As the year closes, so does another busy period of finance conferences. Since the gems uttered by seasoned finance chiefs at events can easily be missed, even by those in attendance, we’ve compiled a small selection of CFO quotes from two of the many conferences we’ve covered.
It turns out that CFOs, traditionally not known for their management prowess, had much to say about taking care of and inspiring their staffers and colleagues.
Amid all the noise about the fraying relationship between managers and workers and the growing divisions among generations in the workplace, the following stories are a reminder — all is not lost. They bring to mind the words of Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma: "Management is the opportunity to help people become better people.”
Pathways to CFO
The value of an accounting degree
Rob Davis, CEO, Merck (formerly CFO, 2016-2021)
Corporate Financial Reporting Insights Conference, hosted by FEI, November 14
“People think of accounting as a very black and white, rule-driven [but] there's a lot of judgment and gray areas. [Being an accountant] takes a deep appreciation and understanding of the business to apply [the rules]. The skillset you get from basic accounting is a building block you can take anywhere, to a controller role or into public accounting.
Still, it's also just a great generalist education. I always felt that I would have been more well-rounded if I had had that experience. I think it would have prepared me very well for the pathway I took.”
Lessons Learned from Mentors
Encouraging investment but also monitoring it
Paul Jacobson, CFO, General Motors
CFRI Conference
“The [former] CEO of Delta, Richard Anderson, shared with me in one succinct phrase what the role of a CFO is. He said, ‘The role of the CFO is to take the organization in a direction that it naturally does not want to go.’
It took me a while to understand that, but when we think about organizations being dynamic, living, breathing things, they want to grow; they want to expand. And we [as CFOs] have to rein that in, sometimes with discipline, and ensure we're seeking the best returns and risk-return trade-offs for the organization.”
Making it hard for employees to leave
Susan Lynch, Board Member, Allegro MicroSytems (former CFO, V2X)
Strategic CFO Forum, hosted by StrategicCFO360, December 5
“Early in my career, one of the things my mentor at Honeywell did was invite my husband and me out for dinner with him and his wife. It was the first time a boss had ever done that. So, at dinner, I asked him, ‘Bill, why did you invite me and my husband out for dinner?’ And he said, ‘Susan, it’s because now I know another side of you. And now you know another side of me. We're like family, and it will be harder for you to leave the company because you will be leaving your family.’ I always took that with me. I've treated my employees contrary to the way I was raised, which was to keep my personal and professional lives separate.”
Changing the mindset in a crisis
Christopher Le Caillec, CFO, American Express
CFRI Conference
“In 2006, I was the CFO [of Amex’s] Asia business. We had a big credit crisis in Taiwan. When the market blew up, our vice chairman flew to Asia. I remember saying to my wife, ‘It’s possible I may lose my job on this one because I had my fingerprints over all of this.’
The vice chair started the meeting by saying something like, ‘I don't care how we got into this mess. The only thing I care about at this stage is how are we going to get out of it, and who's going to get us out of it?’ And that completely shifted my energy from being very defensive about the decision[s] that I had made to offering two or three solutions for every problem we faced.”
Employee Management
Training the next generation
Leeny Oberg, CFO, Marriott International
Strategic CFO Forum
“The folks now joining our organization generally have a bit less experience and are perhaps a bit younger. Our industry clearly suffered a severe shock with COVID-19. And we're still recovering on the people front because we were forced to do furloughs to make sure the company could survive. … I think because attention spans are shorter than they used to be, exposing people to many different parts of the company in different roles early on in their careers is hugely helpful.”
Running sprints, not marathons
Susan Lynch, Allegro MicroSystems (former CFO, V2X)
Strategic CFO Forum
“We did a merger last year on July 5, and virtually doubled in size, and we had all these SEC filings and proxies that we had to do, and we had to change our independent auditor. We had so much going on, I coined a term with my team. I told them, ‘We have to run sprints, not marathons.’
“I told people we would look at their time cards and see how much they were working. They're all type-A personalities. I would say, ‘You need to cut your hours back’ or ‘Take the weekend off because we're going to have a proxy filing in 45 days and it's going to be intense.’ … Because we ran sprints, not marathons, we were able to retain the entire team; I had no regrettable turnover.”
Giving and receiving feedback
Susan Li, CFO, Meta
CFRI Conference
“One of the things we say at Meta is that feedback is a gift. It sounds a bit trite, but as I've grown in my career, I found it to be true. Early in your career, getting feedback can feel like someone is criticizing you. It can be challenging to internalize. But when the tables are turned, and you're a manager giving feedback, you realize how hard it is to give constructive feedback to someone else… It asks a lot of the person giving the feedback to do it well and thoughtfully and to be as candid as possible.
[Giving feedback] made me appreciate that for someone to go through the effort of giving feedback to me means they're invested in me and they care about helping me get better at what I'm doing.”