CFO Summit to consider navigating business in the new world order

Tuesday, 7 March 2017

Ngai Tahu Holdings chief financial officer Allan Hickford was named CFO of the year in 2016.

The geopolitical landscape, innovation, digital disruption and future of the workplace are on the books as the country's top chief financial officers and senior finance executive meet for this year's CFO Summit.

The CFO Summit and Awards, organised by Fairfax Media (publisher of Stuff) and Conferenz, will take place at SkyCity in Auckland this Wednesday, March 15.

Jonathan Mason is the former CFO of dairy giant Fonterra and will be a judge at the awards along with David Stewart, general manager of merchandise at Foodstuffs North Island Ltd and independent director Julia Hoare.

More than 300 people were expected at the summit, where the theme of navigating the new world order would be explored by four international keynote speakers.

The first, Stratfor vice president of strategic analysis Rodger Baker, would address how geopolitical tensions were reshaping this world, and what this meant for New Zealand businesses.

* The dawn of the unstructured era will change CFO roles

* Workplace leaders need to be better prepared for jobs disruption

* Push against extreme globalisation 'extremely significant' for New Zealand

* Country's top finance experts contest CFO Awards**

Baker said the most obvious thing was the push back against extreme globalisation, which had been seen in the US with the election of Donald Trump to president, and with Brexit and Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

He said this was 'tremendously significant' for New Zealand because it was a country heavily dependant on trade and interconnectivity.

Next would be Dennis Secor, the chief financial officer of American fashion designer and manufacturer Fossil Group, who would speak about how his finance team wanted to offer the company more than being the ones who beat people over the head with numbers.

He wanted his finance team to live and breathe the business, not throw rocks from the sideline.

'We've transitioned from finance standing on the sidelines to being in their slugging away.'

The third speaker would likely make those in the room a bit more uncomfortable, as she talked about the dawn of the unstructured era and its likely automation of the CFO role.

Marie Johnson, the chief digital officer and managing director at the Centre for Digital Business in Australia, said many of the roles of the CFO would be automated: all their knowledge, all their processes, could be captured by cognitive systems.

'The role of the CFO, people need to really think about that, because there is nothing in the role of the CFO that will not be captured by cognitive systems or that cannot be automated.

'My question to them, what part of their human intelligence, their human capability, goes beyond what a cognitive system could provide.'

On the other hand, Centre for Workplace Leadership director Peter Gahan would talk about how a robot would probably not take your job.

But even if it did, the University of Melbourne professor said that with enough planning from your boss, there should be a new, transformed job waiting for you.'We're still creating more jobs than we're destroying.

'The doomsday predictions need a bit of tempering, a bit of moderating and I think evidence and research that we do is really around helping people to take a chill pill.'

On the Wednesday evening, finance experts from the insurance, telecommunications and transport sector were in the running to be named New Zealand's top chief financial officer.

The EY CFO of the year finalists for 2017 are Sean Kam of Partners Life, Kate Jorgensen of KiwiRail, and Andrew Carroll from Chorus.

Ngai Tahu Holdings chief financial officer Allan Hickford received the top gong in 2016 for his role in Ngai Tahu becoming the first iwi to surpass $1 billion in assets.

Finalists for the Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand finance team of the year are Summerset, Xero, Southern Cross and the Department of Internal Affairs.

The Technology One financial innovation project of the year finalists are Placemakers, Southern Cross and Synlait Milk.

The University of Auckland Business School young financial manager of the year finalists are Tim Mackay of Sealord, Casey Blatch from Synlait, Jessie Watling from Ruapehu Alpine Lifts Limited, and Fletcher Building's Jeremy Yan.

Finally, the MasterCard small and medium enterprise finance team of the year category finalists are Red Bull, Powerhouse Ventures, and 90 Seconds.