With a successful career that has taken him from posts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in both the United States and Egypt to multinational pharmaceutical giants including Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer, Sherif Fathy knows finance. He recently brought his expertise to Berzi Group, owners of the fast-moving consumer goods business that manufactures Molto, Bake Rolls and Hostess Snack Cakes, where he now holds the post of vice president and CFO.
Fathy also chairs the Egyptian Finance Executives Forum (EFEF), an organization that aims to spread awareness and promote best practices on issues including corporate governance and corporate social responsibility amongst the Egyptian business community. Edited excerpts:
I have always worked in the area of finance. At PwC I was an auditor. Then I moved on to various positions as finance manager, director and now as chief financial officer. In the past, finance was looked at as merely bookkeeping. Nowadays with all the mergers and acquisitions and the listings on the CASE, the finance department is becoming very significant. They are the ones that should project for the future.
My normal workday starts at 9am. Unfortunately, I usually stay in the office until really late. If I leave work at 5, my family is really surprised -- they think that I've been fired. After checking and answering my emails, I read all the finance, production and sales reports which I go through in full detail by brand. I look at things like brand promotions and sales targets on a daily basis. I have to always be aware because I might spot a problem which needs to be highlighted. At the end of the day, finance is a back-office support function. You have to facilitate all tasks within the operation. I think that to be a successful CFO, you have to be very business oriented. You have to be very close to all aspects of the business.
I have my own management style which has proven effective in every job that I have ever held. First and foremost you have to be a team player. Results cannot be achieved by a one-man show. The second important factor is delegation. I love being out of the office and finding that things are managing themselves in my absence. I am ecstatic when that happens. A lot of people are not like this. They start to think that they are dispensable and that scares them, when its actually quite the opposite. It just means that you have set up an effective system -- which is much harder than actually doing the work yourself.
I think that time management in Egypt leaves a lot to be desired. The concept of having an internal appointment amongst colleagues is almost unheard of. Anyone with a problem just comes in assuming that his problem must take precedence above anything else that you are doing. So interruptions are frequent, particularly mobile phone interruptions. If I need to think about an issue carefully, I wait until 3 or 4 o'clock when most people have left the office.
Meetings are not as productive as they should be. I always take minutes when I am in a meeting. When I review those minutes I rarely find that I am getting actual results. The meetings that I appreciate the most are the ones where you have a presentation for a monthly closing or any other specific issue to discuss.
I have several other responsibilities in addition to my main job such as the chairman of the EFEF. I am also a board member and treasurer of The Family Planning Association and I'm the Middle East consultant for NOOZZ, the business information portal. All these responsibilities mean that I have to work most weekends as well. I try to keep Fridays for myself but most Saturdays I do work.
One of the things that I really regret very much is that I have abandoned my hobby as a literature and art critic. I was a published and recognized critic and wrote regularly in publications like Rose Al-Youssef and a number of literary magazines. It was a world far from numbers that I used to really enjoy. I think it would be very difficult to go back to this again, but I do regret that.
Lately, I have started thinking seriously about revisiting the hectic lifestyle that I currently lead. Although I like all the activities that I am involved in and I believe strongly that a lot of good can be achieved as a result of these activities, I think that they may need to be streamlined a bit. When I was doing my MBA in the US in the early '80s, I really respected the fact that weekends there were sacred. This is very important, it helps you achieve a good mental balance. If you are always occupied with work and business-related issues and you never think of anything else, you lose a certain perspective on life.
By Hadia Mostafa
© Business Today Egypt 2007
