The role of financial executives
The dictionary indicates that the chief financial officer or financial director of a company or public agency is the corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the business or agency. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management1. However, in recent years, with the changes and development in financial areas, I think the role may have been expanded to communicate financial performance and forecasts to the community. From the experiences in our daily life, we know that financial activities are involved in most aspects of society. Almost everyone can be impacted from these activities. People work as employees or they are self-employed in order to obtain income. They try to increase the value of their property when investing money in the financial market by buying stocks and bonds from companies or agencies. We care about the performance of companies in which we are working and investing. In my opinion, in order to achieve perfect operations of enterprises, the financial executives need to manage the internal financial reporting, as well as being a strategic consultant in the company. In many cases which have happened in multinational companies, it’s very important for financial directors to provide recommendations to promote companies’ profit margins, such as business principles and polices, developmental prospects, and potential benefits.
Finance departments may feel the pressure
I recently read an article from the “Financial Times”, talking about the majority of finance executives in large companies who are not ...