Creating the go-to team: accounting experts can be seen as friends or foes by the other functional units within an organization. CMA Glen LeBlanc has positioned the financial expertise of his team as a critical component of every department's success at Aliant. Senior management has never had such good neighbours.

Few industries have changed more rapidly than telecommunications over the past 15 years. From the introduction of the competitive long distance market in 1992, the launch of cellular in 1987, Internet in 1995, to the ascendance of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), telcos have faced unique strategic challenges at every turn.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Glen LeBlanc, CMA, has been at the centre of this change for the past 12 years, working his way up through the finance function at Maritime Tel & Tel, and then, after the merger of the four major Atlantic telcos, with parent company Aliant. Now, as vice-president of finance and controller, he is part of the team that is transforming the business to meet the needs of a leaner, more efficient operating structure.

Better structure, better staff

Transforming, in this case, meant redefining the finance function and the way that the finance team provided service to their stakeholders across the business. Based on his training as a management accountant, LeBlanc believed that the organization would get far more value from him and his team as partners than policemen. Yet, while working his way up through Aliant, he found that he was viewed, occasionally, as an enforcer.

"I always felt that our job in finance should be to minimize the roadblocks to allow people across the organization to focus on advancing our business agenda. In the past, we were often seen as policemen, looking to catch someone doing something wrong," he recalls.

"This is something that baffled me. Look, if someone builds a radar gun, someone else is going to build a radar detector. Business people will try to work around the road-blocks put in front of them."

This traditional view of accountants in an organization isn't uncommon when they're isolated and left out of critical business decision-making processes. Unfortunately, examples of this aren't uncommon either. Only recently have many companies come to realize the strategic function that their finance people play. No longer strictly the people who tell you what you can't do, given the right information, they're opening doors of opportunity for the organization.

When LeBlanc became VP of finance, his goal was to make his team a critical partner in the business by integrating the finance function throughout the business.

"The telecommunications industry is changing rapidly," he explains. "Competition is at a level that we have never seen in the past. Think of the change in the pricing model--long distance is now becoming a commodity, almost all-you-can-use virtually free. As a business, we had to change our underlying cost structure. This was one of the main reasons for the merger of the four Atlantic telcos. But to do this successfully, my people had to understand the business."

His people are a diverse team of 350, working in more than 35 locations across Atlantic Canada to keep the $3.5 billion public company agile and efficient. To help them do this, LeBlanc created a divisional controller position in every department--a finance leader for every senior manager in the company. "This placed an accounting professional at the table in every senior operational meeting. From customer service to engineering, each had a go-to finance professional," LeBlanc says.

This didn't only benefit the senior managers who were given more direct access to strategic financial advice; the finance staff benefited too. "It educated my team to understand that it's one thing to have technical skills, but you need to know the whole business to create change," says LeBlanc. "We, as a department, started to reveal our value by demonstrating good business acumen and skill with numbers. That combination isn't as common as you might think."

LeBlanc, in some ways, is a victim of his own success--now, senior management wants his people everywhere. "They're saying, we want you here because you're helping me make better business decisions," he explains. "We're helping them understand where the business opportunities are.

"The byproduct of that demand is that my staff is better," he continues. "They are able to slice the P & L, divide it differently, and demonstrate they have a laser insight into where the business is going. They also feel more valued because they are contributing to running the business and can see the difference they're making."

While the finance team is valued by the other business units, its members are also given proper respect by their leader--when they have to make tough decisions and say no to their division managers, LeBlanc is there to back them up.

Empowered leaders

Leadership is at the heart of the success of this reorganization. And yet leadership development is something LeBlanc feels we don't invest nearly enough in. "How much energy do we really put into being and creating leaders? Hardly any," he says.

"A great leader selects great talent and is never afraid of hiring someone more knowledgeable on issues than they are," LeBlanc insists. "If you surround yourself with talent, you'll assure your own success. You have to be motivational and supportive, and never compromise your principles or beliefs."

But growing raw talent isn't always easy either. Employees have to understand what it takes to succeed within an organization to create the focus necessary to excel. This is a problem LeBlanc had to tackle head-on when he started to revamp the finance function.

"The concept of the divisional controller was built on the fly," he accepts. "Because of this, employees struggled to understand how to move through the organization. They were asking, what makes a business analyst different from a divisional controller? They wanted to know how to climb that ladder."

To make it clearer, Project Stepping Stone (PSS) was launched. LeBlanc and his senior staff are creating a detailed framework of job expectations--technical, management and leadership competencies necessary for each role within the finance organization.

"It helps show employees where they stand in the organization, and where we see them fitting in the long term," LeBlanc explains. "From that, we can help them build a development plan to get there. It clearly explains how people can grow in the organization."

For LeBlanc, it's important that employees grow at a speed that they can manage.

"We had a fabulous employee a number of years ago at a very junior level," he recalls. "She was promoted several times over a period of about three to four years. Unfortunately, she eventually left the company as her skills no longer met the requirements of the advanced role. That caused me to stop and think; what could we have done to better support her career path? I don't ever want that to happen again.

"Our system allows employees to participate in selecting their career path so they're not doing something they shouldn't or don't want to do," LeBlanc continues. "Some people see the career path we see for them and say, 'if that's where I have to grow to, I don't think I can,' or, 'I don't really want to go there.' That's good, even though people might decide to leave the department or company; we must have agreement on career pathing. Most times it puts responsibility in the hands of the person it should be in, the employee. And we're starting to see results. We're building more talented people in roles for which they are properly suited."

Balancing stakeholder needs

LeBlanc himself leads by example. Not only does he hire bright people, he keeps himself well informed of changes in the telecom industry--attending conferences and business conventions so that he better understands the latest wireless and broadband technology that's at the heart of today's telecom industry. Knowledge is power, and LeBlanc uses that power to keep Aliant competitive.

In 2003 alone, his teamwork and business expertise assisted in the generation of $411 million in free cash flow from operations. Using a portion of these funds, Aliant was able to repurchase over 6.5 million shares, returning $201 million to shareholders through normal course issuer bid programs. In that year, Aliant's earnings per share from continuing operations were $1.35, up 32.4% from 2002--Aliant was able to deliver a 31.7% total return when combining both dividends and share price appreciation.

In his role as a senior financial executive in the past five years, LeBlanc has supported productivity savings of $288 million. At the same time, he has made his department a more engaging place to work, which has been demonstrated in the company's annual employee value surveys. These surveys calculate the company's employee value index (EVI). LeBlanc has taken finance from having the second lowest EVI score internally to one of the highest in just over two years. He has done this by working with 40 volunteers in his department, improving several key areas, including the development of a rewards and recognition program, improving communications with staff, hosting quarterly town halls with extensive question and answer sessions, and creating the PSS program.

"Every business has customers, employees and shareholders," says LeBlanc. "Shareholders want adequate return on investment, customers want one-stop shopping and simpli-city, and employees want an organization they can be proud to work for. This is the essential balancing act that we have to focus on. To be successful, you need bright people, and bright people will generally come to the same conclusion given the same complement of information. With partnership within an organization, good lines of communication, you can make this happen."

Of course, not everyone can manage this as successfully as Glen LeBlanc. This is one reason why he was named to the Report On Business' Top 40 under 40 this year. And the reason for this is best summed up by Steven Bird, CMA, a director of financial services at Aliant--"If there was one word that I would use to describe Glen; he is the epitome of a leader."

Robert Colman is editor-in-chief of CMA Management.