- Mark Graham, The Counselling Foundation
There's two flavours of contribution emphasis that CFO's exhibit.
Those that exhibit the first flavour report on the business. That's where their attention is centred. Strong on forecasting, reporting, controls and compliance, they're trusted with the numbers. They're focused on board pack production and results explanation and find themselves less involved in the decisions that shape where the business actually goes.
The others shape the business. They use the numbers as a starting point rather than a destination. They tell stories, influence culture and engage the board with narrative and intent. They are genuinely seen as a commercial partner running the business alongside the CEO.
The difference isn't technical acumen, both have that. The difference is the commercial confidence, strategic clarity and quality of business oriented people leadership that few if any finance qualifications develop and that most CFOs don't receive through development initiatives.
This programme exists to bridge that gap and you will benefit from this programme if any of the following feel true:
> You want to contribute more commercially and strategically beyond the finance function.
> You sense that your communication to the board, your executive colleagues and your finance team could be sharper and more commercially compelling.
> You want to better understand and more intentionally influence culture.
> You want to engage with the wider leadership team with more confidence and commercial authority.
> You see the gap between technical financial excellence and genuine commercial leadership and you want to close it deliberately.
> You want a practical approach to thinking holistically about your team and the environment you have created for them.
> You want to be seen as a business leader who happens to be an outstanding finance professional rather than as a finance leader that reports to senior colleagues.
> You find board and investor conversations more demanding than you would like and want to develop the narrative confidence and strategic clarity that makes them feel natural.
> You are leading or sponsoring a transformation programme and find the people and cultural dimensions of that leadership more challenging than the financial ones.
A thought provoking journey
Short Focused Video Lessons
Stories, practical business teaching, immediately applicable techniques, real-world observations and reflective questions. Each video under eleven minutes, most under four. Around 3.5 hours total. Mobile enabled. Filmed across multiple locations. Each video either teaches, provokes or challenges.
Live Online Forum With Rob
A group session led directly by Rob Evans where you bring your questions, your specific situation, your challenges. This is a live conversation with someone who was nominated for a CFO Of The Year award when serving as CFO of a $6.5bn revenue global group. Rob has worked operationally inside 150+ businesses worldwide, been engaged in 50+ acquisition projects and understands the CFO role from the ground up. Direct access. Your questions answered.
Practical Ways Of Thinking
A practical approach to operating as a strategic CFO, PPMCleadership™️, The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, Activity Model Acumen™️ and a range of practical techniques and aide memoires for decision making, strategic thinking, cultural leadership, relationship building and communication. All designed to be simple enough to remember and immediately applicable in your role.
An experience, not a lecture.
Where You Begin
Orientation And Business Context
Before anything else the programme establishes a way of thinking about your role, your organisation and your stakeholders that reframes everything that follows. You will examine the business ecosystem you operate in, the expectations of the various stakeholders you serve and how the most commercially impactful finance leaders think about their contribution beyond the financial statements.
What Leadership Demands
Before the programme introduces new capability, it helps you see clearly where you currently are. The environment you have created for your colleagues and the gap, if any, between the commercial partner you want to be seen as and the finance function leader you are operating as.
The Middle
Stories, Observations & Objective Questions
The heart of the programme moves through a series of short focused videos, each one a story with a point, an observation from the real world or a practical technique drawn from more than thirty five years of operational experience across 150+ businesses. Each video ends with one or more questions directed at you and your specific situation. Some will be comfortable, some won't.
The Leadership Environment
PPMCleadership™️ and The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️
Two proprietary approaches for thinking clearly about the environment you and your senior colleagues have created for your people and where your team is in its development cycle. PPMCleadership™️ covers People, Principles, Mechanics and Culture. The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️ covers the management styles that best serve the phases teams switch between. Together they give you a useful practical lens for continually examining and improving what you have built around you. The CFO who understands what's covered here are equipped to lead their function and wider organisation with a clarity and intentionality that is usually developed slowly through experience, if at all.
Where You Arrive
Clarity, Challenge & Next Steps
The programme doesn't end with a summary, it ends with a challenge. What have you concluded? And what are you going to do differently?
A Note On Format
Every video in this programme teaches, provokes or challenges. You can complete the entire programme in a single sitting or in fifteen minute chunks on your phone. When you're done you'll see your role, your organisation and the environment you have created with greater clarity than the day to day allows.
'This isn't training in a traditional sense. It's a structured journey of practical teaching, objective reflection and immediately applicable thinking.'
Clarity First
Before teaching you anything new this programme helps you see clearly where you are. Most leadership development starts with answers, this starts with questions. Before introducing any new capability it helps you understand your current situation, your team, your commercial contribution, your strategic clarity and your culture. That clarity makes everything that follows land with more specificity and usefulness.
Real Approaches From A Real CFO
This programme was not built by a coach who studied finance leadership. Every technique in this programme is drawn from direct experience and observation across 150+ businesses worldwide. PPMCleadership™️ and The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️ are not borrowed models given new names. They are original and developed from identifying the recurrent ingredients in successful teams and observing where struggling teams come unstuck.
Designed To Be Genuinely Enjoyable
Short sharp videos filmed across multiple locations. Personal stories, practical techniques and reflective questions throughout. Around 3.5 hours total. Mobile enabled and consumable in fifteen minute chunks. The more enjoyable the experience the more likely it is to positively change how you actually lead.
Direct Access To An Award Nominated CFO
Every programme includes a live online forum with Rob Evans directly. A live group conversation where you bring your questions and challenges to someone who has been in the room with many businesses worldwide and will engage with your specific reality rather than a generic answer.
- Chris Griffiths, Travel A La Carte
- Lynn Murphy, Plugable Technologies
- Mevin Anenden, Logicalis
- Gahn Lane, Pindrop
Highly Experienced, Practical, Operationally Grounded
Rob Evans has spent more than 35 years working operationally inside 150+ businesses worldwide, with C-suite and project roles spanning operations, finance and general management, involvement in over 50 acquisitions and a nomination for CFO Of The Year in South Africa while serving as CFO of a $6.5bn revenue group.
The CFO role sits at the intersection of operational delivery and strategic contribution. Rob has observed that intersection closely across more organisations and cultures than almost any development provider can claim. Everything in this programme is drawn from that direct operational experience which includes serving as CFO in multiple organisations.
Based on 35+ years working inside 150+ businesses worldwide, its not theory. It's what Rob observed working and where he saw folks come unstuck.
- Yvonne Chin Irving, CET
- Extract From Corporate Stock Exchange Announcement
- Mark Graham, The Counselling Foundation
For CFOs and finance leaders who want to operate at their full commercial, strategic and cultural potential
This programme works whether you're new to the CFO role or established in it, whether your organisation is growing, transforming or under pressure, and whether your primary challenge is strategic, commercial, cultural or all three.
> CFOs who want to operate with more commercial and strategic impact beyond the numbers.
> Finance leaders who want to communicate more powerfully to the board, to investors and to the leadership team.
> CFOs who want to think more deliberately about the cultural dimension of their role and their finance function.
> Any technically excellent finance professional who wants to be seen as a business leader first and a finance expert second.
> Any finance leader committed to being a strong supportive commercial partner to the CEO and senior colleagues.
This programme is for those who are ready to think honestly about their situation and act on what they find. It is not for those going through the motions.
You'll find the programme guiding you through an objective examination of your organisation, your operational context and your leadership through considered and candid reflection. Rob shares lessons from his experiences illustrated with personal stories, examples and real-world observations. Carefully crafted questions at the end of each video help you relate the material to your specific situation. The goal is to provoke thought, help you analyse your situation and equip you with practical ways of thinking you can apply throughout your career.
Yes. The material is available immediately on purchase and you proceed at whatever pace suits you. Many questions are posed for reflection and you take whatever time feels right for each one. Your value comes from engaging with the programme in the way that best suits how you think and work.
All material is immediately available on purchase. We find that participants who engage quickly get most from the programme and the forum access is structured to support this. We encourage you to begin as soon as practicable after purchase.
Every month a live invite-only online forum is held directly by Rob Evans. You will be invited to three monthly sessions following purchase. We vary the times and days to give you the best opportunity to attend at least one. This is a live session, not a recording, where you bring your specific questions and situations directly to Rob.
Yes. Every organisation operates in a business context. Each has investors, customers, employees, suppliers and stakeholders. Each must deliver value to those it serves and generate a return, financial or otherwise, to those who fund it. The approaches and thinking in this programme apply across all organisational types.
The programme includes PPMCleadership™️, The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, Activity Model Acumen™️, The Three Levels Of Endeavour™️, The Five Cornerstone Principles Of Planning™️, The CulturalVEST™️ and a range of other practical aide memoires for leadership, communication, decision making and relationship building. All are designed to be simple enough to remember and are immediately applicable in your role.
Everything included. We find participants who engage quickly get the most from the programme and the forum access is structured to support this.
Around 3.5 hours of short focused video lessons
Mobile enabled, watch in chunks of 15 minutes
Practical business teaching and immediately applicable techniques
PPMCleadership™️, The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, Activity Model Acumen™️
Reflective questions throughout to personalise the learning to your specific situation
Action oriented - 30 days to complete videos before forum
Live online forum session led directly by Rob Evans
Direct answers to your specific questions and situation
If you are looking to develop a team, a dedicated group forum session with Rob Evans can be added for no extra charge for cohorts of five or more