On Wednesday August 13, 2014, I was interviewed on DriveThruHR by Nisha Raghavan.

In our discussion, we touched on a few points about the relationship between Human Resources and Finance. Here are some of the topics Nisha and I discussed.

• What’s keeping CFOs up at night? Talent is one of the top five issues facing the CFO.

• Who should HR professionals report to? The CEO or CFO?

• Discussed CHRO Moves and CFO Moves and the difference between the visibility CFOs and CHROs get.

• Discussed Samuel’s new book, and what it says about the importance of the CFO having a strong relationship with the CHRO.

• HR and Finance are critical support functions that need to work together to make the business successful. A deeper discussion follows on how HR and Finance can work well together.

• What are the talent issues that CFOs face? Discussion includes:
  • CFO Succession,
  • Executive coaching for growing finance leadership talent,
  • Managing and building a forward looking finance team,
  • How HR can help,
  • Cross training Finance professionals in HR.

• How CHROs can benefit from a close relationship with the CFO, as well as how the CFO can benefit from a close relationship with HR. A business partner approach is very effective.

• Where should companies find finance talent? Everywhere. The right senior finance talent is much harder to find and attract. Companies cannot afford to hire the wrong CFO. There is not only the cost of hiring wrong, but companies are missing the upside of hiring a great CFO as well.

Go ahead and listen in to the entire conversation: