Communicating financials to execs: A 5-step approach

Let me start by making one thing clear: this isn’t about AI.

You can probably use AI to support parts of reporting, and I’m sure it will continue to play a role in how finance teams work. But what I want to focus on here is something even more important and much more overlooked: communication.

Because in my experience, management reporting is one of the biggest missed opportunities in organizations today. Not because finance teams lack skills. Not because they don’t work hard. And definitely not because they don’t have data.

It’s missed because the way we communicate that data too often fails to create understanding, action, and better decisions.

I’m happy to be challenged on it, but I genuinely believe that 95% of management reporting stands to be improved.

Sometimes the slides don’t look great. Sometimes they look “fine,” but they don’t contain the kind of insight that actually influences decisions.

And that’s a major problem, because everything we do in business (and honestly, in life) boils down to moments of communication. If we don’t communicate well, all the hard work we did to produce the data is lost in an instant.

Why this matters to me

I spent thirteen years at Maersk in various finance roles. Later, I helped found the Business Partnering Institute, where we help finance teams create more value through research, learning and development programs, and consulting and interim support.

In 2018, I co-authored Create Value as a Finance Business Partner, which was one of the first end-to-end books describing what finance business partnering really is. It’s not a flashy book. It reads a little like a school book.

But when a topic isn’t clearly defined yet, sometimes a “school book” is exactly what’s needed.

I’ve also spent a lot of time creating content on LinkedIn. I’m close to 450,000 followers now, and I write a newsletter called Trends in Finance and Accounting, with more than 350,000 subscribers.

None of that matters for its own sake, but it’s given me a broad view into how finance teams operate globally, and what they struggle with repeatedly.

And one struggle shows up everywhere: management reporting rarely works as well as it should.

The resume problem: why reporting fails faster than we think

A while back, I applied for jobs and used one of those free resume review services. You know the kind: they review for free, then try to sell you improvements afterward.

I sent mine in expecting to get a long list of fixes.

Instead, they came back and told me they couldn’t find anything they wanted to change. Then they said something that stuck with me: only about 3% of resumes they review are like that.

The reason I remember it isn’t because it felt good. It’s because it reminded me how much resumes and management reporting have in common.

Most of them need improvement.

And like a resume, a management report gets judged quickly. People don’t sit down calmly and absorb every number. They scan. They react. They look for what matters. And if you lose them early, you lose them completely.

The three biggest problems in finance presentations

When I look at most finance presentations, I usually see the same three issues:

First, there are too many details.

Second, there’s no coherent structure.

Third, there’s no apparent recommendation.

Finance people can handle detail. We’re trained for it. But most leaders and managers in other functions don’t want that level of complexity in a meeting.

They want to know how we’re doing and what we should do about it. Most of the time, they don’t need sixty slides to get there.

And the structure is often missing. Many presentations follow the same pattern: actuals versus budget, actuals versus forecast, a few waterfall charts. But there’s no story connecting the numbers.

Numbers are a language, but if we don’t use them to tell a story, we’re not helping the room move toward a decision.

That leads straight to the third issue: a lack of recommendations. Too often, finance teams come in with a report and say, “Here is the information. I’ll answer questions. You decide what to do.”

That’s not decision support. That’s data delivery.