We organized the second episode of our ”Expert Talk Series for Finance Professionals” in association with Institute of Management Accountants and WTC Delaware. Mr. Russ Porter, CFO and SVP, Strategy, Technology and Analytics, IMA spoke on “Future of Finance – New Age Technology or New Skills”.

Mr. Porter observed that technologies like RPA, Blockchain, Quantum Computing and AI are fast evolving while finance competencies like Data Science and Strategy Management are not keeping up with that pace. The environment we are working in is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. He pointed out six mega trends in finance profession – Remote work to be the new norm; Environmental, social and governance support decision will become important; Accountability for enterprise risk management; Diversity, equity & inclusion will be a competitive differentiator; Automation will accelerate; Greater demand for upskilling and higher education. He opined that finance function should bring in a new set of collaborators like data scientists, statisticians, data security, IT delivery, roboticists etc. to work cross functionally. He said that for finance professionals to win the race for relevance, they should adopt and adapt to new skills, align themselves to actual functions, adopt data analytics to stay competitive and regularly upskill themselves.

Mr. Vivek George, Manager, WTC Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi; Ms. Carla Stone, President, WTC Delaware and Ms. Lata Murli, Manager-Corporate Outreach, India, IMA also spoke.