The Staff Development Inventory

Title: COO

Large Size Company

When I was looking for a VP - Finance of a new acquired business unit, I looked at my inventories of past promotions and I uncovered that I traditionally only looked at leaders who had deep experience in operational finance. Especially, focusing on leaders who I had frequent interaction with in my operational finance organization. As a result, I widened my aperture to include other people outside of operational finance. Ultimately, I promoted someone from the controllership function.

Historically, this was not even considered a career path for someone in controllership to move into operational finance. By being more inclusive in my promotion process, I opened up a career path for people who previously thought they were limited to only moving within one function of finance. The proof points manifested in more people in the organization moving cross-functionally. Additionally the person I promoted into the VP - Finance incorporated that same inclusive approach in her hiring/promotion process. And the person blossomed as an operational finance leader.

If not for inventorying my promotion process, I likely would have overlooked this exclusive behavior and limited not only the choices I had for the role but the opportunities for people in my organization.