Carter Freeman: The Strategic CFO and Using Data to Tell the Story
Carter Freeman, VP at Virtual CFO (vcfo.com), has extensive experience leading and advising companies in both strategic and tactical financial capacities. Before joining VCFO almost 17 years ago, Carter served as CFO for four different companies. As a consulting firm, VCFO provides advisory services to make companies stronger through finance, human resources, technology, and recruiting support. VCFO began in 1996 and has locations in Austin, Dallas, Denver, and Houston.
Carter joined Jon Thompson of Blue Margin in an interview to discuss the evolving role of the CFO and how visibility into financial data is foundational to successfully running a business. The conversation covers four themes: why CFOs are uniquely positioned to focus the executive team around the central narrative of financial data, when companies outgrow Excel and what automated dashboards unlock, how the CFO seat is becoming increasingly strategic, and how data functions as an enabler of growth.
Accountants Read Numbers. CFOs Tell the Story.
Accountants read numbers like the rest of us read words. They love spreadsheets and data but often struggle to pull relevant signals from the noise in order to tell a compelling narrative that galvanizes the executive team. Financial leaders must be storytellers to successfully persuade senior leadership to take action on the right priorities.
Carter believes the demarcating factor between an accountant and a CFO “is the ability to look at numbers and use them to illustrate the message you’re trying to get across.” A good resource to advance this skillset is the bestselling book Storytelling with Data, written by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.
Has Your Organization Outgrown Excel?
Carter highlights the use of Excel as a bellwether in the evolution of a company. While Excel is an excellent tool, it can be fragile. Bruce Lynn, Partner at financial and treasury consulting firm FECG, has described the Excel fragmentation problem: when everyone maintains their own spreadsheet, none of them integrate with each other. In contrast, more powerful storytelling tools like Power BI, Tableau, or Qlik, while advantageous, “take more time, money, expertise,” according to Carter.
So when should a business transition from Excel to a BI tool? Carter explains that as organizations grow and accumulate larger and more complex data, they can quickly cross that line. “I would argue that, for a lot of companies, the lines have probably long since crossed.” Once a business integrates dashboards, the time it took to gather data is freed to focus on the business.
Transformation of the CFO to Strategic Leader
PwC’s CFO survey highlighted five key trends including digitizing finance and accounting, robotic process automation, real-time analytics, reporting and data visualization, and talent competition. PwC noted that the democratization of business intelligence is turning data analytics from a competitive advantage into a baseline expectation, and that CFOs are positioned to leverage these capabilities to determine where to invest and to manage performance and risk more effectively.
In the past, CFOs may have been viewed as mere “bean counters,” but Carter highlights the increasingly strategic role of the CFO as a business partner, “helping to manage the business through the lens of finance and analysis.” The ability to present a narrative is foundational to remaining a relevant CFO at the forefront of their trade.
The Role of Data in Value Creation
Carter points to the growing role of dashboards in business. “Data is an enabler of growth. It’s a tool.” When dashboards are in place, business leaders have the visibility to make real-time changes and move the needle to drive growth. In addition, dashboards bring shared visibility for each role into the key metrics they are accountable to deliver, creating stronger employee engagement and reducing the burden on the executive team to carry the value creation plan solely on their shoulders.
If you would like to contact Carter Freeman, he can be reached at cfreeman@vcfo.com. Read more about VCFO at vcfo.com.
If you would like to explore how Blue Margin’s team can help you use data visibility to accelerate progress and tell a clearer financial story, contact us here.
