The Changing Role of Finance: Business Partnering

Businesswoman holding presentationBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

A new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that finance functions are moving away from being transactional centres and becoming key strategic business partners, assisting with decision making. Nearly two thirds of participants in PwC’s benchmarking work said that their finance function primarily acts as a support group for the CEO and the strategic planning process.

PwC’s finance effectiveness benchmark study looked at the finance functions of 1700 businesses in over one hundred FTSE 200 and international companies. It shows that CFO’s have a tough job to do: balancing running an efficient division and providing proactive and insightful information to support business decisions. And of course motivating their teams as we come out of recession, when many of them will have seen colleagues pack up their personal effects in a cardboard box and leave.

Times have been tough for finance teams recently, and they now carry the demands of the wider organisation to steer them along the path to recovery. This is what has prompted adoption of a new model of working with the rest of the business: partnering.

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Honoring Successful Women, Mentors, and Mentees: The FWA’s Annual Women of the Year Awards

Hauge, Peetz, and Barskaya

Hauge, Peetz, and Barskaya

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last night, the Financial Women’s Association held its Annual Dinner and Women of the Year Awards at the Grand Hyatt New York. Each year the FWA honors an outstanding woman in the private and public sectors. This year’s private sector honoree was Karen Peetz, CEO, Financial Markets and Treasury Services, BNY Mellon. The public sector honoree was Gail J. McGovern, President and CEO, The American Red Cross.

Trish Regan, anchor and reporter for CNBC emceed the event. Having hosted for the past two years, she always saw the importance of honoring women. But now, recently having given birth to twin girls, she said the awards took on further significance, causing her to reflect on “the challenges they’ll face entering the workforce.”

Additionally, many of the speakers of the evening reflected on the importance of nurturing and encouraging the next generation of financial women. Mentorship was the prevailing them of the evening, as the FWA’s new Volunteer of the Year award honored the Co-Chairs of its Mentoring Program. The awards honored two of the organization’s outstanding young mentees as well.

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Beth 005Contributed by Beth Collinge of CTG – a division of ILX Group plc.


US stocks moved to fresh 19-month highs. The euro fell to a one-year low against the dollar and a three-month low against the pound. George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister, has made a formal request for the proposed European Union-IMF emergency loan package to be activated. President Barack Obama argued last week for a bill that would overhaul US financial regulation.

Economic Backdrop

  • On Friday, US stocks moved to fresh 19-month highs, with the S&P 500 up 0.7%, and the DJIA up 1.68%, following positive durable goods orders and property market data.
  • In the currency markets, the euro fell to a one-year low against the dollar and a three-month low against the pound following comments from Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, that: “There is no silver bullet to solve [the Greek budget deficit] in an easy manner.” This added to the fear that the eurozone would struggle to resolve the fiscal crisis.

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How Much for a Personal Serving of Work-Life Balance?

work/life balanceBy Gigi DeVault (Munich)

I was doing fine until I released the whale bath toy into the bubbles from the Jacuzzi jets. I was fulfilling a working mother’s recurring dream. It goes like this: I slide into the frothing water—my shoulders are the tip of a languorous berg. I pour edelweiss nectar from the two delicate bottles of St. Germaine nabbed from the mini-bar; the faux cut-glass catches the glow of flickering tea lights lining the tub. Over the rim of my glass, I can see the rainbow-colored lights of the Santa Monica pier framed by the window of my upgraded suite. My colleagues are tucked away in a utilitarian hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This is my alone time, when for one brief interlude before the phone next rings, life can be perfect. Except that, the floating rubber bath toy brought an image of my daughter’s sweet face into my inner sanctum. “Mine, Mommy,” she would say, scooping up the bath toy in her dimpled three-year old hand.* Then there is a knock on the door. “Housekeeping.” Even here, hiding on the beach, I am found.

And what about the person with the disembodied voice that calls out to me on the other side of the door? If her life is as busy as mine, will she find a way to retreat and claim some blissful time alone? I want it to be so.

Is work-life balance just another one of those luxuries we covet – like the items in the Desire & Acquire exclusive shopping service accessed through the American Express Departures magazine? “In many ways, yes,” wrote Lisa Belkin in her New York Times column, Motherlode. “Only those with both financial security and some control over their work lives”—Belkin’s readers insist on this distinction— “have the freedom to recalibrate it.” Just what is required to recalibrate one’s work life?

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Roundup

Beth 005The Glass Hammer is pleased to bring back the Monday Business News Roundup, contributed by Beth Collinge of CTG – a division of ILX Group plc.

US Fed Chairman Bernanke predicted a “moderate economic recovery” would unfold in the US during the next several quarters. For Britain, the Ernst & Young Item Club forecast weak 1% growth this year, giving way to 2.7% next year and 3.4% in 2012. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took action against Goldman Sachs, claiming the company misstated and omitted key facts about a collateralized debt obligation.

Economic Backdrop

  • After a buoyant start to the week, stocks fell sharply on Friday when the US securities regulator charged Goldman Sachs with fraud relating to its dealing in subprime related products. The S&P 500 dropped 2 per cent. The Vix index, a measure of market volatility, jumped 21 per cent to nearly 20, a sharp return from the recent near-record lows of 15.
  • In the currency markets, the euro lost earlier gains to fall back to $1.3508, following a warning from Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central bank president, that conditions for Greek banks could deteriorate. Sterling also lost ground on Friday after the first ever televised leaders’ debate in the UK highlighted the possibility that no party would win overall control in the coming general election. Some analysts believe no clear majority for one party would hamper the future government’s ability to tackle the budget deficit.

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Accounting: Why Women Leave – and How to Keep Them

iStock_000007832712XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

In September of last year, The Glass Hammer informed readers of the first ever Accounting MOVE Project, which was spearheaded by the American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA) along with Joanne Cleaver, president and founder of the research firm Wilson-Taylor Associates. The project and its accompanying report aimed to find out exactly where the glass ceiling is – and it succeeded admirably. It was revealed that a large percentage of female accountants abandon public accounting firms at the senior manager level.

The 2010 Accounting MOVE Project, released today, documents why women leave the profession. Cleaver and her team conducted hundreds of interviews with women at different stages in their career, as well as with academics, firm employees, and recruiters (among many others) in order to provide a 360 point of view of the industry and find out why its failing to retain its female talent. The study indicates that while that women account for more than half of all firm employees (51.4 percent), only 40 percent of them hold senior manager positions and only 17.4 percent become partners. What’s keeping women out of the top ranks?

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Ripe for Change: ION’s New Report Highlights Business Case for Diversity

iStock_000002096821XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

The InterOrganization Network (ION) recently released its annual Report on the Status of U.S. Women Directors and Executive Officers and, as has been the case for the past six years the study has been conducted, the results aren’t much to be excited about. Or, as ION more optimistically states, the findings illustrate a “bleak landscape ripe for change.”

The Numbers

ION has 14 regions that are represented by their member organizations, these include: California, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Florida, Georgia, Kansas City, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In these regions, women were found to hold between 7.6 and 17.8 percent of board seats in the nearly 2,000 companies included in the study.

In Fortune 500 companies located in the 14 regions, women hold between 12 and 19.5 percent of all board seats, while in Fortune 501 to 1000 companies, women hold between 6.3 and 18 percent of all seats.

Often with the results, the bad outweighs the good. For example, companies with boards on which women comprise 25 percent or more range between 1.4 and 21 percent. However, the percentages of companies that have no women directors range between 11 and 55 percent. And women of color have even less representation. ION’s 14 member organizations report that women of color hold between 0.8 and 3.6 percent of the board seats of companies in their respective research pools. It was also found that between 32 and 70 percent of the companies surveyed have no women in their executive suites and between 60 and 78.1 percent of companies surveyed don’t have a single woman among their highest paid executives.

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Full disclosure: UK Government steps in to get more women into the boardroom

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iStock_000006712763XSmallBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

UK companies may be required to report on their efforts to get more women into the boardroom. The Government has asked the Financial Reporting Council, which is currently consulting on its UK Corporate Governance Code, to consider adding in a requirement to get companies to disclose what they are doing to increase the number of women in senior management roles. It’s not exactly clear what would then happen to the data disclosed, but it’s likely to be used to highlight firms that aren’t making enough of an effort.

“Britain needs more women in the boardroom,” says Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equalities. “Too many British boardrooms are still no-go areas for women. Women are important consumers and employees. We’ll never get a proper meritocracy or truly family-friendly workplaces from male dominated boards.”

Harman’s proposals have been backed by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. “We all recognise the value of strong role models for women in all walks of life – and there are many in politics, the arts, public services, sport and the third sector,” he said. “But there are too few in Britain’s boardrooms. When more than half of graduates are women, it is completely unacceptable that some of our top 100 public companies have not a single woman on their boards – and that none at all have a majority of women on their boards. A new principle in the governance code on diversity would build on the provisions in the equality bill, which allow employers to take positive action when recruiting to balance their workforce.”

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A Man’s Undercover Mission into the World of Women Leaders

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_DSC3667Contributed by Mark Palmer, CEO, StreamBase Systems, Inc.

Recently, I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the gathering of 2,500 CEOs,heads of state, and visionaries from the arts. At Davos, I saw Chinese vice premier Li Keqiang, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, met Miss Universe, and participated with the “titans of social media” — as the founders of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn squared off. Heady stuff. But mid week, I went to a session that eclipsed them all. It was innocuously entitled The Power of the Purse.

Davos is an economic forum and I went for economic interests. But I went to this session for different reasons. At work I’m a CEO, but at home I’m a widow. When my wife died of cancer three years ago I took on a new, foreign role — mom, and so I attended this session with my 7-year-old daughter Ruby in mind. I thought this session might give me some insight into the world as she will encounter it.

But as I took my seat, I felt out of place. There I was, one of a handful of men with 60 of the most accomplished women in the world. I felt like I had mistakenly slipped behind enemy lines, then been cordially invited to an intimate power lunch in the general’s tent. The panel included Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, author Margaret Atwood, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, former chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors.

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Aspire: The Leadership Advantage

aspireBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“This new century needs a new generation of leaders who are more transformational and embrace their feminine qualities,” says Dr Samantha Collins, Founder of Aspire, an executive coaching and leadership development consultancy that has recently released a report into successful leadership styles. “The old school style of many politicians and corporate CEO’s is on the way out and transformational leadership behaviours are on the way in.”

“In this latest research it appears that the financial and political events at the end of the last decade have given us pause for thought,” says Catherine Shovlin, Director at Customer Interpreter, a strategic research consultancy which co-produced the report.

The report, Tearing up the Rule Book: A New Generation of Leaders for 2010, introduces the new measure of Leadership Intelligence (LI). LI measures rate your ability to be a successful leader, and what makes a successful leader in today’s economy is not what you would necessarily expect.

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