CFO 4.0 - The Future of Finance

259.CFO 4.0 Revisited: Soft Skills and the importance they have in Finance Teams with Howard Tunnicliffe

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In this third episode of the CFO 4.0 Revisited series, Hannah Munro is joined by Howard Tunnicliffe, now FP&A Director at Busuu, to revisit a conversation that remains highly relevant for modern finance leaders.

Originally recorded when Howard was Head of Finance Subscriptions at The Economist, this episode tackles a topic that still separates good finance teams from great ones: soft skills. As finance continues to move beyond pure technical delivery, Howard shares practical insight into why behaviours, communication and judgement matter just as much as numbers.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

  • Howard’s career journey and lessons learned across global, matrixed organisations
  • Why soft skills are critical for finance professionals looking to progress into leadership
  • How to assess the strengths and gaps within your finance team
  • The risks of ignoring soft skills in high-performing finance functions
  • Which soft skills matter most in FP&A and senior finance roles
  • Practical ways to develop these skills across your finance team
SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly. Moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition. To win at work, drive a career forward, and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Monroe, Managing Director of ITES, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real-world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people, and data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance.

SPEAKER_03:

Starting a new CFO role doesn't have to be daunting. So whether you are new to the role or just new to the company, our 90-day master plan will help you get off to the best possible start with a shared collection of research, advice, and guidance inspired by the CFO 4.0 podcast. So what are you waiting for? Download it now at www.itassolutions.co.uk. So hello everybody and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. My name is Hannah Munro, and today we're going to be talking all about soft skills and finance. Now, with me to help us on that journey and that discussion is Howard Suddycliff, who is head of finance for subscriptions at The Economist. And on the side, his personal passion is helping others to develop their soft skills in order to advance their career. So welcome, Howard. Amazing to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great. Thanks a lot for having me on, Hannah.

SPEAKER_03:

So tell us, um, tell us a bit about yourself. Um, how did you end up at The Economist and what have you been doing for the last few years?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I'm um a senior-qualified accountant. Uh, spent a little bit of time at Ernst ⁇ Young and sort of worked my way up various commercial finance roles over the last 13 or 14 years. Um, and yeah, going pretty well. You know, I was I was getting there slowly climbing the ladder. And then a few years ago I had a bit of a problem, and and that problem for me was a relationship broke up. Um, so that meant that I um lost a lot of our mutual friends. Um, I had to move out of the house that we were sharing. Uh, and it was a really difficult time for me. So I was feeling like I was starting again, and I wasn't really sure that I had the tools to start again, and I'm sure a lot of people have been in similar situations. Uh, so I did what any sensible person would do. I moved out to Covent Garden, I rented a place there for a year, thinking, right, I need to uh live in zone one, enjoy everything that London has to offer. Um, and while I was there, I had a lot of spare time uh on my hands, and um I saw a course which was all about how to structure a conversation. It was called How to Never Run Out of Things to Say. And I thought, well, what a brilliant use of my time. When have you ever come across anything like that? And it was really my first real introduction to soft skills and being coached on soft skills, and and as a part of that, I um had some coaching on soft skills uh over a couple of years, and that was brilliant to me. So, light bulb moments, it was all about meeting people, talking to strangers, uh, improving your social circle, um, all of those things, exactly the things I needed at that time. Uh, and then subsequent to that, I really realized that soft skills are so important at work as well. So it's it's a great crossover. So from that, I've started to uh think more about soft skills in my career, really observing other people in soft skills and just starting to realise quite how important they are, really the key skills to get us promoted.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, soft skills and finance, it's not two words that commonly go together, is it? And and and I completely agree with you, it's it's becoming even more important than it's ever been. So, why do you think it's so important in finance in particular?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, I I think you fit the nail on the head there, Hannah, and and often we don't really think about soft skills in finance and and the route that we take as finance people. So, probably we're quite good at school uh and we're passing exams left, right, and centre and getting a lot of uh respect for that and and a lot of love for that. And then we go on to do our exams, and it's all about getting a high mark, and it's all about passing our finance exams. And that's really great for getting you through the door. So, you know, those grades get you into university, they get you to your finance qualification, and then they get you into your entry-level roles and those technical skills, you know, we we do need them. We we all use Excel pretty regularly, you know, you need to be um aware of of numbers quite clearly, like numeracy is important, but it's really a base hygiene factor, you could call it. So actually, by the time we start to move up from those entry-level positions, it's really not the technical skills that we need. So I always think how to ask a question for everyone, how how good are you technically as a CFO or how good is your CFO technically? And the answer is it doesn't matter, you know, it it really doesn't. If you if you have a finance team and you could be world-class at either technical or soft skills, and average at the other, I I really strongly believe I would much rather have a world-class team in soft skills and just average at the technical skills, and I think that would be uh a really powerful team.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because the the finance role itself is changing, isn't it? We're seeing this massive shift, and you know, you know, you you know, if we think really far back, you know, all of the accounting was done with a quill and a ledger, right? And I think I saw my last cash book, actual physical cash book, about uh six or seven years ago. But now we have all this amazing technology, and for those that know me, know I love talking about technology, but we have all this amazing technology to actually do that almost that technical accounting piece, don't we? To do a lot of the hard work. So even identifying issues with postings and reconciliations these days as well. So actually, I think as we, you know, the next few years, exactly what you said, that that need for those soft skills themselves is actually going to increase rather than sort of be at the same level or you know, or change in, you know, or decrease, in fact.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that I mean there's no doubt about it. I think in work, across teams, I really find that our roles are almost becoming quite similar. So even in marketing, the marketeers need to be numerate. Um, and then we in finance need to be able to tell a story and we need to be able to kind of sell ourselves and persuade people. And and even if you look at teams um across the board in product development or in data, where you think that they might be more technical, and they certainly are more towards the technical side, but we're all working as a team, you know, we we really can't do anything ourselves. So the minute that you start talking to anyone else, then then that's really soft skills. Um, and and even if you're coding something or you're building a big model, you're really going to need to be doing that as a team, and you're gonna need to be leveraging people to get their expertise. You're gonna be needing to communicate with them to make sure that all the assumptions are agreed upon, um, and getting people's buy-in and persuading them maybe that you don't need to do everything in as much detail, you know, giving them comfort that things can be done, um, perhaps at a higher level and saving you some time and saving you some complexity.

SPEAKER_03:

So this is probably a good opportunity because obviously we talked about soft skills quite generally, but what makes us um up soft skills? Are there particular categories that you like to think about in terms of what what you how you would define the the terminology?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think that's part of the the issue that soft skills has. So it sounds like a little thing off to the side that might be nice to think about every now and again, but uh I I summarise soft skills as it's really everything to do with human relationships and human communication. Um and and that's really both externally but also internally, managing your own thoughts and feelings. So it it really is, I'd say 99% of work really is soft skills, and and I think we need to try and make that change, a real focus change. When I look at courses and training, it's it's almost always talking about kind of case studies, always talking about transformation in quite a technical way. Um, but actually I I think we need to really re-evaluate that and think of soft skills as everything because as I mentioned earlier, when we're talking about growing up and we're talking about doing exams, we've got an exam and it's marked out of 100. And if you do better, then you it's very easy to measure if you're doing better or not because you get a high mark. But the minute that we move into the world of work, it doesn't work like that. You know, work is a very uh ambiguous, nebulous area, it's just full of problems and complexity. And soft skills really helps you to prepare for that. So yeah, I think look going back to your original question on exactly what soft skills is, it's really really about communication and relationships with other people.

SPEAKER_03:

And if you had to, you know, we talked about exams not being important, if you had to put an exam together or an assessment of soft skills, what sort of ways would you categorize it, or what sort of topics or modules would you have within soft skills?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so so you've got things like um your your own kind of internal emotional awareness and control. So that that's one thing. Um also kind of awareness of relationships, um, social um constructs and and things which really drive other people. Um and and yeah, I think the also the relationship dynamics as well with other people. Um so that yeah, there's some areas which are really more internally focused on you, the really understanding yourself, your emotions, your desires and how you think. Uh, and then there's the other proportion are really looking outside in it. It's about understanding the subtext quite often in in relationships and what's really going on behind what people are saying.

SPEAKER_03:

No, absolutely, and sometimes it's just as important what they don't say. I've learned that as a consultant is what they do. So you kind of have to yeah, connect and understand. So, you know, if in terms of um assessing soft skills, because it it's quite intangible, isn't it? How does somebody go about assessing themselves, assess perhaps assessing their teams as to, you know, is this an area we need to focus on or work on? And you know, how do you measure where you're currently at so that you can plan where you need to focus in terms of development?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, and I think you're absolutely right that it's quite a difficult set of skills to introduce itself to, and that's probably why they haven't been as popular, it's because it's a little bit more difficult to understand and get into them. Um, so I think that there's two questions really there. And the first one is about yourself as a leader, and the second one is about your team. So the one really interesting concept that that that really sparked a like for me in soft skills is the concept of the competency ladder. And now some people may have heard about this, but really, really interesting concept. So I would say do look it up if you're interested in soft skills. But the first step of the competency ladder is unconscious incompetence, and that that really means that you don't know what you don't know, and and that's a lot a lot of people uh in a lot of areas are at unconscious incompetence, and it can be okay. You know, ignorance is bliss. Some people don't need to work on things and they get by fine. But I'd say, in terms of assessing your own soft skills, that there's plenty of resources out there. So I would say have have a Google. So do some research yourself. Um, understand you'll see lists of maybe 10 or 12 soft skills, and then just start to kind of think about how you are in in each of these areas, um, and and then begin to just like slightly mark yourself. Well, is this something that I'm really aware of? Is it something I consider a strength? And then by building that list, you get up to the second step, which is the conscious incompetence. So that's really understanding the areas where you're you're not so good and and the areas that you need to work on. And that's really the the really humbling step, I call it. So you you you kind of realize how much you don't know, but I mean, soft skills is such an amazing area that you'll you'll never get to know even a fraction of it, but you can just kind of keep on working on it and really enjoy that kind of growth learning process because there's always more to learn. Um, and then just to touch on your your second point around the team, I think that's really important as a finance leader. So what we don't often realize is that we've developed these skills as we climb the corporate ladder. We've developed these skills without even probably thinking about it. So stakeholder management is such a key one that you don't necessarily have when you're early on in your career. Um, but you definitely need it as you get more and more and more senior. Again, prioritization, something that more junior people really struggle with and and they're not aligned with their manager. But as you get higher up, then you you really you learn that quite naturally. Um also things like relationship building and networking. Again, not all the junior people are no one's taught these things. And people aren't necessarily good at these when when they join, but actually as we get more senior, we we naturally get more exposure and we learn, we see good people um exhibiting these behaviours. So so one thing I'd say in terms of your team, think about the skills that you have now that you didn't have when you were younger, and put some side uh time aside with your team to really try and upskill them in those soft skills that you didn't need earlier on in your career, but you definitely do need now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, and I think that's it, isn't it? Trying to take an individual approach and perhaps even, like you say, raising awareness because um that that training ladder is always quite interesting in terms of as you move up um through it. And um, like you say, that the unconscious incompetence stage is a a very humbling one where you yeah, but you know, uh you you'd never until you know where the challenges are, you can't address them. And so it's quite interesting once you start focusing on those areas, what you find. So, um, and but I guess like again, you know, having conversations around soft skills with your, you know, with your your your juniors as they go through the ranks. Why do you think it's so important? Um, you know, especially for those younger individuals to have and you know, be aware of those soft skills.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think it it's really important because these are the skills that we're never taught. You know, we we get so much of our training and time is spent on academic work, and whether that's kind of at school, at university, or studying for finance. And even like I said, the the professional development, you go to a finance conference and so much of it will be really technically focused. So these skills are really important because they're not taught. And what we find in the current world of work, which is is quite unfair, I think, is that really it's the people that are either naturally good at soft skills or the people that are good at learning soft skills, they're actually going to be the ones that get promoted. So there's a bit of a myth that if you work hard, you'll get promoted. And that there's a level of truth to that early on in your career, maybe for the first few steps. And you know, hard work is important and commitment and ownership are all things that will stand here in good stead. But you get to a stage later on when it just doesn't work that way anymore. You need to be able to build those relationships, you need to have the network. You know, you can be the best person for the job, but if you can't market yourself and sell yourself either internally or externally at an interview, then you're just gonna get stuck. And and again, I I think that's it's really unfair. And and what people tend to do is they tend to double down on what they're good at. So if people aren't getting promoted, they're probably getting a little bit frustrated and they're doubling down and they're probably working harder, and you know, they're they're probably um looking in the wrong areas. But by giving your team the soft skill, it will help everyone to communicate better, work better. But also earlier on in people's career, it I think of it like compounding interest. So imagine if you I think a lot of people have seen that chart of if you got 1% better every day, just quite how quickly that adds up. But imagine if you'd have had training on the skills that you now have acquired kind of by accident early on in your career, you know, you would be so much further ahead and so much better able to deal with the modern world of work.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. And I think it's especially true in finance, because it's quite interesting. Obviously, doing what I do, I I work with people at all stages of their finance career. Um, and you know, not a lot of them chose to go into finance, they chose to go into finance more because they they like numbers best sometimes better than they like people, right? So they chose finance because they're even naturally good at it. They were naturally, you know, quite like you say, quite technical, quite numerically orientated. And actually, what we're saying now is that in order to be successful in your finance career, you need to develop this whole set of skills that nobody can has ever taught you that you've no idea if you're any good at, and that you need to develop. So I I think it's important we put maybe some of these skills into context, particularly around um actual areas of finance. So you mentioned stakeholder management is, and it's quite an obvious one when you think about it. You've got to have great skills to actually do that. So, what sort of soft skills really come to play in that area?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, really a lot of the soft skills do come back to listening, and and you'll know that as a consultant. That's that's really key. So I think with stakeholder management, it's about listening to other people's problems. I mean, that's really key as a finance business partner, and really trying to understand their motivations. So it you know, there's a communication piece there as well, just making sure that um people are aware of you know what you're able to do, what your uh work crunches are, if things are going to be late or not, equally just giving people advanced notice if um you may have heard something from someone else they've not heard yet. So just making sure that people feel um that they're they're in the loop is really key. So so yeah, it's a kind of a combination of of communication. But also understanding the other stakeholders' point of view and and making them feel heard and understood.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely. And are there any other particular areas you think we should be highlighting in that, you know, if you're looking to recruit in those roles, that soft skills are super important?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I I mean, as I mentioned, I think that the key really is listening, and and listening is really not sexy and it's not glamorous and it's not new and it's really hard work. Um, but but if I give you an example of um when I had an interview um a couple of years ago, I was recruiting for an analyst role, and I was um just asking some some fairly standard interview questions, and the the person I was interviewing was talking a lot, but I would ask a question and they really just weren't answering the question at all. And I I reflected on it afterwards and I thought this person's probably thought they've had a good interview because you know we've got some good rapport going and they've spoken a lot, but really they just weren't listening. And I thought, well, if you're not listening to an interview, which again is a fairly structured, simple, unambiguous question, then um I can't hire you. Um so so yeah, definitely someone someone that can listen. Um, I think for me, the the real key is trying to find someone with a growth mindset, and and I know you've talked about this on your podcast before, um, sort of that curiosity. And that's really important because what what we know is that the skills that we're hiring for now probably aren't the skills that we're going to need in five years' time. You know, everything is changing so much, you know, automation is happening, finance transformation is happening. So when I'm hiring, what I'm really looking for is someone that is adaptable and can respond to challenges. And and like you said, sometimes in in finance, it it is more someone that's a bit more stable, kind of competent technically, good with numbers, but unfortunately a lot of those roles are now going to be automated away, as you mentioned earlier on. So so twofold. I think I'm I'm looking to hire someone with a growth mindset, but also I think how can we help our teams that maybe are um a little bit more uh on the stability path and and um a bit more technically focused, maybe more numbers focused than people focused, as you mentioned. How can we help to upskill them? Because we don't want to leave those people behind as well. You know, they've they've got a lot to offer. The technical skills are important too. Um and we just need to make sure as we go into transformation that we've got those people on our side, because if people are worried about losing their jobs and those transformations can't possibly happen. So let's make sure that we're giving those people the tools to upskill them and then we can bring them along in that transformation journey, which is going to be way more exciting for everyone because who got um very much job satisfaction out of doing a balance sheet rec for the you know 12th, 12th month end in a row, you know, it very quickly we we don't really get anything in our lives from from doing those technical things over and over. So let's free people up to do some more interesting work that's going to really impact the bottom line.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I love that. So that's something I talk about a lot is that you know, we have these incredibly talented people in finance. And like you say, they are adding, you know, they're they're do they're still sometimes doing the basic tasks, which is a real waste of talent in my personal opinion. So, but you know, we have to make sure that they have the skills to shift into the new role. So, um, in terms of your view, what do you think is the best way to develop for individuals within your, you know, within a team to develop those soft skills? How can you help and how can you know people listening to this podcast help develop those areas within their team and those skills within their team?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I I think the first thing for me is giving it some priority. So I think it's something that historically we haven't really given that much priority to. And as we talked about earlier on, I think give yourself a little bit of a soft skills audit uh and then also consider what your team needs in terms of soft skills. Uh, and that may be very different for different people. As you mentioned, it it's it's not a one size fits all approach. Some people will need different things and also go at different speeds. So, you know, you might have some people that are really keen to learn and they really take on these ideas like a sponge, and some other people maybe less so, but no, that's fine. We're we're all different people. Um, I I think in terms of training, so there are one or two companies now or um coaches that are starting to offer things like finance business partner training. So it's becoming a little bit more of a thing, and they're still a little bit thin on the ground, but those uh those training days and workshops for your team that they will often be quite focused on soft skills. So it's something that the industry is slowly starting to get used to. Um, I I would also say, as a finance leader, talk to your in-house training team. So again, typically we tend to get the same courses from those in-house training teams, and they're not necessarily fit for the modern world. So they probably haven't changed that much in my experience over the last 10 years. So, how about asking your in-house training team for a course on prioritization? You know, that'd be great. We we get some courses on time management, they're quite common. Um, but actually, when have you ever had any help with prioritizing? And that that's a massively key skill for people kind of early on in their career to get to know.

SPEAKER_03:

No, absolutely. So a real mix of, like you say, coaching, some structured training, because I think it does, it definitely has its place in terms of supporting at. Um, and so for anyone that is looking to, you know, maybe have this as a focus for their team, what are your top tips to getting started? How would you approach um, you know, um the soft skills as a whole within it within a team?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, it it is it is a difficult idea um a difficult thing to to make a start on. I think that's fair to say. Um so my approach would be to kind of do that audit of your team and and really just to focus on one or two areas. So which are the things that you think the soft skills that you think are going to make the biggest difference to your team, uh, and and then to focus on those. And and it's it's also really key, I think, to get people's buy-in for soft skills because often people don't really understand it. Um, and and yeah, we're all busy and it's very hard to carve out time. So say take a little bit of time to kind of introduce soft skills to your team uh and let them know how it helps you, and really you can be the leader that demonstrates uh in a really tangible way how how you view soft skills. Um and one thing that we're we're starting to do now at The Economists is we're doing a development hour. So what I found in in modern working practices is normally Fridays are a little bit quieter than the other days because a little bit fewer meetings and you know people aren't necessarily in the office so much, a little bit less hectic. Um, so what we're doing is we're having an hour on Fridays with the team on a drop-in session. So we might have some suggested topics for that session, but really it's about people to come to the leaders in the team and have some time set aside to talk specifically about soft skills because if you don't set time aside for it specifically, it it just won't happen. Um so yeah, we're really excited about how that's going to be.

SPEAKER_03:

Fantastic. So well, that sounds like a great suggestion. And like you say, that you know, um if you don't put time aside and put focus on it, it doesn't happen. And I love your comment on making sure people are aware of the reason and the need for this and the impact both on you know on them as an individual, because you know, once you get that buy-in and that that view, it's like any transformation project, you know, regardless of whether it's technology or people, um, you know, people skills, once you get buy-in and you get them on board, then you know, then people tend to to more likely to deliver on those um those areas. So, well, thank you so much, Howard. Um, it's been absolutely fabulous having you on the show and talking about um Scott Soft Skills and making, you know, those soft skills a bit more tangible for our listeners out there. So um for those that are you know interested in perhaps um connecting or learning more about yourself, what's the best way to reach out and connect with you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, LinkedIn is really my main medium for talking about soft skills. Um, and I will post on LinkedIn uh every day. So the hashtag is uh hashtag finance soft skills, and it's Howard Tonnecliffe. So yeah, please come and join the conversation. Um, send me a connection request that that would be absolutely great. That's what it's all about. Um, and also I'm currently developing some online courses as well. So as we've mentioned, it it's quite a tricky area to get into, and and there isn't really one resource that you can go to for soft skills training. So that's something that I'll be looking to build up uh over the coming weeks and months. So yeah, by all means, come and talk to me about that and let's see how we can sort of help to solve each other's problems.

SPEAKER_03:

No, absolutely, and I think it's really great because, like you, you know, as you said, there's not a huge there's a lot on soft skills, but not necessarily specifically for finance. And it's becoming such a major part of the role moving forward. So for those that are listening, I hope you found today's session um interesting and lightning. And I think we'd love I'd love to hear your thoughts. You know, what are your questions around soft skills, around other skills you think are becoming more important? So come and join the conversation. And again, thank you, Howard. It's been brilliant having you on the show.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great. Thanks a lot. It's been great to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Hey Google, what's the best accounting software for my business? Give it a couple of years, and I bet you she'll be able to answer you pretty accurately. But for now, it's still one of the few questions Google can't give you an answer for. But we can. Take our free quiz and find out which Sage Products is the right fit for your business. Just head to itasolutions.co.uk.

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