Adam: Hello and welcome to PwC Canada's newest podcast, Finance in 15, a series that explores finance transformation and what it means for leaders in the finance function. My name is Adam Boutros and I'm your host. Hello and welcome back to season two of the Finance in 15 podcast. For our new listeners, Finance in 15 is a PwC Canada podcast that explores finance transformation and what it means for leaders in the finance function. In our season two launch episode, we were joined by Helen Brand, the chief executive of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. During that episode, Helen shared some very insightful global perspectives on how the role of the finance function is changing. And today we're going to go a little deeper by talking to the CFO of PwC Canada, Alaina Tennison. Alaina joined us as well in season one, you might recall, and she talked about PwC's own finance transformation journey. Welcome back, Alaina.
Alaina: Thank you, Adam. I'm happy to join you again and be back on the Finance in 15 podcast.
Adam: All right, so to get started, maybe you could give us a little refresher on your role at PwC and really what's within the scope of your role and your mandate?
Alaina: Yeah, sure. So and really, as the CFO at PwC, I work with our leadership team on really all aspects of the strategic vision for PwC obviously with a specialty on finance support. And I get the question a lot as to what is it like being CFO in a accounting firm? And I often respond with being CFO and having 599 deputy CFOs. We've really been focused, in the last, I've been in the role three years on driving strategic transformation throughout the organization.
Adam: So to get us going, our listeners heard in our season two launch episode, we really went into the PwC and ACCA CFO survey. This was a very comprehensive survey. We spoke directly with Canadian CFOs from publicly traded entities, private entities and into the public sector. And so today we're going to give our Finance in 15 audience a sneak peek into the findings before we release them more broadly in January. I would say, if we're going to draw some highlights out of here, the conversations definitely revealed key issues that were top of mind for Canadian CFOs included, how can CFOs navigate key forces of change and involved in that winning the war on talent and the great resignation, which a lot of us have been feeling. The demand for CPAs is very strong right now. There was a lot of information and responses around accelerating process transformation within finance. And lastly, one of the key highlights was bringing powerful insights to the business, including when it comes to ESG performance and reporting. So that really encapsulates what's on the minds of CFOs. How does that stack up with what you're thinking Alaina?
Alaina: So pretty consistent. It is a long and broad list. And really, I would say, having navigated some of the challenges of the pandemic with my team, I'm so grateful that the team has been on the finance transformation journey with me and seeing the other challenges that CFOs are experiencing as well. I am more determined than ever to keep pressing forward. You know, I think the report shows that the benefits of discussion among CFOs about the challenges that we're all facing and having a community of finance leaders to talk about them is really important. There were some great examples of some things that CFOs are doing that inspired me and especially when it comes to finance leaders who are bringing new insights to the operational side of the business, translating them in ways that make an impact. I think we can all learn from each other on things like this.
Adam: And you mentioned leaders, leadership certainly a big part of delivering value out of the finance function. So what do you think this means from a people perspective?
Alaina: You know, I think when I look at what I've seen myself, how PwC had Canada has really embraced a flexible hybrid model while trying to develop the office of the future. And a lot of that is being done because we talk to our people, listen to our people.
Adam: Yeah, absolutely agree with that. And you know, you are in fact leading our ways of working task force. And you know, I know I have a lot of conversations with CFOs. I think at this juncture, especially within finance because we've demonstrated how well we can work in various hybrid scenarios that a lot of finance execs are really trying to figure out and navigate how this is all going to unfold. What's your take on it? How do you see 2022 looking from that perspective?
Alaina: Yeah, we've made so many changes. We've changed so many processes and done so many things by necessity during the pandemic. Many CFOs don't want to go back to how they used to work and want to pursue further digitizing streamlining. Us at PwC, we were already on a broad scale digital upscaling of all of our people prior to the pandemic. And it's just accelerated during the pandemic. And now people who may not in the past have been focused on being digitally upskilled are now there and doing amazing things. So, you know, our own finance transformation also showed, we showed that giving people the authority and kind of unleashing them with new technology really gave them more energy enthusiasm for further change. When I think about our leading our ways of working. It's so much what we hear from our people that having flexibility is so important to them. They have different ways. They're productive. Some of them are more productive in the office, some of them more productive at home. They get different insights by being the office than they do at home but there's no right or wrong answer. So it's really about how do we listen to our people, how do we talk to them and how do we make it the best experience for everyone?
Adam: I think it's almost a business imperative, especially in finance. We opened up talking about the unprecedented demand for CPAs. If if you're not sort of working with your employees and in the finance function and offering a strong alternative, there's a lot of other places they can go. So it's just it's an absolute business mandate. You talked a bit about the fresh ideas and people looking at things in a new way by changing processes around. Have you noticed anything around capacity in the finance function? Are people more efficient working with the tools and in the way we're working now?
Alaina: I think broadly, our people will say that they are more productive and that applies that's definitely goes, you know, at least doubled in our finance function. They're very productive because they've been able to take the tools and the technology. And that's what was one of the insights into the survey is that it's really the CFO and your head of IT really need to be joined at the hip and are leading a lot of, you know, how, how people, how their staff and people will work together going forward. Just that increase in productivity has been huge, but at the same time, people need to figure out how to take breaks. So needing to figure out how to set office hours, how to disconnect when they are working, especially working in a hybrid where people are working remote, maybe different hours than usual. So how to take breaks, how to set the beginning and end of day and how can they use technology to support them in doing that?
Adam: That is taking the long game really is, you know, important to sort of think about a sustainable, rewarding environment for your finance teams. So speaking of sustainability, ESG came through loud and proud in the survey, that's for sure. Maybe we'll focus a little bit on ESG reporting quickly evolving area. Definitely, finance is going to play a big role, but right now, I think different organizations are at different stages in terms of how the information is coming together. How are you approaching it for PwC?
Alaina: Yeah, and the CFO is always the first place. Everyone will go to say, OK, we we're reporting now on ESG. How do we measure it? How do we think about? How it will be interpreted? So rapidly evolving area, we've got the new International Sustainable Sustainability Standards Board being set up, which will bring more clarity to climate change disclosure reporting. We've got regulators, whether it's the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the OSC Ontario Securities Commission, considering what they'll be requiring from companies. CFO is, I think, are pretty early stages in the evolution of their role. Many interviewees noting that ESG reporting remains largely the responsibility of others in the organization, like the chief sustainability officer for example but it is definitely another the chief sustainability officer role is definitely going to be a close partner of the CFO as their teams will work together on what ESG reporting might look like and their colleagues will be tasked with sustainability or corporate responsibility matters. Like everything, this is a journey. We're not going to get it. Not everyone is going to get it perfect all of the time right from the start. But some steps that CFOs might think about in their earlier stages include learning more about these issues some issues themselves and how it will impact their business, hiring or developing subject matter experts for their teams. And also thinking about putting the regulator hat on and thinking about what regulators may require them from the near future. And this is going to be ripe for technology advancement. Technology will be able to help, given the emergence of specialized solutions to help manage requirements. So the interestingly, the ESG imperative is also a good reason to focus on your data. And this is, I'd say, from my perspective as the CFO, how do we use data to form predictive and prescriptive analytics is to focus. So ESG data, I think right now is manual. So how do you develop technology to be able to automate this and get the data that you need to support your ESG reporting?
Adam: It's a great chance to attract talent to the organization. For those that are really embracing ESG and providing the opportunity to for their teams to get involved the sort of newer joiners to PwC, there's a lot of enthusiasm and interest around ESG. So, OK, we've touched on a lot of things so far the war for talent, technology, different ways of working ESG. If you have to sum it all up and give some advice for your fellow CFOs, what are the top couple of things you think finance leaders should be focused on right now?
Alaina: You know, I think, you know, on the war for talent, I think all of us, as CFOs, have a responsibility to stay close to our people, talk to them, make sure they're OK. Are they especially given these days where we're not seeing people as face to face as we did pre-pandemic? Having that open and honest conversation with them, having regular check ins with them, I think will go a long way to try to when there is such a war for talent on trying to retain the best and brightest of our people. So, you know, staying close to people, I think would be one in terms of also staying close to the people I mentioned to individuals who will be critically important to going forward. Your chief information or Chief Technology Officer and then your sustainability lead as well. Those will be two. Finance will play a key role in working with technology and we'll work with ESG in the future. So how do you stay close to those teams, understand what they're doing and then layering into that the role of data and analytics in the role of the CFO going forward and how we're data and analytics playing a role in each of your organizations, who's leading it? Who owns it? How are you using data? How are you making sure your data is complete, it's accurate, it's fit for purpose? And so often I find when talking to other CFOs that that is the role of the CFO has taken on that data ownership and data stewardship. And how are you making sure you're turning that what used to be thought of as protecting data and kind of keeping data within your organization? Now focus on data is how are you using it for your benefit? How are you generating business insights out of your data? So data and analytics turning that into prescriptive and analytics is will be critical. Those would be the three kind of things that I would say our listeners should be thinking about right now.
Adam: So a lot of CFOs are grappling right now with how to really prepare their organization to deliver the insights that are needed. And so it can be a journey around upskilling your own finance team or hiring data analytics specialist and kind of using them as subject matter experts that the entire organization can draw from. Or it might be something in between. What do you think is the winning approach on this one?
Alaina: As a finance function, we hired our what we call our one analytics team and this is an analytics team who delivers analytics to clients. They work with clients to set up analytics hubs and clients and so we hire them to set up one within our organization. And how do we use our PwC data to provide business insights to our leaders, whether it's our business unit leaders or our geography leaders or industry leaders. And what they think and actually, this is the winning approach? I think what they recommended for PwC anyway is that we take a we have a central hub. We're calling it, we're calling it the data analytics nucleus. And it is really bringing together data engineers, data scientists, data architects. We've got people with analytics specific analytics kind of masters and analytics, that type of degree. And frankly, people who are just really interested in what type of insights can be gleaned from data and how what is the recommended approach that we should take going forward. So we're creating the state in analytics nucleus, which will really run across PwC. All of our data and analytics provide those business insights to our leaders. And we're super excited about this because we've been doing some test cases right now and we're have we're getting some really great data and our business leaders are saying, Wow, this is this is really helping me focus my business. This is helping tell me where greater opportunities are, where there's so much going on that where I should be expending my energy and where my teams should be should be looking to maximize the growth and profitability. So it is, I think that bringing together that team and a central team who can provide business insights across your organization would be the way to go.
Adam: I love it, and, you know, I think what you touched on really gets at the heart of what we're trying to do with this great team of practitioners that we've developed in Future of Finance. It is about elevating the role of the finance function, being a business partner, bringing the valued insights that can be a competitive advantage for the business versus kind of after the fact reporting like that. Those days are done. And so, you know, and I know you're certainly leading that charge for PwC, so thank you for all that you're doing for PwC and for your time today. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. There'll be a lot more coming around our CFO Insights Report when it's launched in January 22. So stay tuned for that. And this is our last podcast for 2021. Super excited to continue with our season two in the New Year. And we'll go even deeper into some of the issues we talked about today, including ESG and the talent upskilling issue. And as I mentioned, our CFO Insights will be available on our Future of Finance web pages in mid-January, so stay tuned. At PwC Canada, we're a community of solvers and we believe finance has an important role to play in helping organizations succeed. If you'd like to be part of our CFO community of solvers, please reach out to me to get involved. And I hope you enjoyed our second episode of season two. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the series, so please be sure to subscribe, share and leave us a rating or review. I'm Adam Boutros and this is Finance in 15. This podcast has been prepared by Price Waterhouse Cooper's LLP, an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership for general guidance on matters of interest only and does not constitute professional advice.
