CFOs are Taking over the Analytics Department

I was speaking to a CFO recently. They exclaimed:

This reflection hit me like a ton of bricks, because as a CFO I too took over the analytics department at my last company. It was originally built under engineering, but we got to a point where it would benefit the masses to have all our data in one place, across finance, product, and sales data.

We'd established that my org was the best location for it to sit in the company (IT was overly systems focused, Product wasn't financially focused enough).

And boy did I have a ton of imposter syndrome.

Yes, I enthusiastically put my hand up to say "Gimme that!" … but deep down inside I was thinking "How do I drive this car?"

In fact, I thought SQL was referring to the second God Father or Jaws movies.

But… I could def tell a story with data if you gave me enough rope. I could position the numbers within our company narrative.

The question became: how do both me and my team move up the analytics escalator?

The following is a guide for finance leaders who are either building out or taking over the analytics org at their company.

It's written from the perspective of someone who's an Excel guru, but does not have a degree in machine learning.

Here’s what we’ll cover today:

Analytics is not:

Speaking of that… dashboards are…basic.

Analytics:

Let’s board the analytics escalator.

First stop: Descriptive Analytics