The recipe for CFOs driving growth and strategy

HFS recently interviewed Roy Simmons, CFO at GE Lighting, a Savant company, as part of our ongoing research on CFO priorities and the new Horizons of finance. He has more than two decades of experience with expertise in operational finance, financial planning and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and controllership. He is also responsible for the company’s strategy and growth in his current role.

During our conversation, Roy highlighted that CFOs play a strategic role in achieving business goals by building functional connections, influencing business decisions, and balancing the on-ground reality with measurable outcomes. Let’s dive into his take on how finance leads the transformational journey.

Finance plays the role of a business partner to achieve strategic objectives

The CFO role resides at the center of all organizational functions. It is positioned well to collaborate with key business stakeholders, analyze growth opportunities and risks, and devise an achievable roadmap toward strategic objectives.

Roy agrees that finance has a pivotal role in driving organizational ambitions with clear goals. He shares that the starting point is to assess existing business avenues and identify the white space and adjacent opportunities in collaboration with the larger business functions, such as marketing, product management, engineering, operations, and commercial teams.

The business assessment will help determine how enterprises can evolve and improve to tie outcomes with financial budgets and strategic imperatives. In addition, effectively achieving goals requires a continuous review process with leadership to balance operational realities and strategic priorities. The ownership lies with the CFO and the strategy function to turn business ambitions into a reality.

Roy states, “The way I achieve HFS Horizon 2 is by linking finance priorities to the future horizon, which means that it starts with long-term strategic planning—the three-to-five-year annual view of the business plan that shows not only what my existing business is going to bring to us, but also what are the white space opportunities. To achieve these goals, the first step is to involve every function in our business and ensure that the teams are working together. The finance organization sets the direction, while the localized functions implement the strategy and present it to the CEO and CFO. I believe each C-suite executive is responsible for their respective priorities, and they need to be interwoven with each other. We will need to have checkpoints throughout the year, which can vary in frequency depending on the nature of business and operations, to assess our progress. This can all be framed up in a cycle of board meetings, including reviews around people, compliance, and legal.”

The role of finance is evolving rapidly away from a transaction-focused function. Forward-thinking CFOs lead the transformational changes across the organization, becoming strategic partners who drive value.

Talent growth and visionary leadership are key pillars stabilizing long-term goals

Drive a culture of talent growth

Talent is the backbone of any successful transformation journey. Finance requires diverse skill sets to function in the changing operating environment. Employees should have well-rounded expertise to drive strategic thinking, enable cross-functional collaboration, and connect the dots across organizational functions.

Roy believes in talent cultivation for employees to better understand the business. Finance team members need to fulfill the dual role of a strategic and operational partner, and that is where an organization could focus on enhancing talent growth.

Roy shares, “I have sent finance leaders into commercial roles and supply chain roles, and they make some of the best operators because of the expertise that they have built. And that happens with this cross-pollination and because you are operationally connected from your finance roots. So, the benefit of operational connectivity combined with strategic thought leadership enables them to excel at their roles. I believe that in any C-suite role, a substantial portion of our time and effort should be spent on people, as talent is the differentiator in an organization. Human capital makes and creates a culture that allows people to deliver value for customers and creates a desire from them to stay with the company.”

Practice visionary leadership

Being a visionary leader is another key pillar in bringing alignment to futuristic thinking. Senior leaders could take a proactive approach in finding ways for people in the organization to focus on connecting the dots for future ambitions, challenging them to bring strategic viewpoints to the table, and enabling them to relate the value that an enterprise aims to deliver with more industry associations.

Roy highlights, “Creating proactive opportunities for employees to present their viewpoints in front of the leadership will fuel out-of-the-box thinking from the team and enable them to bring forward ideas to the leadership. Having a C-suite with visionary leadership is crucial to achieving success. In our case, having a visionary CEO who is focused on what the company will look like in five or 10 years helps make achieving HFS Horizon 3 goals easier. We constantly challenge ourselves to think differently and strive for more.”

The Bottom Line: Building a forward-thinking CFO organization requires visionary leadership, strong processes, and the ability to influence enterprise leaders and people.

In our conversations with business leaders, it has become clear that finance is emerging as the catalyst of change and becoming more instrumental in steering the organization and its people to the right strategic direction. Finance aims to bring more collaboration between employees and organizational goals. It is influencing the business roadmap, going beyond just being a back-office function and number crunchers.

In our upcoming market report in partnership with professional services firm Genpact, we will explore CFOs’ viewpoints and learn how forward-thinking CFOs are changing the very nature of enterprise finance. Stay tuned!