7 Issues facing FD's and how to solve them

Speaker: Malcolm Durham, Chairman, FD Solutions – an experienced team of part-time Finance Directors

This presentation will address two questions:

• What are the issues facing FDs? and

• How can they be solved?

And show you the resources required to provide the solution

What are the issues facing FDs to-day?

The Finance Director is the fulcrum of to-day’s business organisation. Whilst the CEO is charged with achieving as much growth as possible, investors directors and other stakeholders look to the FD to make sure that the company achieves its targets on time without undue risk.

So the FD’s role is a stretch. It requires someone with the independence and integrity to reconcile 2 often conflicting objectives:

1. To share in the organisation’s risk profile and

2. To control it and reduce it where possible.

If things go wrong the FD is often first in the firing line and s/he is conscious that mistakes of fact or judgement may stop their career advancement at a stroke.  To avoid this the FD needs to address 7 major challenges:

1. Developing a strategy to deal with the competitive pressures that drive an accelerating rate of change

2. Delivering the numbers contained in that strategy. 

3. Finding and keeping staff to deal with these pressures: the war for talent.

4. Managing their own time effectively

5. Complying with regulations

6. Progressing their own career

7. Dealing with the organisation’s politics, knowing who to talk to, how and when