The New CFO Resume: How to Be a Strategic Thought Partner

Blue Shield of California CFO and endurance athlete Mike Stuart shares new requirements for today's financial leaders.

If being a CFO is a marathon not a sprint, then being a new kind of CFO might just be an ultra-marathon.

Mike Stuart would know. The Blue Shield of California CFO is an ultra-athlete who loves a challenge, intellectual and physical. He’s completed multiple long-distance and endurance races in his years as a financial officer. When the pandemic shut races down, Stuart created his own: running every street in his hometown and organizing an unofficial two-person marathon to raise money for a local food bank.

“People have asked me ‘Why do you do these things? They seem hard.’ It’s because the lessons apply not just to personal growth but professional. When you do hard things, you learn more about what you can do.”

In this exclusive interview with HealthLeaders, Stuart shares the skill set and the mindset that today’s healthcare CFOs must demonstrate.

The Triathlon: Three skills for CFO strategic thought leadership

“More than ever, a key part of the Chief Financial Officer role is being a highly effective strategic thought partner for the senior leadership team,” says Stuart. “I think it’s become more of the expectation for a high-performing CFO.”

Stuart has had time to think about this during his many triathlons, including Ironman Lake Tahoe 2015, Ironman Sacramento 2023, Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, and Wildflower. He’s not sure at what point along those swims, bikes, and runs that the need for a new kind of CFO emerged, but he’s well-versed in what it requires.

“I’d say probably for the last 10 years there’s been more dialog and discussion around the emerging role of CFO. It’s well beyond managing the finances and reporting on the numbers. It’s understanding the business and effectively calling out the opportunities, the risks — and most importantly, what we do about them.”

Like the three legs of a triathlon, Stuart has identified three skills CFOs need to lean into their strategic leadership role:

• Integrated planning
• Collaboration
• Communication

“Establishing and maintaining a truly integrated planning process is critical: Strategic, financial and operational,” notes Stuart, adding:

“All too often, there can be disconnects between the different handoffs. The CFO and their function play a key, coordinating role because the CFO team tends to have interactions with all parts of the company. It’s important to ensure things are connected — all the way from a strategy formation perspective so you can hit the milestones and hit the outcomes.”

Also critical is understanding your business partners and their operations, or as Stuart describes it: “really leaning in and getting curious as to what it takes for them to be successful.” 

“When we're at a table together trying to take a different path forward, it isn't a one-way dialog — it’s what do we need to do to be successful together, to really make an impact for our members and patients.”

Stuart adds: “This requires a level of communication that I’ve found to be really fascinating.”

“As a finance professional, being a highly effective communicator is more important than ever. Health plans are a complex business. Never assume that everyone understands all of the nuances. Taking the time to set context and educate people is really, really important.”

The Marathon/Ultra: How CFOs meet healthcare’s biggest challenges

In addition to triathlons, Mike Stuart has run multiple long-distance races: Los Angeles Marathon (his first at age 22), San Franciso Marathon, North Face San Franciso Endurance Challenge 50k and Marathon, and several Way Too Cool 50ks.

Ultra-race performance may not be quite the same as health plan CFO performance, but both require a shift in perspective:  

• Knowing the status quo: “It’s really hard to change how the industry is structured. It’s inherently flawed, and there are misaligned incentives. The trajectory, from a cost or affordability perspective, is unsustainable.”
• Challenging the status quo: “Getting that to shift is going to require a lot of collaboration with all sectors of the industry. We’re at that inflection point. It needs to change and it needs to change now.”
• Changing the status quo: “You’re going to need to take some risks, to assess and select the right opportunities — whether it’s new ventures or partnerships. Making significant investments in more innovative, transformational initiatives is going to be critical.”

The Adventure: How to become a CFO strategic thought partner

Beyond triathlons, marathons and ultras, even Stuart’s favorite hikes are epic: from the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim run and bikepacking the Lake Tahoe Rim Trail to the GORUCK Tough Challenge and 29029 Everesting.

Stuart may not be able to choose every adventure, but he has great advice for other strategically minded CFOs:

• Thought: “Be a continuous learner, not just within the Finance domain. Really understand the business.”

• Action: “Have a strong bias toward action” — This goes back to Finance teams seeing a lot and doing something about what you’re seeing, whether at risk or opportunity, is critical and needed.”
• Intention: “Work beyond your job description. If you see an opportunity, pursue it. That gets noticed. It adds value.”

Stuart adds: “Finance teams see a lot of data and information. They tend to know where the risks are, where the opportunities are. There’s a great need for the Finance team, the CFO, to communicate them back to the organization — not just sharing information but really having insights into what to do with it and in a way that can be absorbed, digested and acted upon.

The Results: Being a CFO at Blue Shield

As a strategic partner, Stuart applies thought, action and intention to key efforts at his plan, Blue Shield of California:

• Know the Score (KTS): Described as “the fastest 30 minutes at Blue Shield,” the KTS monthly call makes teams aware of plan performance, how the business works, and how their work connects to sustainable outcomes.
• 2% Pledge: As a nonprofit, Blue Shield caps its income at 2% of revenue.
• A Different Kind of Value: “‘What does it mean to be a finance professional in a nonprofit? We're not publicly traded. Rather than measuring shareholder value, are we driving and increasing member value? Are we making access to high-quality healthcare more affordable? You can quantify that, and it really helps us prioritize.”

“It’s all a challenge, but it’s also really rewarding work because making things more affordable impacts everybody. That’s top of mind for me.”

Relating these professional goals to his personal ones, Stuart adds a final piece of advice for emerging CFOs: “You’re building a muscle and confidence. You go from ‘Wow, this is really uncomfortable’ to ‘This is exciting.’”

“Just do a few reps. You’re going to figure it out and get to the end of the project or the race and come out stronger for having grown.”