Salman Ali Agha

Finance transformation matters just as much to your consumers as it does to your team: 

“To me, digital finance transformation is about how we engage and retain our talent, and also how we delight our customers,” says Salman Ali Agha.

We caught up with him to hear more about his best strategies for finance transformation success, his predictions for the future of finance, and the skills today’s finance leaders need to be honing for a digital tomorrow.

Digital transformation in telecom

“I started out in public practice but I always wanted some big four experience under my belt before jumping into industry,” says Salman when asked what led to a career in corporate finance. 

A stint at KPMG gave him a flavour for technology and telco clients which ultimately became his focus, followed by a first move into industry with global US telco tech company Lumen Technologies. It kickstarted an impressive thirteen year tenure at the company: 

“A progressive increase in responsibility over my tenure from my first position there in compliance led me to become CFO for EMEA and Asia PAC. I gained invaluable insight into how public companies work, but also importantly into what it’s like to have a diverse team spread across the globe.”

Immersion in the world of telecom ignited a passion for finance transformation from the very beginning:

“Back in my public practice days, the telco industry was notorious for being behind the curve when it came to systems and processes. They were never consolidated enough, and I could clearly see the negative impact on employees and customers alike. It got me asking how we can make everyone’s lives easier.”

Finance transformation became the perfect place to channel that curiosity - something Salman applied in spades to the big chunk of his career spent in industry:

“At Lumen, finance transformation allowed us to more accurately match our costs to our revenues, which is crucial in telecoms when you’re trying to make good investment decisions and really delve into profitability on a granular level.”

For Salman, he’s seen first-hand how less time spent on the manual and the mundane can free up finance teams to thrive:

“There’s still an element of human intervention required with automated systems, and there probably always will be. But it’s given back so much time back to teams to focus on visibly value-add activities instead, which is the important thing and made it easier and faster to do business for customers and vendors.”

Shaping the future workforce

When it comes to delivering on finance transformation, finding that sweet spot of financial acumen with tech prowess is no mean feat - but it’s where the future of finance is headed:

“What is absolute gold dust at the moment is finding IT folks who understand finance requirements. At Lumen we set up a financial intelligence team of developers dedicated to finding automated reporting solutions. We were lucky enough that the person hired to create it understood the needs of the finance department from the very first time of asking.”

In fact, the initiative was so successful it became the envy of the business, and it wasn’t long before other departments wanted in on the action:

“We initially set the team up to be contained within finance, but they were so successful at helping us transition away from manual tasks  that non-finance teams wanted to get involved too! At that point we moved them into the IT team to make them more accessible to the rest of the business.”

But if gold dust is hard to come by, not everyone in your team is going to arrive to finance transformation fully equipped to implement and adopt new technology. That’s where good leadership comes in to keep staff committed and engaged:

“At the end of the day there’s still a day job to do! It’s a challenge to engage your team to keep up with finance transformation alongside heavy BAU workloads. Some days it can feel like a catch-22. Keep in mind that someone with an understanding of the business, it’s processes and tasks also has to do the heavy lifting  required for implementation of transformation initiatives on top of the day job, so weighing up the cost-benefit and ensuring that team’s understand that is important.”

Keeping up with the speed of change is a common concern with finance transformation. Knowing what’s hype, and what’s the next big thing to seriously invest in can be tough. For example, is the bubble bursting when it comes to genAI?

“My view on that is that we go through cycles,” says Salman. “Lately the buzzword has been genAI, a few years ago the buzzword was robotic process automation. All the same questions were asked then about whether it would really take off, and what it all meant ethically and for people’s jobs.”

“I’m subscribed to digital newsletters like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and it feels like every day there are new articles on AI - you almost lose track! The key thing for us as finance leaders is to hone in on what’s actually going to make a difference to decision-making and make life easier for our teams and customers.”

Modern finance leadership

So how does Salman see the role of finance leader changing in the future? One thing is for sure: an entirely new leadership approach is needed to attract and retain the next generation of talent.

“When I was younger we didn’t push back on what was being asked of us. But this new generation isn’t afraid to ask questions and say when they think a manual non-value add task is beneath them! If we want to engage with them and retain key talent we have to stay ahead - whether that’s under the tagline of AI or more generally from a finance transformation perspective.”

Reflecting on old-school management styles, Salman also believes future finance leaders will need to tap into so-called soft skills more than ever in order to execute the demands of finance transformation: 

“I think gone are the days when CFOs drove their teams with the carrot and stick approach! Instead, you really have to show empathy towards both your team and the business because of how challenging the macroeconomic environment is today and specifically the technology/ telecom sectors. It's not enough to just point out the hurdles, you have to work in partnership to overcome them.”

Striving to support his team - and the business - through thick and thin has kept Salman motivated throughout his career:
“I love the interactions with my team, with my fellow senior management team, with customers - I got so much more exposure to that in my role as CFO. I really enjoyed hearing stories from customers, both good and bad and solving challenges and helping them succeed and grow. At the end of the day I want to be the very best leader I can be and be that platform that enables development of people and drive growth both for my own business and our customers/ vendors .”

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