More demanding job for today's CFO

More demanding job for today's CFO
By Lois Calderon | Posted: 05 July 2011 2239 hrs
     
SINGAPORE : The rapidly changing business environment has given the chief financial officer (CFO) a greater role in an organisation.

CFOs do more than just keeping the books and manage company finances; rather they've become the alter-ego of a company's chief executive officer (CEO), according to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Industry officials said the CFO is now a strategist and has a bigger voice in running the organisation together with the CEO.

Gautam Banerjee, Executive Chairman of PwC Singapore, said: "It is quite a multifaceted role that the CFO has to perform. He or she obviously has to be on top of financial and accounting issues, and also to provide insight to the CEO about how the business should be ran, about managing and motivating a whole team of people in the finance department, as well as working in partnership with other business unit leaders - with the sales and marketing, with mergers and acquisitions, with operations."

Industry players said that means the job would require not only technical skills, but also so-called soft skills such as being able to communicate, in addition to understanding what drives business.

Risk management and corporate governance are also on the CFO's job description list.

"A CFO, if he wants to become a successful member of the management team, dealing with both his financial counterparts and more importantly with general management people, line managers, it's important that he has good communication skills, PR skills, the ability to be able to press his point of view, and have mutual respect with his colleagues," said Shanker Iyer, chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce.

"So the ability to get on with people, see the bigger picture is very much an intricate part of today's modern day CFO," he added.

The ACCA has been conducting quarterly roundtable discussions as it prepares accounting professionals for the wider role.

But accounting experts said that there is an even bigger challenge as there exists a significant talent crunch in the industry.

An ACCA survey of accounting firms in the Asia Pacific region conducted late last year showed 81 per cent of those polled in Singapore believed a skills shortage in finance and accounting exists.

Singapore and Hong Kong ranked highest in describing the talent crunch as "chronic".

- CNA /ls

- wong chee tat :)