#2 João Couto about Finance as the business growth and strategy driver at Microsoft

"A successful CFO is able to drive business growth - profitable
and sustainable"


João Couto is Vice President of the SAP Business Unit at
Microsoft. I very much appreciated talking to João about
effective finance because he views the topic from three different
angles: First, as a partner of Kearney he consulted many CFOs.
Second, João was holding CFO positions himself, at Vodafone
Portugal and then as the Commercial CFO of Vodafone Group. Third,
being globally responsible for the SAP business unit at
Microsoft, Finance is an internal stakeholder.


In our conversation, João shared his perspective on effective
finance with me: Why Finance must be the business growth driver
and how digitalization leads to faster and better decision
making. And besides all finance content, João's focus on people,
diversity and leadership impressed me once again.