Evelyn Dilsaver has seen governance from both sides of the boardroom: She formerly served as president and CEO of Charles Schwab Investment Management, and as CFO for US Trust, and now sits on the boards of six for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
At the 2024 NACD Directors Summit, CFO Brew sat down with her to get her perspective on what boards want to see from a CFO.
This interview has been edited for length and quality.
Has being on boards given you a different perspective on governance?
Oh, my gosh, definitely. What you realize is you’re only as good as the material that you’re given, and so you really have to trust the management team, but it’s trust and verify.
As a board member, what do you like to see from a CFO?
First of all, the truth. Not [being] afraid to talk about the issues and the risks that they’re facing in the company. A deep understanding, not just of the numbers, but the operating metrics that cause those numbers to happen.
I also want them to be succinct in their explanation. With some of my boards, I end up with 20 pages of financial [information] and it’s just way too much…The first thing I really want from them is to help me understand, how do you guys make money? What’s your revenue cycle look like? What’s your cost structure look like? But once you’ve got that down, then you don’t need to go through it every single time. What I want to understand is what’s changed.
The other thing I like, especially if you’ve got multiple products inside a company, is the ability to understand which products are contributing to the health of the organizations and which ones are not. And then, what are you doing about those?
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The second big thing for me is, don’t tell me what happened, but tell me what’s going to happen. Some [CFOs] are really good about saying, “Well, this is what happened, and this is why,” but they’re not good about saying “and then this is what’s going to happen because of that.”
Could you tell me about a time a CFO delivered bad news to you, and how you responded?
I have one-on-ones with the CFO, in some cases once a month, and in some cases once a quarter. And the reason I do that is so that we get to know each other on a personal level. And then he or she becomes comfortable telling me bad news. Because I always say, “I need to know 20 minutes after you know, and you don’t have to have all the answers, but I don’t want to be surprised.”
You told me the CFO used to put the brakes on the CEO, but that’s changed. How so?
A lot of CEOs are really focused on growth…So CFOs who understand the financial picture, and whether the company has the ability to actually put in the capital and put in the money for new innovations, used to have to put the brakes on and say, “Oh, we can’t do that.” Now, I think where it has changed is they’re helping the CEO understand how to grow better and faster. Part of the role of the CFO is helping the CEO understand, how do you grow faster within our financial constraints, and within the regulatory compliance constraints that we have?