“Your Network Is Your Net Worth”: Women Finance Leaders Share Their Leadership Journeys

The path to CFO

All three panelists spoke of the varied assignments, roles and experiences in their career that enabled them to ascend into the CFO role for a public company. Betsch joined Lazard in 2022 from Citadel, the investment management firm. She spent 17 years prior to that at PwC, where her work allowed her to build on her foundational accounting education and background.

“The common thread was putting myself in situations that were uncomfortable, where there was a very clear opportunity to learn something and do something I hadn't done before,” Betsch said. “I gained a lot from opportunities where maybe I didn’t have the exact right background, but I had a great opportunity to work with people I could learn from.”

Bentley’s road to finance function leadership started quite literally in her teen years, when she began taking accounting jobs to help her family. As she amassed experience over the next many years, it was the challenges, she said, that made her a better leader.

“I've always approached my career similar to how you teach kids: You learn more from failures than your successes,” Bentley said. “You learn over time to be more flexible, to listen, to ask questions, and to always treat everything like you’re a student.”

The team around you

Indeed, while amassing those skills over your career is certainly important to reaching the CFO level, once you reach the coveted C-Suite position it’s important to know your strengths and know what skills you need on your team.

“When it comes to the CFO role, you have your strengths, and you have to complement those teams with their strengths,” Chadwick said. “So you need to do a self-assessment, know where your gaps are, but don't use that as a reason not to take action. Use it to as a way to built the strongest team possible.”

Bentley, who previously was chief accounting officer at The Carlyle Group, the private equity firm, noted that while the finance skills she had amassed in her career are the foundation of being CFO, success in the position requires a lot more about understanding how the business works and communicating effectively with clients, shareholders and Wall Street analysts.

“Your network is your net worth,” Bentley said. “Through your career, and when finding the right people for your company, it's who you know and how fast you get the right people in the right place…. As CFO, it’s less about your own finance skills, and more about putting people around you that understand their technical trade and can do what you need them to do. That frees you up to think strategically and be an effective business partner.”

Embracing “your normal”

Much of the panel discussion centered on navigating a world of C-suites and finance leadership that is typically male. Chadwick noted that because so many more leaders are men, many of her most important mentors were also men, although she said never thought of the gender element as she sought their counsel.

“The relationship really culminates when someone is willing to stick their neck out for you,” Chadwick said. “When you find that, treasure it, whether it’s a man or a woman…. And then remember when you’re doing your current role, you're a role model, other people look up to you. And then you pay it forward.”

Betsch noted that when it comes to issues like parenthood, her career experience had shown that traditional gender stereotypes about the man devoting everything to work and being okay with missing family life haven’t held up. As a leader, she said, she aims to make everyone feel comfortable with embracing their life outside work.

“I think you can de-emphasize that it's a woman's issue, and actually just treat everybody as having things that are important to them, whether they have kids or not,” Betsch said. “You lead by example. You say that you’re leaving early today for a school concert, so that the team sees it as normal and acceptable for them as well.”

Bentley shared a story about her youngest daughter, around 5 years old, asking her what men, like her dad, do during the day. She responded that her dad works during the day, and her daughter said. “Why? That’s a lady’s job.”

“I tell that story to everyone, especially new moms coming back, because all that guilt is not necessary,” Bentley said. “You do it to yourself. Your normal is your kids’ normal. They don’t hold it against you that you want to have a career. They are actually proud of you. So be proud of yourself and embrace that in your teams.”