Sharon Barber-Lui, CFO of US at Teva, shares her insight on what makes a CFO. Drawing on her personal experiences, she dispels the myth that they are limited to the finance functions and are more multifaceted strategist for businesses to utilise.
Most people have a narrow definition of what a CFO does. Traditionally, the Chief Financial Officer was seen as solely a transactional and operational entity, making sure the company had enough money to pay its bills and remain profitable.
Today, CFOs are not limited to finance functions; they play a critical role as financial, strategic, and operational advisors, adding value across the organisation.
As a financial professional, I’ve experienced many different aspects of finance in my career – from operations to strategy to other functions across the global financial landscape. I’ve come to realise that the CFO is really the connective tissue of the entire organization. In fact, I like to describe our position as “a business within a business.”
As the job of the CFO evolves beyond the narrow confines of financial management, companies are beginning to see us for the multifaceted strategists we really are. Here are some of the lesser-known attributes of the job based on my observations.
Top-tier companies understand that business value extends beyond finance and will often involve their Chief Financial Officer in every decision so they can benefit from the broader strategic oversight the CFO naturally has. A CFO has the advantage of an end-to-end enterprise view.
An example from my time in a previous role as senior vice president of global finance, essentially the operational day-to-day CFO.
In those very early, pre-IPO days when we were essentially building the company, it was critical for me to be able to bring together a holistic view on a wide range of topics – our clinical trials, regulatory considerations, new customer relationships, and more. Finance needed to be deeply involved in each and every aspect of our internal processes and goals.
The CFO must be able to connect all of those dots that enable countless decisions, from selecting an HR system to issues impacting clinical research. It was important that I was able to ask the tough questions and maintain a sense of curiosity, recognizing that I would need to quickly get up to speed in areas where I may not necessarily be a functional expert. A large part of my role was bringing that external perspective.
Now, more than ever, for finance, our job requires understanding business processes and redesigning them to be more efficient—whether that is AI, advanced analytics, or automation—not just crunching numbers. In short, processes can be changed, and it is often the CFO who can look across the organization or business unit to get an idea of which changes are right for the individual workers, as well as the company as a whole.
For me, this job starts with curiosity—constantly asking, “Why?” Intellectual curiosity and a growth mindset are something companies look for in a good CFO. We are constantly asking: what is the goal? Why are we doing this? What value is this creating?
CFOs are naturally inclined to think about investments and the company’s portfolio strategy along with its business goals. Each business goal has a different value, but it isn’t always financial. This could be strategic, short-term, long-term value, or value to the customer. A CFO understands the business beyond just the financial aspects and how to align the company’s goals with every business decision.
One aspect of the job I love is the wide range of projects. For example, I’ve been brought in to evaluate the launch plans of a brand team. We acquired information from the media, market research, and other data sources, which we analysed. We knew what the launch was going to cost, but we were told to do it faster and at a fourth of the price tag. A finance lead from my team partnered with the commercial team, working closely with them as an extended team member.
They looked at every investment and the intended results and asked whether the same outcomes could be had for less while making sure our plan would still meet the expectations of our external stakeholders and the business. We ended up stage gating the project, which is a process that divides your project into small stages and gates. This not only helps to mitigate risks but allows you to test and validate along the way.
Piloting in small stages to get an initial view of whether our strategy was working and to see the small successes at each stage of the launch while remaining agile.
The key to our success was embracing what I might call “fearless leadership” – being willing to step into new areas of the business and asking challenging questions while still trying to get to “yes” as often as possible. Today’s CFO needs to have a solution-oriented mindset, which starts by asking the question, “How can we do this,” instead of saying, “No, we can’t.”
Sometimes, I am approached for advice by finance professionals who may be struggling to unlock their full potential within their current role. I usually start out by asking them a question: how much time do you spend between crunching numbers and the broader strategic aspects of your role?
Most CFOs will usually answer 80/20, but the ideal ratio should be 50/50.
I encourage all financial professionals to divide the bread-and-butter tasks with the more innovative aspects of their jobs more equally. People will start to see the value of your position once you become a thought partner for them instead of a transactional partner.
Ten years ago, I was approached to take over a team that had remained unchanged for ten years. I didn’t want the role, nor did I apply for it, but the manager insisted that a unique perspective was much needed. This turned out to be the best experience in my career.
I got to be creative in a role that was normally heavily transactional. You don’t always need to succeed, but being able to put yourself out there is an important quality that demonstrates value in addition to your proven track record, your drive to outperform, and your motivation to succeed even in areas that might appear to be out-of-scope.
But more work is needed to bring about a broader paradigm shift in our industry. We must strive to challenge the conventional perception of our role as CFO while bringing awareness to some of the lesser-known strengths of our job description.
Remember, no matter how creatively you manage costs or resources, it will always come down to people. A big part of a CFO’s job is convincing others to change their views, whether that’s changing how they see our role within the company or seeing how a process can be done in a way that is much more efficient.
Being a CFO or working in finance is much more complex than it appears, and many are starting to see the growing importance of financial professionals connecting all aspects of the business to unlock its true potential.
As I say, finance is the language of business, so if you want to understand how business is done— become a CFO.
Sharon Barber-Lui is the CFO for the US of pharmaceutical giant Teva.
