Really excited to be here to explore the partnership between CIO and CFO as this is not technology, but really how we drive a successful finance transformation as well as partner with CFOs for transformations across the organization.This isn't a story about software or systems. It's about leadership. This presentation, we're really gonna be talking about how the assumptions of technology that, the assumptions of transformation is a technology problem when it's really a leadership challenge. Alright. So finance transformations and digital transformations in general fail at an alarming rate. When we dig into root causes, technology is rarely the culprit. We always talk about people, process, and technology. And when we think traditionally about people, we don't really lean into the leadership aspect of people in that triangle. Traditionally, CIOs, we focus more on architecture and platforms in the systems, outcomes. Without a shared framework, investments then become fragmented, timeline stall, and ROI starts to evaporate.

But if we work together and lean in as CIOs with our CFOs, we actually can bridge those gaps and make decisions that drive business value, address the fragmented silos, and accelerate how we address business problems with that aligned leadership, capability. So I'm curious from all of you. How many have seen a transformation program deliver a system, but not actually change how the business runs? Well, I know that when change cultural change is one of the hardest pieces of actually a successful transformation regardless if it's in technology or in finance or any digital system across the business organization. So let's dive a little bit deeper. How do we address those gaps? Well, one is making sure that you're partnering and actually working with your CFO when it comes to what does success look like. What do you what is the outcome and the value proposition of the transformation of the digital implementation?

How are you going to decide and make sure that decisions are made together, that you're aligned in the investment, how the investment will actually be made, and how and who will be making the decisions throughout the project and the transformations timeline. How will you define that that accountability? It should be a shared accountability. Technology, as we have been saying, is not just about implementing a system. It's about reengineering the processes, making sure that we're training and enabling our people to bring higher value with that solution. So how are we going to be accountable together when we transform an operation such as finance or other parts of the organization? And then the capability. Looking at where is this capability of this process, this business, this enterprise business, operational process, and where's the next capability we wanna go to? How is this shared accountability, decision making, and leadership and strategy actually going to elevate the capability of the organization so it can do it can work at a higher level.

We wanna make sure that, again, that when we make decisions together, we're going across the process, platforms, talent, and investment, that we stop managing IT projects and start actually building those capabilities. The deployment of a single system matters far less whether the leaders governing it are aligned, than what success looks like. If we are not aligned, then we cannot actually deliver success. We won't know how to measure success. So it's really important that as you kick off these transformational projects that you in the finance department, but also across your enterprise to think about that collaborative leadership decision making and accountability framework that you're gonna set in place and then measure it with the growth of the capability.

And what does that effective partnership look like? It's about really the strategy. You start at the strategy. How and what are we trying to do? How are we managing that road map and those objectives? Can we make sure that we feel that we are both co owners so that we both have a stake in the success of this initiative? It is not just technology delivering or enabling finance or another part of the organization. It is technology and finance working together to transform one of the most important capabilities within an organization. It's making sure that we have the governance to and to, over to to drive how we actually look at the investments, but also how we're going to govern the capability and the impact of this transformation.

So governance is not just about the investments. It's also how we're going to make decisions after we made the initial investment because we all know that the cost of a transformation is not just one line item in your budget. It's line items over time repeatedly within a budget that crosses over between finance and technology. And in order to do that, we wanna make sure we have the right metrics, that we're tracking the value of the implementation, and we're tracking the value of the total cost of ownership of that capability of that new transformation so that we can actually see the return on investment over time.

Where have we met our targets? Where have we increased our capabilities and our, our talent and changed the organization? And we don't know how to measure success if we don't define it for those two stages, the implementation and then the ongoing transformative continuous improvement of the entire life cycle of that investment and that transformation. And in order to do that, we need to make sure that we have that executive alignment. As technology leaders, we are not just technology leaders. We are business leaders, and it's really important to lean into our business acumen when we are partnering with our CFOs and with other chief executives in our organization. We wanna make sure that we can bring the value in ways that the organization can receive it because it again, it's not about the technology. It's about how we're changing the capability of the organization and bringing business value to an operational function.

And as you heard previously and as I'm sure you're gonna hear repeatedly, talent. Making sure that we have cross functional digital fluency so that when we speak to our colleagues in finance, we are not just speaking tech. We are also understanding their world of finance, and they themselves also understand how this digital transformation is going to help them and and making sure that they have digital fluency so that we are talking similar languages. And, again, it creates that alignment. It creates that governance. It creates those shared metrics, which then in in turn turns your investment into enterprise value. We wanna make sure that the partnership is functioning. The results are tangible and measurable. Financial transparency improves. Leaders great get real time visibility, not monthly lag reports. The decision velocity increases because the data quality and access are no longer blockers. Capital allocation improves because investment decisions are disciplined and outcome oriented.

So we wanna make sure that these are some of the key capabilities that we're bringing to finance with digital transformations in the finance organization, that they have the transparency within their data, within their processes, that they can then leverage that to make better decisions at a greater speed, but most importantly, at a greater velocity because they know where they're headed, which then drives with the, the capital allocation or budget allocations with greater outcomes and responsibility and accountability, which leads to that transformational success, which then drives the impact of our investments.

Sharing a framework, aligning leaders doesn't just improve our outcomes. They change that what transformation is capable of delivering. And as we all know, our CFO, they not only want transformation within their own areas, they also help us when we need transformation in across the enterprise. So making sure that we are delivering value with them, not just for them, will also allow that partnership to grow, to deliver transformation and greater investment impact across the organization in other digital transformation initiatives. I think we all know what the real cost of misalignment is. There's much much duplication in our tech investments. If we are not aligned, if we are not working together to make sure that we know where we're investing in big organizations and in small organizations, you will see that investments for the similar, if not same technologies, may have been spent. You will see that teams are unable to leverage IT, that there's underutilization of the core IT capability, that they are creating or trying to create their own IT capabilities, which again creates duplication and underutilization for certain staff.

And the outcome, the gap, systems without results. If we're not measuring this at enterprise capabilities, enterprise value proposition, enterprise investments, then we are going to have outcome gaps because they're going to be fragmented. We're not looking at this as a portfolio investment, holistically. It also impacts our data. Now with data fabric and other ways to go across data sources in order to, run analytics and visualization, you may think that this still may not be as big of a problem. The data erosion still is a problem because when you're looking at financial data, sorry, or key data points, you wanna make sure that you know which is your source of truth. When you have duplication or fragmented systems, you may not know what the source of truth is when you're looking at your data. And then you also have fatigue.

You're continuously changing in a fragmented way, so then you don't you are not allowing your organization to to pause, stabilize before the next transformation. Okay. Finance at enterprise speed and scale. This is where we can we can the ambition of is finance operating at that enterprise speed and scale. It's not catching up to the business, but running alongside it. Automated close predictive analytics embedded in decision workflows, continuous planning, replacing the annual budget cycle with real time data. Our role as CIOs is to enable this through platform strategy, architecture, and that partnership. The CFO's role is to lead that adoption and ensure the organization realizes the value. Neither can succeed without the other. That digital fluency across both talent pools, making sure that we know, again, why we're doing this, what capabilities within finance we are we are growing, and, the real time access to data to enable those finance staff members to go beyond just budget, but actually advisors across the organization in how we invest.

This partnership is invaluable for digital transformations at the CFO and the finance, but across the organization. And as any partnership, it's really important to make things repeatable. It can't be just because you personally have a relationship with that CFO. It's building the processes across the two areas so that they live beyond the people, but actually become part of the DNA of how technology works with finance. When it works just between two peoples and they get along, if any one of those individuals leaves, then this process breaks down and you have to rebuild it. But when organizations embed this partnership and this operating model into their processes through joint planning cycles, shared scorecards, co led programs, and governance that requires both voices, then this lives beyond the individuals and actually becomes part of the operating model for both technology and finance and can be leveraged across the organization.

This converts a good working relationship into an actual organizational capability that is not only leveraged between the CFO and the CIO, but between the CIO, the CFO, and all the other business units. It's always important to institutionalize, build mechanisms that embed the strategic partnership and the operating capabilities across the organization part, where it's driven by the CIO and the CFO. Which then creates that strategic differentiator. In some organizations, the CIO or the technology leader is not always given the the the most the right seat at the table. Or even if they have a seat at the table, they're not thought of as that strategic adviser. But when you actually have this executive alignment with one of the key executives in the organization, you can bring that agility and velocity to the organization. You can actually create a competitive advantage of how you invest, how you deliver, and how you measure.

It becomes a strategic imperative because, again, when you have that partnership, you can outperform your peers. You can outperform your competitors. You can outperform other organizations, and then you have those sustainable results. They live beyond the beyond the individuals. They go throughout the organization, and they actually can transform that enterprise value proposition. You can move faster. You can allocate more effectively and transform with confidence when you have things in common, that executive alignment between finance and technology when it's not left to chance. Those that rely on informal coordination risk persistent misalignment and the kind of incremental change that consumes resources without delivering advantage. It's very important to have this alignment. We've see I've seen it in my own experience of really partnering and collaborating and being true strategic thought leaders together to the organization around strategic investments in digital transformation on the value it can bring across the organization and to finance.

And to close out, let's just re re summarize what we've learned. It's a leadership model. It's a leadership model that transforms how we lead our people, not just how we deploy programs. That people process and technology. We technically we traditionally look at the people as the staff. How do we train them on the technology in that triangle of people process and technology? But we need to start further up in that people side with our executive sponsors, ex executive partnerships and collaborations with our CFO and across the organization to make sure that we have that alignment, that governance, that shared decision making, those shared metrics in that leadership model.

We then can align how we spend in digital transformation to make sure that we have those measurable business results. That brings enterprise value to the finance organization and across the enterprise and how we lead by example of this partnership of how we can do it for all the other areas within the business with that collaborative partnership model of working together when it comes to investments and transforming, which then let leads us to our resilient execution, making sure that the the organizational strength and advantage is built across.

So finance function of the future is not just built on great technology, but on the leaders who build it together. The organizations in this room have the talent and the ambition. The question is whether we build the leadership model to match. I know from my experience that partnering with my CFO and and and then in working with them in their digital transformations has led to greater opportunities for transformations in other parts of the organization where we embed that strategic model across to bring enterprise value.

So thank you so much for having me here today. I hope you enjoy the rest of your program, and it was really great to be here. And I am I'm looking forward to the rest of the conference.