How to get noticed as an outstanding FD (and get the top jobs)

Friday, November 05, 2010 | Posted by: Fiona Cullinan
Categories: Thought Leadership | Tags: statistics, report, survey, data, CEO, international, FD, CFO, Directorbank, talent, finance director, skills, commercial, communication, networking, career, chief exec, experience, expertise, accountants

What FD skills were most highly rated by 350 directors in our new survey, researched in conjunction with Directorbank. Plus, five top finance directors give their views on how to get the top jobs.

Free download
You can download the full survey results and report What makes an outstanding FD? as a free PDF. Or, to read just the key findings, see our post on Elevate – for business leaders

To be outstanding, our interviewed FDs listed the top key attributes:

• Excellent communication skills – with the board, across the business as a whole, and with shareholders and the outside world.
• Wider people skills, particularly the ability to lead a high-calibre team.
• Commerciality and in-depth understanding of the business, its markets and customers.
• The ability to support and challenge the chief executive.
• An affinity with numbers and the ability to interpret them for others.

Today’s outstanding FD has emerged as a much more rounded, commercial business leader than his or her counterpart of 10 or 20 years ago. He or she is a great communicator who can win the trust of colleagues across the business and is a partner to the CEO – and very often a CEO-in-waiting. 

Many of the outstanding FDs nominated in the report were qualified accountants – though there are a few exceptions – and most started their careers in a professional firm. Some had augmented their professional qualification with an MBA, which they said gave them a broader base of understanding than the essential but ‘narrower’ accountancy qualification.

The career themes for outstanding FDs were:

• They grasped opportunities – even if it meant doing projects or roles that were not particularly appealing. This got them noticed and earmarked as someone with high potential.
• Those who started in the profession mostly moved into industry as quickly as possible.
• Most deliberately looked for ways to add value to their CV early on.
• They quickly built up a variety of experience in a number of roles, sectors and geographies.
• They pushed themselves out of their comfort zones into situations often seen as beyond their capability – and often this was the thing that made their careers take off.

A lot of the FDs we interviewed talked about learning from watching those around them – spotting what impressive people were doing and adopting these behaviours. A number also talked about seeking out mentors and asking “first-class people” to tell them how they were doing.

There was no sense of ever feeling an outstanding FD has learnt enough – no matter what level they had reached, all were keen to keep learning, even from the younger generation.

International experience is a bonus
Most of our outstanding FDs had worked in international businesses at some stage of their career – and invariably said yes to projects and promotions overseas. This exposure to global business and different working cultures and mindsets had proved invaluable in landing top jobs later. Today, with international trade being the norm for most businesses, this experience is perhaps more important than ever before.

Going overseas often provides the opportunity to do more variety of work and at a more senior level than could have been achieved in a head office, “doing many more things than you normally were allowed – the sorts of things you don’t normally see till you get to the very top”.

Networking vital for visibility
Most agreed that headhunters had been important to them and while networking was not seen as a natural activity for many FDs, all our outstanding FDs had learnt to become better at this and had become more visible as a result. All agreed that networking is an important skill for an FD if they want to progress.

Our respondents said:

“I managed to change every Unilever subsidiary I worked for by a bit, had them adapt to how I liked things to be done. So Unilever sent me to France. I couldn’t change France. They knew that and they taught me to adapt to France. The language was a practical skills challenge – it took me six hours to clear my mail every evening until I became fluent. It made me understand I needed to listen.”
Sir Richard Lapthorne, Chair, Cable & Wireless Communications Plc

“I chose to join a Big 4 firm in Birmingham in preference to London as I was interested in the industrial sector, and I got to work for clients such as Jaguar and GKN.”
Neil O’Brien, CEO, Alkane Energy Plc

“The big turning point was joining Whessoe Group as financial controller.  Within 12 months, my FD left and I was offered the opportunity to be Group Finance Director of a Plc at 33, which I took with both hands. It catapulted me into the arena where everybody knows who you are, your name gets mentioned.”
Barbara Richmond, Group FD, Redrow Plc

“I had some great opportunities early in my career which required moving overseas to not-so-attractive places.  I shied away, sticking to London. If I’d gone overseas, my experience would have grown far more rapidly and I’d have learnt much more about the world rather than being just UK-centric.”
Richard Guest, CFO, Stock Spirits Group

“You’ve got to stretch yourself as soon as you’re getting to your comfort level, what you really need then is another challenge and that’s how you get big jobs at an early age.”
Richard Ashton, Group FD, Home Retail Group Plc

As always, we welcome your thoughts on this and any other aspects of the What makes an outstanding FD? report. Inherent in any top-performing organisation is an effective top team. For our approach to reviewing board effectiveness (required under the Combined Code), please visit our Governance Advisory page.

You might also find these posts useful:

* Is your FD a chief exec or chair in waiting?
* Two CEOs, two diaries, two tough business challenges
* Growing clash between front-end spin and back-end data in annual reports, says FRRP