CFOs and senior finance executives are dealing with a growing number of responsibilities and demands as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.
The report, from consulting firm Protiviti, found that the pandemic has been a wake-up call to finance departments that weren’t already investing, or weren’t investing enough, in cloud-based systems as they have struggled to shift to the remote work environment. Eighty percent of the 1,057 finance leaders surveyed ranked security and privacy of data as a top priority, while 78 percent cited enhanced data analytics, and 72 percent cited cloud-based applications.
Roger Arnemann serves as the General Manager and Senior Vice President of Analytics at Guidewire Software, where he brings over 20 years of expertise in technology solutions to the table. His experience spans across catastrophe modeling, insurance analytics, cyber risk, and FinTech, making him a valuable asset to the company. Arnemann holds Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.), and Master of Science (M.S.) degrees from Stanford University.
Luis F. Rosa, certified financial planner and enrolled agent, is the founder of Pasadena, California-based financial planning firm Build a Better Financial Future.
He is host of the "On My Way to Wealth" podcast, co-founder of the BlatinX (BLX) Internship Program and co-founder of the SER Latino Advisor Summit. Among his many industry accolades, Rosa has been named to Financial Planning's list of people who will transform wealth management, to the InvestmentNews 40 Under 40 list, to Financial Advisor magazine's 10 Young Advisors to Watch, and four times to the Investopedia Top 100 Financial Advisors list. In 2023 NerdWallet named him one of eight Hispanic personal finance influencers to follow for money advice.
Rosa came to the U.S. at age 11 from the Dominican Republic. Growing up in New York City, Rosa noticed the lack of financial literacy in his community and was inspired by his parents to work hard and pursue an education. Rosa uses his platform to help spread financial literacy via media outreach as well as encourage younger and diverse planners to join and thrive in the industry.
James Gerber is the CFO of SimSpace Corp. and a former financial regulator at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
Of those respondents who are CFOs and vice presidents of finance, 72 percent ranked cloud-based applications as a top priority to address over the next 12 months. Seventeen percent ranked cloud-based applications as the most important finance priority for their organizations to address, signifying a big jump from the 8 percent of respondents who indicated so in a similar survey by Protiviti last year.
“Having the right technology infrastructure and cloud capabilities is now considered a baseline in order to operate effectively and efficiently and will continue to be as organizations move into a hybrid work environment,” said Chris Wright, managing director and global leader of Protiviti’s Business Performance Improvement practice, in a statement. “COVID-19 disruptions underscored the critical nature of a truly digital finance workforce and companies without advanced technologies and digital processes faced a difficult transition to remote work. We’re now seeing an increasing number of boards and CEOs tap their finance leaders for guidance about whether their organization is allocating enough resources to their technology infrastructure.”
Labor models are changing, in part as a result of the pandemic, with 18 percent of the finance leaders surveyed saying their organizations are relying on managed services providers, while 29 percent are augmenting their staff to handle financial planning and analysis with greater speed and agility.
