“We are in a position where we need to a lot for our firms, and that ask is only going to get bigger,” said Rich Levy, Executive VP and Controller of Wells Fargo. “To become a principal accounting officer, we have to do much more than we’ve done in the past, and the role’s become much more than financial reporting.”
Levy was one of three corporate controllers offering perspective during a panel discussion at FEI’s Current Financial Reporting Issues (CFRI) conference. The leaders described the broader mandate for controllers to collaborate with business units, implement new accounting standards and adopt technical changes reshaping finance and accounting.
Catherine Hoovel, Corporate VP and Chief Accounting Officer, McDonalds Corp., said the broader mandate for controllers is increasing demands among accounting staffs for a wider range of abilities and experience.
“We need ‘finance athletes’ on our team, not just strong technical accountants,” she said. “We need people who are both, and it’s a challenge find people with broad experience, or to help our people get broad experience so they can add value in strategic areas, not just in reporting.”
Thomas Roos, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer of UnitedHealth Group, said the broader demands on controllers can be are exciting yet challenging as they have to balance strategic opportunity with the function’s reporting and compliance requirements.
“I always want to be part of the opportunity to help the business get better and to be solutions-oriented,” Roos said. “At the same time, inherent in the role is a control function and to make sure you stay in the lanes and do things right. That’s why it’s challenging and exciting to try to do both.”
One of the areas pushing finance and accounting leaders to collaborate more business unit executives are changes to major accounting standards, including the new revenue and leasing standards. More complex than simple accounting updates, the standards are prompting changes to business processes and their implementation requires cross-functional efforts.
“These standards work through the core of how our businesses operate,” Hoovel said. “It’s not just accounting that needs to worry about how we implement these standards because they affect how we do business in terms of revenue recognition, leasing and hedging. Those are embedded throughout the business, and we have to get a lot of non-financial people to understand the importance of controls and how we do business. That broader education has been a challenge.”
The burgeoning use of technology such as data analytics, robotics processing automation and machine learning is also influencing the types of skills and experiences needed among finance professionals and teams.
“We’ve typically hired out of the Big Four, and [technology] is potential disruption for us,” Hoovel said. “We’re starting to look at robotics in our shared services center, and that’s going to prompt us to look at our talent sources differently.”
And as accounting and finance leaders work to help their teams and organizations succeed, it’s important for them not to lose sight of their own career development.
“One thing I stress is that you control your own career, and it’s critical to build skill sets in multiple areas, said Wells Fargo’s Levy. “As companies get bigger, it’s easy to become an expert in one area. You can stay in accounting policy too long and just become the accounting policy person, or you can rotate into a reporting role or an [internal controls] role. Managing your career is your responsibility, and you have to develop skills and look for new opportunities because those opportunities exist.”