Strategy & Leadership for CFO's And Senior Finance Executives

The Strategy & Leadership for CFO's and Senior Finance Executives Programme will enhance your ability to lead whilst giving you the wider business expertise required of today’s high-performing CFOs.

This intensive programme was designed by a former Finance Director with global responsibility and considerable leadership development expertise. It helps current and aspiring CFOs and Finance Directors address the common issues that arise as they move from technical roles into positions of leadership.

A key feature of the course is the use of two professional psychometric tools, which allow you to understand your leadership style and how to understand the behaviours and preferences of your teams and senior colleagues.

This course introduces a range of strategic models through a number of cases, which become the focus of debate to enable peers to share their real-life experiences and challenges in these areas.

You will understand how to choose performance measures and communicate them to non-financial colleagues in order to guide your organisation through a transformation program that creates value by aligning financial capabilities with corporate strategy.

Course Objectives

Attend this high-level 5-day course and learn key skills to:

• Lead the finance function to be a partner to the business

• Linking financial objectives and performance measures to business strategy

• Understand your leadership style and link this to financial objectives

• Evaluate the practical implications of investment decisions and acquisitions

• Build and lead a high performance finance team

• Evaluate a deeper insight into how the business model translates into the accounting numbers

• Meet the different objectives of investors and funders

• Drive innovation and lead cultural change

• Lead organisational transformation

How will this Training Course be Presented

The teaching methodology used on this course combines formal theoretical instruction with frequent use of exercises and case studies. In addition, two psychometric tools will also be provided. There will be opportunity for debate within the group on their own experience led by the instructor and so to learn from each other’s experience.

There will be ample time for group discussion with the tutors as most senior managers learn best from their own context and experience. The course is intended to be practical and interactive, with delegates encouraged to ask questions. Each day will allow participants some time to apply the material introduced during the day to their own business, with support from the tutor.

The Course Content

Day 1

The CFO as a Leader – Setting the Parameters
You: The Evolving CFO
The programme 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 Organisation’s 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

• Introduction to value drivers

• Need for sustainable competitive advantage

• Identifying sources of competitive advantage

Public Share Markets and Share Prices

• Linking financial performance to share prices

• Understanding fundamental value

• The difference between firm performance and share price performance

• The role of stock market analysts

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

Course summary and close