CFO Studio Magazine with Dominic Caruso, CFO, Johnson & Johnson

programmers who are not working on other time-sensitive projects, finding them is easy through a global employee system, created by EPAM, that provides a real-time, detailed profile of every employee and project in the company. Also, by analyzing the data, the company might find an ideal location for opening a new development center or recruiting local talent. The system, which incorporates elements of social media, “allows us to get some good metrics and analytics on where the people with the right skill set and background are currently sitting,” Conte says. These challenges are not at all what he thought he’d be concerned with back when he took all those accounting classes; but now “those types of metrics help me drive forward resourcing, which is our No. 1 metric,” Conte says. Conte’s company is on the front lines of digital integration, facing the enormous opportunities (and challenges) brought on by the current digital disruption facing every industry in the world. He has made it his mission to get out of his financial silo so that the decisions in which he participates are truly able to drive the business forward. “I can talk at a high level and give [potential clients] an elevator pitch,” he says. “But at the end of the day, the customer doesn’t want to see the CFO in a sales role. The customer needs to talk to the technical people.” Acquisitions and Growth In the past three years, even as Newtown, PA– based EPAM has completed eight acquisitions, organic growth has been over 20 percent per year, landing the company in the eighth spot on the 2016 Forbes list of the 25 Fastest Growing Public Tech Companies. As Conte says, the company is in hyper-growth mode. “What this requires,” he says, “is a high degree of flexibility and innovation to continue to create a financial organization that supports the business.” “Your forecasting is going to be impacted most. By the time you finish the forecast, odds are, something is going to have happened that changes that forecast.” He adds: “When I go back three years and look at the eight acquisitions, each one of them has turned us in a slightly different direction than what we would have previously thought.” Conte must keep close ties with his senior- level peers. By staying tight with business leaders throughout the organization, including IT, he keeps himself aware of decisions and potential changes, and keeps all those contacts in the loop too, “making sure that everything we do is structured in a way to be flexible andmove as the business moves.” Conte continues to plan and forecast, since decisions based on those plans will absolutely affect the future of the company and its employees. But after a decade here he knows no plan is set in stone. He might need to change it tomorrow. C 3 Questions for Anthony Conte, CFO of EPAM What’s the most exciting part about being a CFO? CONTE : Being a part of the growth of the business. I am very much part of a management team. The decisions that we’re making could drive us up or could have the opposite effect. It’s exciting to have that type of a say into an operation of this magnitude. What’s the most challenging part about being a CFO? CONTE : All the stuff that I said was exciting, flip it around. It’s also challenging. I say that only half in jest. The biggest challenge is bridging all of the requirements that I have as CFO — to my external auditors, to the SEC, and compliance, and laws — and making sure that structure’s all in place and well-controlled, but at the same time my organization is flexible to respond to new opportunities and challenges. How do forecasting and analytics create competitive advantages? CONTE : This hinges on the company’s ability to develop analytic tools, so you’re talking about data warehousing, you’re talking about business intelligence engines. The key now is for CFOs to make sure they’re outside their particular silo. As CFOs, we need to make sure that the business intelligence and the engines that we are building are closely tied into the operations; and that IT is closely ingrained in the process. Collaboration is critical. Q4 2016 WWW.CFOSTUDIO.COM 17 As a leading global product development and platform engineering services company, EPAM delivers results to clients through software engineering, combined with innovative strategy, consulting, and design capabilities.