Advice from the pros: 9 tips for succeeding as director of finance

Managing the expectations of donors, program managers, and implementers while keeping within a tight budget requires patience, management, and expertise. As a director of finance, you need to be able to do all of this while maintaining a calm and clear head. With funding becoming ever more competitive to win, directors of finance are crucial players in the development field and the glue holding many projects and organizations together. It’s no longer a nine-to-five desk job. “There’s been a lot of change in previous years. Director of finance isn’t just about accounting and finance,” said Linda Zamaere, financial consultant and former director of finance at Heifer International. Devex spoke with Zamaere, who has over 18 years of experience in the field, to get her insider tips and tricks on how to succeed as director of finance. 1. Become a chartered accountant A director of finance requires expert numerical and budgeting skills. Zamaere is a Chartered Institute of Management Accountants qualified chartered accountant. She strongly advises other directors of finance — or aspiring ones — to undertake an accounting qualification. The qualification builds on a lot of stress-testing, critical thinking, and analysis skills — all essential for the role. You are managing various budgets and working under tight deadlines and compliance requirements, so “that pathway helps to work within tight parameters,” she explained. The role also requires a lot of organization and excellent time management skills, which a certification can help build. 2. Collaborative working: Bridge the gap between finance and programs Organizations can have a divide between finance and program teams. “They [program teams] may feel like finance, maybe, we’re being too critical with the things that they’re submitting … and we [finance teams] also feel like they don’t understand us, they don’t take our advice seriously,” Zamaere explained. Both teams have different priorities. While programs request what they need to best complete the work, finances are concerned about complying with donor requirements. “It’s very important for the director of finance to work closely with programs … so that there’s a common understanding between programs and finance,” she advised. “When they understand where we’re coming from and we understand where they’re coming from, we work better as a team. And even our planning becomes better because, as we’re preparing implementation plans, we’re preparing them from the finance perspective but we’re also preparing them from the programmatic perspective.” She advised understanding 20-30 percent of what programs do, to have a good working knowledge of their needs. “It’s very important to understand what programs is doing … go out in the field ... see some of their challenges.” In doing so, you form a much stronger team which also leads to better and more productive work, she advocated. Simply reach out to program managers and making a conscious effort to collaborate. Zamaere also advised scheduling your work; doing real-time processing of payments; and compiling reports regularly, so they’re in the system and readily available. Then you can sit down with programs on a weekly basis to run through the state of the finances and flag which budget lines are running over or coming close to it, which will help to form a mutual understanding between the teams. 3. Enterprise resource planning software Accounting software has completely transformed this line of work. Zamaere has witnessed this in two different organizations, both the United Nations and Heifer International. Enterprise resource planning software joins different processes and departments together, Zamaere explained. To make a payment, the procurement department enters the local purchase order into the system, which then appears in the financial system for the finance team to begin processing. You can also upload and scan invoices. “Everything is there and at the click of a button, you are able to follow certain processes and that makes life very easy.” “It also helps you to identify where the bottlenecks are, to see where there’s a delay in the processing,” she said, allowing you to target and tackle these issues, and continually improve processes and become more efficient. 4. People skills “A director of finance needs to be able to love people; to love to work within teams; to be able to co-mentor staff; and also to be able to provide advice,” Zamaere highlighted. You’ll work with people from various different teams and people coming from all different backgrounds. “They have their own expectations and you have your own expectations. To bring those expectations together, you need to have a lot of dialogue.” “You need to be good at conflict resolution, you need to be good at communicating, you need to be good at listening — especially as a leader — and you need to be able to lead,” she told. She explained the role requires, “being more proactive and just not limiting yourself to finance and accounting.” Directors of finance no longer just crunch numbers and write reports, as it might have been a few years ago, but are very intertwined with the work being done on the ground. “I’ve had to make an effort to be more social, to be able to talk more to people,” she revealed. “Social skills means, obviously, stronger teams, and that becomes a competitive advantage for the organization.” To grow and develop these skills, Zamaere sought out a mentor, which she’s found very useful for providing help, tips, and advice. She also recommends immersing yourself into social circles with other development professionals, joining development groups on LinkedIn, and generally putting yourself out there in whatever ways you can to meet others. 5. Implement a co-mentoring scheme Zamaere described a scheme Heifer International has implemented, namely “internal review and planning,” or more commonly coined “co-mentoring,” where each director of finance is assigned a colleague to co-mentor from another country office. “In Tanzania, I was co-mentoring in Kenya. I would travel to Kenya and just look at their processes and learn some of their best practices and look at some of their weaknesses — and I would be able to impart some of my knowledge.” The co-mentors visit each other’s country offices — multiple offices can be incorporated — to analyze, assess, learn from, and offer advice to the each other. “So, in that way, you are learning from your peers and you are sharing some of your challenges and you’re sharing some of the best practices. And that has been a very good approach,” she said. 6. Gain experience with different donors and keep up to date with their rules and regulations Different donors have different priorities and expectations, so knowing how to work with a variety of them gives you a significant advantage over others — both personally as a director of finance, as well as the organization you are working for. Once you grow your donor base you can access more funding,reaching more people on the ground and ultimately having a greater impact, Zamaere explained. Rules and regulations from donors are constantly changing and updating, so it’s key to always be aware and knowledgeable. “It’s always good for the director of finance to be up to date with what is going on.” “As a director of finance, you need to stay on top of those things and you need to be communicating [them], not only to your team, but to the programs department,” she advised. You can do so by checking donor websites — at Heifer International they also have their own intranet where rules and regulations of various donors are constantly updated. There are various other channels of information you can also draw from to stay informed. “You can do a lot of co-mentoring, networking with people in the same field … read a lot of articles, like on Devex or LinkedIn,” Zamaere advised. 7. Make the time to visit the field A director of finance may not be the first that springs to mind as a field-based job, but Zamaere stressed that it’s extremely beneficial to visit projects on the ground. “Most of the time, we don’t have time. But it’s very important to make that effort,” she said. During one project, Zamaere kept receiving requests for new car tires in the field every couple of months, which seemed excessive. But once she visited the program and saw the terrain and roads on which they were working, they seemed completely justified. “You get a better understanding. You can say ‘OK I’ve been there, I understand they need this, this, this.’ And you’re able to provide that support further and to understand the people you’re working with,” she said. While it may not be easy to fit in, field visits definitely help — and they’re also a chance to build rapport with program teams, as highlighted before. 8. Prepare for the changing future Zamaere sees the director of finance role transforming and evolving over the coming years, even predicting a slight merger between programs and finance in future. “I think that in 10 years we’re going to be more program experts,” she revealed. Despite this, Zamaere still maintains that having accounting experience will remain very important. Analysis is becoming increasingly important rather than just producing numbers. “As you are growing into your role, you have to grow into a more strategic role, which is more of the analysis,” she explained. 9. Don’t underestimate Excel With this growing need for deeper analysis in finance roles, analysis tools and strategies are key facilitators. “Excel is a very good tool in data analysis. I think you can never know enough of Excel. So, I would advise most people who are in finance to invest in learning Excel,” Zamaere advocated. Training courses are a great way to do so and there are many available in person or online, such as on Udemy or LinkedIn. If you are interested in working as a director of finance in global development, see current related job opportunities on Devex here. Advice from the pros is a new Devex series highlighting experienced professionals working across the global development sector and their advice for succeeding in this field.