Razzak Jallow is the CFO of pre-IPO fintech company FloQast.
Skills are often seen as binary: You have them or you don’t. Like, say, the skill of throwing a football. I have it; so does Tom Brady. But let’s be clear. No one would mistake us for equals on the field. The same is often true in finance. There tends to be a noticeable gap between competence and mastery, a difference shaped by depth, training and perseverance.
It’s also about adaptability, because the skills finance professionals need have never stood still. Accounting evolves in waves, with each new era defined by new tools. Before the 1970s, pen and paper were those tools. Then came the electronic calculator and suddenly, speed and precision with that device separated the best from the rest. By the 1990s, the HP 12C financial calculator was the weapon of choice for every finance pro worth their salt. Then the 2000s demanded Excel wizards—people who could bend spreadsheets to their will. The 2010s brought the rise of cloud software, and fluency in cloud platforms became nonnegotiable.
Now, in the 2020s, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape again. By 2030, many top performers will likely be AI power-users, those who can effectively leverage prompts to streamline work in ways that are both fast and accurate.
Why Firms Are Looking For Curiosity
The rise of AI is causing many accounting teams to adjust their approach to hiring. They know the key to thriving in the AI era is finding candidates with a genuine hunger to learn. What matters most isn’t necessarily technical expertise but the desire to explore the many ways AI can solve problems and make accounting professionals better.
One of the factors that boosted my early career was my urge to understand everything about Excel. I would play around with Excel in my spare time, figuring out new ways to use it. For instance, I was (and am) into fantasy football, so I built a draft module that would predict the next 11 picks by my opponents and then recommend which player I should pick now versus in a later round. I did pretty well, and I also learned a lot about Excel.
These days, a similar curiosity about AI is creating opportunities. People who are AI-inquisitive, those who explore it out of genuine interest, may find themselves excelling in their finance or accounting roles. But leaders can’t force curiosity. So they’re looking for people with a natural interest in technology, whether they’re mastering AI prompts or developing a clear understanding of its capabilities and limitations. Qualities like these are critical to building future-ready teams.
How To Stay Out In Front
Many finance and accounting professionals have reached senior positions by mastering a specific set of skills over a span of 15 to 20 years. Now, because technology is advancing so quickly, those skills are often outdated. That’s why the talents and best practices that brought success two decades ago may now need rethinking to stay relevant. It’s easy to fall into an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” mindset, but that leads to stagnation. So professionals in our field—and others—must shift our mindsets from protecting existing knowledge to actively seeking out new approaches that can deliver better results.
Personally, as a CFO and people manager, I believe my job isn’t to be the smartest person in the room. My job is to build a team in which every single person on the team can do at least one thing—if not many things—better than I can. Traditionally, such an attitude would have been seen as a sign of weakness. Now it’s a sign of a strong, multidimensional organizational ability.
No matter what your role within your company, you want to position yourself on the front edge of change. You don’t want to be the former high-performer who’s now an organizational anchor because you’re stuck in your old ways. Always consider your experience to be a starting place for continuous improvement. That’s how you can remain a driver of progress on a day-by-day, year-by-year basis.
What Your Attitude To AI Says About Your Team
From where I sit, I’ve seen two general approaches to AI. On one side, you have CFOs who are leaning in heavily, supported by CEOs and boards who recognize the competitive imperative. These companies are setting aside dedicated AI budgets and running extensive pilot programs to identify where AI can deliver the most value.
On the other side are the conventional thinkers. I recently ran into a CFO at a conference who himself can see the value of using AI but has a CEO and board who aren’t convinced. They view AI as just another overhyped technology, not unlike other supposed revolutionary tools that failed to deliver on their promises.
For some in finance, adopting AI today can feel a bit like learning to use spreadsheets in the 1990s. At first, it seemed like just another tool, but over time, it reshaped how finance teams operated. The more you experiment, the more valuable it becomes. Many finance teams think AI isn’t a game changer because they’ve experimented only with basic tools like ChatGPT, asking generic questions and getting textbook answers that don’t address their specific business needs. Going further with AI experimentation can reveal just how many practical applications exist, from simple process automation to generative tools that may one day reshape entire workflows.
For organizations that haven’t yet embraced AI, now may be a good time to begin exploring its potential.
Every CFO has a mandate to drive company success, efficiency and profitability, and AI may just be today’s most powerful technology for achieving these goals. The firms that start experimenting now—even with small pilots—will be far better positioned to scale successful implementations as AI tech continues to evolve.
The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
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