James Roach, Managing Director of Headstar and a qualified Finance Director, has spent his career helping businesses build finance teams that support growth. Having worked both in industry and recruitment, he has seen first-hand how finance functions have evolved over the last two decades.
In this article, James shares how AI and automation have changed the way he’d build a finance team if he were starting again today. Rather than following the traditional route of hiring from the bottom up, he explains why businesses should think first about the problems they need solving, then build the right blend of judgement, technology and operational oversight around them.
If I Were Building the First Finance Team for a Growing Business Today
For years, we’ve built finance teams the same way. Hire a Bookkeeper to start with, then a Finance Manager, and eventually a Financial Controller. If the company got big enough, we’d then hire a Finance Director or CFO.
I don’t think I’d doit like that anymore though. AI has fundamentally changed what’s possible for smaller finance teams. If I were starting a finance team from scratch today, I’d think about the problems I need solving first, before I thought about job titles.
1. I’d buy judgement before I bought delivery.
One of the first people I’d engage wouldn’t be full-time. It would be an experienced Fractional CFO, on a light-touch basis. Someone I could trust to challenge decisions and help me avoid costly mistakes. A couple of days each month would probably be enough – they could keep an eye on cash flow, handle any funding discussions, put the right tax structure in place and help me with all the commercial decisions.
2. I’d get the technology right before employing more people.
I’d want somebody who really understands finance systems, AI and automation. Someone who can build a finance reporting suite that largely looks after itself. They could set things up using the right software, with enough flexibility to evolve to something new as technology continues to develop. Nice, clean reporting, live dashboards, automated workflows, lots of checks and balances in place to know that I can trust the data. Knowing what’s happening in the business without having to wait until month end would be a huge advantage.
3. Then I’d bring someone in to run it.
Only then would I bring someone in to look after things day to day. The title would be the good old trusted “Finance Manager” – responsible for a wide range of tasks but so much different to what it used to be. They certainly wouldn’t be spending much time keying in invoices. Instead they’d mostly be checking exceptions, controlling things coming through and ensuring that the reporting remains reliable.
The AI & automation we’d put in place would have removed a lot of the administration, but this person would be accountable for making sure everything continues to run as it should and proactively looking for ways to improve it.
What that gives me
What I’d end up with is all four layers of the Headstar Finance Function Pyramid in place.
- Wisdom – an experienced Fractional CFO helping me interpret financial information, challenge my thinking and make better commercial decisions.
- Information – the systems would be producing accurate information and dashboards automatically, giving me the insight I need to make informed decisions.
- Control – a Finance Manager overseeing the processes, dealing with exceptions and ensuring everything is running as it should.
- Data – automated systems capturing accurate financial data and running administrative tasks with minimal manual intervention.
That feels like a far stronger starting point than building a traditional finance team and gradually trying to automate it afterwards.
The finance pyramid hasn’t changed, it’s just the order in which we build it that has. Twenty years ago, we had no choice but to build a finance team from the bottom up because someone had to process every transaction manually.
Today, much of that work can be automated, which means we can start with judgement, put great systems underneath it and then hire people to oversee the process rather than perform it.
This isn’t theoretical either. We’re already seeing businesses automate work that would previously have needed another pair of hands.
Learn More at Our Free Webinar
If you’re interested in exploring these ideas further, I’d encourage you to join our free AI in Finance webinar with Headstar’s AI & Automation Specialist, Matt Swift. Matt will demonstrate how AI can build a better cashflow forecast in just 15 minutes, share the prompts behind it, and show where AI can genuinely save time within a finance function. Join us on Wednesday 16th September, from 12.30pm to 1.30pm on Zoom, to see it all happen live.
You can find out more and sign up for your free place here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7EJlABPfQK21hqIn2m2OJg
About the Author
James Roach is the Managing Director of Headstar and a qualified Finance Director with over 20 years’ experience in finance and finance recruitment. Having built and led finance teams himself, James now advises businesses across Yorkshire on recruiting finance talent, developing high-performing finance functions and helping organisations prepare for the future of finance.
