Finance Monthly CFO Awards 2019 Winners Edition

www.finance-monthly.com 18 Finance Monthly CFO Awards 2019 Finance Monthly CFO Awards 2019 COUNTRY BERMUDA BERMUDA a diversely held public company on the New York Stock Exchange. Butterfield is now widely held among institutional investors and thousands of individual shareholders. More recently, I’m also proud of the acquisition of ABN AMRO (Channel Islands) Limited, the Channel Islands-based banking subsidiary of ABN AMRO Bank N.V., which was completed in July this year. This was a significant acquisition for the bank and we continue to work on combining the business into our existing Guernsey bank, which has been in operation for more than 45 years. The combined and expanded banking presence now represents a substantial part of our group’s banking business and supports our view of the Channel Islands as a leading international financial centre and a growth market for Butterfield. What education or prior experience have helped you succeed in your current role? Having an MSc (Econ) as well as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation has greatly helped in terms of dealing with the strategic positioning of the bank with investors, as well as managing interest rate risk in our large liquid bond portfolio. In addition, working for HSBC in Bermuda for 15 years prior to my current role has given me a great perspective on the market and the competitive dynamics in the global banking industry. It was a great experience to work with colleagues from many different countries and cultures in a large organisation. What was the most challenging period of your career and how did you overcome it? How does this affect your current work as a CFO? The most challenging part of my career has probably been transitioning from a subject matter financial expert to a strategic CFO. It was a huge personal challenge to understanding the move and the need to start setting our broad direction while creating a work environment where finance professionals can succeed, progress and enjoy their careers. Collaborating at executive and board levels means using and questioning information as opposed to analysing and creating information for decision making. The two things that have helped me greatly with the transition were the investment in several structured leadership training courses and a professional coach. Q Q