1. Who can apply?
Nominees must be a Chief Financial Officer or equivalent with either a public or private organization.
2. How to apply?
The CFO’s can either self-nominate themselves or be nominated by their team or company management board representatives.
3. Why apply for a CFO award?
CFO of the Year is a great opportunity for the CFOs, their team and company to receive well-deserved and prestigious recognition for the many accomplishments of the past few years.
Application Process
The applicants must meet the following criteria:
- Nominees must be a Chief Financial Officer or equivalent with either a public or private organization.
- Nominees have been in their current position for at least one year.
- Nominations must be approved and validated by the nominee’s company Chief Executive Officer. The validation is done by filling in the validator’s details in the nomination form. By doing so, the validator approves the nomination.
- Candidates are not employed by, or related to, any of the organizations that organize, partner or sponsor the CFO of the Year competition.
- Judges, and individuals related to them, are not eligible to apply for the CFO of the Year awards.
The following categories will be awarded in the EY CFO of the Year competition:
1) Strategy and business partnering
In the last years the role of the CFO has been rapidly expanding to not only reporting numbers, but to truly becoming a trusted business advisor to management and board. CFOs have been actively stepping outside the finance function looking for the principles and capabilities to become real business partners in the organizations. Senior Finance professionals have been embracing technology and data to transform their departments and be able to provide strategic insight and enable change.
2) Finance function transformation
For CFOs, digital disruption offers the opportunity for new business models and revenue streams. However, it also makes the organization vulnerable to competition from new players and agile incumbents and creates exposure to new risk. This presents an important opportunity for CFOs to step in and transform the Finance organizations by embracing a digital business model and turning the promise of data analytics into measurable performance gains.
3) Team leadership and talent development
Growing expectations from CFOs directly refer to the growing need of a powerful Finance team in every organization. To deal with the challenges of changing reality, CFOs need to make every effort to not only recruit the best talent and build the required capacities needed for the Finance function of the future. CFOs need to create an environment in which all the team members feel safe to learn, are encouraged to develop and inspired to bring value to the company and for themselves.
4) Planning and budgeting
Planning and budgeting can help a business predict profitability, forecast income and expenditures, formulate plans and strategies, provide a model for performance and reach financial success. An improved planning and budgeting process lead to building a better company and demonstrates financial leadership.
5) Control and reporting
Financial control may be construed as an analysis of a company's actual results, approached from different perspectives at different times, compared to its objectives and business plans. These analyses require control and adjustment processes to ensure that business plans are being followed and that they can be amended in the event of anomalies, irregularities or unforeseen changes.
Corporate reporting underpins companies’ reputations and builds market confidence in the actions of company leaders. Reporting plays a central role in rebuilding trust in companies by providing clear insight into the organizations’ financial and non-financial performance.
6) Small and medium enterprises
The CFO role in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups could be a real challenge. SME management needs a fact-based financial perspective to support their decision-making. Yet the Finance function in such companies is often hampered in providing strategic insight and analytics to top management. CFOs are often overburdened by routine tasks and daily problem-solving, struggling with limited resources.
