Comment / Handing on the baton

Owen (pictured below with trustees and HFMA staff at a recent board meeting at Stormont) has been an outstanding president. He was vice president for an unprecedented – and turbulent – three years. I valued his wisdom and counsel throughout that period and his contributions to our agenda were significant.

This was on top of him being a busy deputy chief executive and chief finance officer in a system quite different from England. Despite his distance from mainland Britain, Owen has been ever-present at branch conferences, whether face-to-face or virtual. So a big thank you to Owen. We benefit from his wisdom on the HFMA board for a few more years yet.

So, on to our next leader, Lee Bond. It’s been great getting to know Lee over the past few years. His call to arms with Strength in numbers will no doubt resonate with the finance function as we face the coming year.

I have just returned, with Lee and Bill Gregory, from representing the association at the Australian HFMA annual conference. In one session, as we listened to chief finance officers from across Australia, the facilitator noted down the many pressures on leaders. I commented that, other than the acronyms and accents, I could have been in a meeting with chief finance officers anywhere in the UK. The problems are largely the same. 

Okay, Australia takes rurality to the extreme, and is about 30 times the size of the UK. And it does have a private sector that seems to run alongside the public offering much more visibly than our own. But other than that, its challenges are around balancing the books, access to capital, capacity and workforce.

It was great to spend time with our Australian colleagues and encouraging them. Now that our relationship is fully re-established, we have a few ideas for sharing best practice across our two organisations.

By the time you read this magazine, the annual conference will be upon us – and it looks like it will be a big one. We are close to capacity and that’s great because it shows the association is alive and well.

As we go into 2023, with all that’s going on politically, and amid the economic challenges we face as a country, we need each other. We need to come together and associate. There are many learning and networking opportunities available throughout the HFMA and some new ones will be announced at the conference.

But what about you? Is there anything you’d like to do in our vast structure of boards, committees, branches and education offerings? There may be a ‘you sized’ opportunity within either the HFMA or One NHS Finance. So don’t just join; join in.

Have a great festive period and tremendous 2023. We look forward to seeing you then!