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An equal among peers: Juniper Networks global CFO, Robyn Denholm

An equal among peers: Juniper Networks global CFO, Robyn Denholm

The global executive VP and CFO of Juniper Networks, Robyn Denholm, talks about how CFOs can be more strategic business leaders, the importance of technology and why customer innovation is at the heart of her role at the networking giant

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Australian-born Denholm commenced her career with Arthur Andersen and is an Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia fellow. She spent several years with the accounting firm before joining Toyota Australia for eight years, then switching to technology and Sun Microsystems in Australia and Asia-Pacific, before relocating to the United States in 2001. She was there 12 years, working her way up to head of strategic corporate planning on the executive team, and joined Juniper in 2007 as CFO.

Today, Denholm sits on a number of CFO roundtables and is involved in several peer-led events, sharing her insights into how CFOs can become more strategic partners in the business. Her efforts have also been recognised by the wider industry through various accolades, including being added to the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Women of Influence list, listing as a finalist for Bay Area CFO of the Year in 2011, and joining the Profiles in Diversity Journal Women Worth Watching list in 2010.

Denholm has also served as a steering committee member for the Wall Street Journal CFO Network since its inauguration and served on the board of directors of Echelon Corporation since 2008. While being a spokesperson wasn’t something she initially focused on, Denholm has grown to appreciate its importance and claimed finance and marketing leaders share common elements that should be better recognised.

“When I’m out talking to investors about our company, yes it’s about the numbers and yes it’s about the performance of the company, but I’m also talking marketing our position,” she said.

“Six or seven years ago I might have put this as the ninth or tenth thing on my to-do list, but today I’d put it higher than that. It is important not just externally but also internally. One of the things I’m doing in Australia is talking to employees about what is going on in the company, what’s going on externally and in the industry environment, what our results reflect about our performance, and what is going well.

“A lot of that outreach is the responsibility of the CFO, just like it is for the CEO, CMO and the head of sales. As a team, we all own that both internally and externally.”

Given technology is at the heart of Juniper’s business model, it’s not surprising to hear technology is also helping the organisation innovate operationally. Current projects include business transformation based on better data utilisation, as well as arming its field teams with competitive intelligence to improve their performance.

“We’ve also just built a new campus in our headquarters area in Sunnyvale and we’re leveraging all the latest networking capabilities to create different campus environments,” Denholm said. “We will then roll that out globally.

“Technology is a very important enabler for the workers of an individual company to be more productive, to get a higher level of satisfaction from the work they do and to see the output of that in the company results.”

Whatever the new technologies and financial challenges thrown her way, Denholm’s focus remains on ensuring Juniper can build the best products and deliver those to market. “It comes back to delivering the market share growth we need to as a company to continue to outpace the market, and from a financial and operational perspective, having all those pieces aligned and business processes transformed so we can scale to meet the needs of the organisation,” she said.

“On the customer side, it’s ensuring we can continue to deliver against things we are telling them we can with our technologies. All of those priorities are encapsulated in my personal agenda as a CFO.”

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Tags juniper networksCFO rolefinance careersstrategic leadership

More about Accenture AustraliaAndersenAndersenAndrew Corporation (Australia)Arthur AndersenBrisbane Airport CorporationEchelonFacebookJuniper NetworksOracleSAP AustraliaSun MicrosystemsTechnologyToyota Motor Corp AustWall Street

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