As Deloitte's Chief Strategy Officer, John Meacock is closely positioned to see the nexus between strategy and the C-suite.
Meacock says at the most fundamental level, the CFO should be involved in holistically connecting strategies to financial performance.
Who is a Chief Strategy Officer?
A Chief Strategy Officer, or Chief Strategist, is responsible for working closely with the CEO to improve current business operations and revise them to achieve the company’s long-term vision. Their duties include participating in meetings with the CEO, board members and other executives, coming up with creative business ideas and reviewing data to monitor progress across their business initiatives.
Chief Strategy Officer Duties and Responsibilities
Chief Strategy Officers are responsible for creating a company’s vision, communicating the plan with all those involved, executing the business initiatives and sustaining implementation efforts. Duties involved in this role also include:
- Analyzing the market shares for change and production.
- Find important projects, ventures, potential targets and other partnership opportunities.
- Ensure any applicable metrics and performance pointers are in place in order to measure all progress.
- Identify strategic risks and help to reduce these risks.
What Does a Chief Strategy Officer Do?
Chief Strategy Officers typically work for corporations across a variety of industries. They use their experience working in business development and industry-related positions to help improve business operations and help their company adapt to new workplace procedures. Their job is to compare their company’s mission statement and goals to its current operations and organizational culture. This allows them to cultivate strategic plans to align company operations to the company’s mission statement for a more productive environment.
They may also be responsible for giving presentations at board meetings to suggest new business strategies and review the progress of on-going initiatives.
Chief Strategy Officer Skills and Qualifications
A Chief Strategy Officer will need various skills to be the right candidate for your company. Public speaking skills are necessary in order to communicate business initiatives with all top executives involved. Decision making skills are important so they can choose the appropriate actions to execute their plans. Other skills they may need for this position are:
- Problem-solving skills in order to identify problems, evaluate options and execute solutions.
- Time management skills to manage the timeline of the strategic initiatives.
- Quality-control analysis skills to conduct the testing of products and services.
- Finance management skills to figure out the amount of money needed to execute the initiatives.
Chief Strategy Officer Salary Expectations
The average salary for a Chief Strategy Officer is $109,866 per year. This average is based off of information submitted by 30 Chief Strategy Officer employees, users and past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the last 36 months.
Chief Strategy Officer Education and Training Requirements
A Chief Strategy Officer should have a bachelor’s degree in business administration or in a business related field, but some companies may require a master’s degree. It may also help if the candidate has education and degrees in the field the company deals in, ensuring they know the best way to strategize for that company. A Chief Strategy Officer with training in retail would be a better fit for a retail-oriented company than one who has no knowledge of the trade. Though some employers may hire a Chief Strategy Officer from outside the company, many are promoted from within from lower-level positions.
Chief Strategy Officer Experience Requirements
Depending on the company, its field of work and what strategic initiatives are needed, a Chief Strategy Officer may need a considerable amount of experience. A Chief Strategy Officer may also need management experience. They will need to lead a team in executing the strategy initiatives they have designed. They should also have experience in planning strategy initiatives in order to create a solid plan that will benefit the company’s initiatives and boost production.
Role of a CFO integrating strategy and finance
“Many organisations don't connect corporate strategy and business unit strategy to the business plan and the financial plan. It sounds really basic but most organisations tend to do their corporate strategy, put it away and the business units will prepare their own strategy."
“There's only a broad rather than direct linkage between these processes," he says. "Then generally businesses will do their annual business plan at another time and the CFO will do their financial plan separately again. But those four elements should be linked and the CFO plays a critical role in this."
Consequently, says Meacock, it can be difficult for a business to realise its strategic goals if it doesn't link corporate strategy, business unit strategy, business plans and financial plans. The CFO's other main strategic role is an ability to individually analyse the various portfolios in the business.
“The CFO has to understand each business division or product, not just from a financial perspective, but using a range of metrics so they comprehend the drivers that make the business work," he says.
As an example, Meacock points to a firm wherein management believed there was a direct link between business performance and the economic cycle. “But after doing some analysis we found this wasn't the case; there was actually quite a lag and they were looking at their business completely the wrong way. So there's a real role for CFOs to look at commercial drivers and how the business responds to them, rather than making judgements not based on fact."
To achieve these insights, Meacock says the CFO must position himself or herself as more than a number cruncher, but as someone with a deep understanding of the business as a whole.
“A lot of organisations are now appointing a financial controller who is taking on much of the old role of the CFO, which is starting to push the CFO up the organisation and take
a more strategic position," Meacock adds.
CFO coach Brendan Sheehan from White Squires agrees being able to strategically communicate across the business is key. To aid strategic development and implementation, he says a superior understanding of technology is now paramount.
“CFOs have to use technology in a way that is effective for growth and decision making," he says. Behind this must be a sound grasp of the data the organisation produces, as well as information from external sources. “They have to correlate the two to pull out meaningful, insightful information that supports decisions," says Sheehan.
According to Sheehan, understanding the essence of the business model, as well as gaining an appreciation for other business models, is also important for the CFO's input into strategic thinking.
Responding to a world of unknowns
Making a meaningful contribution to strategy can be difficult in a world where there are many unknown variables, such as economic and political factors CFOs must navigate.
One approach Meacock suggests is for CFOs to engage in detailed scenario planning. This involves brainstorming a range of likely situations that could impact the company, and then ranking them in order from very likely, to likely, to unlikely.
“The CFO should play a role modelling these scenarios. You are never going to predict everything that's likely to happen to the company," he says. "But by understanding the various scenarios that can play out, you'll really understand in a much better way how the business will respond, which starts to shape the strategic direction of the organisation," Meacock explains.
Overall, says Meacock, there's a real opportunity for CFOs to make a greater contribution to strategy.
Who's the head of corporate strategy then?
“Certainly in larger organisations, we're seeing a lot more Chief Strategy Officers than in the past, which is changing the C-suite dynamic. Some chief strategy officers report to the CFO, others report to the CEO. So, how the CFO works in conjunction with the chief strategy officer is an important dynamic."
Meacock suggests if the Chief Strategy Officer has the same level of seniority as the CFO, both should be focused on connecting the corporate strategy to the financial plan.
“There's the potential for a very good partnership between the CFO, CSO and CEO, which is something that's a new dynamic in organisations," he adds.
Finally, Sheehan says it's essential for the CFO to think strategically about HR planning in the finance team and in the wider business to effect strategy.
“That ability to think strategically about human resource planning is really important," says Sheehan. "This requires emotional intelligence, and an ability to read people and communicate effectively around what needs to be done. That's really important to get the best out of people."
“CFOs must get a real understanding of the skills and competencies required to do a particular job, and make sure the people who are being interviewed, and are being brought in to do that job have those skills and competencies," he adds. They have to have emotional intelligence and empathy with people in the organisation to get decisions made and act on them,"
Ultimately, if CFOs are able to influence planning across the business and gain access to accurate data to make decisions, they can be positioned to make a meaningful contribution to strategy and potentially elevate themselves beyond the numbers.
Key Takeaways
- The CFO's involvement in long-term corporate thinking starts with connecting corporate and business unit strategies to business and financial plans.
- CFOs are uniquely positioned to consider and plan for a range of scenarios for the business.
- Similarly, the CFO can continuously explore business models to help ensure business growth.