Leadership Q&A: For Finance, It's All About The Business

Cathy Ross, senior vice president and CFO of Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Express, excels by focusing on facts, analyzing opportunities, and surrounding herself with bright people.

Laurie Brannen: How important is it for people in finance to have a good understanding of the overall business, and what do you do to help educate them about the big picture?

Cathy Ross: At FedEx, finance people have always been very involved in how the business is run. I personally believe that unless a finance person understands the business, they cannot be very effective in their role. So, we make sure new people understand operations. We also devote quite a bit of time to understanding the environment that we operate in -- we call it baselining -- to better understand the competitive environment, regulatory, or any other key issues that may come into play. And, from that involvement, then hopefully we can help to better shape the decisions that are made in the company.

LB: What does finance do to further the culture of high performance at FedEx?

CR: We have a strategic long-range and short-term planning process. We are in the midst of developing dashboards and making sure that we have clearly defined the metrics for each of the critical levers involved, both for the long-range plan and the short-term plan. That is one of the ways we help to drive the high performance of FedEx Express. Our processes are geared toward ensuring that we are driving performance with full ownership by the operational groups.

LB: FedEx is on a path of international growth. What is your individual role and the role of the overall finance function in growth initiatives?

CR: My role is geared toward evaluating opportunities. One of the key roles that the CFO plays is to understand where we may have potential opportunities around the world, where we might have emerging markets and how we can play to those markets; [to evaluate] how we could enter into those areas, what opportunities they might present for us; and then to help set some priorities. In terms of our staff around the world, we are very much involved in making sure that there is a correct control environment, and also playing that critical role of evaluating opportunities and helping set priorities on a lower, local level. As a result of that, we have undertaken, over the last three years, a project that we call our Finance Best in Class Initiative. It's basically taking financial processes from 52 countries and consolidating them into three financial service centers around the world.

LB: How do you perceive the CFO's role in internal controls and governance, and how hands-on can the CFO be without sacrificing attention to other areas of responsibility?

CR: The CFO's role in internal controls and governance issues is extremely important, even without Sarbanes-Oxley. But I fully believe that the CFO is not in that role alone. The tone at the top is very important, and the CFO has to set that tone, but the senior management team also has to set that tone. We have to ensure that there is a clear understanding of ethics and what is ethical behavior throughout the organization. We have to set an environment where we reward people for doing what is right. In fact, we have to reward courage.