CIOs, CFOs must collaborate, panel says

As financial management systems evolve, chief financial and chief information officers must collaborate because technology and financial systems are becoming intertwined, members of a panel said.

“The CFO community can’t do this on their own,” said Adam Goldberg, financial integrity and analysis branch chief at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Goldberg was a panelist July 19 at an Industry Advisory Council/American Council for Technology meeting that looked at how financial management systems are becoming more modern.

CIOs and CFOs need to leave their egos at the door as financial and technology systems more often rely on one another, said panelist Lisa Fiely, CFO at the U.S. Agency for International Development. The job is too large to have officials knocking heads over smaller issues, she said.

“Each of us needs the other one,” Fiely said.

Goldberg said CIOs and CFOs should share responsibility for the tasks and hold one another accountable for accomplishing them. Know the requirements that affect only the agency and business requirements that depend on sources outside it, he said. Officials must understand the business processes and decide how to make them consistent agencywide, Goldberg added. The byproduct will be clean audits.

When problems arise, make the most of solutions other agencies successfully applied, Goldberg said.

“It’s not like we’re making different mistakes,” he said.