The Digital CFO Magazine (Winter 2023)

The Digital CFO

Rising through the ranks

Top themes from our recent Women in Leadership Roundtable

Planning for the day after tomorrow

I think speed is critical and can lead to a lot of benefits. In our industry it’s really important to be fast. You always need to think about not today, not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow.

A conversation with TradeXBank CFO, Ekaterina Emelianova, on the future of banking, the value of an experimental CFO and the disruptive technologies that she’s excited about

A letter from our CEO

Recently, our sales teams held their 2023 Kickoff meetings – a day of rallying the organization, goal setting and collaboration. The theme selected for the session and for the year ahead was, ‘It’s Showtime’ and focused the team on coming together as a collective group and using everything they have at their disposal to execute throughout the year.

For CFOs and their teams embarking on a year of anticipated economic uncertainty, I see a lot of parallels. For the last several years, finance has worked to shift its role from that of business guardian to that of transformational change agent and business partner. Now, It’s Showtime. Time for finance teams to use everything at their disposal to guide their businesses through the year ahead.

The more I have talked to CFOs over the last month or two, the more it’s been clear that identifying and solving a number of operational problems quickly is delivering substantial benefits and is easier than trying to start big, multi-year, transformational programmes right now. I am also hearing and seeing a real focus on risks carried on the balance sheet which, in normal times, would not have gotten anywhere near the scrutiny they are getting today. For CFOs, this is the time to identify opportunities to squeeze value out of every investment, to focus the business on the areas that can make the biggest impact and to invest in systems and solutions that progressively improve access to data, drive automation and reduce the cost of finance.

We kick off this issue with an excellent interview with TradeXBank CFO, Ekaterina Emelianova, who shares perspectives on the Banking industry and how her organization is making the most of disruptive, innovative technologies.

Additional articles include a look at the ever-evolving ESG regulations and what’s in store for CFOs in this space, a dive into the rise of data fabrics and an overview of our recent Women in Leadership Roundtable which brought together an exceptional group of executives around the topic of helping women rise through the ranks.

And of course, what’s a new year without a few predictions – in this case provided by Aptitude’s own Deputy CEO and CFO, Philip Wood.

Wishing you all an exciting and successful 2023!

Jeremy Suddards CEO, Aptitude Software

Planning for the day after tomorrow

Christophe Kasolowsky speaks with Ekaterina Emelianova, CFO at TradeXBank, on what it means to be a Digital CFO. “Today it’s one crisis after another but technology and digitalization are enablers for the CFO.”

Rising through the ranks

Themes and takeaways from women leaders across the banking, insurance, technology, consulting and telecommunications sectors.

New year, new CFO insights

As we enter 2023, Aptitude Deputy CEO and CFO, Philip Wood, shares his predictions for the year ahead. “It’s not necessarily the breadth of scenarios a company can prepare but more the speed at which teams can tweak assumptions and data points and advise the business on the best course of action.”

Is your finance team ready for ESG?

The development of ESG regulations by standard-setting boards is likely to be a dynamic, evolving journey and is only just beginning. One thing is for certain: it will fall to Finance teams to meet expected regulations and reporting.

Data fabric means big business value for CFOs

For CFOs who look after complex data and finance IT landscapes, data fabrics provide easy access to data and increased performance and business agility while minimizing the total cost of finance.

What happened to all the SPACs?

A quick look back at the past, an assessment of the present and a peek into the future of this IPO vehicle.

Five Minutes with...

Going beyond the business to get to know Lesley Smith, recent VP Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Revolut.

Planning for the day after tomorrow

By Sarah Werner

As the recently named CFO of TradeXBank, a Commodity Trade Finance (CTF) bank based in Zurich, Ekaterina Emelianova is putting her 20 years of finance experience to work defining the direction and strategy of the organization. She spoke with Christophe Kasolowsky, Aptitude’s Chief Product Officer, on the future of banking, the value of an experimental CFO and the disruptive technologies that she’s excited about.

Name: Ekaterina (Katya) Emelianova

Title: CFO

Organization: TradeXBank AG

Location: Zurich, Switzerland

Ekaterina (Katya) Emelianova is CFO of TradeXBank AG and a member of the Executive Board. In addition to her CFO role, she supervises the Bank’s Operations department.

Ekaterina has over 20 years of experience working in finance and graduated with a master’s degree in Management from Moscow State University and holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD and an Executive MBA from London Business School.

She also has CFM, CMA, CSCA and CIA qualifications. Since July 2021, she has served as President of the Swiss Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), a non-for-profit organization focused on advancing management accounting profession.

Christophe: So, let’s start with the question we’ve asked our previous interviewees for this feature and that is, what is a Digital CFO? What does that phrase mean to you?

Ekaterina: Today, a CFO cannot be successful without being very close to all things digital and to new technologies. I’ve watched our profession change tremendously thanks to technology.

In the past, the CFO was a bookkeeper, let’s face it. We were looking back. But you can’t drive a car if you are always looking in your rearview mirror. In the absence of technology, CFOs are stuck looking backwards and not able to act as a business partner - a sparring partner - and not able to help the business and the board.

Today it’s one crisis after another but technology and digitalization are enablers for the CFO. We’ve got real time financials, real time

management reporting – or close to real time – and we’re able to deliver insights and make decisions. I firmly believe that if you can’t measure, you can’t manage. Now you can better measure, thanks to technologies, and better manage as a result.

Christophe: I agree, the finance function has absolutely come a long way and there is a digital element that is now mandatory, but the reality is plenty of CFOs still feel like too much of their time is spent on manual tasks or backwards reporting. What would you advise these CFOs, who may be lagging a bit in terms of defining a finance technology architecture? Where do they start?

Ekaterina: It’s quite difficult to start! But what I would suggest is don’t try to do some large, big, costly project and don’t try and onboard unproven technology. Start with the basics. For example, all companies have employee expense management requirements, and the market is full of proven, easy-to-introduce solutions that leverage robotics and artificial intelligence. Improvements in this area will be felt by the whole organization since employee expense processes touch a significant portion of a company and this can be great from an internal PR perspective. Then move to accounts payable or another relatively easy area. Before you know it, it’s like an appetite. You brought your company to a restaurant when they weren’t hungry but once they started eating they want more.

Christophe: What does success look like for these smaller projects? Is it about speed? Better performance? Lowering costs?

Ekaterina: I think speed is critical and can lead to a lot of benefits. In our industry it’s really important to be fast. You always need to think about not today, not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow. Your ability to move quickly takes priority over cost reduction when you think about these programs, in my opinion.

And when you talk about these technology projects as cost reductions, I think it’s important to look at how and what you are measuring. You can’t just look out one year. You need to have some horizontals – three years, five years – and then you need to see what the cost reduction looks like over the long term. No one should make decisions just by looking to reduce costs in one year. You will never achieve anything.

I also think CFOs need to really look at the problem they are trying to solve when they measure the cost savings of these technology projects. For example, today it’s very difficult to hire finance professionals because we’ve got a younger generation that thinks finance is boring, repetitive. You can’t attract talent if you’re saying to your star performer that

Christophe: Let’s talk about Banking specifically for a moment. You’ve been in the Banking sector for a long time, currently as the CFO of TradeXBank. Where do you think the role of the CFO is going more generally for Banks and Financial Services institutions? What do they need to think about to be successful in the next 5-10 years over and above the technology agenda?

Ekaterina: I believe classical banking will not last for long. And I still believe that the movement to an ecosystem is really the right move. To navigate these shifts, Banking CFOs need to think broad. They need to understand M&A, the Fintech technology landscape, how to evaluate investments and what types of services to offer. They also need to understand how to calculate

every day they have to do the same thing. So, from that standpoint, if you bring in the technology that automates the repetitive work, enables finance to do something transformative and allows you to attract and retain the right talent as a result, you have solved your problem and likely reduced costs in the long run.

the cost of their services which can be difficult in financial services. In manufacturing, it’s pretty easy, right? But how you calculate cost of services in the banking and financial services industries, it’s not easy. We need CFOs that can play a much more important role in the strategy and have a better understanding of market development. For me, at a high level, I think the CFO role should

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For me, at a high level, I think the CFO role should be completely different from the person who knows debits and credits and understands the regulatory standards by heart. The CFO role should be filled by a strategic, experimental person. In this role, you’re not a manager anymore. You are a mentor and a coach.

be completely different from the person who knows debits and credits and understands the regulatory standards by heart.

The CFO role should be filled by a strategic, experimental person. In this role, you’re not a manager anymore. You are a mentor and a coach. Your team is not calculating math equations, but instead posing and proving hypotheses. It’s analyzing investments and technologies and developing math models with all their dependencies. But on top of all that, actually, I believe that the most important skills for this CFO role are storytelling, negotiation and conflict resolution. I’ll give you an example. At TradeXBank, one of the things I’m trying to do with my team is to take all the financial reporting and information they’ve prepared and try to understand and articulate the message in a way that tells a story to leadership. We spend enormous amounts of effort on that, and I think it needs to be a critical part of the strategic CFO’s role going forward.

CK: What has caught your attention in terms of new technologies for the Banking sector and what do you think will be the most disruptive and interesting for your organization and the finance sector in general?

Ekaterina: Well, my particular world is commodity trading and areas of finance related to that. For us, digitization is really a game changer for everyone as we try to deal with the high volume of papers and the constant flow of information to and from our clients. Now we’re considering how we can create a digital journey for our clients that also benefits us. We expect this to reduce our costs and speed up the flow of information. And by having all this data available to us, we can generate more forecasting and analytics. It’s not an option not to be digital – the question is just how we’ll construct this digital journey for our clients and for us. Shall we start receiving voice recognition instructions from

clients? How shall we exchange documents? We’re asking those types of questions.

The next would be artificial intelligence and machine learningI think you referred to it as predictive analytics. I think this is one of the keys for everyone, especially these days. We all know

It is one of the largest and most respected associations focused exclusively on advancing the management accounting profession with 150k members globally. The key for me is to give members support and guidance in their professional careers. In this profession, things change every day so we are trying to help management accountants, CFOs, controllers and other finance professionals to find the solution to their problems, gain additional knowledge and stay up to speed on the latest best practices.

Given our conversation, you won’t be surprised to know that one of our hot topic issues is technology. This year for the first time we ran a webinar on artificial intelligence which was such a success that we’re planning to add more. We also cover topics around ethics, core leadership skills and talk about how to manage stress and burnout.

the next crisis is around the corner. What we don’t know is when, we don’t know how severe, and we don’t know what shape it will take. In order to be prepared, you need to be able to model a lot of scenarios. When something happens, people are so stressed it’s hard to think rationally. If you have already modeled certain scenarios and know your desired response, you don’t need to call for a meeting to discuss what you’re going to do. You know how to act based on certain triggers and I think that’s one of the most important things for us and for Banks in general.

Christophe: I know you are the President of the IMA Swiss Chapter. Can you share a bit more about what you provide your members and your top focus area in that role?

Ekaterina: The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA®) has been around for over 100 years.

Our Swiss Chapter is 300 members and we’re working closely with IMA organizations globally to grow our membership. I’m really proud of our chapter because we really managed to organize a lot of interesting events and have a strong pipeline for 2023 to discuss the priorities of our members.

Christophe: Thank you for sharing your insights and expertise, Ekaterina!

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We all know the next crisis is around the corner. What we don’t know is when, we don’t know how severe, and we don’t know what shape it will take.

Rising through the ranks

Themes from our recent Women in Leadership Roundtable

By Sarah Werner

Recently we set out to gather a group of women leaders to participate in a roundtable with the theme, Rising through the ranks. The call was answered by some truly exceptional leaders who joined a virtual session earlier this month, moderated by Aptitude Software’s North America CEO, Alex Curran.

Together, our panelists brought over 220 years of experience to the call and represented the banking, insurance, technology, consulting, and telecommunications sectors. Each one remarked how important it was to them to help cultivate the next wave of female leaders and this commitment is clear from the various industry groups, boards and advisory groups these women serve on.

The 45-minute webinar, available to watch here, spanned multiple topics. This article highlights some of the most frequently raised themes along with some valuable advice from each one of the contributors.

The value of women leaders

Sian Ciabattoni, Head of Global Marketing, Aptitude Software

The research has supported over and over again that women leadership is good for business. Companies led by women, or with a substantial number of women on their boards, financially outperform companies with less gender diversity at the top. Firms with female directors achieve a higher level of innovation. However, as moderator Alex Curran pointed out early in the webinar, women are significantly underrepresented in leadership roles.

Karen Nunn, Divisional Vice President, HCSC

Sirisha Dasu, Vice President, Finance Systems and Solutions, VMware Inc

Terri Smith, EVP Finance and Accounting, Betacom

Sara J. Dioguardi, Principal Transformation Delivery, Advisory, KPMG LLP

Sandy Sposato, Principal, EY Americas, Ernst & Young

Ekaterina Emelianova, CFO, TradeXBank AG

The participants were consistently vocal about the benefits of having women in leadership roles. Sirisha Dasu commented, “The main reason I think it’s in companies’ best advantage is because of the ability to go past the echo chamber. When you have a consistent representation, you’re not hearing other points of view. Also, there have been so many studies that show women are more empathetic and they consider all aspects. They want to always create a win-win solution.”

“Women build deeper relationships and that really assists with understanding what makes teams tick and what’s important to them,” joined in Karen Nunn.

“Having diverse leadership brings perspective. I think it’s really dynamic for our business environment. It’s what brings us to the forefront in innovation. It brings us connection across teams, across the business,” agreed Terri Smith.

Embrace risk-taking

For Sandy Sposato, not being afraid to take chances has been one of the defining mantras of her career. “Being comfortable with what you know and being comfortable enough to know what you don’t know – and asking for help from those that are deeper in a particular knowledge set – I think that helps you build confidence

and build your capabilities. Taking chances is what’s really given me opportunities. Have they always gone well? No, absolutely, sometimes you do fail in these rooms where you are the only woman. But I think those failures allow you to learn a lot, and I think taking that chance has allowed me to build confidence. It has also helped me to feel like I am an equal in a room where I tend to be the only woman.”

It’s a mindset shift

Sara Dioguardi was the first to comment with her views on how women can build up their confidence stating, “Too often, women are worried about being caught saying the wrong thing…So they prepare, prepare, and prepare – so they walk into the room as qualified to be there as all the men and often more prepared. But then the fear and risk-aversion come in. The guys range in skill and preparation level. That usually doesn’t stop them from expressing their views. They talk. But often the woman who has just as much prep or who is just as capable is sitting in the corner. Why? Irrational fears of being wrong, fears of being embarrassed, fears of saying the wrong thing. The mindset change starts with understanding that you are at least as good as the men in the room – so you should not hesitate to jump in and contribute. As a result, people will get to know your

name because you have become part of the conversation.”

Katya Emelianova echoed this experience adding, “Women quite often put too much on the side of technical knowledge, and we totally forget about our natural soft skills. We have much more empathy, and we need to use that in these meeting rooms. At the end of the day, these technical skills are important, but they’re not as important as soft skills – the ability to listen to everyone, the ability to connect with people. I think the moment women start to value soft skills we will feel much more confidence.”

The importance of mentoring

The panelists agreed on not only the importance of finding a mentor but also filling this role for others.

Sian Ciabattoni commented, “I had a brilliant manager who really inspired me and encouraged me out of my comfort zone all the time. And one of the things he told me was that I was better than I knew I was – and that really stuck with me really gave me confidence in my role.” Ciabattoni went on to talk about how this guides her as she mentors others. “I really try and get to know them and what their strengths and weaknesses are and work with them to be the best they can be. And yes, sometimes that means pushing them out of their comfort zone to help them achieve their goals.”

Sirisha Dasu commented, “I think it’s really important as a mentee to be prepared with what you are looking for from a mentor. The other thing I tell mentees is that when you are just starting out, don’t be so worried about your career progression and moving in a straight line…instead focus on adding value.”

Karen Nunn added, “I like to go through [mentoring] discussions where I understand what they want their brand to be. Focusing on career progression alone is too narrow of

A career, it’s a very long continuum, but we always lose perspective when we are in that one particular tough time. But it’s important for us to realize we are going to get there eventually, even if we take detours.

Sirisha Dasu, Vice President, Finance Systems and Solutions, VMware Inc

a focus. I ask, how do you want to be perceived? How do you want to grow as a person?”

Focusing on self-love and self-belief

Several of the participants shared personal stories about defining their unique priorities and overcoming doubts over the long arc of their careers. “A career, it’s a very long continuum, but we always lose perspective when we are in that one particular tough time. But it’s important for us to realize we are going to get there eventually, even if we take detours,” shared Sirisha Dasu. “I think you need to be creative, and you need to love yourself and prioritize things that are important to you. Things will fall into place. It will all work out.”

That one piece of advice

The session ended with the participants providing the one piece of advice that they would give to their younger selves. Their answers were nuanced and insightful and we’ve highlighted a brief quote from each below.

Katya Emelianova shared a story about conducting an interview with a potential candidate while home with a sick child. “I felt bad and apologized and was trying to calm my daughter over the course of the interview.” When the candidate eventually accepted the offer, she shared with Katya that part of the reason she accepted was seeing that the CFO was a fellow human being and this connection made her feel good about the culture and her career. “Don’t try to think that you have to choose either/or. Both can exist together. Just make sure you make your priorities; you make your own choices.” “

Take the time to be proud of the great work you do! Blow your own trumpet at work and try to do it regularly. Whether that’s a quick recap in a meeting or an update email to the team. Celebrate your successes.

Sian Ciabattoni, Head of Global Marketing, Aptitude Software

Be a part of the change. Get involved and don’t be afraid to speak up…Go seek guidance from other leaders or peers throughout the business and really gain perspective on what changes are necessary. Be a part of pushing things forward.

Terri Smith, EVP Finance and Accounting, Betacom

Follow the path of opportunity. What does that mean? Sometimes, you say, I’m going to do this and I’m going to get this job – but then another path opens – perhaps not what you wanted to do but it’s an opportunity. Maybe someone sees potential in you that you didn’t see, or someone asks you to manage a group that has nothing to do with where you thought you were going…Don’t turn your nose up at a path of opportunity! Follow it and see where it takes you..

Sara J. Dioguardi, Principal Transformation Delivery, Advisory, KPMG LLP

“Learn as much as you can, be perceived as a problem solver, as someone who is working on solutions. Job rotations are a great way to achieve this…It actually gives you the chance to be a succession path for someone because you have that overall knowledge. I would also say to do your own succession planning. You need to train your successor continuously as you are moving up so that it does not become a deterrent.

Sirisha Dasu, Vice President, Finance Systems and Solutions, VMware Inc

Don’t be afraid to take a chance. It’s taking that chance and not being afraid of the consequences that provides you with greater opportunities. The opportunities create things you probably didn’t even know about and the worst thing that could happen is it doesn’t go well, and you revert back to what you were doing before. And the best thing that could happen is it catapults you into better opportunities.

Sandy Sposato, Principal, EY Americas, Ernst & Young

“Don’t be afraid to experiment and take some risks. And love yourself, believe in you. If you do this, then other people will start to feel it and support you.

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I wish I had known years ago that perfection should not be the goal. Unexpected things happen and you learn from them. Don’t let mistakes reduce your confidence and not allow you to take chances.

Karen Nunn, Divisional Vice President, HCSC

/we-are-women-in-leadership

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We’ve launched a new community ‘we are women in leadership’ on

please join us by following, commenting, and getting involved.

Ekaterina Emelianova, CFO, TradeXBank AG

New year, new CFO insights

By Sarah Werner

As we enter 2023, we spoke to Aptitude’s Deputy CEO and CFO, Philip Wood, on his predictions for the year ahead. Wood has been CFO of Aptitude Software since 2007 and serves as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of SmartSpace Software Plc.

CFOs will be hypersensitive to market changes

Every year brings unique challenges, but 2023 is beginning under a cloud of high inflation and the very real potential of recession. The latest McKinsey Global Survey notes the biggest concerns for CFOs heading into 2023 are rising interest rates followed by high inflation. While understanding the impact of these macroeconomic trends on their business is not always possible, CFOs will be highly alert to any dampening of demand on the part of customers and looking to adjust investment decisions accordingly. They will be consistently reassessing and trying to get a sense of how best to use the financial levers they have at their disposal.

Wood observes, “In this environment, real-time data access is especially important. CFOs will need to rely on pipeline trends, real-time cash forecasts, closed recognized revenue reports and more while using both financial and business data to help support decision making.” Scenario planning will also be critical to CFOs success. “It’s not necessarily the breadth of scenarios a company can

prepare but more the speed at which teams can tweak assumptions and data points and advise the business on the best course of action,” says Wood.

On ESG, CFOs will need to balance stakeholder desires with cost concerns

ESG regulatory requirements are continuing to evolve following some big decisions made in 2022. As progress continues to be made in this area, the task of sourcing data, building accounting rules, modeling scenarios and producing and explaining reporting and disclosures will fall to finance teams – and these efforts will require investment.

This need to react in real time will expose the companies who don’t have the data infrastructure in place to provide reporting and analytics that considers constantly fluctuating market movements.

“I think CFOs will need to have open discussions with their boards and other stakeholders to determine where they want to sit on that ESG reporting continuum.” Wood explains. “Legal compliance is a givenabsolutely companies will need to put in place the mechanisms to check that box - but many companies are being asked by their boards and other stakeholders, including consumers, to go the extra mile with regards to ESG reporting. That can have big business benefits such as attracting investors, procuring a lower cost of credit and attracting and retaining talent, but CFOs will also need to weigh the cost requirements and pressures in the short term.”

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In this environment, real-time data access is especially important. CFOs will need to rely on pipeline trends, real-time cash forecasts, closed recognized revenue reports and more while using both financial and business data to help support decision making.

2023 will bring a mix of opportunities and challenges when it comes to building winning finance teams

According to a recent CFO Dive article, CFOs looking to fill the economy’s 10.5 million job openings may continue to find it hard to staff up well into 2023. “The tight labor market will probably persist for at least the next few months,” according to Cristian deRitis, deputy chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

However, hiring may differ based on industry and job function. As CFO of a software company, Wood observes, “I’m interested to see how the tech employment world changes following some of the downsizing we’ve seen at big technology companies. Will it be easier to find talent, or will it remain highly competitive as it has been the last few years? I think if we see that talent crunch start to ease and you can bring people on quickly, that will allow CFOs to better react to signs of growth as they happen. But if you’re struggling to find talent, it becomes a challenge to scale up.”

A recent Forrester study indicates this may be the case and suggests continued tech redundancies may free up digital talent that may eschew the hot new startups in favor of companies with greater stability and longevity.

Wood also predicts companies may also be challenged to match wage increases if the pace of inflation continues. This may require organizations to get creative and find other ways of offering value to employees through non-financial perks.

The strategic importance of the CFO and the finance function will continue to grow.

Transformation enabler. Business Partner. Strategic advisor. The shift in the role of CFO from business guardian - looking after financial and risk reduction activities - to strategic change agent has been in motion for a few years now. Surveys indicate that today’s finance leaders are frequently involved in long-term strategy and management decisions, and two-thirds are involved in digital transformation.

“I think we’ll see this trend that was already well underway – the shift in the role of the CFO – become even more pronounced as finance teams utilize their expertise in data, analytics, governance to squeeze every last drop of value out of their investments and guide the company through current and future economic hurdles using this massive trove of data at their fingertips,” predicts Wood.

IFRS 17 still a major focus for the insurance industry

After six years of discussions, delays and a tremendous amount of money spent – likely north of $24bn - IFRS 17 officially went into effect on January 1, 2023. While the date has come and gone the focus (and pain) for many insurers will linger in 2023. Even for those insurers who successfully implemented compliance solutions and successfully calculated their transition balances, there is work to be done.

“Most insurers are likely to run parallel reporting for at least the next few years as they seek to understand how their key metrics will change in a post Solvency II/IFRS 17 world. The work to understand, optimize and compare these metrics with their peers and then articulate them effectively to a broad set of stakeholders will be a complex and time-consuming process and will be considerable area of focus for Insurance finance teams in 2023,” highlights Wood.

Interested in more predictions from Aptitude?

Check out our recent blog, Monetization in media: five key trends & predictions for 2023.

Is your finance team ready for ESG?

By Daniel Chow

ESG, a set of standards and frameworks related to Environmental, Social and Governance criteria, is already a corporate hot topic.

Borne out of the realization and acceptance that business activities directly impact the environment and well-being of society, there is an increasing demand for ESG data and transparency from multiple stakeholders.

governance, data management, accounting and reporting – to manage the completely new data sets and disclosures that will be required to meet the expected regulations and reporting requirements.

Name: Daniel Chow

Title: Principal, Senior Financial Specialist

Organization: Aptitude Software

Location: London

Daniel joined Aptitude Software in 2019 as a Senior Finance Specialist. As a member of the Product Strategy and Innovation Team, Daniel serves as an accounting and financial reporting subject matter expert on IFRS 17 and subledger development. Daniel is a Chartered Accountant and is experienced in IT and business change with an indepth understanding of dataflow and control processes. He has held roles at UBS, HSBC, Barclays, and PwC.

Investors are increasingly asking for and factoring non-financial information into business analysis and valuation models to support their investment decisions. Business leaders are also assimilating ESG data into their management decision-making process to gain a holistic view of the risks and opportunities their companies are exposed to. Finally, consumers are demanding sustainability information to inform buying habits that are aligned with their values. This is especially true of Gen Z, 75% of whom say sustainability is more important than brand names (source).

The development of ESG regulations by standard-setting boards is likely to be a dynamic, evolving journey and is only just beginning. And it will likely fall to Finance teams – already well versed in risk management,

From voluntary to regulatory

Until now, ESG reporting has been mostly voluntary, reflecting the recognition that it can act as a key driver of enterprise value. However, standards boards and regulators are now moving to codify ESG regulations, and Finance functions are being tapped to lead compliance initiatives.

In addition to disclosure requirements, mandatory ESG ratings and certification processes are expected to increase. Companies who perform poorly will take hits to their share price and likely to be starved of capital. By 2030, poor performers are expected to be weeded out and C-suite and Directors to be personally liable for ESG breaches.

The status of the Standards Boards

Regulatory requirements on ESG management and reporting continue to take shape and can vary greatly depending on the aim and reach of the standards board.

Enterprise value-focused frameworks and standards like Task Force for Climate Disclosures (“TCFD”) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”) are looking to demonstrate the link between sustainability issues and value creation, the result of which culminates in qualitative and quantitative disclosures that facilitate the assessment of the impact of non-financial factors on current status and future prospects of businesses.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (“ISSB”) has undertaken the tasks of standardizing the myriad of sustainability frameworks and standards around the world with the aim of providing clarity and comparability over ESG reporting.

The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (“ESRS”) has a wider scope where, in addition to enterprise value, it also captures disclosures pertinent to the well-

being of the environment and society. There are currently 13 exposure drafts under consultation with certain organizations needing to comply beginning on January 1, 2024.

Meanwhile, the US SEC has yet to announce mandatory climate-related disclosures but is expected to in the coming months.

More countries than ever are putting standards in place to require ESG reporting with the number of ESG reporting provisions issued by governmental bodies growing 74% over the last four years. For

global organizations who will have to report under multiple standards, this will pose significant adoption challenges and regulatory risks.

Finance will likely be tapped to lead ESG

There is a broad consensus that while ESG represents a huge undertaking which will require cross-functional collaboration, Finance is likely to be the ideal function to drive the implementation of ESG initiatives. An Accenture 2021 survey reports that 68% of CFO respondents are currently responsible for their company’s ESG performance. That percentage is likely to grow as the regulations become more widespread.

As the role of Finance continues to evolve away from mere reporter of historical financial activities, ownership of ESG fits into the vision of Finance as a provider of business insights and overseer of business value. Moreover, Finance already possesses a multitude of skills required such as business analysis and a control environment mindset for operating ESG; as well as the cross-functional relationships necessary for execution.

Finally, given the expectation that ESG disclosures will need to be

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More countries than ever are putting standards in place to require ESG reporting with the number of ESG reporting provisions issued by governmental bodies growing 74% over the last four years

reported in financial statements which comes with the need for assurance, it makes sense to add ESG to Finance’s repertoire of responsibilities.

ESG considerations for Finance Data

ESG accounting, analysis and disclosures will require additional granular data. A portion of the ESG data will be non-financial in nature, so organizations will need to determine whether they own and store the data or if it will be provided by a third-party. Given that a portion of ESG regulations have to do with a company’s vendors, suppliers, customers and clients, procuring the essential data points may become a complex task. Examples include the need to collect data around GHG emissions from consumers, product safety during consumer usage and ecological impact data sourced from NGOs. Procuring and handling data that is not traditionally encountered by Finance means they will need to lean on others with specific subject matter expertise in areas like emissions, energy, and community relations to understand and analyze the data points.

Then, procured ESG data will need to be linked to key financial drivers like revenue, costs, assets and liabilities, and cost of capital in order for Finance to assess its financial impacts, which means it must be captured within the Finance data flows. Finance will require a dynamic infrastructure and robust solutions to handle disparate ESG data at the right level of granularity in a way that provides clear audit trail and reconciliations.

Accounting Rules

In the near future, ESG regulations and best practices will evolve constantly as regulators and

companies alike learn and adjust to what is practical and useful. In response, accounting rules will need to capture ESG-related dimensions alongside core accounting flows to accommodate innovative new products and services as well as new aspects like carbon emissions accounting and their associated new accounting treatments.

This means firms will need to be able to revise accounting rules rapidly to adjust to an ever-evolving landscape. Centralized accounting rules maintenance will need to be fully owned by a Finance team with the ability to maintain and update accounting rules in a controlled and auditable manner, without a dependency on IT. Additionally, Finance must have the ability to model scenarios to identify the impact of accounting approaches on balance sheet metrics.

Disclosures and Reporting

There is a drive to standardize ESG reporting and disclosures across regulators and industries to ensure clarity and consistency of information available to all stakeholders. As these requirements are defined and further clarified, firms will need to rapidly source required data points, integrate them with their current financial reporting flows, perform additional transformations and then provide the outputs for reporting and analytics. In addition, the ability to perform forecasts and scenario analysis on the balance sheet and income statement will be critical to enable

Finance to adequately support the business in real-time decision making.

Given the newness of ESG, Finance will also be tasked with managing the narrative with investors and illustrating current status and long-term plans. A critical part of this will be continually connecting with industry peers and standards boards to ensure alignment with the market. Veering too far off course in the approach to ESG could make it hard to keep up with peers and may project a negative impression to the market.

Moving forward

Gone are the days of the CFO sequestered at their desk surrounded by spreadsheets. ESG mandates will require a strategic approach that takes into consideration areas previously far outside the CFO remit – from supply chain to human resources and engineering.

ESG is looking to be one of the most significant value drivers in the year ahead. A recent McKinsey article pointed to a strong ESG proposition as a potential value driver for topline growth, cost reduction, reduced regulatory risk, productivity uplift, and investment and asset optimization. For CFOs looking to earn their stripes as a transformation enabler and value-creator, ESG is certainly a good place to focus.

“

Procuring and handling data that is not traditionally encountered by Finance means they will need to lean on others with specific subject matter expertise in areas like emissions, energy, and community relations to understand and analyze the data points.

Data fabric means big business value for CFOs

By Jordan Burke

Jordan Burke is the Finance Digitalization Product Manager at Aptitude Software and responsible for defining and architecting Aptitude’s suite of digital finance solutions.

Name: Jordan Burke

Title: Finance Digitalization Product Manager

Organization: Aptitude Software

Location: Boston

Jordan Burke is the Finance Digitalization Product Manager at Aptitude Software and responsible for defining and architecting Aptitude’s suite of digital finance solutions. He has over a decade of Product Management experience within the FinTech space working with businesses and end users to drive award winning software development.

“Enterprise data environments are outmatched by the demands on them…” This succinct observation in a recent Forbes article perfectly articulates where organizations are in their quest to better harness data for decision making. For most organizations, outmatched pretty much sums it up. There are many reasons for this – acquisitions over time, legacy systems, lack of digital skills, underinvestment, increasing amounts of unstructured data – but regardless of the exact circumstances, most companies feel limited in their ability to make use of data.

While data struggles occur across departments, the CFO and the finance team can face additional challenges given the scrutiny they face around management, statutory and regulatory reporting. Additionally, the finance function frequently plays the role of data stewards within an organization – expected to provide seamless data access, views and analytics cross-departmentally.

While data fabric offers benefits for organizations as a whole, this article will focus specifically on the value of a data fabric within the finance department.

Defining data fabric

Gartner defines data fabric as an emerging data management design that enables augmented data integration and sharing across heterogeneous data sources. Data fabrics have become more prevalent over the past few years as data formats, sources, and silos have exploded. Gartner identified data fabric as a top strategic technology trend in 2022 and predicts that by 2024, data fabric deployments will quadruple efficiency in data utilization, while cutting humandriven data management tasks in half.

More a method than a tool, data fabrics provide a centralized, single layer of interaction that can bring in data, regardless of location, in a way

that doesn’t require that data to be copied or duplicated. Once there, a data fabric can be used to manage the lifecycle of that data, applying active metadata to enforce company governance, data privacy policies and compliance through role-based access controls. Finally, data fabrics can better expose data to users through search catalogs and allow them to leverage data in various business intelligence, machine learning or open source tools.

Data Fabric and the CFO

For CFOs who look after complex data and finance IT landscapes, utilizing a data fabric provides business users easy access to data and increased performance and business agility while minimizing the total cost of finance – the ability to operate better, faster and at a lower cost.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the benefit areas.

An empowered finance (and wider business) team

Data fabrics empower finance –and business users generally – to create data models and consume data without the need for coding experience.

Traditionally, an application has a predefined data model which requires

finance and IT teams to bring in data points from other systems and match them to predetermined fields. This can sometimes feel like trying to get a square peg into a round hole and frequently slows progress as teams struggle to fit existing data into rigid data models. Using a data fabric, teams can flexibly create the data model within finance to accommodate the source format. As a user defines new data tables or entities within finance, the interface automatically adjusts and dynamically picks it up. This is called data cataloging and it’s a significant advantage of the data fabric approach, not just within finance, but throughout technology industry.

This allows data models to be created by finance subject matter experts rather than technical users, through the use of metadata. The environment is flexible and dynamic allowing interfaces and integrations to rapidly adapt to the definitions.

Flexibility

A data fabric approach also allows finance to be much more flexible in the database application that can be used to underpin a dataset. Finance can select the data storage tool that best fits the purpose. For example, the Aptitude Fynapse platform - which leverages a data fabric - uses a relational database tool for configuration data. For actual

transactional data, it uses a more traditional column based database. Using a data fabric approach allows us to make those selections to ensure we can access the best set of capabilities for the business and technical requirements as well as the best performance. In the future, if it becomes more cost effective to swap the database technologies – say due to a vendor cost increase - we can do that without impacting the rest of the application. This agility removes dependencies and broadens your ability to deliver the highest performance at the lowest cost.

A reduced cost of finance

One of the key benefits of data fabric is the ability to reduce the cost of the finance function through the elimination of redundant storage mechanisms. Given the current economic climate and with the rise of cloud computing, this is an important area for both IT and Finance leaders looking to create a lean infrastructure that still meets the needs of the business. The reduction in data ‘lifting and shifting’ also reduces the number of integrations and points of failure, reducing the need to bring in IT to solve issues that arise.

In addition to reducing the cost of storage and IT support, CFOs can reduce the cost of finance by eliminating multiple, siloed finance teams preparing, validating, adjusting and reconciling different datasets for their own purpose. A data fabric allows for this activity to be centralized, leading to a more cost efficient finance department.

Decreased time to value

Gartner recently estimated that data fabrics have the ability to cut data management efforts by up to 70% and accelerate time to value. This has massive implications for finance departments. From limiting the need to build out point to point integrations between systems to the reduction of repetitive tasks

“ Gartner identified data fabric as a top strategic technology trend in 2022 and predicts that by 2024, data fabric deployments will quadruple efficiency in data utilization, while cutting human-driven data management tasks in half.

like profiling datasets, discovering and aligning new data sources and addressing ongoing integration issues – finance can reduce time to value.

Access to a broader technology ecosystem

In addition to the integration capabilities with typical target and source systems, data fabrics enable extensions to be built on top of core applications, for example, the Aptitude Fynapse platform. As we know the concept of a technology ecosystem - where key providers, all focusing on a specific domain or product, seamlessly integrate to provide greater functionality to their clients – is becoming an important driver of business value. Using a data fabric can make it easier to integrate client or partner-developed IP or applications that utilize the same data set, providing confidence to end users that their data is accurate. At Aptitude, we know that there are

sectors of the finance landscape outside of our strategic product focus, but the data fabric approach enables us to create partnerships that allow for additional tooling to sit on top of our application in order to provide a joint solution to clients.

Bringing the data fabric to life

Imagine a finance department as a mini data fabric environment. Fynapse acts as a finance management platform that both maintains its own data fabric and can interact with a larger data fabric ecosystem around it. Within finance, the data fabric architecture can support all modules, those provided by Aptitude as well as those provide by third parties. They are all pulling from the same trusted set of data without the need to move or duplicate data points. It’s a single point of access and a single storage point for all that data.

Conclusion

Data fabric is a strategic technology approach that can mean big benefits to CFOs and their teams as they work to ensure data is trusted, detailed and generating business insights. From increasing flexibility and performance to reducing the cost of finance, this is an important strategic technology that will unlock business value.

What happened to all the SPACs?

A look at the past, present and future of special purpose acquisition companies

By Sarah Werner

If you were a consumer of business news in 2020 and 2021, it was hard to go too long without reading about the significant rise in SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies. Today, that flood has slowed to a trickle. Here’s a quick look back at the past, an assessment of the present and a peek into the future of this IPO vehicle.

The past

SPACs have been around since the 90s and are essentially big pools of cash listed on an exchange. Their purpose is to find a private company, buy it and take it public quickly. Some on Wall Street call them “blank-check companies’’ because the investors backing the SPAC put up their money months before an acquisition target is identified, trusting the people running the show to find a good deal.

The shares of these companies are issued at a nominal $10/share to shareholders. There is no incentive for a shareholder to own a SPAC share since there are no assets on the book besides the cash raised. The shareholder is betting on the optionality of the SPAC to find a deal that is worth more than the nominal value - essentially an arbitrage play.

In 2020 and 2021, many shareholders found that the hype behind a deal

was enough to create an arbitrage opportunity and oftentimes bought into shares at much higher than the nominal value, creating a bit of a frenzy to raise a deal. Typically a company has 2 years to secure a deal and shareholders have several opportunities to pull back their funds. This can put a constraint on what kind of deals the SPAC can reasonably afford to fund.

In a counterparty to all this, there is the target acquisition company. This company may or may not have a traditional path to an IPO and many private investors look to SPACs as a liquidation event for an investment that may be giving a negative return to date. Historically, these companies were often left for dead by traditional IPO markets, but 2018-2020 saw some successful deals, triggering an entire boom cycle of funds.

To put things in perspective, 2019 to 2020 showed a 462% year-over-year

jump in proceeds raised by SPACs. In 2021 this trend continued with IPOs (including SPACs) enjoying a record year with 2,340 new issues raising $428.9B. (by volume, IPO activity rose 73% compared to 2020.)

2019 to 2020 showed a 462% yearover-year jump in proceeds raised by SPACs. In 2021 this trend continued with IPOs (including SPACs) enjoying a record year with 2,340 new issues raising $428.9B.

The present

With that context in place, where are we today? Like many things in life that have a limited purpose, excess can be self-sabotaging. Of the roughly 600 SPACs still out there scrambling to find targets before the market shuts down entirely, 270 have been looking for at least a year, according to Dealogic.

Backers of those companies are desperate, which could make them less judicious in choosing merger partners, said Nathan Anderson of Hindenburg Research, a firm that specializes in publishing critical reports about publicly traded companies including SPACs.

“The quality of SPAC deals was never high to begin with,” Mr. Anderson said. “And now it has the potential to get substantially worse.”

In December 2022 alone, roughly 70 special-purpose acquisition companies liquidated and returned money to investors. That is more than the total number of SPAC liquidations in the market’s history, according to data provider SPAC Research. Data shows that SPAC creators have lost more than $600 million on liquidations this month and more than $1.1 billion this year.

Those SPACs that came late to the game are often struggling to find deals. Falling stock prices and rising interest rates have essentially frozen the market for new public listings, making it difficult for executives to meet their two-year deadline to find a deal. Many of those deadlines are coming up in the first half of this year.

Besides the deadlines, a new tax treatment on SPACs led many to liquidate prior to 2023 to avoid a new share repurchase tax, which would impact any liquidation process.

Research on returns have shown that SPACs ultimately do create risk for sponsors and investors in what

was thought to be a relatively risk free alternative investment. After all, how could you lose money investing in cash? Several SPACs are trading below the $10 nominal price, and a recently updated paper by Minmo Gahng, Jay R. Ritter and Donghang Zhang shows that average one-year returns for SPAC shareholders who rolled their money into post-SPAC companies were a negative 11.3%.

With so many returns in the red, and liquidations occurring left and right, who ultimately benefited?

For one, the companies getting overvalued. Mostly, though, it was those investors who held shares between the SPAC’s listing and merger, who made annualized returns of 23.9% for little risk. As an earlier paper shows, virtually all initial SPAC investors, mostly hedge funds, leave by the time deals close.

“You basically need to re-raise all of the money at the time of the merger, so what’s the point of raising it initially?” said one of its authors, NYU School of Law Professor Michael Ohlrogge. “You subject the deal structure to needless risk.”

The future

With more data on SPACs, a group of investors who have gotten burned and society returning to a postpandemic normal, there is less motivation to pile into a SPAC as a hype vehicle. Celebrities are no longer putting their names behind it and the number of SPACs on the market looking for a deal has dried up.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t a place for SPACs in the future, however the deal structure likely needs to evolve for it to be a meaningful option for many companies going public. With up to 80% of shareholders seeking their money back, the post-merger company simply does not have a stable source of funding to move

forward. Given the competing interests and time constraints, there may be some merger targets identified, however, the majority of the funds are likely to be liquidated or returned at face value to investors.

SPACs could be reformed. London’s nascent market hopes to prove they can help forge long-term partnerships between sponsors and firms. Hedge-fund guru Bill Ackman is promoting a new type of vehicle designed for investors to opt in only after a target has been found. Some, such as RA Capital Management, suggest adapting IPOs to incorporate some of the advantages of SPACs, such as greater upfront share-price certainty.

As they currently stand, however, SPACs only seem to serve speculators, not the venture capitalists’ talent-spotting entrepreneurs nor the long-term investors buying into companies. Perhaps the clock should run out on them for good.

5 Minutes with...

Going beyond the business to get to know Lesley Smith, recent Vice President Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Revolut

With a career spanning politics, railways, retail, education, telecommunications and fintech, Lesley Smith has a wealth of experience breaking down complex topics and distilling the essence of the candidate, product or service she’s pitching. Below, she shares some thoughts and perspectives on her career.

Name: Lesley Smith

Title: recent Vice President Corporate Communications & Public Affairs

Organization: Revolut

Location: UK

Lesley Smith has been a senior director in corporate affairs and public policy in retail, e-commerce, technology, telecoms, transport, fintech and education for more than 25 years. For the last two years she was VP Corporate Affairs at Revolut before which she led Amazon’s UK Public Policy function and government relations. She has previously led group communications and corporate affairs functions at Cable & Wireless, Dixons Group plc, Railtrack, TSL Education, and Ark Schools and has been a consultant with Burson-Marstellar looking after clients including BT and leading FTSE companies. She started her career in politics working for Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair including Blair’s successful election campaigns in 1997 and 2001. She has an MBA from MIT.

On career consistency

The thing I’ve discovered is that I really like complexity. If I look at all my roles together, the overarching theme is a love of understanding new things. I love the job of being in the middle and having to translate complex ideas. I’ve spent most of my career saying to people, ‘explain that to me as if I was your mother.’

If we don’t translate ideas into a language our audience understands, it’s going to be a mess. And that applies whether you’re explaining broadband to journalists in the early 2000’s or walking through your profit and loss or justifying why you’re buying this company or selling that company or convincing your shareholders to agree with a decision. And just saying ‘this is strategically important’ or ‘there will be synergies’ isn’t going to cut it because it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. I suppose what I’ve learned is that I like simplification.

On the importance of a good CEO/CFO relationship

In every commercial job I’ve ever done, one of the most important relationships, if not the most important relationship, is the one I’ve had with the CEO and CFO. They’re your allies. And when you take a job, you know, those are the two people that matter. And actually, the chemistry between them matters as well. I had a job where it became fairly obvious that the CFO didn’t trust the CEO and it was like rival fiefdoms. If they aren’t absolutely in lockstep with you, with each other - that really matters to how the company is perceived and how the company works.

On a memorable career moment

I was working for ScotRail, which was then part of the British Rail infrastructure, and the rule was you really weren’t allowed to be more successful than InterCity because that was the flagship of the network - although at the time it was hugely subsidized and probably underperforming. ScotRail was doing well, so I rang up the head office and asked if I could put something out about our performance. And they said ‘No, because you’re better [performance-wise] than InterCity, so you can’t touch it.’

I thought, well, that’s not good at all. At the time we had commissioned a private submission to government that wasn’t meant to see the light of day but I allowed it to find its way to the Daily Telegraph. I knew that it wasn’t newsworthy enough

if I press-released it but if given as an exclusive, it would hit the front of the business section – and it did. We got what we wanted, which was more attention and more money, and I got hauled into the Director General of British Rail. He said, ‘I have two options - I can fire you or I can promote you, and I’m very tempted to fire you, but instead I’m going to offer you a better but terrible job.” I took the promotion to Corporate Affairs Director for Railtrack.

On the growth of Fintech

A few years ago, I went to a fintech company, [Revolut]. Fintech is an industry that is massively reconstructing itself and about which I knew nothing about. But at the same time, it’s replicating the reinvention that has happened in other industries which is, you know, you can do a lot better job for less money by using technology. And that’s what’s happening in fintech. I’ve always taken jobs because I can learn from them, learn a new skill set. Fintech fits that desire perfectly and, in a way, takes me back to my earlier days in politics and retail where you have to spend a lot of time thinking hard about how deliverable your promises are and thinking who the customer is and what you are selling.

On a career high

You have tough moments in your career but then you have the good bits. For me, it was winning the [Tony Blair] election in ’97. It was an extraordinary experience being on that campaign, being at election night in Sedgefield with 200 journalists.

On current reads and podcasts

I am currently reading a very good book called, Freezing Order by Bill Browder about his experience exposing corruption in Russia. He was deported from Russia but his lawyer Sergei Magitsky stayed to try to expose corruption and was

imprisoned and murdered. Browder is based in the UK and continues to campaign against Russian corruption. His lobbying persuaded the US Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act to punish Russian human rights crimes in 2012. I also recently read the astonishing Jonathan Freedland book, The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. I think you could probably cut it by a third but it’s a brilliant book.

For podcasts, I’ve been listening to The Rest is Politics, it’s two British politicians - former Tory minister, Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell, my former colleague at the Labour Party. And then, The Rest is History, with historians, Tom Hollander and Dominic Sandbrook. They’re very clever and fascinating and they tackle a period in history with each episode. Recently they did the rise of the Nazis which tied into my reading of Jonathan Freedland’s book at the moment.

On her one piece of advice

Don’t put off the difficult stuff. You will always have lots of ‘urgent’ things, but you have to tackle the big stuff. I think that gets harder and harder to do because you’ve always got a fire right in front of you but sometimes it’s the one that’s smoldering quietly off to the side that is going to do the most damage.

Don’t put off the difficult stuff. You will always have lots of ‘urgent’ things, but you have to tackle the big stuff.

And I’d add to that – understand your business. You can’t be an enthusiast or an advocate without understanding – in my case working for ScotRail, for example – who puts the oil in the engines and how it works. I can still to this day tell you how many miles of track there are in the UK!

I love the job of being in the middle and having to translate complex ideas. I’ve spent most of my career saying to people, ‘explain that to me as if I was your mother.

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