CFO of the Year (Private Equity) > Yvonne Le Bas

CFOs Have More Dimensions Than People Might Think

Private equity CFO of the Year Yvonne Le Bas reflects on the breadth of modern finance leadership, the value of saying yes, and why smart companies promote women

There is no doubt that it has been a big five years for Group CFO of Resolution Life Australasia, Yvonne Le Bas. The life insurer has experienced a huge transformation during this time, acquiring AMP life insurance and undergoing a merger with MLC Life.

Le Bas is heavily engaged in the company’s evolution, running the M&A side of the business as part of the broader Acenda Group, and this has drawn on her many modern CFO skills—talent recognition, strategy, innovation and even procurement.

“When Resolution Life acquired AMP’s life insurance business, it didn’t have its own infrastructure,” says Le Bas, who is a former CFO of Group Services for Westpac and CFO for BT Financial Group.

“We had to set that up from scratch, including building a general ledger and a cash receipting system, and then obviously we ported the business into that framework.”

The experience was a first in many respects for Le Bas, one that she calls “challenging, but hugely rewarding”.

“While I had worked on integrating businesses before, I never had the opportunity to work at that speed.”

Le Bas’s breadth of experience was formally recognised when she was recently awarded CFO of the Year (Private Equity) at the Australian CFO Awards in Sydney.

It’s not the first time Le Bas has garnered laurels for her work. In 2013, she was awarded Westpac’s General Manager of the Year Award and was also a finalist in the Westpac Women of Influence internal awards in the Innovation Leadership category.

Early Beginnings and Passions

Like many of her finance compatriots, Le Bas’s journey to becoming a CFO started with an accountancy course.

“I qualified as a chartered accountant in London, and I spent a number of years auditing,” she says.

“That gave me a lot of exposure to a number of companies, which was great, but it also made me realise that auditing wasn’t for me.”

Le Bas was “much more interested in learning how businesses work” and across 25 years spanning finance, banking, oil and the property sector, she has been able to sample other parts of the business. During her time at Lendlease, for example, Le Bas worked in property development for a spell.

“I have always had the opportunity to be exposed to unique or non-traditional aspects of a finance career,” Le Bas notes.

“Having that opportunity to experience many different aspects of different businesses really does build up your experience.”

In fact, one of the biggest misconceptions about finance leaders, Le Bas adds, is that they’re solely interested in numbers.

“I think that many CFOs have many more dimensions than people might think,” she says.

 “We’re not just about the numbers. I’m as interested and curious about people and developing talent as I am in the financial statements.

“There are aspects of being a CFO that are much richer than people might imagine.”

Having a Go

Nevertheless, Le Bas believes that to be successful in finance, leaders need to be strategic and “very deliberate” about the opportunities they are pursuing.

“My approach was that, early on in my career, I generally didn’t say no to things,” she says.

“If people said, ‘Have a crack at x, y and z,’ then I would. So I generally added loads of things to my belt, as opposed to giving things up.”

Le Bas also cites an informal network both within and outside the organisation as critical in building her career.

“It’s really important to use those informal networks, to build trust within the organisation and with your leaders, and also to learn from other people,” she says.

“I think that’s vital for anyone to be successful, including women.”

She has been fortunate in her career to be mentored and supported by a range of incredibly talented women, she adds.

 “There is a saying that if you want to get a lot of work done, ask a busy woman,” she says.

“I have always worked in companies where leaders were smart enough to realise that female executives can be incredibly effective.

“I was on leadership teams where I think there were 10 women and two men. When I was the CFO of the BT Financial Group, we had predominantly female executives.”

This exposure helped Le Bas strengthen her own leadership style.

“It also exposed me to what it felt like to be in an environment where I felt really encouraged and empowered to achieve outcomes,” she says.

“One of the things that I think I am quite good at is recognising talent and then being able to encourage that talent to develop their skills and give them opportunities to have a variety of different experiences, to build on their capabilities.”

Knowing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Being a natural talent spotter means that Le Bas has a strong understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses.

“I’ve really learned about having a mix of capability in the team,” she notes.

“I’ve realised that I’m quite a good generalist, but I’m not a brilliant specialist so I need specialist help and support in a range of things and that is where a really strong team makes all the difference.”

As Le Bas has progressed in her career, she has also realised the value of making errors.

“I’ve learned that it’s okay to make a mistake,” she says.

“Some 30-odd years ago, the business I was working in made a mistake and I learned so much about the importance of getting the basics right; that’s the ticket to the game.

“If you can get your ticket to the game, then you can probably put your hand up to play any position.”

These kinds of rookie errors may be mortifying for new finance leaders but they’re also formative.

“We’re so hard on ourselves, especially early in our career when we make mistakes, but that is literally how you get better.”

The Next Generation

Le Bas is optimistic about the future for CFOs, noting that many finance leaders have become more efficient in recent years.

The pandemic era was a challenging time, she concedes, but it also enabled employees to sharpen their skills.

“During COVID we learned to be much more self-sufficient in a whole range of areas,” she says.

“People now perhaps need to be less hand-held on certain things and, as a consequence, we have developed new skills.”

Now, when things don’t quite go right, Le Bas says, staff have evolved to fix problems.

“Coming up with solutions is probably a fundamentally better way to learn lots of things than everything working smoothly,” she says.

“The problems are often very helpful.”

Le Bas welcomes the capacity of AI to alleviate onerous or routine tasks but is also keen to ensure the next generation of finance leaders acquire the skills that her generation has been fortunate enough to hone over many years.

“You need that pipeline of skills development in order to know technology, to have a sense of the technological landscape and appreciate what it’s actually doing,” she says.

“If you’ve never done a certain task before, it’s very difficult to appreciate the AI’s strengths and weaknesses.

“There needs to be some checks in place.”