WC CFO TheStrategicCFO#44 Online NZ Final - Flipbook - Page 1
Ian Gilbert
Journalist
Ian Gilbert is a Melbourne-based journalist who has worked for newspapers in Australia
and the UK, including The Age, The Australian, The Guardian and The Independent.
He has worked across news, sport and business, interviewing everyone from celebrity chefs
to international rugby players. Ian is also an accomplished journalism trainer, devising
and delivering courses for clients such as Sky Sports (London). Away from the keyboard,
he is a keen cook and a published recipe-writer.
A PHRASE scribbled across a whiteboard in Pranay Lodhiya’s office gives
his work a broader perspective: “Zero lives lost”.
The words are a far cry from the usual
platitudes found plastered across
corporate walls. But Pranay’s line of
work, as the chief financial officer at
the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM),
is out of the ordinary; it actually is
ultimately a matter of life and death.
For trawler skippers gauging whether
to stay on the high seas, or pilots trying
to second-guess the elements, the
Bureau’s data is a precious resource.
“That line is for my
team – as well as me
– to remind ourselves
that our ultimate goal
is zero lives lost, and
how everything we do
as a bureau is targeted
towards that,
says Pranay.
”
Working at the BOM presents very
different challenges from most
organisations. For a start, as a Federal
Government agency, it’s accountable to
the taxpayer.
Nor do most companies have to
worry about whether a force majeure
might bring adverse results for its
key stakeholders – in BOM’s case the
millions of Australians who rely on
its wisdom. So Pranay has to think
differently about the requests and
processes that fly across his CFO’s desk.
“Ours is a science-driven organisation –
science and engineering and technology
– and a lot of the people are very
passionate about what they do,” he
says. “Our job is to guide them and
help them consider things so it doesn’t
come back to bite them. We also need to
provide them deep insight and support to
make optimum decisions for long term
sustainability”
Pranay is passionate about the role of
Finance as a strategic trusted advisor
and sets a vision for Finance that is
anchored on what he calls the 3 Cs
– Customer Service, Custodianship
and Compliance as being equal and
interlocked capabilities in a progressive
finance function. Pranay uses his
leadership skills to help his team realise
they are part of a process, which at
the sharp end translates to anxious
crop farmers or aviation companies
assuming responsibility for its
passengers. “People may come to
us with procurement requests, and a
finance person might say, ‘No, you can’t
do that’, and leave it at that,” he says.
“I want my staff to have the ability
to walk them through it and identify
a solution that meets the compliance
framework but guide them through
the process. Education is critical.”
Feedback from colleagues illustrates
the effectiveness of this collaborative
leadership style, variously describing
Pranay as “leading with vision and
passion, coupled with a talent that he
shares with others”, and combining
“intellectual drive, confidence and
humility in providing strong direction”.
From a finance perspective, the BOM is
in an unusual situation. Its intellectual
property – forecasting data – is
expensive to collate and interpret, yet
freely available, therefore other people
can use the data and monetise it.
“We do tailored solutions, looking at
ways to enhance the service to the
customer,” Pranay says. “For example:
what does the customer require, and
how do we tailor our forecasting to
their needs.
We want to make sure
people can rely on
our information and
have confidence – not
just accuracy of data
but how we relay that
information.
”
www.CFOMagazine.com.au
