When talking about financial management, I primarily mean the efficient usage of one company’s resources through employee management and their motivation towards achieving common goals. This forms the core theme of the book, reflected in the title’s emphasis on «people» over «money». I firmly believe that employees are paramount, placing them above financial resources. Consequently, the theme of personnel management and motivation serves as the foundation for each chapter.

Asset management and risk controls are equally critical themes addressed in the book, permeating all aspects of a financial leader’s responsibilities. Given that finances constitute a company’s primary assets, risk control and threat prevention take precedence for financial directors. While the importance of both areas hardly needs affirmation, recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic, military conflicts, and sanctions against whole countries and specific businesses have underscored the superiority of these responsibilities, drawing the attention of company owners, boards of directors, executives, and financial professionals.

Here, when I refer to «financial professionals» I’m encompassing not only analysts and economists but also accounting staff, internal controls, ERP developers, methodologists, tax specialists, HR professionals, contract management specialists, and those involved in external document flow management, as well as lawyers. This broad spectrum of professionals provides internal service support for business operations. The exception, perhaps, would be network engineers and other IT professionals, although historically in Europe and the United States oversight of the IT department has often fallen under the CFO’s purview.

In this book, the financial department is viewed as a financial-operational unit facilitating the execution of the majority of functions related to operational digital infrastructure, decision support, organization of data collection, as well as preparation, and delivery of various reports through BI infrastructure, document management, liquidity management, internal controls, risk management, and much more.

While some may label this as the back office, I find such a definition overlooks contemporary business demands for flexibility, speed, and result-oriented motivation. My aim is to provide competitive and qualitative internal and external service functions necessary for the successful and most comfortable conduct of business and the support of commercial operations.

Therefore, the internal financial-operational service (client-centric, understanding business processes, oriented toward quality results) I establish in each company focuses not only on transaction processing, report preparation, and backing up the commercial function, but also on strategically ensuring the continuous functioning of the business, supporting its stable and predictable development.

Many companies lack a strategic approach to operations and finance management, as well as a service-oriented, modern, harmonious focus on comprehensive development and consideration of the interests of all parties while remaining customer-oriented. By prioritizing these goals, you can plan the transition to a new stage of personal and company development, identifying the essentials in the organization’s activities, and preparing for the future accordingly. This book will assist you in meeting these challenges.

Why is financial management necessary? I open this book with a seemingly paradoxical question. While the answer may appear self-evident, in practice it’s not always so.