Finance transformation Finance transformation
Concrete jungle With projects and employees scattered across two continents, Skanska is one of the biggest
construction companies on earth. Not that the Swedish giant simply turns up at a site and starts laying bricks. On the contrary, success increasingly relies on intelligent use of data and the cloud – both in the fi nance department and across the business more broadly. Nor are these functions necessarily mutually exclusive, with the company’s fi nance director heavily invested in areas like sustainability. Andrea Valentino talks to Magnus Persson, CFO at Skanska since 2018, to learn more.
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Magnus Persson, CFO, Skanska
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efore my interview with Magnus Persson, I have a few minutes alone. I’m waiting in a pallid conference room, a glass of water by my side and detailed instructions about Zoom protocol on the table. It could, in short, be anywhere – until I glance out of the window. There, kissed by a soft September sky, are towers – dozens of them – from spindly modernist grasshoppers, to sleek art deco apartments. Beyond, I could glimpse the East River, and then the ceaseless suburbs of Brooklyn and Queens. Over the past few years, most of my interviews have been conducted online. The setting for this one, 32 storeys up the Empire State Building, could not have been more different. Beyond the bewildering cityscape, moreover, the panorama as Persson and I talked felt oddly appropriate. As the CFO at Skanska, modern New York would be impossible without his employer. Nor is this mere rhetoric. Over the past few decades, the Swedish
construction company has been intimately involved in revising the Big Apple’s urban fabric. In 2014, for instance, Skanska finished rehabilitating the Manhattan Bridge, vital to the daily commutes of over 260,000 New Yorkers. Two years later, it helped build the Oculus. A miracle in steel and glass, this transport hub and shopping mall now occupies a space near where the Twin Towers once stood. Nor does Skanska limit its ambitions to New York. With staff spread across two continents, it’s built everything from Czech railway stations to Florida condos, and is now the fifth largest construction firm in the world.
Since he became CFO of Skanska in 2018, Persson has been crucial to these developments, emphasising that a large part of his time is spent creating the “maximum amount of value” for his shareholders. Spend long speaking to the Swede, however, and it becomes obvious that his role has transcended these bare essentials. From prodding co-workers to
Finance Director Europe /
www.fi nancedirectoreurope.com
Skanska
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