Let's look ahead – that's the direction we're going anyway

"If I were to describe myself as a CFO, the keyword would be curiosity. I am generally a curious person, but I also make it a virtue to cultivate my professional curiosity in my daily work – to be curious about the business and how I can bring my expertise to the table in the most value-creating way. This way, I give myself the prerequisites to understand the business both in depth and breadth," Tina starts our talk.

"I believe it's crucial to understand how a business is interconnected, and to be able to see the internal dependencies. But also, to delve into the different business legs and understand precisely where the earnings in specific areas come from. This gives me insight and the ability to see where we as a finance function or another internal function need to step in and support."

Tina smiles and elaborates: "This suits my developmental mindset very well. I prefer it when things move. Not because we should all climb the same career ladder. But that we as people and as a business move forward. And we can only do this if we are sufficiently curious to explore and ask questions so that we know where it makes most sense to move."

As mentioned, Semler Group is undergoing a transformation like the rest of the car industry. The transition from fossil fuels to electricity means that each sale takes longer, and the emergence of a charging station infrastructure taking time also affects the buying process.

"Of course, this transformation hits the entire management of Semler's car business and thus also my areas of responsibility, where we are directly involved in the digitalisation necessary to keep up with developments. We’ve been really good with our digital front-end solutions, and right now, we have an ambitious plan to also elevate our entire backend. In this way, one could say that we are in the process of transforming into a modern IT company, which affects our entire business," Tina elaborates.

"Right now, we have a strong focus on process optimisation and on the digital solutions reaching the car buyers being on-point, as we see a huge shift here. It must be easy to be a customer, and consumers want to be able to service themselves online, while also having a good physical experience in the store. Omnichannel demand has been accelerated by covid-19, and we are experiencing an increased trend towards a combined purchasing process. This has given us a steep learning curve, as we want to have the best solutions for meeting customer expectations."

"To frame our values, we have drawn a Semler diamond, one of the elements of which is happy customers. Therefore, we spend a lot of time putting ourselves in the customers' shoes, seeing where they are, and in which direction they are moving. Here we see a clear trend towards digital support and self-service solutions in all parts of our business," Tina tells us.

This applies to both car customers and the 'customers' of the CFO area, as Tina refers to her stakeholders in Semler's many business legs. And she makes no secret of the fact that it is quite an exercise to prepare the CFO area to be sufficiently change-ready and have the resources to put its competences into play in other ways than usual in a situation like now, where the entire industry is undergoing massive change.

"I need to have an internal service concept that is digitally razor-sharp. Because digital is that with which we support all the corporate functions. Part of that preparation has consisted in turning our dialogue, where we also in the CFO area put ourselves in the customers' place. So that we can support them in the best possible way and together with them become very sharp on what they really need."

There is no doubt that Tina's biggest focus in 2022 will be the digital transformation and preparing her areas to support that transformation in the best possible way. But what else will take up her time?

"Being a visible leader who communicates clearly – especially about the strategy, which we have succeeded well with so far and must continue with," Tina tells us.

"Besides, of course, continuing to delve into the business and expand our understanding of it. And last – but not least – compliance and controls will take up much time. We have organised ourselves in such a way that we can quickly identify our risks and handle them. But we need to structure things even more so that we have the bandwidth to keep the long light on, look ahead, and focus on development instead of spending time looking back."

"For us, it means that we must be even better at using targeting and forecasting. We left the budgets behind several years ago, but we can still refine our forecasting process so that it creates space for us to be ready to move forward."

"We don't need to look back because we're not going that way," says Tina with a twinkle in her eye.

But there is another thing on the agenda that cannot be overlooked, and which is discussed everywhere in Finance functions – Semler being no exception: The ESG agenda and the accompanying ESG reporting have pushed their way onto the priority list. An agenda that it’s really important for Semler and the car industry at large to stand strong on.

In this context, Tina tells us that, at Semler, they have a strong focus on communicating clearly about what Semler stands for and what they specifically want to do.

"There hasn't been the same focus before, but the ESG agenda was really put on Semler’s strategy in the spring of 2021 – and now it's starting to take hold. And we have launched a lot of strategic initiatives," Tina elaborates.

"We at Semler have decided to be frontrunners of the fight to become CO2-neutral and have committed ourselves to a science-based target of 1.5 per cent, set from our baseline in 2019. In this connection, we have made a plan for how we can live up to our goals as a result of Denmark being among the 27 EU countries that are expected to implement the new directive into national legislation by 31 December 2022."

"And because Semler is a company that falls within the scope of the directive, we are currently preparing to comply with the new reporting rules that come into force on 1 January 2023. One thing is the compliance part of ESG. Something else is our profile going forward, which we are currently in the process of preparing," explains Tina.

"We have gotten off to a really good start on the environmental part of the ESG agenda and are about to work more proactively with the social part, which we’ve already started in our strategy group and corporate management. So, we are going to move a lot in the coming time on that agenda."

"To give a specific example, let me mention our company car policy, where we’ve gone from letting the employees choose their own company car to it being mandatory to choose an electric car. A change that hasn’t met any resistance, as we have been at communicating clearly that it’s part of our climate policy. We’ve launched a lot of initiatives in connection with our buildings and cars because that's where we emit the most CO2, so it also makes good sense for all employees that it's precisely on company cars that we’ve intervened," Tina tells us.

"And the same applies to the management, who also drive electric cars. Because it’s important for us to lead the way in living out the strategy, and of course, the same policy applies to everyone in the organisation," Tina rounds off her point.

In all industries and most companies, development, attraction, and retention of talented employees are highly prioritised. And with a car industry undergoing rapid development, another layer of complexity is added to the difficult task.

Tina talks about how the transition from fossil fuel to electric cars is turning the tasks performed in the garages as well as the needed competences upside down. "It's not unlikely that the work done in the garages will be halved in a few years. That’s why we’ve launched an educational program tailored to those who need to be able to handle electric cars in the garages. A work carried out in collaboration with the technical schools."

"So, preparing for and being able to accommodate the competences of tomorrow is something we have much focus on. Therefore, we’ve also developed a program across all Semler’s business legs, which we call 'Leading and searching for tomorrow's competences’. A program intended to support the competences we need in the future and designed to accommodate both the specialists and those who want to move up the career ladder. And it is intended as an active management tool that managers can use in their talks with the employee to boost developments, but also to create a sense of security that in this industry with a massive shift in competences, we support our employees."

"It should be said that the program has not been rolled out yet, but it has been presented and approved with support. So, it will happen very soon."

"And if we look at the very personal perspective of me as a leader of my group, I make great efforts to give each individual space to develop. Understood in this way: That I am ambitious on behalf of others, so it is important to me that they are allowed to show what they can do. So, I take pride in carrying them forward with a warm hand on the back and let them succeed. So that they feel freedom and trust, but with a life jacket within reach," Tina smiles.

Before we wrap up our talk with Tina, we linger a little longer on the theme of career. Since it’s no secret that Tina has a great career with a lot of results behind her and exciting challenges ahead of her. So, what’s the most important in Tina's eyes if you want to build a career?

"What has worked for me has been to always maintain an open mind and embrace the challenges as they arrive. And then to always be supportive in my leadership and gently push people towards new competences, which you need to have an interest in as a leader. I’ve never been afraid to develop talents in our organisation because I consider it a huge strength both for me as a leader and for the company that we create a culture where talents dare unfold."

"And if I were to put on the CFO glasses and give a specific piece of advice, one of the most important competences for tomorrow's CFO is to communicate – both in speech and data. Quite simply, because there is so immensely much data, and therefore you can easily lose the overview if you don’t manage to shape your communication. You must know how to communicate on the parameters that make sense for the business. Another important parameter is to remember to be a leader while maintaining focus on your professional expertise. Because no matter how much of a leader you are, you must keep being a professional sparring partner for the business."

"Furthermore, I consider accessibility extremely important, which means that I like to be accessible many places in the organisation. It’s important that the organisation feels seen and heard. And listening is really important to me. It may sound banal, but if I’m the one talking all the time, I won't find out what my colleagues are capable of, for example, in terms of development, or what they need from a business perspective."

"In my view, the worst thing we can do is create a culture where we don’t have an open dialogue, but rather look at each other in an ivory tower," Tina concludes our talk.

Unfortunately, we can’t predict the future …

Therefore, some things may have changed since our articles were published – the contributors may have changed jobs, and the world may have been turned upside down by American presidents, Chinese bats, and other catalysts for unexpected events – you get the point. We hope that you’ll still want to read our articles and maybe even get a little inspired by them.