With new technologies like artificial intelligence increasing the amount of information available for businesses, it’s falling to the CFO to ensure companies don’t get mired down in the data.
The growing quantity of information means “we can make quicker decisions for sure. It can also create a little bit of a paralysis getting to decisions because there's so much more there to absorb. It can feel overwhelming,” Vena Solutions CFO Melissa Howatson said.
“I think part of our job in finance is to try to help the business see through what can feel like noise now coming in,” which is where what CFOs can bring to the table matters, she told CFO Dive in an interview. “With experience, you can look through and figure out, which are those signals that really do matter, and how are we going to not get stuck in perpetual analysis reconciliation and still drive decisions?”
From data to decisions
Howatson’s strategy for “cutting through the noise” includes relying upon experts, both inside and outside of the finance function in areas like marketing and R&D, as well as consulting with the company’s vendors or third-parties to ensure the way they are looking at data matches up. More crucially, however, doing so requires knowing when more information won’t help make a more strategic or faster decision.
“Let’s just make sure we get that data and get to the other side of a decision, because it's just too easy to have too many meetings, too many pieces of analysis, and yet having 100% of the data isn't likely going to drive much different of a decision than being 80% there,” she said.
Howatson has served as CFO for the Toronto, Canada financial software provider since December 2022, according to her LinkedIn profile. She has also served as the host of the financial podcast, the CFO Show, since 2023. Her past roles include serving as CFO for e-learning software platform D2L, and in various CFO and top financial roles for companies including enterprise AI business Primal and human resources provider Qwalify.
The abililty to swiftly make key business decisions has become more important as the role of the finance chief has expanded. Reflecting on her career, Howatson said, “I feel like the pace of change is just accelerating and getting faster and faster than ever before,” adding “it's an exciting time to be in finance because of that.”
Finance chiefs today still need to wear the “stewardship” hat, ensuring the business’ numbers are accurate, but they also get to wear the “strategic-catalyst hat,” she said.
“We get to lean into helping our businesses figure out where they should be focused in this environment, what we should be prioritizing, how we should think about our modeling and our building of our company towards whatever our long-term goals are,” Howatson said.
Howatson’s remit at Vena also includes operations as well as finance, and she is spending more and more of her time on the “decisioning side” as CFO, she said.
That means the rest of the finance team needs to be empowered to make some of the other decisions or take on some of the tasks that previously would have occupied her time.
For instance, Howatson doesn’t spend as much of her time looking over payroll, an area where she believes once the right systems are in place, the members of finance overseeing it can do so without too much input from leadership.
Leveling up
The rising capacity of information available to businesses today has also changed not just where CFOs need to focus, but also the pace of the work.
When Howatson began her career, companies might complete a detailed planning cycle once a year, she said. “You would set it and forget it,” Howatson said.
“You can’t do that in today’s world,” she said, adding “these plans are being revisited more and more frequently.”
Technologies like AI can help Howatson keep up with the faster pace and “level up” the story she aims to tell, she said.
“How do I simplify this story for the audience that I'm going to tell it to?” she said.
“Whether that is my executive team, whether I'm trying to influence a certain part of the business, or I'm trying to deliver this story to my board, AI is a very good thought partner to help you synthesize some of this thinking,” she said.
It’s important for CFOs to learn how to work with new technologies and how they might reframe their roles in the finance function, Howatson said.
“I think that's really scary for finance people who have made their identity based on being the one who has the right answer, or doing that analysis,” she said. “But I think it's really exciting for those who want to lean into telling the story behind the numbers…helping to be part of the decisioning of the business and pushing things forward.”
