Rita Akushie is pro vice-chancellor (finance and operations) at University of London and former CFO at Cancer Research UK. Here, she advocates for CFO’s flexing their spending muscles for good and the impact of clear and concise reporting.
This interview was conducted as part of research by the Board Intelligence think tank, in partnership with ICAEW, Accounting for Sustainability, and Odgers Berndtson, into the CFO’s role in creating a fairer future. To see more CFO insights click here.
What does it mean to you to be a CFO today?
As I see it, the CFO’s role is to chart the organisation’s direction of travel alongside the CEO. Being successful takes superb communication with the CEO and a robust relationship that means you can tell them the unvarnished good, bad, and ugly without raising unnecessary tensions.
Alongside supporting the CEO, a critical aspect of the CFO’s day-to-day life is ensuring solvency, even (or maybe especially) when wanting to do good. As CFO, you have to assess the potential impact — whole impact — of an investment and whether or not it furthers your mission. Ultimately, you get both the challenge and joy of weaving it all together in a way that maximises your impact whilst still being sustainable. You can’t do anything without cash, and pursing ‘doing good’ in an overzealous way can prove unsustainable; too many good things can and will break an organisation.
What advice would you give to a new CFO or aspiring CFO?
Start the work early on to really get to know what the organisation is about and what it’s there to do. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been there for twenty years or twenty minutes; organisations are constantly changing. This is especially important as CFO as it broadens your perspective of the organisation to one that takes everything into account and not just the financials. One of the worst things you can do as CFO is to simply do the role of an accountant and nothing more.
“One of the worst things you can do as CFO is to simply do the role of an accountant and nothing more.”
Hiring the right people is the first and most crucial step. Over time, I learned that I didn’t necessarily need to be surrounded by a team of total superstars; I needed a team where individuals’ skillsets complemented each other’s and brought in different perspectives. And, once you’ve got the right team, there is simply no substitute for spending time with them and no shortcut to reach the benefits you get by doing so.
“Once you’ve got the right team, there is simply no substitute for spending time with them and no shortcut to reach the benefits you get by doing so.”
How does your broader CFO role view apply to your finance reporting?
Although everybody’s style is different, I think that clear finance reports are immensely appreciated by everyone on the Board. Often, people who haven’t worked in finance can be quite apprehensive when dealing with it as they lack confidence in that area. Although they’ll be brilliant at their role, they won’t necessarily know what you’re talking about if you load your report with jargon they don’t understand. And, although nobody wants to admit when they don’t know something, you can see clearly when they’re struggling to understand what the finance report is telling them. Ensuring that your reports are clear and easily understood goes a long way in demystifying the finance report and makes it much easier to engage with.
As the CFO, I use myself as the test for whether the length of our papers and the level of detail they go into is too great. I imagine I’ve got the shortest attention span out of anyone on the Board, so if I can’t get through a report without losing interest and the flow of the report then it’s a sure-fire sign that the paper is too long and needs to be cut down.
“Supporting local businesses is a crucial way to enhance our impact.”
What is uniquely within the CFO’s gift when it comes to ESG?
It’s really important we’re able to support local businesses, as it’s a crucial way to enhance our impact, and supply chain and procurement is a place the CFO can make a difference. We’re starting to build into our contracts that every contractor appointed must engage in apprenticeships with people from the local area. All too often procurement rules for large organisations favour large suppliers, but if you’re pro-active you can take action to make sure small and local businesses aren’t excluded from your procurement process. This also compounds the impact of your investment by further boosting the community in which you operate.
This interview was conducted by our Director of Think Tank, Scarlett Brown. Interested in furthering the conversation about the changing role of the CFO? Take part in the second phase of our research by getting in touch here.
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