FM editor-in-chief Oliver Rowe details the content in the April digital edition of FM. He begins with an article on setting up an AI governance policy and another on the mistakes companies make related to AI policies.
This episode also summarises articles on how to use salary benchmarking sites and other resources to determine what you’re worth and on ensuring a board’s capability meets the organisation’s business needs.
The conversation closes with an explanation of how members can access the April digital edition as well as the issue library.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- Details on two articles related to AI policies.
- A preview of a CIMA member’s article on taking a strategic look at a board’s makeup to suit business needs.
- Other highlighted topics from the April digital edition.
- How CGMA professionals can access digital editions of FM.
Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Neil Amato: Oliver Rowe, the FM editor-in-chief, is our guest on this edition of the FM podcast. I’m Neil Amato with FM, and today we’re going to discuss the April digital edition. Oliver, good to have you back on the podcast.
Oliver Rowe: Thanks, Neil, and great to discuss the latest digital edition.
Amato: Great. We know that AI and automation can help provide companies with a competitive edge, but an overreliance on AI can also create problems. AI is pretty much everywhere these days, and the April digital edition has coverage of the topic. Can you tell me, I guess, two aspects of that coverage in the edition?
Rowe: Thanks, Neil. Yes, of course, we’ve got AI governance, really important topic. We’ve got two articles in the edition, “4 Steps for Businesses to Establish an AI Governance Policy” and “5 Mistakes Companies Make on AI Policy”. Two different articles on this same topic. Just a quick overview of both of them: the four steps to establish an AI governance policy — the article describes what AI governance is and common governance models. The ISO 42001, the international standard for AI management systems. It also talks about the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which was adopted in 2024. It talks about the AI risk management framework and also about the COSO Enterprise Risk Management framework in order to implement and operate AI controls.
The article talks to experts who are CGMA professionals, and it has a section implementing AI governance step by step. It describes four steps there. Just to give you a couple, firstly, set the overall governance structure. Whether that’s centralised decision-making, decentralised, or a hybrid, what’s described as a hub-and-spoke model. Then the second part is to map systems and risks, and there’s also monitoring risks as part of this.
Amato: Yes, that’s the first article, “4 Steps for Businesses to Establish an AI Governance Policy”. What about the second article, “5 Mistakes Companies Make on AI Policy”?
Rowe: Absolutely, Neil, this second article, five mistakes … just to give you a couple of them, the basic one is not having a policy at all or worse creating one but not communicating it appropriately with your employees and stakeholders. There’s also a mistake companies can make about insufficient or ambiguous accountability for the policies, and that may lead to delayed actions or increased liabilities. That’s just a couple of those five mistakes. The article also doesn’t just criticise. It provides several points as a checklist for listeners’ own AI policy.
Amato: Great. Now, moving from AI governance to overall governance, a CIMA member is writing about corporate boards and taking a strategic approach to board recruitment and renewal. What are some of the particulars in that article?
Rowe: The article is “How to Ensure Board Capability Meets Business Needs”. It’s by Anthony Boateng, as you say, a CIMA member. It’s about taking a strategic look at refreshing the board’s makeup. It looks at each stage of the business life cycle and the capabilities the board needs for each of those. You’ve got the initial growth stage, where there’s rapid development and market establishment, then the growth stage and then maturity, and then you reach an inflection.
Anthony Boateng concludes the article by saying, “Those who embrace this strategic approach create businesses capable of navigating multiple life cycles, while those who stick to static board composition risk entering the final stage of their life cycle.”
Amato: Thank you for that summary. This is a topic that I would say should resonate with all finance professionals, the headline, “How to Determine What You’re Worth”. I think I know by that headline maybe who wrote this article, but I’ll let you give the details on it.
Rowe: That’s right, Neil. It’s another article by Rhymer Rigby, very practical. The advice here is if you’re trying to work out what you think you’re worth or what you’re worth, there are company resources, your own company resources. There might be pay bands; the company might practise pay transparency. There are also resources outside your company.There are websites available for salary benchmarking, CV analysis tools, job ads, and pay statistics published by governments and research bodies. You can also talk to your network and recruitment consultants as well.
The article also warns against making direct comparisons with other roles within your company. There’s also advice in the article, which it’s a broad article, how to approach your boss if you think you’re significantly underpaid. Also slightly surprisingly, what if I discover I’m being overpaid, and there are downsides to this. It can be difficult to leave a job where you’re overpaid to reach a similar salary elsewhere, and you also may not be receiving much in the way of pay rises in that current role.
Amato: We’ve talked about AI, we’ve talked about corporate governance, how to determine what you’re worth. What are some other highlights of articles in the April edition?
Rowe: Among the other highlights, there’s one I’d really like to flag up, and that’s a picture-led article at the back of the edition with video, and it’s got the title, got the headline, “Cool Business”. It describes one innovation seeing fast-growing demand, which is cold chains and infrastructure.
This is what maintains perishable and temperature-sensitive products at their optimum temperature from harvest onwards in warmer parts of the world. The photo is of cabbage harvesting in Kenya, as an example, and how refrigeration — the cold part of the cold chain — is used to move those products, that produce, to the market. Cold chains are also important for vaccines.
Amato: Great. Thank you for that highlight there. It’s a good global topic for sure. Remind the members, how can they access the digital editions, both this one and the library of past editions?
Rowe: Absolutely. There’s several ways as always to access the FM digital editions, which are for CGMA professionals. You can go direct to the AICPA and CIMA website at aicpa-cima.com. From the main menu, go to Resources and then Publications, and you’ll see Financial Management magazine. There’s also a link on the homepage of the FM website, which is at fm-magazine.com. Also for each digital edition, there’s the FM email alerting members to that.
Amato: That’s the April rundown with FM editor-in-chief Oliver Rowe. We’ll talk to him again on the podcast in June. Oliver, thank you very much.
