Deloitte’s Kunkleman: Fixing Finance

Companies aren’t doing enough to foster finance professionals, and young graduates aren’t seeing finance as the path to success, according to Deloitte Consulting’s new global survey, “The Finance Talent Challenge: How Leading CFOs are Taking Charge.” The report provides insight and suggestions into finding and retaining talent in the finance world. Ken Kunkleman, a director with Deloitte Consulting who spearheaded the project, spoke with Consulting about the report and the firm’s suggestions for change.

Consulting: Why did you decide to take on this project?

Kunkleman: We have a group that we call the global finance transformation team. That group gathers to think about things on more of a global basis, and one of the areas of interest was doing some primary research [on] finance talent. We went fairly carefully about deciding what can we ask, what might be interesting to ask. The net result is what we have, which is a very well-responded-to global survey that truly is representative of a global set of findings around finance talent.

Consulting: So what were your primary findings?

Kunkleman: We really tried to focus on things that perhaps already were not well established. One of them was the notion that finance organizations are ill-equipped to excel in value-adding activities. [Only] about half the survey respondents trust in finance’s competencies to align finance with the business as a strategist.

One interesting finding relative to a specific category of professionals was around financial planning and analysis professionals. They’re in demand as future finance leaders; it’s really seen as one of the key job areas in which future leaders are going to come from. [They rank] first among the positions that are the pipeline for the organization’s leadership, but the survey basically told us that they were also thought to be among the hardest positions to fill. [We also found] a growing shortage of qualified accountants and other finance professionals in Eastern Europe and Asia. I thought that was interesting because those are the primary areas to think about for outsourcing, so we felt that that really had some significant implications—that the very areas that you might be thinking to tap, the talent is a problem there.

Consulting: Did you find these results surprising?

Kunkleman: [That last one was] a bit of a surprise. I guess if we had done the hypothesis in advance, we would have said somewhat generically, “Where are the typical targets, typical areas of the globe that organizations think about for outsourcing?” And of course, India being among them, but Eastern Europe and Asia certainly being prime areas. And then when it wasn’t, yeah, that was a bit of a surprise.

Consulting: What else did you determine in the report?

Kunkleman: Branding the company—or branding finance as a career destination. It’s kind of an interesting dilemma, in some ways the scandals of the past and Sarbanes-Oxley and those kinds of things make it an attractive destination, because when there’s buzz, people want to go there.  But on the other hand, it might not be the most exciting career destination, and what we’re saying is that it’s one thing for the organization to brand itself, it’s another for finance specifically to think about, “What are we doing to attract the best and brightest?” Thirty-five percent of the CFOs and thirty-eight percent of all survey respondents said that one of their most significant challenges was attracting the recent graduate. Because [graduates] don’t view finance as a career launcher.

Consulting: Does the high level of scrutiny around the profession factor into that?

Kunkleman: That certainly could be a factor, but I think it’s a factor easily overcome by a variety of strategies. I think more than anything what it says is that we have to do things not only to brand ourselves as a career destination, both finance as a function and finance specifically in a company, but I think also, you deliver on that brand. So once somebody arrives, what kind of career experience are you giving him?

Consulting: How do you recommend companies “sell” finance as a career?

Kunkleman: I would suggest first of all that they develop a talent roadmap, a plan. Before you launch into one-off-type solutions, think more strategically and more broad-based about what kind of program you want to have. [Consider] targeted career development programs, whether it’s international assignments, a combination of external learning and internal learning [or] mentoring—those kinds of programs as well.