Now more than ever, the customer is king, and financial services organisations need to be able to cater to changing demand. Unfortunately, a skills shortage to handle digital transformation has exacerbated the challenge. This is driven by a lack of qualified talent to fill new IT roles, and a millennial workforce that shuns long-term employment.

As parts of the world begin to emerge from the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the strategic focus is turning to what the competitive landscape will look like in the aftermath. It is also essential for leaders to realise what the new reality means for them and how to come out in front. The financial services sector has to cope with drastic shifts in consumer behaviour, and the pressure is on to provide the kind of services that customers are beginning to demand. While digitalisation has solved some challenges, it has created many new ones in its wake, and success rides on the ability of financial services to address these issues in the new business reality.

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Gone are the days where the CFO title was synonymous with a shy number cruncher tucked away in a distant (and lonely) finance department. The ideal business partnership now involves striking the balance between an extremely ambitious, fearless, go-getter CEO coupled with an equally grounded strategic CFO. Each position has a distinct and crucial role that they play within the company. As someone who has played the role of both CEO and CFO, I believe the most successful businesses enable these two roles to balance each other and collaborate together.

A CEO leads with a vision, but visions don’t come without a cost. As the business environment continues to fluctuate and many industries are becoming more competitive, each and every decision a CEO makes must be analyzed from differing perspectives. Informed viewpoints increase the likelihood of making the soundest decisions possible. That’s why CFOs now find themselves working alongside their CEOs, applying their financial knowledge of the company to ensure feasibility of strategic decisions. Naturally, a new and active dynamic has developed between both roles, where the CEO steers the company in a certain direction while the CFO hits the breaks in financially unsound territory.

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