According to Folin, one of the biggest challenges for a CFO is keeping an eye on the future, while not losing sight of the present. “Make sure you are not only taking care of the burning things, but also spending time looking ahead,” he advised.
Like Folin, Wennicke is used to having to keep her eyes on many different things at once. When faced with the multi-faceted challenges of overseeing innovation in a company’s finance department, she would ask herself these questions: “How broad do you develop? How do you prioritise? Do you go all in or try something for a bit to see what happens before going on to the next phase?”
As for Johannesen, he believes that the future lies in the next generation. “If we do not give the confidence and trust to the young tech people, and give them the freedom to try and learn, somebody else will. As a CFO, I’ve had to say, ‘here’s an investment of a certain number of millions. What will we get out of it? I don’t know, but we just have to cross our fingers and hope that something will come out of it.'” This attitude, he said, is very different form the past.
The panellists were:
Håkan Folin, CFO, Epiroc,
Per Johannesen Madsen, CFO, Matas, and
Henriette Wennicke, CFO, Zealand Pharma,
under moderation by Henrik Immelborn, Managing Director, Investment Banking, Nordea.
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