Spencer Stuart recently nominated Christine Laurens as its new CFO. Laurens succeeds Valerie Harper, who is now head of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific of the firm. Prior to Spencer Stuart, she spent almost two decades at Kearney, an US based consulting firm where she served as CFO and Partner in her most recent role. She was also CFO at an IT consulting firm before joining Kearney.
As a three-time CFO, she said “One thing that is critical to me in any role I’ve had as CFO is to think as a business partner and therefore to use numbers not just for reporting but it’s really to get insight and to use what we see from the numbers to help drive and make decisions.”
According to Crist Kolder Associates, only 15.1% out of Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies have female CFOs in the year of 2021. About female representation, she mentioned “Being a woman can sometimes bring benefits. I’ve never approached my role with ego. I’ve always tried to approach my role with expertise and empathy, meaning that I know what I’m talking about but I’m not trying to fight with others. It’s more about the success of the firm.”
Regarding macro risks around the current firm’s finance, she thinks the war in Ukraine is the biggest concern, despite that the company does not have many operations in either Ukraine or Russia. “Right now as of today we have not identified a slow down but things can move very fast as we’ve seen with the pandemic,” Laurens added.