Financial directors are often stereotyped as having their heads full of numbers, and a rather grim demeanour. I’m sure that readers here will wholeheartedly disagree with this – in the past few years, FDs have changed beyond recognition, all to the benefit of our profession.

In fact, our own research amongst FDs has shown that 70 per cent of us now see ourselves as the “exec who likes to say yes”!  We also used terms such as “active” to describe our roles, indicating a mindset thoroughly at odds with the stereotypical “stern” image.

In the past, the culture of the finance department was that of careful custodianship, with the FD as a detailed scrutiniser of spending, but less involved in strategy formulation. Today, finance has to act as a partner in the business – not simply be its scorekeeper – and so it’s important that FDs broaden their education and experience as much as possible.

A key element of this can be achieved through working on the operational side for a few years. Finance professionals are fundamentally technical experts with a strong academic foundation. Yet businesses prefer, and look for, strong commercial experience and expertise, which is difficult (but not impossible) to gain when you are on the inside, looking out.

For example, on top of my function as FD, I also head the corporate transformation group. This means working with specialist multi-disciplinary teams, looking at how we can improve business processes across the company.

Working with staff at all levels (from senior managers to technicians and sector specialists) gives people the opportunity to express their opinions as to what should happen, and also to get their ideas – it’s our employees who know best what the problems are. In my experience they are usually the ones who have the best solutions.

Our responsibilities as FDs have evolved too; with the tide of compliance and cost pressures facing today’s business, it seems that we have taken great strides in adapting our skills, attributes, attitudes and qualifications to meet these new demands.

By broadening our horizons, both personally and professionally, we prevent ourselves from becoming staid. I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to take informed commercial decisions when you’ve been in a non-finance or non-functional role, than if you haven’t ever.

As modern FDs, we can experience a vast range of the aspects of business, giving much more variety to our careers than was ever the norm – this is a hugely beneficial step in attracting new entrants into the profession. Over the next few months, I will be commenting on particular trends, issues and areas of best-practice that are important to my peers and our customers – if you have any ideas or thoughts you would like to share with me, I would be more than happy to hear from you. Just leave a comment below!

*Steve Mason is finance director of Siemens Financial Services. He will be writing a regular column for RealFD.net

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