Building a diverse FP&A team
Anders Liu-Lindberg
Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering | Interim | VP Finance | Business Finance
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A great team is not built of clones, as so many businesses have discovered over the years. The complexity of the work done by FP&A, coupled with the global reach of corporations, requires diversity at every level. This includes different roles and skill sets within finance as well as the diversity of culture, gender, and ethnicity.
The temptation to recruit people who resemble you, your skill set, and your perceived organizational culture is strong but dangerous. It creates a false reassurance of continuity that in the worst case causes atrophy. This is the opposite of what is needed for a business that’s on a journey of growth. We know that a successful organization with well-supported strategic decision-making has to embrace disruption and change. Actively seeking to build a diverse FP&A team ensures the agility and avoidance of bias that is essential for success.
What kind of ‘diversity’ should we consider when building a strong FP&A team? There are broadly three areas to consider. First, diversity of skills. Different roles on the team should complement each other and manage the seamless flows along the value chain of data. Second, diversity of culture is vital as organizations grow and expand into new markets. Thirdly, diversity of gender is a well-researched factor in business success.
Let’s look at these in more detail.
Layers of diversity
Diversity of skills.
What roles and skills are part of a strong FP&A team? The essential elements for strategic success include the soft skills of communication, leadership, and influence, the technical skills required for the effective use of rapidly emerging new technologies, and the ability to maximize insight and impact.
Actively seeking team members who can deliver elements of this combined skillset, and investing in training and development for existing staff, builds a strong team.
Diversity of culture.
This encourages new approaches to problem-solving. A new viewpoint on an old challenge can help to cut through barriers that lie on the path to success and move the business forward. New perspectives are exposed when analyzing data, revealing trends, and defining measurements of success and key decision-making information that may not previously have been obvious.
This is all the more important as businesses expand and grow into new markets with a global reach. FP&A’s role in supporting strategic decision-making is enhanced by a range of cultural perspectives in the team..
Diversity of gender.
According to recent research, 87% of 2021's Fortune 500 companies with female CEOs reported above-average profits. As far back as 2008 academics showed that achieving a critical mass of at least three women on the board enhanced working dynamics and innovation.
The benefits a business of having women in C-suite roles have been well documented, and this should be reflected in the FP&A team roles.
Building a team for success
The diverse roles on your FP&A team should succinctly complement each other, taking care of the value chain from data to impact in a seamless flow
A diverse team offers a broader view of the environment in which the business operates. It incorporates a wide skill set to ensure the best decision support can be offered to the business as a strategic partner.
With the right combination of roles, the FP&A team can identify opportunities and threats both within the organization and in external market sectors and geographies, and ensure that the right decision-making data is delivered for maximum positive impact. Building and training that diverse and skilled FP&A team is vital to the whole organization, the key to meeting new challenges along the journey to success.
This was the eighth article in my new series "Building the FP&A team of the future". You can read the previous article(s) below.
While you await future articles you can read my previous series "The ten commandments of planning and forecasting" below.
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You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum, which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community.
Can't help falling in love FP&A (the last article in my series about charting the course for a successful FP&A career)
Can we trust the machine for financial planning and analysis? (the last article in my series "Planning (as we know it) is dead")
The secret sauce of FP&A transformation (the last article in the series "FP&A Transformation Talks")
How Finance should use its seat at the table (the last article in the series "The Unfair Advantage of Finance")
The ultimate guide to decision-making for finance professionals (the last article in a series about the decision-making process and how Finance should impact it)
The Mindset Change Checklist For Finance Professionals (the last article in a series about the mindset change that finance and accounting professionals should make to become business partners)
It's Time To Decide If You Want To Be A Business Partner (the last article in a series about the personality traits of business partners)
All Successful Business Partners Are "Leaders" (the last article in the series about our new capability model)
Should We Keep Talking About Business Partnering? (part of a 17-article series where we deep-dive into the WHY, WHAT, and HOW of business partnering by putting it on a formula)
Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)
From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)
Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)
How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of a case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)
Anders Liu-Lindberg is the co-founder and a partner at Business Partnering Institute and the owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with more than 11,000 members. I have ten years of experience as a business partner at the global transport and logistics company Maersk. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger on LinkedIn with 120,000+ followers and 205,000+ subscribers to my blog. I am also an advisory board member at Born Capital where I help identify and grow the next big thing in #CFOTech. Finally, I'm a member of the board of directors at PACE - Profitability Analytics Center of Excellence where I support the development of new analytics frameworks that can improve profitability in companies around the world.
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1yYou make some good points in the name of diversity benefiting the business, Anders. People with different skills, backgrounds and predispositions find different ways to contribute value. In simple terms, if everyone looks at a problem the same way, the odds we're all going to miss something is compounded.