Who is the most important stakeholder outside the finance function that finance leaders/the CFO need to have a strong partnership with?
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I would say Business head or leader / ceo in general except if there is a business transformation underway I would add chro and cio as additional stakeholders
Depends on industry. I have seen usually with COO and/or Business Unit heads.
I wanted to share a perspective that I’ve found increasingly relevant in today’s environment: Finance leadership is no longer confined to traditional stewardship and reporting. To truly drive value, Finance needs to be plugged into almost every part of the organization—Marketing, Supply Chain, Infrastructure, HR, Legal (Regulatory), Insights & Analytics, and industry-specific functions.<br>In addition, Finance leaders must stay deeply connected to their core functions—Technical Accounting, Treasury, Investor Relations, and Finance Technology. Charity begins at home, and Finance must continuously demonstrate agility, robustness, and efficiency.<br>For example, in life sciences, areas like Government Contracting and Market Access (Commercial Contracting)—sometimes referred to as Managed Markets Finance—are critical. These functions directly influence revenue realization, compliance, and strategic positioning. Without Finance actively engaged, we risk missing opportunities to optimize outcomes and mitigate risks early.<br>
My view, this is the CEO of the business. He dictates the strategy and steers the engagement of the operating board of the business. All of who, finance need to business partner, provide service to, and generate transformation for finance, through digitization and process alignment.
My view is that the business team running customer contracts for the delivery of products or services are the most important stakeholder outside Finance. We need to provide them the BU and Projects profitability and have conversation about profitability improvements. We also need to work closely with them to take business and accounting actions based on the profitability review.