45. Managing a restructure whilst navigating COVID - CFO Stories with Jane Cunliffe

45. Managing a restructure whilst navigating COVID - CFO Stories with Oxfam's CFO Jane Cunliffe

Hannah Munro: 0:48 

So, hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. As usual, I'm your host, Hannah, and today we are going to be talking with Jane Cunliffe from Oxfam. So, Jane is CFO of Oxfam GB, so, UK. So, welcome, Jane. It's fantastic to have you on the show. Thanks very much, Hannah. Thanks for having me. So, tell us a little bit about your journey then, Jane. How did you end up in your role at Oxfam? 

Jane Cunliffe: 1:17 

Yeah, so, Hannah, I've got an interesting career history in that I haven't actually been a finance professional for that long. So, I have been at Oxfam as the CFO for just over a year. And before that, I spent 18 years in the civil service in the UK. I started off as a policy professional, really. So, advising ministers on all sorts of things, mainly in the Department for Education and Education Policy. And then in about 2008 I moved into more I think money sort of government funding related jobs so, I was responsible for school funding for a number of years so, how is all the funding that government gives to schools divided up between the schools and you know how much should it be etc. I then ran Nick Clegg's office when he was the Deputy Prime Minister which was a weird and wonderful experience and after that I moved to the Treasury, where I was Director of Public Spending, which is sort of spending control across government. And that's when I finally decided I should just admit that I had become a finance person. And I did an accelerated SEMA qualification. And then my last job in government before I moved to Oxfam was as the Finance Director for the Department for Work and Pensions, so, the department that runs all the job centres and the benefit system, pension system. So, very big, 80,000 people, £6 billion running budgets. So, that was my first almost proper finance director job. Yeah, and then last year I moved to Oxfam where I'm, as you say, the chief financial officer for Oxfam GB. But we're part of the kind of Oxfam International Confederation. So, all the country programmes and other Oxfam’s around the world. So, yeah, so, slightly weird route to be here, but very pleased where I've ended up. 

Hannah Munro: 3:09 

I was going to say that's a really interesting trajectory and I think that there's a lot of talk about where CFOs are actually shifting from because you know as the finance role is changing different skills are being needed so, that's quite excited and to have that role overseeing all the benefits as your sort of first finance role that must have been well quite an exciting role but also quite a big jump and a leap. 

Jane Cunliffe: 3:37 

Yeah I mean in some ways I think the elements of the CFO role, which are about financial strategy and using the money to kind of back up where the organisation wants to go and say what strategic choices should you be making about your funding, that's essentially, I feel like, what I've been doing for a number of years in government. So, the elements of it that were newer were perhaps more of the technical side and the being responsible for the actual set of accounts. So, some of that was a bit newer, but obviously the qualification helps with that because you understand that in a bit more detail. And my, you know, no CFO is going to be brilliant at everything. So, you might have some who are better at technical accounting and need a really good finance strategy person. So, all I need to do is make sure that I've got really good technical expertise working for me, having not come up through that route myself. So, yeah, so, in some ways, of course, it's daunting, especially the size of DWP. But I think a lot of the sort of financial strategy and planning skills were actually things I'd been working on already. And of course, in government, a lot of your job as a finance director is trying to get money out of the treasury because that's your income source. And I had moved from being the person that government departments asked for money all the time. So, in some ways, it was a natural, you know, you move from one side of the negotiation to the other. But as well as having all of the operational side of DWP or the job centres and the digital systems, which was newer, but, you know, fascinating and enormous. So, yeah, really good experience. 

Hannah Munro: 5:21 

Yes. And so, obviously, you worked in what I would call what we'd say sort of not for profit, so, not for profit for a while. So, what do you think are some of the differences in terms of working for that kind of organisation as a CFO? Are there any differences in skills needed? And 

Jane Cunliffe: 5:41 

I've spoken to lots, there are quite a lot of charity CFOs who have moved from the private sector, including my two deputies both worked in the private sector before they moved into Oxfam. And I think in some ways, there are a lot of similarities. So, the CFO role itself is similar in that you're strategic, you're on the strategic leadership team. The financial strategy of a charity is central to the success of the charity and its mission as per a company. Often CFOs and charities are involved in planning and performance and things that you would expect in the commercial sector as well. And, you know, in Oxfam, we have lots of similarities to private sector. We're a massive retailer. We have 600 shops and a kind of growing online operation. So, there's lots of similarities to other retail businesses. And we work in partnership with M&S particularly, and we will go out and visit other retailers to, you know, whenever I meet finance teams from private sector retailers, there's a lot of similarities, actually. And then we're also... effectively a big international group company. So, on that side of the finance role, I think there's also quite a lot of similarities to banking issues in fragile countries, treasury netting, foreign exchange, consolidating. So, we have to consolidate countries into our accounts. So, in some ways, I think there are quite a lot of similarities. I think some of the differences are the culture, even moving from the civil service to the charity sector, is quite different because you're really in a kind of mission and cause-driven organisation. So, that's a fundamentally kind of different aim to either the commercial sector or the government. And so, there's a real balance in finance between your natural instincts to build financial resilience, which in charities is your sort of reserves, you know, that you keep in reserve for a rainy day. And we've just had a very rainy day in Oxfam. But the money that people are giving you is to spend on need now in like Yemen or Syria. And so, you know, it's a different sort of balance, different trade-offs you're making. And I think along with that, there comes a clear sense of accountability to the people who are giving you money, which is slightly different to say a shopper in a normal shop. You might feel a bit different, but shoppers or people who give us a direct debit every month, there's a real sense of feeling accountable to them. They've chosen to do that for Oxfam. So, we need to make sure their charitable pounds are spent well. We're regulated by the Charity Commission, so, we're in a highly regulated environment. That's not that dissimilar to some areas of the private sector, but that's definitely a feature of the world. And then investment in systems is pretty low down the list of priorities for charitable funds, let's say. So, there's lots of improvements we would like to make in our finance function, but we know that you know, that's not necessarily what people are giving us the money for. So, you have to think about, you can only really do those things if you've really got a very good, clear sort of return on the investment that's quite quick. So, I think there are some differences and different sort of trade-offs and decisions you have to make. 

Hannah Munro: 8:56 

Yeah, so, it's less... Yeah, I guess the productivity piece that has to be, like you say, a really strong case to do that transformation program, as it were, because it's all about, you know, will that help you achieve your mission? Yeah. Rather than it being, you know, can we reduce, can we increase productivity necessarily? 

Jane Cunliffe: 9:16 

And just on that, I think that, you know, so, our ERP system, our finance and HR system is pretty old. But it works. So, you know, yes, of course, it could be better and more efficient. But is that, you know, and obviously we will at some point to replace it. But is that the right use of your charitable funds? Do you need it to be best in class, or do you just need something that works that enables you to provide the right sort of finance function for the organisation? So, some of those decisions are slightly different, I think, in the charitable sector. 

Hannah Munro: 9:46 

Yeah, and I think there is a piece where people don't always make the most of even what they've got. And I think that's always, you know, that's always one of the conversations I like to have been, you know, can you get more out of what you've got? And what is the point at which you need to shift? That's always a really challenging conversation, and particularly with not-for-profits. It's the hard, that's one of the hardest conversations to have, to be very fair. So, going back to what you were talking about in terms of maintaining the balance between, like you say, financial security and achieving and helping those in various different crises around the world. How do you approach that? Do you have a particular strategy or process that you go through when you're deciding to spend? 

Jane Cunliffe: 10:31 

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously I've had an unusual first year at Oxfam because of COVID. And so, these shops have been closed for the majority of my time so, far. So, the decisions this year have been tricky, and maybe we can talk about some of that. But I think in usual terms, I mean, in some ways, charity finance is beautifully simple. So, you have your income that you get. In Oxfam, we get our income from sort of three main sources. We get income from fundraising, so, sort of regular giving, philanthropy, events, festivals, that kind of thing. We get income from our shops, and then we get income from institutional donors like the U.N., governments um you know for sort of humanitarian and development work um so, we have our income then we have our expenditure which is in the UK or that although we're trying to make that a sort of smaller part of our expenditure and then we have our expenditure in the countries which is the vast majority of it and then we have our reserves and so, you know you have a reserves policy um which is carefully worked out and agreed with your charity trustees to be um you know, to be your kind of rainy day fund. Now, what's happened at the moment is that we've drawn on those reserves to get through COVID, which is fine in a sense. That's what they're there for. It's what you might call a black swan risk. But now we've got to make sure we've got a surplus between income and expenditure for the next couple of years so, we can rebuild them. So, in some ways, it's beautifully simple charity finance. So, then when you're making decisions about your expenditure, the key thing that we're trying to do, we launched a new strategy for Oxfam GB in November last year. And what we're aiming to do at the moment, because Oxfam was started in 1942, so, it has a long history and a long history of how it's spent money, as you can imagine, like any big complex organisation that's been around for a long time. But what we're trying to do at the moment is really sort of analyse our expenditure and say, how can we tip the balance towards our new strategic objectives, rather than necessarily what it's always been spent on and so, for example we are reducing the number of countries we're working in which is a painful process because obviously we would like to be able to work in as many countries as we could, but there's a financial imperative to do that, but also a strategic imperative. So, we are remaining in the countries that are most fragile, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, et cetera, because we believe that that's one of the things that Oxfam does very well is work in these very difficult contexts. So, that's an example of where we will then stop spending money in certain countries and we won't have a kind of Oxfam country office there anymore which is a difficult decision so, and it's partly driven by financial imperative and what happened in covid but also because we um strategically we want to focus on those areas so, you know so, we've and always as a finance director, I think the financial strategy, you need to help drive the overall strategy, but then back that up with a really clear financial strategy about making those choices. And we're doing some interesting work on creating what we're calling a value for money metric, which will hopefully help make those strategic decisions. And it's something we used in government, which I've sort of brought across, but it's essentially saying, you know, on your spending choices, it's a metric that you look at sort of strategic fit. So, you know, does the thing you're spending fit with our new strategy? And then sort of cost effectiveness, which is measured in different ways. It's not purely about efficiency and obviously in the charity sector because you want to be effective as well. But things like that will enable us to sort of analyse all of our expenditure and say, Which of this scores well on that metric and therefore we should be keeping and growing and which does not score very well, in which case you either need to make it more cost effective or it's not really a strategic area of spend and we should probably stop or gradually reduce it. So, you know, so, there are tools like that that we can use. But at heart, a lot of our expenditure is on growth. I mean, you know, we have expenditure we use in the UK to run the shop network and to raise the funds, which, you know, we can make sure that's as efficient as possible. We don't want to spend more on the shop network than we need so, that we can make a better profit from it. And then in countries, the expenditure is essentially sort of overheads like... country office, people to run the programmes, rent, et cetera, trucks, logistics, and then funding that you're actually using in the communities to do the development and humanitarian programmes. So, there's not huge amounts of wriggle room on some of that, but where there is, we're looking to make sure it's got a good fit with the new strategy. 

Hannah Munro: 15:19 

And it was interesting to hear you talk about the cost-effectiveness measure. Tell us a little bit about how you assess that, because obviously it's very mission driven. So, how do you actually measure two very different programmes and compare and contrast the value of each? 

Jane Cunliffe: 15:36 

Yeah, it's really hard. And it's quite different across the different areas of expenditure. So, obviously in the UK, sort of fundraising expenditure, including the shops, we can look at benchmarks, we work. I mean, the nice thing about charity retailers Although we are in competition with each other, it feels quite a collaborative effort. There's a sort of charity retail group. So, you know, there's a great annual survey that compares, that does a huge benchmarking exercise. So, of course, we can, and in finance, we can use that to discuss with the retail teams, you know, how could we be looking, you know, improving that profit margin, essentially. And the same with fundraising, although not with the same excellent survey, but there's benchmarking we can look at. And you can compare kind of historical performance in Oxfam and look at whether that's been improving. And also, because we have a lot of different fundraising products, regular giving, individual giving, we get legacies and wills, we have festivals, events, the London Marathon. You can also just do things like look at the ROI, the return on investment for each product and compare. So, in the UK, it's mainly about benchmarking and, you know, looking at third party contracts, are we getting the best value out of those? So, that's really how you would measure cost effectiveness, because what you're trying to do with all of those things is just maximise the amount of money that you can get in for Oxfam. In countries, it is much more difficult, because you can look at things like, you know, the ratio between overhead costs in countries and the size of the development of the humanitarian programme they're running, and does that look about right? But the factors in countries are so, different. So, for example, in Yemen and Syria, as opposed to more stable countries, they will have increased security costs. You're dealing with all different currencies. So, when you're then trying to translate everything into... you know, a benchmarking or something in pounds, that's not always very helpful. You know, NGOs attract different sort of salary levels in different countries. But we are looking through things like this value for money metric about how can you compare and contrast so, that you can, you know, and also just we've set up I've set up since I started what we've just called the wider sort of Oxfam finance community so, that we get all the finance teams in the countries talking to each other. So, that's also a way of a sort of less numbers-based way of encouraging that sort of sharing of experience and sharing of learning. But it is difficult to compare because you're comparing very different types of work and very different countries. But we have got data that enables us to you know, start the comparisons, but what you don't want to do is make any big judgments from them because they're too subjective. You would then need to layer on discussions with the countries about what's actually happening and what are the costs that are driving maybe a higher ratio, et cetera. 

Hannah Munro: 18:35 

So, that was quite an interesting point in that it sounds like you have quite a data-driven strategy, but there actually is the context around that data that becomes incredibly important in your decision-making. 

Unknown: 18:47 

Yeah. 

Jane Cunliffe: 18:47 

Yes, I'd say we're aiming to have a data-driven strategy. I mean, like lots of big organisations and including the government departments I've worked in, we're not short of data in Oxfam, but we're not always very good at sort of looking at what is it telling us and having it in a format that, you know, that people can understand and particularly non-finance colleagues can relate to. So, I think we're on a journey with that. And from our trustee board for example we've just been improving our sort of corporate dashboard reporting and you know but there's a bit of kind of manual work behind the scenes to get it into a good kind of nice power by format so, but yes I mean we are aiming to kind of use all of that great data that we do have from the countries and the shops etc um even if there's a bit of manual manipulation, which would be good if it was a bit more automated, but just basically to try and use that a bit more. Because when I arrived, initially, you go around and you ask questions and people would say, oh, no, we don't have that data. And then you find you actually do have the data, but it's just in a format that is a massive spreadsheet that no one can kind of understand. So, I think we are trying to be more data driven, but it's a bit of a journey that we're going on. 

Hannah Munro: 19:59 

Yeah, and I think those listening will probably echo your feelings. And I think one of the challenges, obviously, as the data pool gets bigger, is actually how do we harness and get it to a point where it's useful quicker, rather than, you know, you don't want to be spending hours putting together reporting. So, completely understand that. So, I guess, how do you, so, you talked a little bit about how you work collaboratively across the wider group. So, tell us a little bit about how you approach that. there's kind of that finance it sounds like you've almost got like an internal finance community within Oxfam. 

Jane Cunliffe: 20:36 

yeah so, yeah so, we've recently so, in the way it's set up is there's finance teams that work sort of directly for me in Oxfam GB but there's also finance teams in every country and they will report sort of to the country director so, a bit like if you were a group company and you have lots of small subsidiaries and so, when I arrived there was a bit of a culture of sort of HQ plus everyone else so, I'm trying to just kind of break that down because ultimately I need everyone to be doing their job well and I want to understand where we're not helping or where we're hindering or where we're demanding things that are unreasonable and so, We only started it a few months ago, but we've just... Actually, the beauty of everyone working on Zoom all the time is it's quite easy to do. Previously, people thought that to do this sort of thing, you would need to get everyone to travel to the same place and have a sort of big conference with all the finance teams, whereas we've just been doing it through Zoom and through our sort of internal intranet. And so, it's mainly about sort of... You know, the meetings we've had so, far, it's been sort of updates from us about what's the overall... picture within Oxfam GB's finances because of course the shops feel very remote if you're in the Iraqi country team but actually the fact that the shops have been closed because of Covid has had an impact on everybody so, just being able to kind of explain that to the finance teams like we're not being difficult we don't want to be difficult we'd love to carry on giving you the same level of funding we always have but it's really hit our income in the UK and of course you know Every country we work in is having their own COVID situations. They're not following all of the twists and turns of the lockdown and then open and then lockdown, etc. So, I think it's been really important to explain what the context is in the UK so, that they can understand why that sometimes impacts their funding. But then equally to hear from the countries and, you know, there's some amazing finance people who work in countries, of course, who I hadn't met before we did all these Zoom sessions. So, that's been lovely. you know, just to hear about what they're working on, what their priorities are. And that's really interesting for me and my teams, but of course, great for the other countries as well, because you find out that Kenya, I think the last one we had Kenya, Iraq and Indonesia, and they've all got lots of issues that are the same, or they might have slightly different ones because of the context. And so, and we're also, we're on quite a mission to sort of improve our what we call our financial governance, so, our kind of policies, procedures, and some of them haven't been updated for a while, as I'm sure is a common experience. And so, trying to do that, whether international policies and procedures in more of a collaborative way, so, that it's not that we in sort of GB So, here's the new policy, get on with it, that we're using that forum to update things like we have an international finance manual, you know, to drawing on people's kind of enthusiasm and expertise to make sure that when we do update it, it's something that's useful for the countries and reflects what they actually do, not what we might think they do. So, yeah, so, that's the sort of thing we've been doing. And it's, in government, we had a government finance function, which was about 10,000 people who work in finance across all the different government departments. And that was really good for feeling like you're part of something bigger, even though you're in your day-to-day finance team, accessing learning and development, spotting career opportunities, not necessarily just in the team where you are. So, we're keen to start developing the sort of Oxfam finance community more in that vein. The logistics community in Oxfam, so, this is all the people who work on logistics, which as you can imagine is a massive role, particularly on the humanitarian side. They have a great community. So, there's a bit of, you know, friendly, competitive rivalry. Well, we're going to do what the logistics, ours is much bigger than finance, but, you know, they have good kind of shared resources, policies, they all know each other. So, you know, we're sort of trying to rival that. 

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Hannah Munro: 25:15 

Nothing like a bit of internal competitiveness if it's done in the right way. So, we talked a lot about obviously the financial implications of coronavirus. What are some of the changes that you've seen, I guess, in team management and how you've approached looking, you know, building that finance function, especially coming new into role? How has it changed over the last sort of six to 12 months? 

Jane Cunliffe: 25:42 

Yes, well, I started in June, so, I haven't, And I still haven't met everyone who works for me. And I've only been to the office, I don't know, less than 10 times maybe. So, it's been an interesting experience. It's a very different experience to, I was in DWP when we moved to sort of remote working, but that was very different because I had actually worked with everybody. So, I think there are some real benefits to it. So, I have, in the UK, I've got finance teams in Oxford and Newcastle. although the majority based in Oxford, which is the sort of Oxfam head office. And so, I think before the Newcastle team used to feel, I had this in government as well, between London and elsewhere, feel a bit left out or didn't pick things up so, of course everything is much more inclusive now and including with countries it's much easier to just get someone from you know the country on the on to join your zoom call and you're all on zoom so, it's very it's a leveller it doesn't make people feel like oxford's the sort of head office and everyone else is on a video link so, I think there's some really good things about it um It's been difficult because we were restructuring, including making redundancies when I started last year. So, it was a restructure that was planned pre-COVID to basically set the organisation up for new strategy. But it did mean that for the first few months, I was sort of getting the new finance and I also do legal and governance division. So, we spent quite a lot of time getting that in place. And of course, that's difficult because it's really uncertain horrible time for everybody but also you're trying to make judgments to get the right teams in place without really having worked with lots of people or you know understanding the business so, that was that was but in some ways it's good because you know it allowed me to shape the team and now I feel like we've got a good structure and you know but obviously it's sad because we had to let some colleagues go who'd been in Oxford for a long time um so, but I think the team management in some ways it's just Being really conscious about lots of communication, because no one will pick anything up from being in the office or from hearing you talk to the chief executive over the desk. So, just being really structured. So, I do a weekly Zoom update for the division. which is on a Tuesday and it's 20 minutes. It's called Tuesday 20. And so, when we really make sure we do that, all the team leaders then do their own as well. So, there's a sort of cascading of communications. We have done face-to-face team meetings where we can, particularly with the leadership team in the division, where we're trying to do planning or thinking about how to make the division a really good place to work, that sort of thing, I think, does work better face-to-face. We've managed to do that often outside, but we've done quite well with that. And then we've started to, we had one in Oxford where we actually managed to get people together just for a social event outside just to actually meet some people. And that was really nice. And you do have a really different tenor of conversation because I think Zoom, et cetera, is really good for that inclusiveness and everyone feeling able to come. It's very good for transactional stuff. It works really well. But it doesn't work as well for just really getting to know people or people telling you what they're actually worried about. I tend to come away from Zoom with a sort of fairly positive impression. And then sometimes when I have met people face to face, they've actually got some doubts about the piece of work or where we're heading. And, you know, then you can talk to them about that. But they often won't. offer that up on a Zoom call. And then for the kind of creativity planning, you know, a bit longer term planning. So, I think, so, what we're moving to in Oxfam is a hybrid way of working, which obviously lots of other people are doing. And I think what we're trying to do is keep those sort of transactional meetings on Zoom or Teams so, that, you've still got that inclusiveness. So, it's not, you know, five of you in the office and two of you at home on one screen but also use the time in the office for those more creative planning, getting to know people type meetings that are much better face to face. 

Hannah Munro: 30:07 

And so, obviously coming into your first role and having to go through that sort of structural shift must have been quite challenging. But tell me a bit about that shift that you guys have made. Has that changed in terms of the style of service you're able to offer to the wider organisation? What was the purpose behind it? 

Jane Cunliffe: 30:26 

So, it was a big organisational restructure as much as anything. So, you know, in line with the new Oxfam GB strategy, sort of reforming a lot of the divisions into what is Oxfam GB's role going to be going forward. So, there were bigger changes for other parts of the organisation. In finance, what it's done, luckily for me, that my predecessor had a much larger division, which wasn't just finance, it was logistics, IT. So, she had quite a kind of broad operational role. And what was decided before I started was that the CFO should be more focused on finance and legal and governance kind of regulatory side. And so, I actually have a more focused role. which has been helpful, especially while we've been having, you know, going through COVID, etc. So, that enables us to have more of a voice in the organisation because I have more time to really get into the finances. So, I think that structural shift has been really helpful. And we have a separate chief operating officer who has a lot of the operational stuff, some of which, and HR, et cetera, which, and some of which my predecessor had and some, and some of which she didn't. And I think then that means that we've been able to, me and the, our leadership team have been really able to focus on, right, what sort of finance service do we want to offer? How do we continue to improve it? So, we've done things, we've got a, a team that does all our finance operations or our processing, et cetera. And we've been able to set up a, a dedicated person to run a finance improvement programme. So, lots of things that people listening to this will be familiar with. So, improving and modernising our processes, accounts payable, income, etc. And I think the fact that we're a more focused division means we can really, all the leadership team can really help folks on that and support the teams in doing that. Whereas if you're stretched too thin at that level, sometimes those improvement bits never really get the attention they deserve because you're just firefighting and dealing with the issue of the day. So, I think there are big benefits to it. And also, the leadership team of Oxfam is now just six people, and it used to be a lot wider. And that's functioning really, really well. And so, obviously I'm on that, the chief exec and the other four divisional heads. So, that's a good size. We've had a lot of tough financial decisions to make through the last year. but it's a good size for making those decisions. It's enough people to kind of get a good range of views, but you can get that kind of collective decision. Whereas I think the previous leadership team was bigger and it's always harder in those environments. So, I think the structure overall, the restructure has been positive, both for artificial, but also for the wider sort of functioning of the organisation. The thing I would say is we continued to furlough, especially in the lockdown period, at the beginning of this year. So, in some ways we sort of started and then we had to pause some work. But now it feels like we're really getting going in the new structure and we're seeing lots of the benefits of that. 

Hannah Munro: 33:41 

Fantastic. And in terms of obviously the shift that a lot of finance teams are going through at the moment from sort of the transactional finance into more strategic, have you seen that progress with your restructure? Or given your background, have you always come in with that sort of strategic finance viewpoint? 

Jane Cunliffe: 33:59 

Yeah, so, definitely I have. And so, yeah, so, definitely it's progressing. And I think some of the changes we made in the finance vision have enabled more of that. I think what's interesting, and I'm sure others listening will recognise this, is when you're trying to move finance from being seen as a supporting function to being more central to the organisation, it's There's two sort of aspects to it. There's an internal one within the finance teams about having enough resource and capacity to do that, having the right skills and the right relationships, you know, so, from like your business partners, et cetera, to do that. And that's still a bit of a work in progress, partly because our processes are still quite manual. So, you know, you need to, it's all part of a piece, isn't it? You kind of free people up from some of that, then they've got more time to be more, you know, giving insights and input into decisions. So, there's an internal piece that we're still getting there. But also, what I notice is there's a sort of external, in terms of within the organisation, but not within finance, of changing people's expectations of what they should want from the finance function and almost getting them to demand that of us. And that's a journey, I think, because I don't, I mean, historically, I'm not sure that's the way that Oxfam's worked with their finance team. So, always very supportive and very good relationships. But, you know, making sure that people are involving us early in bits of the strategy that they're developing. And that's always a bit of a challenge, because at the moment, if you get involved a bit later, you're often saying, no, I don't think you should be doing that. Rather than getting in at the beginning and saying, right, what are we trying to achieve? Let me offer something. professional input to this early on and I think that's a journey that I'm sure lots of others will recognise that we always need that pull from the business as well as saying that we want to do that within the finance function but we're definitely getting there and again the new strategic leadership team helps because It's a smaller team, and so, you can offer that. But as always, resources are stretched. So, at the moment, we're doing our external audit. And so, the extent to which our business partners have got the ability to, even if they are invited in early, offer that time is always limited. And obviously, our restructure last year did take out time. jobs. But we'll get there. It's a kind of journey of all of that sort of improvement programme mixed together. 

Hannah Munro: 36:29 

And I think a lot of our listeners will echo your challenges with balancing the strategic part of finance with actually the day-to-day running is always the hardest bit and keeping that free. And what was quite interesting, I think you said there was about the education piece that with the wider organisation, that's an interesting, I guess, challenge for, I think, for a lot of businesses that are trying to move from that transactional finance input to that strategic piece. And is there any sort of thoughts that you can offer on that and how you approach it in terms of getting them to get you involved early and to be in those conversations so, you're not seen as that barrier or that blocker to accessing finance? 

Jane Cunliffe: 37:14 

Yeah, I mean, maybe more so, from my previous experience. I think there's a few... sort of factors that can help so, and I think thinking about sort of my experience in government more where we really had made that shift to finance being seen as you know people wanted the finance director there in all of the conversations or you know someone in the team I think having support and having that view from the chief executive or the permanent secretary of government is really important so, that It's not just you saying, I really think you should involve finance. But if a proposal comes in front of the chief exec, he or she is saying, has Jane seen this? Or has Jane's team seen this? So, that you're getting that. And they go, oh, OK, I've got to involve them. So, I think that needs to come not just from the finance team, but from the broader leadership team of the organisation. And where that is very clear, it works incredibly well. you know, that on its own is a really important lever. Then I think the other things you need are the right skills in finance. So, you need people who are strategic, can think sort of strategic thinking, systems thinking, so, that they're not always going in with just a finance angle. They're really trying to understand what the change is we're trying to achieve. And of course, in ops, that's quite complicated sometimes. I mean, less so, if you're trying to just grow your retail business, but some of the humanitarian or development programmes can be, you know, they're complicated. So, you know, but you need people in the financing who can grapple with those issues and understand them and talk the talk of the people you're trying to influence. And then back to data, I think you obviously need some data, but you also need people who can be curious about it and draw insights from it. Not just your kind of, this is how much you've spent, and this is what you need to put in the annual report and accounts about it but let me take this finance data and think about how I can answer your question. And in the Treasury, when I worked there, we set up what was called the costing unit, where it was only about financial insight. That's all this unit did, which is also good because they were freed up from any of the day-to-day negotiations or finance issues. But they would take cross-government areas of spending, social care, mental health, where you have lots of different departments working on something. And they would get all the finance data from the finance teams and say, this is what you, government, is actually spending on mental health and are cut by different departments and cut in different ways. And we had steering committees for these projects, and you would have real light bulb moments oh, you know, more is being spent on the problems of mental health outside the health service than, you know, whatever the insights were. And that was all data that everyone has had for a long time. But I had some fantastic people in that team who were able to kind of, you know, you'd agree what the questions were, but they would, you know, they would spot things in the data and cut it in really interesting ways. And that, for me, is really where you– you get invited into the decision-making then because you do a couple of projects like that and you're proving to the organisation that finance can really add value in a really different way. And of course, you need to do all of the financial control and the accounts. But you can also do that. And you can do that from your knowledge that you've built up from working on the management accounts and doing the business partnering. So, that, for me, is a really good example of how you can do it. And I think you only need to do a couple of those things and publicize them a bit. Say, oh, we worked with this team and look what we did, this fantastic insight project. Then people are like, oh. Oh, we'd like, you know, so, in the end, the costing unit had a long list of projects people wanted to do that we couldn't do all of. But that was a good sign of success that you sort of proved the model. So, you know, and obviously in a charity, you're very stretched in resource terms, very hard to do that. But we do get some pro bono support from consultancies. So, you know, if we do get offers of that, that's the type of work that we're getting them to do. Almost exactly those kind of costing style projects to kind of get the data and look at what the insights are in that curiosity. So, I think those are a few of the factors I would think you need to get finance into the strategic conversations. 

Hannah Munro: 41:34 

And there's an interesting piece, isn't there, about curiosity being a skill set that finance need to develop, because very often it's been, you know, attention to detail and that processing view and, you know, but actually there's a whole new, well, I think it's quite an exciting trend that's happening at the moment in terms of roles within finance around, like you say, that insight. So, actually doing something with the data and making it relevant. So, yeah, it's great to hear that that's happening. at government level as well as within organizations so, and also a bit of a PR work for you as a as that sort of finance leader isn't there about raising awareness of the value that you can add and bringing that to the fore so, I also said I was just about to say that I This has gone so, quickly that I'm afraid we're going to have to put it to a close. People will be doing several dog walks while they listen to this podcast. But I guess I'd just like to finish on, obviously, your one year in, you know, having gone through one of the most challenging years I would have thought most charity CFOs could face. What are your top tips for anyone going into a role, particularly within the not-for-profit or the third sector? What is your advice for them about approaching that new CFO role? 

Jane Cunliffe: 42:53 

So, I think communication is really key. And I've spent a lot of this year telling the sort of story, I mean, actually true story, not making up, of what is happening to our finances and what does that mean for the organisation, not to the finance team, but to the whole of Oxfam. And I think it's really key, particularly when you're in financially tough times. And I think that's a different, maybe that's a different, certainly a difference to governments that, Colleagues don't necessarily, because finance is not your central business in the charity. You have to make money, and you have to make good use of the money, but the mission is not the money. You know, the mission is ending poverty for Oxfam or, you know, cancer research or you know so, there will be a mission in each charity and the money is there in a supporting role now you know it can be there in a really good strategic supporting role and so, colleagues across the business don't necessarily understand it if you use any accounting terms or you know so, trying to get across why is What is it? How do we make our money? How do we spend our money? Why, therefore, is COVID such a kind of drastic impact on our finances in terms that people will understand? And getting people to be more cost conscious is working, I think. But, you know, but that has been a journey. And I think that I don't know, but that could be a new experience for CFOs coming into the charity sector. But I had some really good advice on that from more experienced charity CFOs who I made friends with when I started in the sector. And what I've done is try to really just think of what's a good communication tool for getting people to think about where the money comes from. So, I have two that I use. when I'm doing all staff communication. So, one is about the average Oxfam shop takes 2,500 pounds of profit a week. So, that if you're making decisions to spend money, think about all the effort and all the volunteers and all of the donations and all the sorting through the clothes that's gone into making that money. And think, is that really, should you really be spending that money? Is it really worth all of that effort? So, that's my first sort of communication one. And my other one is when we did the virtual London Marathon last year and we had lots of Oxfam runners, and it was a horrible, biblically rainy day. And, you know, these runners raised, say, £2,000. So, you say to people, think about the runner in the rain. All that training, all that effort that went into raising that £2,000 is what you're about to spend worth it. So, it's ways of getting people to be cost conscious and understanding the scale and where the money comes from. in your communications, which I think is a real difference and something that I think all charity CFOs have to work on. And then I think the other difference is probably the biggest difference or the thing to prepare for if anyone was moving in is those moral judgments about, you know, so, we have used our reserves. So, my instinct as a finance director to say every spare penny goes to rebuilding those reserves for the next two years so, um and that is you know that's the broad financial plan but if we have you know some extra upside benefits what do I do with that money do I you know do I respond to the Yemen country director who would like something to alleviate some immediate need there or do you get to your you know financial targets quicker and I think that is a really difficult moral judgment in the charity sector, particularly in some of the countries we work in, that is a bit different to do I spend on that project or that project or do I spend on that project or put it in the reserves, you know? So, I think some of those things are worth thinking about. And they make the job fascinating and really interesting. But those are the things that you sometimes, when you're out for your walk or your run, are playing on your mind. Did I make the right decision there? Was that the right thing to do? You know, being prudent, which obviously lots of finance people are, you can't always just rely on that. So, I think those are some of the key things to think about. 

Hannah Munro: 46:59 

And that is an incredibly hard position to be in, I guess, is the decisions that you're making literally affect lives, which is both wonderful, but also a heavy responsibility. So, well, thank you so, much, Jane. It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for sharing all of your insight and your journey that you've been on for the last 12 months. It's been lovely to hear about it and both the changes that you're making, which sounds amazing, and also the learnings of your journey. So, thank you so, much. 

Jane Cunliffe:  Thanks, Hannah.