CFO As CEO

Welcome to the brave new world of cost accountants, or cost and management accountants (CMAs) as they are called today. In this twenty-first century version, they do not aspire to end their careers as CFOs. They desire to become CEOs, or corporate leaders. They are not just obsessed with costs, accounting, taxes, and audits. They are passionate about growth and investments, topline and bottom-line, strategies rather than tactics, integrated thinking driven by AI-linked data analytics and, more importantly, predictive decision-making process. We got the idea to showcase leading CMAs through discussions with C-Suite Executives, and other experts. They are CFOs, and CEOs.

Rajneesh Jain of Reliance Jio Infocomm tells the story of how he built an original organizational model, which uses finance as a cohesive force to bind other departments, functions, and roles. Partha Sarathi Bhattacharyya, former CMD, Coal India, describes a national business model, which can allow India to continue to use coal despite global pressures to ban and banish it. Prasanna Kumar Acharya, Director (Finance), NLC India, talks about the need for stakeholders’ management, rather than shareholders’ management, to keep vendors, suppliers, employees, and customers in the loop. But, as Sanjay Jindal of EIL reveals, the shareholders are critical too.

Even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a twist to Made-in-India strategy, made it into a Make-in-India one, and insisted on Atma-Nirbhar Bharat in the post-pandemic period, Hindustan Aeronautics spearheaded initiatives to make aircraft and helicopters locally. Mazagon Dock and Goa Shipyard, which make world-class ships, will emerge as MRO hubs for the US naval fleet after Modi and Joe Biden inked a historic India-US deal. US ships that operate in the Indian Ocean region will regularly dock at Indian ports for repairs and maintenance purposes. Tata Motors’ Aseem Kumar Mukhopadhyay seeks smart transport solutions for smart Indian cities.

It is during crises that the CMAs’ potential as leaders comes to the forefront. Confronted with a demand for a Covid section in his hospital, Rohit Kumar of ApolloMedics built a makeshift one inside a tent within five days. Harjeet Joshi, former CMD, Shipping Corporation, developed a post-Covid Business Continuity Plan, which accounted for various scenarios, including the worst-case one – a shutdown. NBCC’s Baldev Sokhey energized a business model to redevelop land that is self-sustaining and self-monetizing. ONGC’s Pomila Jaspal managed a merger between a standalone refinery, and its allied petrochemical unit. Varadaraj Subramanian of Godrej Agrovet has handled several M&As, and JVs.

At the end of the day, CMAs need to deal with costs. Pirooz Movdawalla of Godrej & Boyce believes in looking at costs during the life cycle of a product, especially those that last for decades. Hari Nagrani of Delhi International Airport Ltd, a PPP model owned by the GMR Group, has no option but to continuously seek ways to slash expenses, since almost half of its revenues is shared with a minority partner, the state-owned Airports Authority of India. Kewal Handa, who is involved in two start-ups, believes that cost is his mantra.