Interim Group Chief Financial Officer — Value Agenda

A forecast the group owns

A forecast built by adding up business-unit submissions is a collection of estimates, each shaped by the incentives of whoever produced it. A forecast the group owns is different. Its assumptions are set centrally where they should be, challenged where they rest on local knowledge, and reconciled to evidence every cycle. The Interim Group Chief Financial Officer, answerable to the Board of Directors for 12 months, is appointed to establish that ownership.

The role carries executive authority. The CFO agrees the thresholds that remain with business-unit leaders and defines the evidence for governing capital spending, operating capacity and controls across the group. They confirm which inherited commitments go forward and which are paused or stopped, halt finance proposals that leave cost or risk with people who never took it on, decline investment that omits uptake, dependencies or the downside, and confirm who leads group finance and how problems are raised. In mining, a forecast has to reconcile time horizons that rarely line up: operating plans run on quarters and years, while community commitments, permits and closure obligations can run on decades. A group forecast that ignores the long horizon looks cleaner than it is, and in a non-profit the long horizon is often where the mission sits.

How ownership is built over twelve months

Within ninety days, the group should have forecast owners, assumptions and a timetable agreed with each business-unit finance lead, so that everyone knows who sets what, and when. Around month nine, the group forecast should be reconciled to business-unit evidence every cycle, with variances owned and explained to the board rather than absorbed. By month 12, the directors should be relying on one group-owned forecast, and the forecasting process should be sound enough to run without the interim CFO steering each cycle.

A CFO for one forecast

You have carried a platform pivot felt both in the boardroom and at the operating sites, in a business turning over at least $870 million, with 1,700 or more people active in at least eight countries. Professionalisation and succession are the other experiences we will explore. We will look for capital allocation at level 4, and for risk judgement, controls and reporting, and FP&A forecasting, all three at level 3, with forecasting carrying extra weight given the mandate. Before approving that an exception continue, you have identified who bears its economic cost. You are content for your first result to be a commitment withdrawn rather than something new launched, and you can defend that with evidence.

Selection, step by step

Selection begins with the Board of Directors, privately and over video, in the first week. Week three is spent with the Regional President on reconciling a group forecast with what operations are actually seeing. In the fifth week, executives heading each function meet you in person as a panel, and in the seventh the full board. Our response to each stage reaches you in writing inside five working days.