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Finance Director Europe Winter 2021


Editorial Editor Andrea Valentino Sub-editor Lizzie Waymouth Production manager Dave Stanford Designer Martin Faulkner Group art director Henrik Williams Head of content Jake Sharp


Commercial Client services executive Derek Deschamps Publication manager Sanjeev Dole sanjeev.dole@progressivemediainternational.com Managing director William Crocker


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A third way? A


s the global economy shakes off the dirt of the pandemic, preparing to fight another day, finance directors are steeling themselves for another onslaught. Just as well: there are plenty of slings and arrows coming


their way. From sluggish growth across the OECD to massive changes in how work is actually done, they have plenty of reasons to don their armour and grit their teeth. To take an obvious example: with over one-quarter of UK employees quitting their jobs in the year to March, and millions more refusing to stick around if they can’t work from home indefinitely, CFOs have a colossal task ahead of them if they want to balance staff satisfaction and the hard-nosed practicalities of running a successful business. To be fair, CFOs do seem to understand the scale of the challenge. According to a recent survey by PwC, three-quarters plan to allocate more resources to digital transformation, vital in our new reality of WFH and Zoom meetings. In a similar vein, finance bosses have worked hard to address staff unhappiness, with 84% arguing their company is successfully fixing staff mental health. Of course, even the most empathetic CFO likely has an ulterior motive here, unsurprising when their careers are so bound up with the vagaries of corporate growth. Yet here, too, CFOs are reasonably sanguine. According to Deloitte, 75% of finance leaders are optimistic about the future of the economy, up from just 29% three months earlier. Yet if CFOs are doing their part post-pandemic, going digital and promoting better working conditions, their role is increasingly overshadowed by an even more momentous challenge. If you’ve followed the Extinction Rebellion protests in the UK, you can probably guess what that is. With SMEs accounting for 64% of Europe’s industrial pollution, and their multinational cousins responsible for most of the rest, CFOs are increasingly being expected to put the earth above earnings. It goes without saying that this is anathema to finance captains the world over, weaned on a diet of upwards charts and healthy black account books.


UK £58 EU €90 US $118 RoW $118 UK £92 EU €144 US $189 RoW $190


Or is it? This edition of Finance Director Europe attempts to answer one central question: can the traditional pressures faced by CFOs, typified by the pandemic and its aftermath, be squared with the broader threats of climate change? A number of our features suggest that it could. Juergen Esser at Danone, for instance, argues that financial prudence and environmental sustainability are simply two sides of the same coin. That makes particular sense for a food company like his – but other executives seem to agree. Think of Claire Lund at GSK, who forcefully argues that executives need to put their purse strings and their planet on an equal footing. Not that the old problems have disappeared. From tax to FDI, CFOs still need to think about bar charts and markets. It’s just that now, perhaps, they’ll do it with a greener frame of mind.


Andrea Valentino, editor


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