The global economic landscape is increasingly complex and unpredictable. One thing remains certain, however: Having a savvy, steady chief financial officer helming the finance function can do wonders for business success.
Understanding how a CFO’s responsibilities have expanded and what qualities are now essential in a CFO is crucial for enterprises looking to grow and win in the 21st century.
Take, for instance, Apple CFO Luca Maestri. Since he was appointed in 2014, the tech giant’s stock value has grown more than 800%.
News broke Monday (Aug. 26) that Apple is undergoing a CFO transition. Kevan Parekh, Apple’s vice president of financial planning and analysis, will replace Maestri Jan. 1, 2025.
After serving as the CFO of Xerox, Maestri joined Apple in 2013 and was elected to the chief finance role within a year of his hiring. He will continue to lead the company’s corporate services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development. He will continue reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“Luca has been an extraordinary partner in managing Apple for the long term,” Cook said in a statement Monday. “He has been instrumental in improving and driving the company’s financial performance, engaging with shareholders, and instilling financial discipline across every part of Apple.”
Cook added in the statement that Parekh “has been an indispensable member of Apple’s finance leadership team, and he understands the company inside and out.”
Parekh began his tenure at the Cupertino giant leading the financial support of Apple’s Product Marketing, Internet Sales and Services, and Engineering teams.
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With a new financial leader at the helm, Apple is working to position itself to continue its trajectory of innovation and growth, facing the future with renewed vigor and strategic focus.
“Different industries have seen transition happen at different paces, but 20 years ago, the CFO was the senior accountant at the company … but now, the majority of companies need their CFO to be a strategic leader and trusted adviser, a crucial player in shaping the direction of the organization,” XiFin CFO Erik Sallee told PYMNTS in June for the series “A Day In The Life of a CFO.”
“The hardest part is not coming up with exciting ideas but financing and executing them effectively,” he added.
While serving as CFO, “Maestri enabled essential investments and practiced robust financial discipline, which together helped the company more than double its revenue, with services revenue growing more than five times,” per the statement.
Technology has also reshaped CFOs’ responsibilities, necessitating a broader skill set and a more strategic approach to financial management. Advanced analytics and big data have become integral to financial planning and analysis. CFOs are expected to use data to provide actionable insights, forecast trends and support strategic decisions. This requires a strong understanding of data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “60 CFOs Can’t Be Wrong … AI Can Help Accounts Payable.”
Creating data visualizations or reports is the most common use of generative AI, according to findings detailed in a separate PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Most CFOs See Limited ROI From GenAI, but Boost Its Investment.”
As CSI CFO Ken Gayron told PYMNTS in June, “being a modern CFO is about using your analytical and financial skills to partner with the business, ensuring it makes the best decisions with the right financial lens. At the same time, you have to drive efficiency through automation and process improvement so that you can scale profitably and maintain a competitive advantage.”
“The CFO and the CEO are really the two positions that see the entire business,” he added.
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Cross-Departmental Discussions Drive Better Results
Apple’s statement noted the close collaboration between its CFO function and CEO as key to the company’s sustainable success, emphasizing the way Maestri instilled “financial discipline across every part of Apple.”
According to PYMNTS’ series “A Day In The Life of a CFO,” finance leaders say that by connecting granular details to overarching goals, CFOs can help ensure that financial strategies support the company’s long-term vision.
Underpinning this approach is the need to establish a culture of financial discipline.
“The finance department exists to fuel decision frameworks,” ABBYY CFO Brian Unruh told PYMNTS in June, noting that the “timely, accurate and multidimensional data” finance teams provide daily to the rest of the business is ultimately what helps define and accelerate internal growth drivers.
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