News built for finance pros
CFO Brew helps finance pros navigate their roles with insights into risk management, compliance, and strategy through our newsletter, virtual events, and digital guides.
It can be hard to think straight in this “hot world summer,” what with record temperatures all over the globe. To help finance professionals see through the haze, CFO Brew has collected some useful LinkedIn tip sheets posted by finance thought leaders and influencers within the last month.
Our usual disclaimer to the wise: You should always look for additional resources and expertise when doing complicated finance work, because it can be very difficult to accurately sum up sophisticated concepts in a short summary.
With that said, here are three cheat sheets on AI risk and opportunity, building a better budget, and developing career-enhancing soft skills that finance professionals can use to help navigate an increasingly complicated business world.
- Jack McCullough’s “Opportunities and risks for CFOs in the age of AI”: The CFO Leadership Council founder and president is an authority on all things CFO through his vast network of finance professionals. At the moment, there are very few issues dominating the CFO space like the potential—and challenges—of generative AI. This guide offers a look into what AI may really mean for finance professionals.
McCullough explains how AI may present some opportunities for CFOs in critical areas like cost optimization, talent and skills development, and revenue growth. But AI isn’t all sunbeams and clear skies. McCullough lays out some of the possible risks of AI for finance, including cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, and ethical implications. - Chris Ortega’s “3 simple steps to a better budget/forecast”: Ortega is the founder and CEO of Fresh FP&A, a fractional CFO and advisory services firm, and a finance thought leader. This 7-page guide offers tips for clarifying and improving an organization’s budgeting process, including goal setting, communication, and using actionable data. Commenters also offer useful insight into the budgeting process in the thread.
- Howard Tunnicliffe’s “Skills you need to move up in finance”: Tunnicliffe is head of FP&A at The Economist. This cheat sheet offers a breakdown of the specific soft skills that finance professionals need along their career trajectory in order to move up into a CFO role. Starting with FP&A analyst, moving up to FP&A manager, then to finance director, and finally on to CFO, Tunnicliffe offers advice on what he sees as the most vital soft skills for advancement at each position.
He also defines what each soft skill means and how to practice it. For example, Tunnicliffe defines emotional intelligence as “understanding and controlling your emotions” and recommends that finance professionals “use an emotion wheel to better understand your feelings.”