New trends and concepts the financial controller should begin to execute.
This is a two-part series that discusses new trends and concepts financial controllers should begin executing to truly become valued members of the senior leadership team. The rapid pace of the evolving technological landscape has driven changes in how accountants and financial professionals focus on strategy and modernize their roles to leverage digital technology. There is increasing demand for greater flexibility in finance cycles and the initiation of real-time reporting and insights. These capabilities are core to transforming the work performed by the controllership function.
Is the financial controllership prepared to meet future business demands? The IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) and Deloitte’s Center for Controllership aimed to better understand the current state of controllership and future expectations for controllers and accounting professionals. In late 2022, they conducted a survey that identified several key trends.
The survey explored how prepared the controllership function is to meet emerging business demands. It also offered insights for leaders to consider in increasing their preparedness and highlighted areas requiring further analysis and reflection on the controllership transformation journey.
In this segment, we will review several of these concepts—some in detail—while the remaining topics will be covered in segment two.
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
