Executive Summary
Most finance functions are built to report what happened. The ones that drive growth are built around a different question: where are we going, and how do we get there?
This article draws on a conversation with Paul Young, CFO of Liberty Bank, who transformed a traditional bank finance team into a function that owns strategy, project execution, business transformation, and talent development.
You will learn why budgeting fails when it starts in the fall, how to connect strategy and operational planning into a single process, and which projects a CFO must personally own to drive growth.
You will leave with a practical framework for building a finance function that earns trust across the organization and contributes to results, not just reports on them.
The Difference Between a Reporting Team and a Growth Finance Function
Most finance teams are designed around accuracy and compliance. Close the books. Explain the variance. Produce the board deck on time. These things matter and will always be non-negotiable.
But a team built only for those outcomes will always be a step behind the business it is supposed to serve. It reports on decisions after they are made. It explains results that have already landed. It is reactive by design.
A growth finance function is built around a different question: not just what happened, but where are we going, and how does finance help us get there faster?
When Paul Young joined Liberty Bank six years ago as CFO, the strategic plan had not been refreshed in years. There was no meaningful link between the strategy and the operational budget. Half the initiatives from the previous plan had never been executed, not because people were careless, but because no one owned the execution in a structured way.
What he built from that starting point is worth understanding, not because Liberty Bank is unique, but because those same gaps exist in most finance functions when a new CFO arrives.
Start Strategy Early So Budgeting Stops Being a Fire Drill
The most common reason budgeting is painful is that it starts without a shared foundation. By October, the hard decisions about where to grow and where to hold back have not been made. So the budget becomes a negotiation from scratch rather than a translation of choices already agreed on.
Paul’s approach inverts that sequence. Strategy happens in the spring. Budgeting happens in the fall. By the time the team sits down to build numbers, the strategic decisions are already made.
The spring process at Liberty Bank follows a structured path:
Surveys and sessions with employees across the entire bank, from branch tellers to commercial lenders to technologists
A SWOT analysis built from that input, combined with a PESTLE review of the external environment
An offsite with the leadership team to narrow the long list of strategic initiatives down to the 20 that will actually be resourced and tracked
Board approval of the three to five year plan before budgeting begins
When October arrives, the budget is not starting from zero. It is updating assumptions for a plan the entire organization already understands and owns.
“If we’ve done a good job with the strategic plan, the budgeting process should be less painful. You’ve already looked at what you think is going to happen, and it’s a matter of updating for what has changed.” — Paul Young
The accountability that comes with this approach changes everything. When variance analysis happens later in the year, there is no debate about what the assumptions were. Everybody built the plan together. Root causes are visible earlier, and corrective action can happen faster.
Connecting Strategy, Budget, and Talent in the Finance Team
A strategic plan that sits on a shelf changes nothing. Paul learned this early. The previous Liberty Bank plan had included dozens of initiatives. About half were never executed because people without project management expertise were trying to manage them on top of their day jobs.
His solution was to build two new functions inside the CFO organization.
Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO). A team of certified project management professionals responsible for coordinating execution of the 20 strategic initiatives. Each initiative has a clearly accountable owner, a RACI matrix, and monthly updates. The team was built partly by creating internal pathways for employees to earn PMP certifications, and partly by bringing in experienced external leadership.
Business Transformation Office (BTO). An internal consulting team combining data scientists and finance professionals. Their job is to go into business units, diagnose where manual processes are creating friction, and implement solutions with IT. They do not hand over a presentation and leave. They stay and build.
The BTO’s first major win: Connecticut realtors had stopped referring clients to Liberty Bank because mortgage closings took over 60 days. The BTO worked with the consumer lending team to redesign the process, getting key information into the system earlier and streamlining approvals. Liberty Bank is now the number one consumer lender in Connecticut, closing in under 30 days.
“It’s not just cost savings. Realtors now tell their clients: go to Liberty Bank. There’s certainty of execution.” — Paul Young
Talent is the third piece. Paul combined a CFO rotational apprenticeship with a structured credential pathway (the Chartered Global Management Accountant designation) to create something people wanted to join. Employees without traditional accounting backgrounds, including a branch supervisor and a Marine Corps veteran with a political science degree, came through the program and became standout contributors. The most recent apprentice posting received 200 resumes.
🎧 Also worth listening to: How the Best Finance Leaders Operate, Plan, and Forecast with Christina Ross covers how to move a finance team from reactive reporting to proactive strategic planning, including what clean data and the right tools actually enable.
The Projects the CFO Must Personally Own to Drive Growth
There is a pattern in how the modern CFO role has expanded. Boards and CEOs are handing CFOs responsibility for functions that did not traditionally belong to finance: strategy, project management, business transformation, data governance.
This is not scope creep. It is a recognition that the CFO has visibility across the entire organization and a unique ability to connect decisions to their financial consequences. The CFO who limits themselves to finance in the narrow sense will miss the most important work available to them.
Paul is candid about how this happens. Both the EPMO and the BTO started as his ideas. Both times the CEO’s response was the same: great idea, it reports to you. The lesson is not to stop proposing. It is to propose knowing that ownership follows sponsorship.
The projects worth personally owning share a few characteristics:
They connect strategy to execution in a way no other function is positioned to do
They require the enterprise-wide visibility the CFO’s role provides
They produce results that are measurable in financial terms, even if the work is not purely financial
“AI is not going to replace our teammates. But it will replace the teammates who don’t embrace it. It’s a matter of upskilling and developing new skill sets.” — Paul Young
On AI, Paul’s view is practical. The greatest near-term opportunity sits in tools that augment human decision-making, removing manual work so people can focus on the analysis and conversations that actually change outcomes. Data governance underpins all of it. AI is only as good as the data it works with. The CFO who treats data governance as an IT problem rather than a finance problem will learn this the hard way.
For more on how each function inside the finance organization can shift from reporting outcomes to shaping them, read Supporting a Strategic CFO: Why CFO Direct Reports Matter More Than Ever on The Diary of a CFO blog.
Listen to the full episode with Paul Young on The Diary of a CFO podcast. And if you want to know how ready you are for the CFO seat, start with the free CFO Readiness Assessment.
FAQ
Why does starting strategy in the spring make budgeting easier in the fall?
Because the hard decisions about priorities and resource trade-offs are already made. When teams begin budgeting in October without a shared strategic foundation, the process becomes a negotiation from scratch. When strategy is done in the spring, the budget translates decisions already agreed on, which is faster to build and easier to defend.
What is the role of an Enterprise Project Management Office in a finance function?
The EPMO provides the structure and accountability that most finance functions lack when it comes to executing strategic initiatives. It ensures each initiative has a clearly accountable owner, defined milestones, and regular tracking. Without it, important projects get pushed aside by the urgent work of the day job.
How do you build a finance team that attracts talent instead of chasing it?
Create something people want to be part of. Paul’s CFO rotational apprenticeship program opened the door to people from non-traditional backgrounds, combining structured job rotation with a recognized credential pathway. When Liberty Bank posted for a recent apprentice position, they received 200 resumes. The program became the difference that made candidates choose Liberty Bank over higher-paying competitors.
Which projects should a CFO personally own beyond core finance?
The ones that connect strategy to execution and require enterprise-wide visibility to manage well. For Paul, that meant the EPMO and the Business Transformation Office. The specifics vary by organization. The principle is consistent: the CFO’s position across the business makes them the right person to own work that sits between functions and requires financial accountability.
🎧 Also worth listening to: Building an AI-Ready Finance Team Without Losing the Human Side, with Tariq Munir explores why most AI initiatives in finance fail before they start. Drawing on two decades of advising Fortune 500 leaders, Tariq unpacks how CFOs can build data-driven teams, prioritize the right use cases, and balance automation.
About The Author:
Wassia Kamon is a CFO and the host of The Diary of a CFO, where she interviews finance and business leaders on strategy, risk, and leadership. She writes about finance leadership and governance in small and mid-sized organizations, including what works, what breaks, and how leaders manage growth and complexity without burning out.