Anthony Viceroy, global president and CFO of global public relations firm Porter Novelli, discusses balancing growth against efficiency and finding the ways to get to “yes.” Porter Novelli is a part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) and has 90 offices in nearly 60 countries.
What was the biggest challenge your company faced over the last 12 months and how were you able to overcome it with financial leadership? The biggest challenge was balancing growth against improving our operating margins. At times those two can be at odds, but quite frankly, this was a financial imperative for 2011. I spent a lot of time studying and analyzing our cost structure, and trying to determine how to be more efficient and effective. We had to look at the whole global organization and delineate core strategic assets from non-core strategic assets to determine what was really needed to drive growth. It was about making the tough decisions and communicating why, so people understood we are working to establish a better future for our organization and make us more competitive across the global landscape.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in your position? It is how to balance meeting the short-term needs that are necessary—the quarterly results for Wall Street—while positioning the firm for long-term growth and success. That can be a very fine line. Another thing I have learned is that you wear so many hats as a CFO: You are a change agent; you’re required to have business acumen and understand financial management; to improve your working capital and increase your free cash flow; and to evaluate the organization’s performance to increase shareholder value. And you are looking at all of this from an operations standpoint, trying to assess how to be more efficient, which is critical today. You can’t have a myopic view of your role, and you have to have a holistic perspective of your organization.
How do you prepare for board meetings and what information is most important for you to present? We prepare the usual financial information, but it is not about the slides. It is about assessing this information to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And you try to use this data, coupled with financial trends and market conditions, to make decisions about what needs you will have in the future. To me, when you are presenting to the board, it is about giving them insight to what the numbers are really telling us while emphasizing growth, profit margin and cash flow.
What has made your company stand out and be successful financially? It is our talent. In a service business, talent is truly your greatest asset and your biggest competitive advantage. What has made Porter Novelli successful remains, and will continue to be, the people who walk through the doors every day and put their focus around our clients’ needs. That helps us drive the growth and bottom line that we need to deliver.
What advice do you have for other CFOs? For a CFO to be successful today, you need to truly understand the business. The CFO is not just a financial accounting or treasury-type role—it entails being ingrained in the operations and having total understanding of the organization. Only then can you make decisions on where to invest and understand the type of ROI you should achieve from these investments. If you don’t understand the business, it is very hard to understand how you will grow and deliver the proper margins.
For a CFO today, it is not about saying no. It is about finding out how to work smarter and more collaboratively to get to yes. In the past, CFOs were notorious for saying no to investing or spending. Today for CFOs to be highly effective and give their organizations a competitive advantage in a global environment, they have to find the ways to invest wisely in areas that will yield results.
What do you do to retain your strategic vision despite the crush of day-to-day operations? You must remain flexible. We all know that the economic environment that we live in changes by the minute. But you should go back and revisit your annual plan and your strategic objectives regularly to see if the short-term focus is leading you toward your longer-term strategic objectives. It should be—and if it is not, you need to take a hard look at your daily work flows and assess whether you need to reassign them to other individuals. The most important thing for a CFO is to always think strategically.
What’s your favorite book? (For business or escape) For pleasure, I am currently reading I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words. I think Steve Jobs was the premier Renaissance man of our time. And my favorite business book is Winning by Jack Welch.
As global president and CFO for Porter Novelli, Viceroy drives strategic development, ensures delivery of the agency’s value proposition for clients and supports the global focus of driving profitable growth and developing talent. Before joining Porter Novelli, he served as senior vice president of financial management and client partnership for Omnicom's Diversified Agency Services (DAS) group. Before joining DAS in 2002, Anthony served as finance director and treasurer of Novo Nordisk North America, Inc., the U.S. holding company of the Danish biopharmaceutical company.