Financial Controller Reviews - Page 36

Stick to the policies and make sure they are rigorously followed and you will have no problems.

Work hard at making sure that you have a handle on all aspects of the company's operations.

What I think is critical is to look at the big picture. While I worked in Finance and financial management, my world was black and white. We adhere to strick policies and guidelines in Finance, it is extremely structured. As the controller, you need to ensure that staff is adhering to rules and policies but in advising managment and working with operations you need to realize that they work in shades of grey. The challenge is to ensure you are flexible enough, to try to come up with ways to accomodate managment and open enough, to think outside the box (known parameters). The big picture is where is the organization going and what do we need to do to get there. But enter politics and sometimes you get lost in the confusion this causes, so my best advice would be to stay neutral and out of politics. Instead focus on where you are going and use this as an anchor.

Not advice just common sense, financial controllers should all be commercial as there shouldn't be ivory towers these days :)