The CFO and Company Culture

5 Min. Read

Of all the c-suite roles that could carry the banner for a company’s culture, the Chief Financial Officer is not necessarily the first to mind. The modern CFO, however, inhabits a role that has great potential to reinforce positive cultural behaviors or to drive a transformation away from negative behaviors. We spoke with four of the CFOs in our network about their role as culture champions in their careers and in their current roles.
 

Should the CFO Be a Culture Carrier?

There of course is no one-size-fits-all answer to anything in business. Flavia Landsberg of Pyxus International shared with us that, in her current position, she is a primary change agent. This is her fourth time working in a transformational role. Her ability to use data to bring reason makes the CFO a good option as a transformational agent. While there is often resistance to change, it isn’t necessarily because of opposition; rather, much of that friction comes from ignorance of the alternatives.

Landsberg is clear that partnership is a core component of any successful transformation. Finance is not simply the reporting of the business. Finance is the partner of business. While companies often look to a new CFO to transform their financial outlook, it is clear that the role must also play a part in transforming those parts of the business that need it.

For other CFOs, the briefing on their role in culture is less explicit. Mark Piccirillo of Sammons Industrial reminded us that, since the CFO inherently touches every aspect of an organization, whoever is in that seat needs to be able to carry consistent ideas. Rob Kuhns at TopBuild echoed this sentiment, adding that buy-in for cultural ideas often starts with the CEO, but the CFO needs to be a central conduit.

Elaine Paik at Impossible Foods noted that, in the consumer sector, there has always been a cultural component to her role as a senior finance leader. She added that the CFO can play a large role in establishing psychological safety throughout the company.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety in the workplace includes believing that you can own a mistake without it necessarily being harmful to your career. Both Paik and Kuhns highlighted the importance of this in finance.

Many employees may perceive the world of finance to be black-and-white and transactional, which would lead to the presumption that there is little tolerance for errors or mistake-making. Establishing transparency in the finance process helps to ensure both that employees feel safe owning mistakes and that they can surface any mistakes quickly. If you’re not scared of losing your job over a decimal place error, for example, you’re more likely to own up to the mistake as soon as it’s seen.

Modeling Collaboration and Transparency

One of the most powerful ways a CFO can impact company culture is through modeling collaboration and transparency. Since the finance function interacts across all departments in a company, the CFO is in a privileged position to show how this can work.

Landsberg mentioned that the CFO needs to make decisions but also accept that they will not do so perfectly. Psychological safety, in other words, must extend to the CFO him- or herself. Our respondents all highlighted that this can be a difficult position to occupy as a finance professional.

At TopBuild, Kuhns has embraced collaboration as a core component of his finance team. He has seen success moving people out of traditional silos, especially as his department seeks to translate data and help other departments understand it. “Finance is the language of business, but at the end of the day, we’re the key translators,” he remarked. “Our job is to speak to people in a way that they can understand the numbers.”

By directly modeling transparency and collaboration among their direct reports, a CFO has the potential to buttress those behaviors across the entire company. At Sammons Industrial, Piccirillo is certain to always keep values out in front of people. Values are not simply an annual assessment on a performance review; they are how people do their jobs every day. As Paik stated it, “culture is the piece that informs or guides people in their ways of working.”

Work-Life Balance is a Part of Culture, Too

Nearly every industry and function must reckon with the work-life equation in novel ways after the global pandemic and the concomitant rise in hybrid and remote work. Here, too, the CFO has an opportunity to impact company culture. The possibility of remote or hybrid work varies with the role and industry in question. R&D or manufacturing require an in-person commitment. Even for those in roles that can be done outside an office setting, direct connection with coworkers can be a critical component to carrying a healthy and engaged company culture.

The balance between work and life exists along the spectrum of an entire career. There will be roles earlier in a finance career that demand longer seasonal hours. There is not just one giant scale with work on one end and life on the other. The balancing act is perpetual.

One key to getting it right that our respondents agreed upon is the deceptively difficult act of listening. Whether that means listening to your managers in the field who may not understand technical jargon or listening to an early career striver who wants to work more to get ahead, empathy and understanding are keys to leadership. As the financial center of the company, the CFO has a unique position to truly listen to the concerns of the entire team and a platform to advocate for the team’s best interest.

Culture Carriers

Though the cliched image of a finance head is a “numbers guru” whose only concern is the hard data, the modern CFO has moved far past such a narrow outlook. More than ever, we are seeing CFOs tasked not only to lead finance and strategic functions for organizations, but also with being the standard bearers of what company/workplace culture should be. By interacting with all departments of a company, the CFO can carry the banner for the company’s culture, whatever that cultural archetype is. By putting desired behaviors on display, they are able to shape and uphold company values in a unique and highly impactful manner.