Although it is now a recognized view that the CFO is a strategic partner to the CEO, Bea Ordonez, CFO of financial services company Payoneer, says finance executives are expected to further expand their skill sets. Ordonez notes that CFOs are increasingly expected to be "innovation advocates" while also serving as strategic leaders of the enterprise—a dual role that requires finance chiefs to think deeply about how to best deploy their organization's data.

"CFOs are truly taking ownership of these initiatives internally and helping companies position data as a strategic asset," Ordonez said in an interview.

Doing the boring work well

The CFO's new role as an innovation advocate is the latest reflection of a job that has evolved far beyond traditional areas such as budgeting, accounting, and finance. Take Ordonez, who joined Payoneer in 2023: the New York-based transfer and digital payments provider has consolidated many operational responsibilities under the CFO office. She says this reflects the ongoing expansion of the finance chief's role, which now encompasses not only operations but also risk and compliance, M&A, and other strategic areas.

"I probably have a slightly quirky and nerdy love for the operational side of financial services companies, because I think they represent the real problem of how to externalize services to customers in an efficient, frictionless way," she said.

Ordonez's career has also given her key experience in operations and other areas that have increasingly fallen under the CFO's remit. She began her career at accounting firms Arthur Andersen and PricewaterhouseCoopers, then worked as a client manager at Marsh & McLennan Companies before her "restless feet" took her through various finance and operations roles. According to her LinkedIn profile, these include serving as CFO of startup broker G-Trade, COO and managing director at financial services firm Convergex, CFO and EVP at Sterling National Bank, and chief innovation officer at Webster Bank, until she took the top finance role at Payoneer in 2023.

Throughout her roles in various executive positions, Ordonez has "always worked at the intersection of regulated financial services and technology, often at a relatively early stage," she said.

As the CFO's remit has evolved, so has the overall role of the finance function within the business. Ensuring that the organization can strategically leverage data is central to the team's effectiveness.

"I think now you should use the power of data to make sure your FP&A team and finance organization can gain insights, not just process numbers," Ordonez said. However, before that, finance chiefs need to ensure that the company can access this information clearly and conveniently.

"Data only becomes useful and an asset after you do all the boring work—making it readable, accessible, a single source of truth, properly cataloged, and so on," Ordonez said. "So supporting these seemingly mundane foundational efforts, including the investments needed to enable transformation, is a crucial first step."

Once that foundation is established—which Ordonez acknowledges can be a lengthy and costly process—the CFO can enable various parts of the business to start using that data for future projects and innovation. In finance, for example, this foundation supports more agile scenario planning, while product teams can use data to better drive customer engagement.

Taking a modular approach

In the current macroeconomic environment, agile scenario planning is increasingly critical for businesses, as companies across industries navigate large-scale changes—whether regulatory or technological. Take the payments industry: Ordonez says the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digitalization, but she notes that certain segments, such as cross-border payments, remain relatively cumbersome and opaque. Completing such transactions often requires multiple entities and spans multiple platforms, creating a complex environment for users and payment participants.

Therefore, "looking at Payoneer, what we have built over our 20 years of business, especially in how we connect with the ecosystem of providers, has become very modular," she said. Amid the complex mix of new and legacy payment technologies and rails, the company strives to "integrate the services of multiple participants to best meet customer needs."

Payoneer, like card network Mastercard and payment peer PayPal, is also exploring the potential use of stablecoins in B2B payments, as previously reported by Payments Dive, a sister publication of CFO Dive. Ordonez says the company currently views stablecoins as a "complement" to its core business, with some customer interest, but challenges remain in this area, especially the infrastructure needed to use such assets as a payment rail at scale.

"We see stablecoins as a very powerful rail in our ecosystem, but the last-mile infrastructure is still a key challenge that participants need to solve," she said.