Does your face fit? The making of a successful FD

In last month's cover story, Five card trick: what to look for in today's FD, we trawled through our archive of FD interviews accumulated over the past 25 years to look at some of the key attributes of a successful FD. We noted how FDs need to have a wide range of talents, from strong communication skills to the technical accounting knowledge companies have come to rely on in these complicated times. An ethical backbone that helps the FD stand up to the chief executive is vital, but we examined how it’s possible to be entrepreneurial in the role, too. How FDs relate to their shareholders can be critical, but attitudes to this vary enormously. And as the chief executive’s right-hand man, we looked at how well equipped the FD is to be the chief executive.

This month we continue our walk down FD Interview memory lane, looking at how some FDs switch jobs and even industries with great ease, while others carve out their entire career with one company. FDs we’ve met often do both, finding a string of new challenges where they are. Each one, however, has found success in a company whose demands match their skills and aptitudes.

Chop and change
One issue that has cropped up often is the ability FDs possess to switch from one industry to a completely different one, rather than having to spend the rest of their lives in specialty chemicals, financial services, or whatever.

“The FD’s is a more portable skill,” we were told in 1994 by Des Gunewardena, who at the time was the finance director of Sir Terence Conran’s retail, restaurants and design businesses. “There is a lot less difference between the financial monitoring of a car business and a food business than between the skills needed to sell cars and sell food.”

True, perhaps, but unfortunately for many FDs, CEOs very often regard it unthinkable that they should recruit an FD from outside their industry, headhunters tell us. Sometimes FDs share that view. Garry Price, for example, is the FD of Heinz UK and Ireland and has a preference when he recruits finance staff to bring in people well versed in the fast-moving consumer goods business.

“They can speak the lingo, they understand the customers, they understand the pressures with regard to promotions and deals and audiences,” he explains. “Historically, I think a lot of accountants were viewed as reporters of the news after the fact ­ – what I call rear view mirror. Really, what we’re trying to become is business partners.” Hence, for preference, Price goes for those who know the industry and can hit the ground running.