The New CFOs: How Financial Teams and Their Leaders Can Revolutionize Modern Business

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the spotlight is even more on the role and activities of the CFO. Specifically, CFOs need to accelerate three aspects of their role: develop dynamic and distinctive risk management capabilities, motivate and align increasingly diverse work providers, and design and operate effective financial processes for internal and external customers. The winning CFOs in the next decade will be the ones who get the basics right, who prioritise their efforts, and who invest in the leadership development that creates the institutional capacity to achieve and sustain leading industry performance. CFOs need to embrace the new challenges and opportunities created by the financial crisis. The New CFOs provides the fundamental road map to success in this new environment for finance officers, their teams, and the organizations who employ them.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. x)
• Foreword (p. xii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• 01 Becoming a custodian of value (p. 5)
• The challenge (p. 6)
• The traditional CFO role (p. 9)
• The new CFO role (p. 11)
• Develop your people too (p. 13)
• The new CFO mindset (p. 15)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 18)
• 02 Strategic leadership (p. 21)
• Seven things you must do well (p. 21)
• Being a credible leader (p. 24)
• Good communication skills (p. 26)
• Influencing - not telling (p. 29)
• 'Yes, and' decision-making (p. 31)
• Learn from failure (p. 37)
• Derailers (p. 38)
• Networking to get the broader picture (p. 42)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 44)
• 03 The finance factory (p. 47)
• A process perspective (p. 50)
• Finance and the process network (p. 55)
• Achieving a great finance factory (p. 56)
• Step 1: Get strategic objectives straight (p. 57)
• Step 2: Decide how much value-adding you want to do (p. 59)
• To outsource or not to outsource? (p. 60)
• Step 3: Resource processes appropriately (p. 64)
• Step 4: Get your hands dirty in process design (p. 66)
• Step 5: Build in continuous improvement (p. 68)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 71)
• 04 Establishing and maintaining robust controls (p. 73)
• What do we mean by control? (p. 75)
• What stops us? (p. 76)
• A model for managing control (p. 79)
• Starting at the bottom - internal control (p. 81)
• Level 2 - systems and processes (p. 84)
• Level 3 - operational analysis and reporting - KPIs (p. 86)
• Level 4 - business level reporting and monitoring (p. 88)
• Level 5 - strategic planning (p. 90)
• You need to develop your own control expertise (p. 97)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 99)
• 05 Deepening and spreading risk management (p. 103)
• Risk management - the complement to robust controls (p. 104)
• How we define risk (p. 105)
• How control and risk management fit together (p. 106)
• Why common risk approaches fail (p. 108)
• The risk management process cycle (p. 111)
• Step 1: Risk identification (p. 113)
• Step 2: Risk prevention (p. 118)
• Step 3: Risk mitigation (p. 122)
• Step 4: Risk recovery (p. 126)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 128)
• 06 Growing value through investment (p. 133)
• Defining investment (p. 135)
• Issues finance needs to confront (p. 136)
• The finance investment strategy (p. 138)
• Strategic cost management in finance (p. 144)
• The role of finance in sound investment (p. 149)
• Finance and business negotiations (p. 156)
• Summary ... and looking ahead (p. 159)
• 07 A custodian of value (p. 161)
• Self-assessment (p. 162)
• Twenty questions (p. 168)
• Conclusion (p. 169)
• Appendix: The finance spectrum (p. 171)
• Index (p. 175)