Day 1: The CFO as a Leader – Setting the Parameters
You: The Evolving CFO
The program begins with participants introducing themselves, their expectations and objectives. Focused on the individual participant, this initial session will explore:
• The scope of the CFO responsibilities
• Your strategic and leadership skill sets
• Your career aspirations as a CFO
Setting the Scene – What does the Modern CFO Do and how do You Spend your Time?
• Controller
• Strategic consideration
• Setting the tone
• Governance
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Investor relations
• What are the issues?
Case Study: Exploring the issues that CFOs face during a time of change
Setting Financial Objectives– Key Financial Issues
• Shareholder value.
• Setting financial objectives.
• Capital structure.
• Economic value added.
• Need for growth.
• Organisational issues.
Choosing Financial Measures
• Using the Performance Prism.
• Shareholder Value metrics.
• Using the balanced scorecard.
Behavioural Finance and Personal Bias.
• Understanding bias in financial data.
• The risks of believing the numbers.
• The risks of sales forecasts.
• The problem of too much cost control.
Day 2 – The Strategic Context – What are the objectives?
Introduction to Strategy – Where does strategy come from?
• The purpose of the firm
• Levels of strategy – corporate, business unit and operational
• Determinants of strategy
• Sources of data
Designing and Implementing Strategy
• Analytic tools and techniques to design and build the strategy
• Integrating financial strategy into current operational plans and priorities
• Influencing, formulating and implementing strategy
Designing Strategy – Strategy from the Outside – Introduction to industrial economic value of strategy
• PESTEL analysis
• Porter’s five force model
• Supply chain analysis
Designing Strategy – Strategy from the Inside
• Resource based theory
• VRIN model
• Strategic assets
• Implications for strategy
Linking Financial Objectives to Organisational Strategy
Aligning Strategies
Day 3 – Personal Style: Understanding Yourself
Personal Style
• Who am I?
• Decision Profile analysis – understanding the dimensions of risk, luck, decisiveness and intuition
Personal Style and Managing Others
• The Myers-Briggs type indicator and managing different styles
• The Transformational CFO: Leading Change
Day 4 – Personal Style, Leadership and Culture
The Transformational CFO
• Building sustainable leadership.
• Building individual leadership capacity through self- awareness.
• Becoming more reflective about leadership and how it works.
• Changing the way the organisation thinks about leadership.
Organisational Culture
• Culture web
Building and Leading a High-Performing Finance Team
• Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your team.
• Developing, influencing and motivating individuals.
• Managing dynamics to ensure that your team is working at their peak performance.
Day 5 – The CFO as a Leader and Business Partner
Leading through Successful Change
• Analysing the impact of change on people and the organisation.
• How your personal change style impacts your approach to leadership of change.
• Supporting people through change.
• Overcoming conflicts and chaos situations.
Strategic Communication
• Investor relations strategy.
• Designing the message externally and internally.
• Managing internal messages.
• Preparation for own personal strategic plan.
