Markus Zorn, Deloitte: Finance leaders are increasingly involved in strategic decisions and transformation projects beyond financial topics, from digitalisation to sustainability. In your opinion, what is the most important CFO mandate?
Tania Micki: I think you’re right. The CFO role has evolved from being the steward and head of accounting towards a more strategically inspiring partnership. In fact, I have always believed that the role of the CFO is strategic, and so I would not call it a new evolution.
I believe I am almost the second hand of the CEO, making sure that everything within the organisation is working properly. This also means that the CFO is leading change management, project management, innovation and growth not just in finance, but also ensuring that the company is making use of the latest technologies in order to grow.
From a change management perspective, I think the CFO has a huge role to play because she or he has to convince everyone in the management team, including the board, where investments are most needed. Change management for me is also about communication. Another important aspect of the CFO’s role is to be a good communicator.
Deloitte: Is a new mindset or a new skillset required to be successful in driving change management?
Tania Micki: It's both because at the end of the day, you must be convinced that change is good for the organisation. Change is not always beneficial - the right change at the right pace will bring about benefits from transformation. This is where it becomes a skillset. The CFO needs to ensure that his or her vision is not lost on the people in the organisation, who need to understand what the vision is and where it’s coming from.
For that you also need to understand the company culture and communicate a lot. At Tecan, management is engaging directly with our people. We’ve launched 15 minutes with the CEO and I introduced Breakfast with the CFO to encourage open dialogue within the company. We have regular townhall meetings and various channels of communication in place. We also have culture workshops to ensure that people we work with understand where we want to go as company and come along with us.
Deloitte: There are fundamental shifts in how people and businesses are getting work done. What will the finance function look like in the future?
Tania Micki: This is an interesting question. There is a debate around the skillset that future finance talents should possess. They have to have technical skills, the financial planning and analysis, the analytics, but they also need to understand artificial intelligence and robotics.
But more than anything else I want people who are really interested in understanding the business and the process from end-to-end. Because then they can understand the impacts of doing things rightly or wrongly in finance. That is how I believe we can add value in finance. That’s how I see the future of finance: people who understand the business and have common sense and who are sparring partners for the C suite and the board.
Tania Micki
CFO Tecan AG
Tania joined Tecan as CFO in February 2020 with extensive experience in finance in international listed companies.
Most recently, she was Chief Risk Officer and Internal Audit Head at Sulzer AG. Since 2010, Tania held various roles in finance at Sulzer, including as CFO Global Markets in a group-wide function. As CFO Pumps Division and CFO Rotating Equipment Services Division, she was responsible for finances at divisional level. Before joining Sulzer, Tania Micki held various financial positions with increasing management responsibility at Monsanto, Gate Group and General Mills in Switzerland, the UK, Australia, Poland and Russia.
Tania has a general management qualification from the INSEAD Business School (Fontainebleu, France), focusing on strategy, finance and corporate management. She also graduated from ESCP (École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris) in Paris (France), where her studies focused on finance, auditing and accounting. She also has a bachelor’s degree in Russian from the Paris X University in Nanterre (France).