Know your win: A CFO's advice on leadership & career decisions

Careers rarely follow a straight line. Along the way come opportunities that stretch us, situations that test us and decisions that don't have an obvious right answer.

Andrea Milner, Chief Financial Officer at Advent One, has spent more than 25 years in finance across professional services, mining, aviation, health insurance and technology. She started as a trainee at PwC and has since held finance, commercial and leadership roles at BHP, Jetstar, Medibank, Versent and Wilson Parking, leading teams of up to 250 people.

That experience has shaped how she leads, how she makes decisions and the advice she now gives to others.

The CFO believes you should never speak up on the fly. Responding in the moment usually comes from an emotional place, and that is all the other person will see. Instead, she recommends taking time to understand the problem and why it matters. Gather the facts and plan how you'll approach it. You can then take that plan to a mentor, your leader or HR for advice on how best to execute it. You don't need to have all the answers straight away.

That same principle applies to decision-making. Leadership involves making judgements every day, and she says deciding in the moment is risky, so it's worth buying yourself time. In a meeting, it's perfectly acceptable to say you'd like to think it over and will come back to the group the next morning. For bigger decisions, she tends to sleep on them. If she wakes up still confident that she's made the right call, she proceeds. If not, she goes back to the drawing board and works through the alternative..

Andrea uses a pie chart formula to demonstrate the changing priorities as you move up the ranks in your career. As an individual contributor, she suggests that around 75 per cent of your time should be spent on execution, with the rest on people and on planning and strategy. At a more senior level, it's closer to a third on each. Now, as a CFO, she spends around 30 per cent of her time on people, 10 per cent on execution and the rest on planning and strategy.

Planning and strategy is about delivering on your strategic priorities, but it also means staying across what's happening in your industry and the broader economy. She suggests reviewing your week, assessing where you spend your time, and asking why and whether it needs to change.

When an issue arises with a team member, the CFO starts by asking herself how she may have contributed to the situation. Do they know what's expected of them? Has she communicated effectively? If not, she sees it as an opportunity to set clear expectations. If the issue continues once those expectations are understood, she leads with compassion and asks what's going on, even if that means sitting in uncomfortable silence until she understands.

Seeking to understand also means recognising that not everyone works the same way. She believes people can be treated differently, provided this is communicated to the wider team. Inappropriate behaviour is a different matter. That should be called out immediately and then moved past, rather than left to fester.