In her two decades in financial management, Lavinia Koh has seen the role of CFO expand beyond its traditional confines. As auditor with KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, she worked with finance departments that were mainly concerned with compliance and reporting the past.
As CFO herself of
Cable&Wireless Worldwide in Asia Pacific, Koh went through a period when the focus was on
Sarbanes-Oxley implementation. “I have had my time changing all the different processes and making sure that they’re all aligned from a risk management perspective.” Today, finance and reporting are only “basic expectations for a CFO,” says Koh. “The real value of the CFO comes from how we work with the business in achieving an outcome, whether long-term strategic or short- to medium-term operational.”
Koh spoke to CFO Innovation’s Angie Mak on financial management at Cable&Wireless, how finance works with the business side, the company’s response to the global recession and other issues.
How has the role of the CFO changed? You’re obviously very hands-on with strategy at Cable&Wireless Worldwide.
I would say that in the last five years, the CFO has needed to be together with the business in decision-making and in giving guidance. This means that you need to provide the right information to the business to enable them to operate more effectively.
As a result my team is always running analysis of the financial data. This is not just normal standard reporting but is about taking information from the different systems and trying to understand what it is trying to say about business performance and whether this information can be used to change an outcome. This is how financial data can help the business in decision-making.
Some five years ago, the CFO was more concerned about complying with reporting standards. We have gone through the Sarbanes-Oxley era. I have had my time changing all the different processes and making sure that they’re all aligned from a risk management perspective. Those are now basic expectations for a CFO. You are expected to be technically competent – in cash management and reporting the financials – but the real value of the CFO comes from how we work with the business in achieving an outcome, whether long-term strategic or short- to medium-term operational.
Some surveys have found that CFOs wish to have a bigger role in strategy-setting, but they seem to be better at reporting the past and hesitant to make forecasts about the future.
The level of contribution may depend on the depth and breadth of experience that one has in the industry. I’ve been in the telecoms industry for 13 years and have sufficient familiarity with the ins and outs of the business and the industry as a whole, as well as also the history to be able to add value.
A lot of people think finance is a generalist sector and you see examples of people moving seamlessly across different industries. There may be exceptional professionals who do not have any problem going into new industries and picking up the issues and driving the business. But from my personal experience, some industries such as telecoms can be quite specialised, and require industry knowledge to really be able to contribute effectively to the business.
You have to do your homework.
I’m always talking to the pre-sales and sales colleagues and this keeps me in touch with the business activities. I also look at the Work-in-Progress schedule to assess the order-to-cash risks and will often sit down with the project manager to get an appreciation of progress.
For the business, finance provides an independent viewpoint, because there is no personal agenda – my focus is around ensuring we are achieving our performance metrics. The numbers can tell a story and can highlight where [things are] not working. My role is to provide guidance and give recommendations. This is the important value-add finance can bring part to the management team.
2012, May 24 
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