如何成为某某年的CFO.docx

CFO
2010

IFAC
Financial and Management Accounting Committee

January 2002

The Role of the Chief
Financial Officer in 2010

Issued by the International
Federation of Accountants

The mission of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is the worldwide development and enhancement of an accountancy profession with harmonized standards, able to provide services of consistently high quality in the public interest.

This booklet was prepared by the Financial Management Accounting Committee (FMAC) of IFAC. The mission of FMAC is:
• To encourage, amplify and supplement programs that focus on the financial and management accountant, as conducted by IFAC Member Bodies to:
◦ Provide for the development and support of such professionals; and
◦ Build public awareness, understanding and demand for their services;
• To provide an international forum for exchange of information regarding current development and emerging issues that shape the management accounting profession.

The FMAC welcomes any comments you have on this booklet. Comments should be sent to:
Technical Director
International Federation of Accountants
535 Fifth Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, New York 10017-3610 USA
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Copies of this paper may be downloaded free of charge from the IFAC website at .

Copyright © January 2002 by the International Federation of Accountants. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the International Federation of Accountants.

ISBN: 1-887464-77-8

FOREWORD
The Financial and Management Accounting Committee (FMAC) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) explores emerging trends and seeks to represent contemporary best practice in the domain of accounting work concerned with the management of organizations. This is done primarily through a range of publications: annual theme booklets, an annual collection of articles of merit, research studies, International Management Accounting Practice Statements (IMAPS) and guides for practitioners. These publications are available through the IFAC website at .

Past theme booklets have covered topics like Management Accountancy in the Year 2004 and The Senior Financial Officer in the Year 2005. Such has been the speed of change that these documents describe practice today.

A recent study (No. 11) examined A Profession Transforming: From Accounting to Management. This explored emerging trends from the view of 12 member bodies of IFAC representing six countries. Four of the bodies are specialist associations looking at the field of management accounting; the remaining eight are professional bodies seeking to be more responsive, and more representative, of their members working in management-related roles, in business and public practice.

The study explored the 12 professional associations in varying stages and states of transition to the future and each told their own story to date. The insights and changes they were pursuing individually were collectively indicative of an underlying or imminent transformation in the profession.

This is best summarized by stating that the findings identified that the finance function in organizations was transforming – in terms of a value added managerial focus, its area of organizational involvement, the capabilities expected from it and its leadership (the Chief Financial Officer), the consolidation, elimination or outsourcing of much of its work responsibilities, and the radical reduction of its headcount.

It seemed sensible, therefore, to canvas the views of 10 leading chief financial officers to get them to tell their stories. This theme booklet is the result of that exercise. Once again, the members of FMAC identified leaders in their field across many countries, businesses and public sectors. They agreed that this story would be best described through the facilitation of a leading author, and enrolled the help of Robert Bruce, Accountancy Editor of The Times.

The Chief Financial Officers are all from companies with easily recognizable names and with views from North America and Europe, together with countries like Argentina and Hong Kong. We thank them for the time they gave to the interviews, but especially for their candid comments and for sharing their insights. It was encouraging, from an FMAC viewpoint, to note that all of them address the role of the CFO in the strategic direction of their companies.

Other notable topics covered included investor relations, acquisitions and the CFO role in corporate governance and risk management.

This theme booklet, The Role of the Chief Financial Officer in 2010, tells the story from the individual viewpoints of these CFOs which can be seen in the themes chosen:

Developing a Vision for the Future
Managing the Information Flow
Moving Away from Transactions
Treasury Will Take Priority
Becoming the Process Owner
Part of the Team – But Apart
Chief Planning Officer
Strategic Changes to the Finance Role
Concern About Global Markets
The Importance of Communication

This rich vein of insights, together with our study of a profession transforming from accounting to management, will fuel the work of FMAC in the coming years.

The strategy of FMAC addresses:
• Thought leadership in expanding the field of practice known as management accounting;
• Sharing of best practice in this field globally; and
• Assisting developing countries as they explore the benefits of management accounting.

Finally, my thanks to those members of FMAC who organized this project to bring these leading interviews to our attention. This group consisted of:
Bill Connell, Director of Risk Management, BOC Group plc;
Chris Jackson, Head of the Faculty of Finance and Management, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales;
Gary Luoma, Professor, University of South Carolina;
Richard Mallett, Technical Director, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants;
Frank Moers, University of Maastricht; and
John Morrow, Vice President, The New Finance, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

BILL CONNELL
Chairman

Members of the Financial & Management Committee:
William Connell, Chair, United Kingdom

Santiago C. Lazzati, Argentina
David Jeffries, Australia
Gerhard Prachner, Austria
Dr. Khalid A. Ateeq, Bahrain
Raymond G. Darke, Canada
Pascal Giraud, France
Peter A.M. Sampers, Netherlands
Muhammad Aslam, Pakistan
Marco Antonio Zaldivar, Peru
Zein El Abdin El Boraie Ahmed, Sudan
Gary Luoma, United States of America

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
An Overview by Robert Bruce, Accountancy Editor of The Times .1

INTERVIEWS
The following interviews were conducted by Robert Bruce:
Carlos Olivieri: Developing a Vision for the Future
Quilmes Industrial, Argentina 3
John Schmoll: Managing the Information Flow
Coles Myer, Australia 7
Angela Holtham: Moving Away from Transactions
Nabisco, Canada 11
Heinz-Joachim Neubürger: Treasury Will Take Priority
Siemens, Germany 15
Jan Hommen: Becoming the Process Owner
Philips, Holland 19
Norman Lyle: Part of the Team – But Apart
Jardine Matheson, Hong Kong 23
Sten Fornell: Chief Planning Officer
Ericsson, Sweden 27
Tony Isaac: Strategic Changes to the Finance Role
BOC Group, United Kingdom 31
Iain Lumsden: Concern About Global Markets
Standard Life, United Kingdom 35
John Connors: The Importance of Communication
Microsoft, United States 39

CFO
2010
The CFO and the
Role of Information
Overview by Robert Bruce

A couple of insights from two of the Chief Financial Officers interviewed during this project sum up the scale of the change they expect across the next decade. John Connors is CFO of Microsoft. “People will have access to information in a way that they never had in the past,” he said, “which means the premium on communicating financial information will be enormous.” Jan Hommen is global CFO of the electronic giant, Philips. His message was simpler but no less apocalyptic. “The speed at which you will have to do things will be mind-boggling,” he said.

The interviews with 10 of the greatest CFOs of our era around the world covered a wide range of issues. But it was always information, its uses and power, which lay at the heart of what they were saying. They also thought that the role of the CFO would move towards one where acting as guardian of that information and acting as a steward and compliance officer was the central responsibility. They thought that the position of the CFO as a pivotal role within a corporate structure would continue and the relationship with the CEO, whether as restraining influence, guardian of the corporate conscience, or as the real strategist behind the board’s plans, would be at the heart of that.

They felt that the changes within the role of the CFO would reflect the way the finance function would become a process system, with much of it outsourced or achieved through joint ventures. They felt that the finance function had to remain the bedrock but had to become more strategy-oriented. This would change the nature of the people who became CFOs. Out would go the figures-based CFO and in would come leaders with strong personalities and a wide understanding of markets and cultural issues.

The essence of the changes predicted was that the role of the CFO in the year 2010 would be shaped by their position on a global corporate stage.

Norman Lyle, Group Finance Director of Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, summed up the way CFOs would change. “The CFO,” he said, “needs to guard the information. The CFO is now often seen as the automatic deputy CEO and is the person who deals with the outside world’. John Schmoll, CFO of Coles Myer, Australia’s largest retail group, thought the CFOs of the year 2010 “will have to be experts at interpreting the information and communicating it to the organization.” Sten Fornell, CFO of telecommunications giant Ericsson, suggested that, as already happens in technology companies, “you are pretty deep in the operational side and you don’t work very much with pure finance.”

“In the future,” said Tony Isaac, who progressed from CFO to CEO at BOC, the industrial gases giant based in the UK, “much of the CFO’s role will include strategic planning, financial planning and risk management.” Iain Lumsden, currently Finance Director of Standard Life, the giant Edinburgh-based financial services group, is another who is about to become CEO. But he provides a note of skepticism about the growth of information. “I haven’t seen a corresponding increase in useful information,” he said. “There has been a huge increase in useless information.”

But it is the global which dominates. Angela Holtham, who recently stepped down as CFO of Nabisco in Canada, was clear on that. “It is all going to be global,” she said. “Everything about a business needs to be global and less and less specific to any given country.”

These changes will, in their turn, change the responsibilities of the CFO. “The CFO will need the conviction and courage to stand up to their business colleagues,” said Norman Lyle. “For example, when a proposed acquisition just doesn’t make sense, the CFO will need to be able to articulate why this is the case and hold his corner.” And that will mean a very different type of person. “We are looking for people who are happy not to work in the back room but happy to work on the front foot,” said John Schmoll. “People who enjoy communicating and working in teams.” And that means that many more CFOs in the year 2010 will have arrived at their role via line-management responsibilities rather than the traditional route via the finance function. “People have to understand the business and have a strong financial background,” said John Connors. “But CFOs who did not serve in the finance function will become much more common.”

The overall impression given by these 10 CFOs from around the world is one of confidence. The role of the CFO is a strong one and its growth, as the predictions of the year 2010 make clear, is assured. That growth will be based on complex information and its fast delivery but also based firmly on the strengthening of the CFO as the pivotal and increasingly powerful role within the corporate entity of the future.

CFO
2010
Developing a Vision for the Future
An interview with Carlos Olivieri

Carlos Olivieri is Chief Financial Officer of Quilmes Industrial S.A. In addition, he teaches finance at two Argentine universities and is a visiting professor at Michigan University, US. He is former CFO of YPF (the largest company in Argentina). Quilmes Industrial is a large beverage company based in Buenos Aires, with a 60% share of the beer market in the southern cone. It has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1996.

For a CFO, Latin America is a very different environment to that of Europe. The sheer volatility of the various economies makes CFOs look upon Europe as a haven of comparatively well ordered finances. And it also means that the work of a CFO is subtly different. All this is exemplified in the thoughts of Carlos Olivieri, CFO of Quilmes Industrial which, based in Buenos Aires, is one of the largest beer and soft drinks companies in the region.

“In emerging markets,” he said, “the CFO has to pay attention to the economies of all the countries involved, like Brazil and Argentina for example.” With inflation or interest rates traditionally running high and erratically there is a very different focus. “It is very different to the US or Europe,” said Olivieri, “where you can predict changes in the economy. Here the changes are so dramatic and the impact of those changes is very important to us.” And a CFO in this environment has to answer very different questions from analysts around the world. “The analysts are very interested in the consequences of government action,” he points out.

That is the background to the world within which Olivieri, as a CFO, has to operate. The nature of the company is different, too. Quilmes Industrial is, in Olivieri’s words, “one company with three different partners.” It is in a certain way a family-owned company (the Bemberg family controls the company), its shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Heineken holds a 15% stake.

So for Olivieri there are three crucial strands to his role as CFO.

First, there is strategy and mergers and acquisition work. “In the last few years the company has moved from producing only beer,” he said. “We have bought several subsidiaries in connection with Pepsi-Cola.” So from a company