Tales of Transformation

Jennifer Scott > A Transformational CFO

Transformation is never easy, but Jennifer Scott knows all too well how worthwhile it can be.

With vast experience across major global organisations, including Virgin Media in the UK, eBay in Switzerland and ANZ in Australia, Scott is not afraid to usher in change.

At the recent Melbourne CFO Symposium, Jennifer shared her transformation advice and career journey with CFO Magazine’s Kate Jones.

Pioneering days of tech change

After studying politics at the University of Melbourne, Scott immigrated to the UK to begin further study in accounting. She worked for global beverage company Diageo, where she got a fundamental grounding in how a large brand operates.

An appetite for growth and change saw her shift to Virgin Mobile, which was then in its infancy. Scott worked in the company’s financial planning and analysis team in the early days of mobile phone usage.

“It was a very exciting time,” she said. “Virgin Mobile was really successful because instead of being locked into a monthly plan, you could pay as you go, which was hugely popular with kids and people managing their cash.”

After two years, Scott took up a position with Australian entrepreneur John Valmorbida. The family business exported Australian wine to Seattle, which saw Scott successfully raise $10 million for the enterprise before settling in Seattle for seven years initially to work for the Click Wine Group.

Then came a five-year role at Expedia and its corporate travel arm, Egencia, which was later sold to American Express in 2021.

“I think in many ways this was my big break because I love technology,” Scott said.

“I was the first CFO of the corporate travel business.”

Despite its rapid growth, Egencia was losing money, “We’d lost $15 million the year before I arrived. Scott set about standardising business deal margins, leading a pricing strategy and evolving customer care costs to help the company break even within 18-months.

“That’s why we needed standardised deal templates, better pricing and heavy investment in technology. We just ground out better deals and reorganised the service to fit the sale.

“That was my first proper transformation.”

Shaping organisations

Scott’s second transformation was at Virgin Media. As the director of customer strategy, she worked closely with the CMO to carry out a customer-led transformation.

“We were the first people to introduce Wi-Fi on the London Underground, we had the fastest internet speed at the time, and we also introduced TiVo,” she said.

“We changed the experience with mobile, what you watched on TV and the speed of your Wi-Fi-based devices.” Liberty Media bought Virgin Media for a 24% share premium 18-months later.

After three years with Virgin Media, an opportunity arose at eBay in Switzerland. Scott and her young family relocated there for three years. Overseeing $1B in revenue, growth was driven by being first to develop a mobile-friendly eBay app.

Next came the relocation home to Australia and a digital transformation role at ANZ Bank. It was to be Scott’s third transformation.

“ANZ had an ambitious agenda including investment in data, revisiting its technology strategy and creating a venture capital vehicle. My team’s role was to build a balanced centralised multi-year roadmap backed by a long-term financial forecast, creating the narrative for change.”

“I admired the scale of transformation underway. After a year, I didn’t perceive the conditions for change were in place. It was time to move on.”

Powerful transformations

For a self-confessed nerd, a position at the Australian Bureau of Statistics was a dream come true. Her first Board role, Scott sat on the Statistical Project Transformation Board from 2018 until the project’s conclusion. The organisation was preparing a highly centralised IT system that was intended to simplify the job of statisticians and economists.

The transformation looked to be failing until the ABS pivoted and began concentrating on the customer experience.

“They thought through the customer orientation of how to make the gathering of statistics easier. Ultimately it was so successful when COVID required them to provide statistics not quarterly but bi-weekly, they could do it.” Scott said.

“The foundation of what the ABS did meant that they could support the whole nation during COVID, with economic data.”

Scott’s next stop was at Edmund Rice Education Australia, which oversees 59 Catholic schools, as Chief Operating Officer with a billion-dollar revenue. At the time, the organisation was rightly criticised for its governance and compliance regime. Change was imperative.

“EREA needed to change its governance. This was a structural transformation,” Scott said. “Decentralising the organisation has allowed each smaller organisation to respond to local requirements and focus on growth.”

It was to be another successful remodelling of a business for Scott, who moved to Vision Australia in an interim CFO role in 2025.  

She planned her sixth transformation for the charity that supports people with blindness and low vision, but it wasn’t meant to be. A change to the executive team saw plans slowly scrapped. “New CEO’s bring new strategy, and that’s OK” says Scott.

The setback hasn’t deterred Scott from moving forward. She has been understanding the next big change-maker – AI. Studying intelligence, meeting with former colleagues in the US, tapping into expert opinion, she now speaks about how AI will impact the Finance team and transform organisations. She is looking to bring her skills in the field to a new organisation ready to evolve.

“I think finance can be the ambassadors to the rest of the organisation to show that AI is a good thing,” she said.

“AI is going to change the game, allowing us to spend more time thinking and improving and less time on drudgery.”

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Jennifer’s THREE Tips for Steering a Transformation

Learn from failure >

“Transformation requires brilliant story-telling that takes the organisation to a strong lighthouse on the hill. It is hard, gruelling work. You have to be great at failure. You have to be great at pivoting. You have to accept that you will make mistakes. You have to be great at saying, ‘sorry’. Transformation never runs exactly as you expect it to.”

Make sure the team is motivated >

“There needs to be enough members of the Board and leadership team lined up and ready to transform. You need an urgent imperative. Positive imperatives are always more exciting than negative imperatives.”

Aim high >

“I’m always interested in how you maximise a business. How do you make the most returns? How do you improve the data? How do you provide great customer experience?”