CFO Niti
Just completed reading this amazing compilation of the life journey of 6 CFOs - Maruti Suzuki, Tata Steel, Amazon India, L&T, Hindustan Unilever, and Aditya Birla Group
Why this is a must read for every finance student/ working professional is that it allows you to take a sneak peek into what goes into the making of a CFO, their personal and professional journeys. I have seen two of them from close corners and hitherto, knew so little about them. There was so much curiosity that got quenched through this book.
5 of the 6 CFOs covered here are CAs -drives home the point that CA has always and continues to be a powerful degree, especially for the CFO path
Life is also a lot of serendipidity. One of them wanted to become a doctor and ended up later opting for CA, one was a super talented cricketer and eventually changed tracks
Their clarity of thought was something I got inspired by at a personal level by how they took on challenges head-on, instead of getting bogged down by the situation
Also, one thing that one will note is that you need very strong work exposure in the early part of your career - projects that are transformative in nature - working in entities not doing so well and demonstrating your impact as a finance controller , working on prestigious deals in a Tata Sons or a Chairman's office of an Aditya Birla Group or moving around versatile roles in an HUL, often multi location, multi business, working on growth for an Amazon in India. Its important that you have the right mentors, the right set of people who see them in you and through whom, you get visibility amongst key stakeholders. Whether you work in the same company in different roles or change companies within a conglomerate or work across multiple companies, you must be seen as someone who is continuously adding value. Gaining visibility at the top of the pyramid, to my mind, is really important to prevent your talent from getting lost amongst the hundreds of other finance professionals in your company.
The book shows how top leaders are completely focussed on digitisation and tranformation of the finance function
The CFOs also shared little snippets about their personal lives, their philosophies of "work-life" balance, their hobbies, their families, fitness regimes, the sports they play, the books they read, the mantras they swear by
You can read this either on Kindle Unlimited or else take the hard copy
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