Tom Smethers is CFO at Carlsberg Britvic and has built his career through a series of strategic leadership decisions, including taking calculated risks and embracing new challenges. In this interview, he shares insights on finance leadership, career progression, decision-making, executive development and the skills required to succeed as a modern CFO.
For me, becoming a CFO is about building a broad base of experience and then using that experience to lead across the whole business. I started at Deloitte because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew it would give me a really good grounding. From there, I built experience in industry, aviation, hospitality, retail and beverages. Each step added something different, and that breadth has been vital in preparing me for a CFO role.
In my experience, the CFO career path is built through a mix of technical finance, financial control, commercial finance, P&L ownership, transformation and leadership experience. I had done all of the sort of financial controller roles and worked my way up, but I needed some real commercial experience. That first big commercial FD role was a key building block because it helped me move from being a strong finance professional to becoming a broader business leader.
That first big commercial FD role was a key building block because it helped me move from being a strong finance professional to becoming a broader business leader.
My advice to aspiring CFOs is to take as many opportunities as possible and deliberately build different experiences. That might mean a secondment, running a project, or taking a sideways move into another department or function. When you come to interview, having international experience, project experience and transformation experience makes you “a much more interesting candidate, because it shows you can operate beyond the core finance brief.
I think finance professionals need to develop resilience, people leadership, cultural awareness and the ability to create the right environment for others to succeed. The biggest challenges in my career have often been when I haven’t been successful in gaining a promotion or gaining a role, because those moments teach resilience and force you to reflect on what you need to add to your skill set. As a leader, I also believe success comes from having a brilliant team.
I think finance professionals need to develop resilience, people leadership, cultural awareness and the ability to create the right environment for others to succeed.
For me, CFO leadership requires much more than technical accounting. Boards now expect the CFO to be much more business-focused and not just the numbers guy anymore. That means getting out into the business, understanding the working parts of it, and becoming a leader of the whole organisation, not only the finance function. The CFO role is broader, more strategic and more connected to culture, technology and transformation than ever before.
Boards now expect the CFO to be much more business-focused and not just the numbers guy anymore. That means getting out into the business, understanding the working parts of it, and becoming a leader of the whole organisation, not only the finance function.
Commercial experience has been one of the most important parts of my CFO journey. My airline FD role at TUI was the first big commercial FD role I had, and I learned a huge amount about commercial finance and P&L ownership. That experience still serves me today because a CFO has to understand how the business makes money, how customers behave, how decisions affect performance and how finance can support growth.
I have seen the CFO role change significantly, with far more emphasis now on culture, leadership, talent, transformation and technology. Organisations focus much more on the how now rather than just the what, and finance leaders need to support culture, development and business-wide decision-making. With technology and AI accelerating change, the role is getting broader all of the time, and CFOs need to be comfortable operating across a much wider spectrum.
Organisations focus much more on the how now rather than just the what, and finance leaders need to support culture, development and business-wide decision-making.
Risk-taking has been very important in my career because it pushed me into environments where I had to grow quickly. I took a real risk in going overseas twice, moving away from family and friends to work in New Zealand and Dubai. Those moves were quite daunting at the time, but they taught me to take opportunities, try new things and learn different work cultures. That international experience has made me a stronger and more rounded finance leader.
