studies degree under her arm, she joined the wineries Emilio Moro and Cepa 21, on the banks of the Duero River, at the age of 25. First she worked in Administration, then as CFO and, in record time, as CEO.
“Numbers gave me confidence. But I began to question everything, to ask, out of curiosity, never judging. I was always challenging the data”, she told those present at the conference. So they decided to name her CFO of both wineries.
Ana Clavero thus contributed her inspiration and the experience of her professional evolution, increasingly natural in companies, from Finance to General Management. “Few people in the company share the CFO's insight. You are planning 4 or 5 years in advance. You are working in the present, but looking at what is going to happen in the future. That gave me a lot of insight”, she explained.
“What aren't accounts are stories ('lo que no son cuentas, son cuentos')”, a teacher once told her. She had planned this phrase throughout the whole meeting, and it caused smiles and also led to a debate. However, from her position at the head of the wineries, she asks CFOs to never lose that insight that we were talking about. “Go beyond the data, go beyond the numbers and think a lot about people. Because people are not numbers”, said the number 1 at Emilio Moro. Because it is also the CFO's job to care for and nurture talent and understand the new generations.
Ana Clavero invited the CFOs to dream big. It may seem pretentious, or idealistic, but there is an explanation: only with your feet on the ground can you scale the heights. CFOs, she reminded them, have their feet on the ground -the numbers- and their eyes on the horizon: always anticipating the future.
And what does the CFO of the future look like?
The CFO Frontline Report, in addition to depicting the daily life of a CFO and their concerns and challenges, puts the image in motion. Where is that CFO going? The answer lies in 25% of the respondents that the authors of the report identify with a new transformational and strategic role.
“The CFO of the future is a figure that differs from the standard. They are people who see the role as evolving, not static. It is a more strategic and less operational profile than the more classic CFO”, explained Loreto González, a partner at Korn Ferry, during the presentation of the report.
A CFO who in recent years has had to become more sophisticated, believe themselves bigger and act as a catalyst for all areas of the company, with a growing responsibility towards the shareholder and the international investor, as defined by Adolfo García, Chief Financial Officer for Endesa. “The CFO has taken a step forward”, said Laura de la Quintana: from the office to the front line.
These are some of the traits that can be found in CFOs who can anticipate the future and that Loreto González outlined as part of the CFO Frontline Report:
- Directly involved in strategy. thanks to their 360º vision.
- Evolving career.
- They collaborate more actively with other areas. They are business facilitators.
- They form teams that are more focused on analysis and data.
- They make decisions about the company's technology profile and the tools to achieve it.
- They are able to turn numbers into a story: data storytelling.
“When we went to the office we sat at a table with legs. Now we have wheels.”
Loreto González heard this quote from a friend years ago. It is a graphic description of the change that CFOs have experienced. The CFO now moves around the whole organisation and is longer that numbers guy locked away in his office.
And let's not forgetting his purely economic-financial role. As the CFO selection expert pointed out during the session, both the CEO and the rest of the organisation consider the CFO to be the data owner, but they do not want any beating around the bush or unnecessary technicalities. They will tell you: “I want to press a button and for the number to appear”.
Marta Alonso, CFO for Opticalia, also sees the CFO as a cross-cutting role who interacts with other departments, giving a horizontal view across the company. “We are taking on the role of advisors to CEOs and their strategic partners”, he explained. It is a time of more inward and upward visibility. The CFO guides the other departments while also helping the CEO with decision-making. Because, as Vicente Fenollar, CFO for Grupo Barceló, pointed out during the round table, these days“ any business within the company goes through the CFO”.
Crises are no longer going to be circumstantial: from now on we are going to live surrounded by change and permanent volatility
“It is time for us to be seen. In times of crisis, the chief financial officer plays a key role in companies”, according to Ana Clavero. Brexit, supply and energy crises, container shortages, a pandemic and, now, a war with atavisms from the 19th Century in 21st Century Europe.
This perfect storm of misfortunes has put the CFOs of Spanish companies to the test. They have learned a big lesson having had to sort out companies following the 2008 crisis, and they have used their financial muscle to get ahead. Years of prudence, of strengthening the balance sheet, as Vicente Fenollar highlighted when explaining the experience of his hotel group, have borne fruit.
According to the CFO Frontline Report, legislation is the number 1 concern for Spanish CFOs. As Emi Takehara, CFO for Green Energy, acknowledged, managing these regulatory and legislative changes is paramount, especially in a company like his that operates in 10 countries.
“The environment can suddenly change”, according to Adolfo García, from Endesa. Flexibility, the ability to adapt and a prepared and motivated management team are the answer. The CFO's role means having the company armed and prepared for what may come”, explained the CFO for Endesa. “It is important to have done the work beforehand”.
“Not a month goes by without there being a different impact on our business. Regulatory frameworks are very complex in our sector. There are negative impacts, but also positive ones that support renewables”, noted the energy company's CFO. In this case, the solution lies in having legal, strategic and compliance teams, both internal and external.
“The CFO must be on the Management Committee. And if they are not, they need to ask to be”
The CFO's presence on the Management Committee is taken for granted in listed companies with strong international standing. However, although it sounds paradoxical, there are still companies in Spain where this is not the case. There is great emphasis on the G for Governance in ESG criteria at the moment, as Vicente Fenollar pointed out.
“The CFO needs to be on the Management Committee. If any CFO is not yet on it, they need to ask to be”, stressed the CFO for Barceló. If the CFO is always asked to come up with the solution, there is no point in marginalising them from the top rungs of the organisation. As Emi Takehara pointed out, CEOs are always waiting for their CFO to come up with new solutions and they expect them to always have a Plan B and Plan C in place.
There was a lot of discussion during the session about the new skills that CFOs need to have. One that came up the most was the ability to lead teams. Marta Alonso, from Opticalia, mentioned another skill that future CFOs need to develop: communication. “We are highly analytical and we speak in a financial language that is difficult for others to follow”, she acknowledged.
Summarising, learning to talk to everyone, mastering data storytelling…it something CFOs still need to address. Communication is not just managing the narrative, as Adolfo García explained: it is also knowing how to listen. “You need to be able to permeate the whole of the organisation”, observed Endesa's CFO, and that is not just a matter of internal organisation, but of attitude and skills.
