Speaking at the CFO East Africa Uganda Leadership Summit, former PwC Managing Partner and I&M Bank Uganda chairperson Francis Kamulegeya delivered a blunt account of how finance leaders are perceived in the boardroom and what it will take to survive the transition into one.
After the panel discussions at the CFO Leadership Summit in Kampala wound down, business leader Francis Kamulegeya took to the stage as a board chairperson who remains in the room after the CFO has left.
"When you've presented and you leave the room, we ask ourselves whether we can trust this person's judgment. What gets you into the door is your credentials. What earns your seat at the table is your competence. What keeps you in the room is your ability to communicate, your character, and all these other aspects," he said.
Francis spent 27 years at PwC, including 12 years as country senior partner, before transitioning into what he describes as his second half. He now chairs the board of I&M Bank Uganda and holds non-executive directorships across several organisations, including Old Mutual Kenya and Quality Chemicals. At the summit, he explained that the qualities that make an excellent CFO are not automatically the same qualities that make an effective board member.
"The role used to be so much about reporting, about controlling, so much so that even we have certain titles that indicate that. You cannot control any finance until you've made any finance, and it's very, very important that you are in a position of actually facilitating finance, building finance, creating value before you even attempt to control it," he said.
The four I framework
The centrepiece of his address was a framework he called the four Is: information, insight, influence and impact. He was unequivocal about where most CFOs are operating. As he noted, the board's mandate is to create the future the organisation is aspiring towards.
"If you come into the boardroom and you're presenting information and telling us what happened, you're simply sharing information. I listen for the insights. If you fail to communicate insights, I won't waste much time with you. I'll tell you, that's the end. We'll talk about you and what you shared with us, but I'll look for somebody who can interpret that information and give me insights," he said.
He was equally pointed about the tendency among finance professionals to equate technical complexity with credibility. Using IFRS 17 as an example, he argued that arriving loaded with regulatory terminology was unimpressive.
"In leadership, the opposite is often true. All those big words, they belong somewhere, maybe within your WhatsApp groups, but when we come to the boardroom, please simplify," he said.
Francis also addressed the transition to non-executive life, saying all CFOs will eventually become non-executive directors, whether or not they reach the CEO role first. In his view, almost nothing in a CFO's daily work prepares them for the governance mindset the boardroom requires. He spoke about completing a diploma in corporate governance, failing one of the 12 modules on his first attempt and returning to sit it again. Francis encouraged the room to take board seats wherever they could find them as early preparation.
Leveraging social capital
"Please build what I call relational capital, social capital. That is one of those things that stays. The title will go because it should go. You are not a CFO from 20 years ago, and you should not be a CFO for another 20 years. But the capital you build, the relationships you build, are the things that you're going to leverage on," he said.
In his closing remarks, the renowned business leader returned to the question of what lies beyond a long executive career, one most CFOs face with apprehension.
"For as long as you're going to live a long life, which I believe you all will, you are going to be around for quite some time. So now that you're CFO, you've attended this course, this networking, what happens next? You ask yourself that question. Until you answer that question, you are going to be chasing success, and success will pass you by because you don't even know what it is until you define it yourself," he said.
