Ep. 147: Jason Whitley - CFOs as Effective Business Partners

Contact Jason Whitley:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-whitley-18919711/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch
Roshong, and today's episode is number 147 in our series. The
featured guest speaker in today's conversation is Jason Whitley.
Jason is the chief financial officer at Phi Inc. And he comes to
count me in to share some of the knowledge he's gathered from his
over 30 years of global industry experience. While talking with
my cohost, Adam, Jason addresses how the CFO can become an
effective business partner and emphasizes the various skills one
should develop along the way. To hear more about what an aspiring
CFO needs to do to contribute to sustainable organizational
success, keep listening as we transition into the conversation
now. 
 
Adam: (00:57)
CFOs are now being looked to for governance, risk management,
business change, business resilience, technology advancement, and
the list goes on from there. Are the inherited skills, finance
and accounting professionals possess sufficient enough to make
decisions? And if not, what are some of the crucial skills they
need to evolve? 
 
Jason: (01:16)
Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great question. I would say that
the, you know, the CFO role has really transformed pretty rapidly
over the last several years and it's become, you know, one of the
most difficult jobs in the organization to do really well because
of the broad scope that you just mentioned. I know that, you
know, myself, me and my colleagues who aspired to the role over
the years, but it's really a job that's almost impossible to
fully prepare for and I don't think the skills are easily
inherited. You're expected many times to have a depth of
knowledge in several different areas. The ones you mentioned,
including, you know, treasury, accounting, risk management tax,
IT, controls. And then on top of all that you need to really have
a good in-depth knowledge of the business operations. If you want
to be an effective business partner. And it probably even left
out a few areas, but the point is that it's, it's really
extensive. It's difficult obviously to have depth of knowledge in
all of those areas. So inevitably you're going to enter the job
with some, some skill gaps. And I've seen this in my role. I've
seen it observed in probably every CFO that I've interacted with
in my career. And I think the key is really to surround yourself
with a team of folks that are they're technical experts in these
areas and ensure your weaknesses are really covered by their
strengths. I think it's also important to develop a strong
network. I need a network of mentors and a network of you know,
technology and technical aspects for service providers that you
can really draw on to supplement your knowledge and some of the
skill gaps that you have, or just to bounce ideas off, as the
time comes and things are needed, in that fashion. I guess, in
addition to, and as you alluded to in your question, and it's
really imperative that you develop and hone certain skills
throughout your career. And I think those can be developed in
many different functions and many different roles, but you know,
you're going to need these, if you really want to lead the team
and be proactive and addressing the problems that come up every
day in business. And I think some of those skills specifically
would be, you know, leadership, analytics, planning,
communication, and the strategic decision making. It's really key
that you're developing these kinds of skills throughout your
career. And those can be things that you develop in finance and
accounting. It could be in strategy, business development,
operations, or other functions, but, you know, every role should
involve developing, utilizing those skills. So that you're really
ready, when the time comes to take on all of the responsibility
and scope, that comes along with the CFO role. 
 
Adam: (04:07)
So as I hear you talking about all the skills that are involved,
one of the things I heard you mention was, having a good network
surrounding yourself with people, even people that are smarter
than you, I've heard, a lot of people say, it's almost like
you're being, almost like you have to be an effective business
partner. You have to connect with all these different people. So
we've covered some of the skills needed to evolve, then what's
next? 
 
Jason: (04:30)
Yeah, then I think it's, it is like you just said, you know,
becoming an effective business partner. I think the, you know,
the way that you do that, you know, first and foremost is you've
got to have the trust and respect of, you know, whoever it is.
You're partnering with the CEO, the general manager, plant
manager, department manager, you know, whoever it is you're
supporting as a finance leader, this comes through, you know,
basically experienced performance on the job. You know, sometimes
it develops quickly. Sometimes it takes some time, but every one
of my CFO roles has really evolved and become more impactful,
over time. So it was more impactful, I would say at the end than
it was at the beginning, as you know, I've developed trust and,
you know, and experience was gained, you know, with the
individual that I was partnering with and supporting. So I think
you have to realize you have to be flexible and, you know, one
approach to partnering is not necessarily going to be sufficient,
over your entire career. And I've seen really great business
partnerships and I've seen some not so great business
partnerships in these roles. You know, the one, you know, the
ones that didn't work out were usually sort of doomed from the
start. It was just, you know, a lack of trust, lack of respect,
or maybe appreciation for the role or function of the, of the
other person. and that was just something that was never
overcome, for one reason or another. So I think, you know, as I
mentioned, that's first and foremost, is that you gain trust and
respect. I think it's also important to know you can have two
really great people, you know, it can be world-class in their
respective functions and they still don't have really an
effective partnership because they can't work together as a team.
So it requires a lot of effort, you need to share information,
there needs to be, you know, information and thoughts being
shared on a two-way basis, you're working towards common goals
and as are said earlier, you really need to respect
responsibilities and the focus of each other. But if you, if you
get all of these in place, then you can really maximize the
effectiveness of both roles. I don't think either person can be
highly effective. I think, you know, they can still be effective
and really good, but I don't think they can be highly effective
and at their best, without really the help and support of the
other person. So it's imperative that the partnership work well,
you know, for the benefit of that team, for the company and
really for the organization overall. 
 
Adam: (06:53)
Now, Jason, there's something I've heard, you know, other CFOs,
your colleagues, your, your peers say and things I've read that
in IMA's research that, you know, the CFO of an organization must
not also miss not only be able to share insight, but also lead
through foresight. So when it comes to innovation data value, how
can the CFO navigate the challenges associated with forecasting
and best position the organization for sustainable success into
the future? 
 
Jason: (07:20)
Yeah, that's another really great question. I think it's one of
the biggest challenges for the CFO, but I think, you know, at the
end of the day, the CFO really has a great perspective with...