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Four tips for ‘good to great’ career progressions

Vertex Inc.

To understand how successful leaders maximise their effectiveness, it’s helpful to know how they shape and expand their role over time. This McKinsey report looks at how leaders shift into a higher gear in the middle years of their tenures. Based on interviews with eight former finance leaders reflecting on their roles two years in and later, the report contains career-management insights that are also relevant for tax leaders. 

McKinsey outlines four key moves for faster, smarter, bolder leadership that helped finance leaders ascend to a new level of performance: 

  1. Reinvent your organisation – and yourself: As businesses pursue growth, investments in infrastructure tend to lag, until pain points accumulate and it’s time to look for different ways of working and resource optimisation. Several of the execs interviewed by McKinsey said that they looked outside their organisation, to their peers in other businesses, for inspiration. External input can help you benchmark your competencies and approaches while gleaning insights in complex areas such as cybersecurity, performance management or M&A. It can also help you polish skills and re-examine beliefs. For example, you may find you want to consider using reverse mentoring – requesting feedback from two or three subordinates you trust – to help you improve as a leader. 
  2. Collaborate with your CFO (or CEO) on a new strategic aspiration: Mid-tenure tax leaders can help their CFOs and CEOs reevaluate strategic directions and understand how, where and why value gets created. Tax leaders have unique perspectives on customers, markets, risks and opportunities to better position the business for long-term growth. 
  3. Reevaluate your team and develop future leaders: As the organisation’s priorities shift, especially during new growth phases, you may need different capabilities on your team, which might require reassigning people from their current roles. Assess talent quickly, identify what your future organisation looks like and get HR on board as a partner. In addition, you’ll want to think about how you can develop future leaders and your potential successor. Two-to-three-year rotations can be helpful here. Encourage your staffers to expand their broader business knowledge and develop their ability to motivate and coach a team.  
  4. Expand your horizons: You can enhance your department’s value by broadening your perspective to include the company's overall environment, lifecycle and financial status. Participating in cross-enterprise tasks such as finance digitalisation and IT transformation projects can help you build close relationships with other senior leaders and hone your influencing skills (which can help advance tax transformation initiatives). You may want to consider joining the board of a non-competing company: an experience that can spark fresh ideas and give you a sense of what’s possible.

Disclaimer

Please remember that the Vertex blog provides information for educational purposes, not specific tax or legal advice. Always consult a qualified tax or legal advisor before taking any action based on this information. The views and opinions expressed in the Vertex blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position or opinion of Vertex Inc.

Blog Author

Michael J. Bernard, Chief Tax Officer – Transaction Tax at Vertex Inc. Vertex's Chief Tax Office (CTO) provides insight regarding the impact of tax regulations, policy, enforcement, and emerging technology trends on global tax department operations.

Michael J. Bernard

Chief Tax Officer, Transaction Tax

See All Resources by Michael

Michael Bernard is the Chief Tax Officer of Transaction Tax. In his role, he provides insight and thought leadership around tax department operations, U.S. indirect tax, tax risk management, and tax policy, as well as emerging tax trends. He is an executive-level tax attorney with a diverse portfolio of experience in corporate tax, administration, and finance, including a substantive knowledge of U.S. and international tax laws.

Prior to joining Vertex, Michael was in various tax leadership roles at Microsoft Corporation for 28 years, the most recent being Senior Director – Tax Counsel. Michael led teams in the following functional areas: direct and indirect tax controversy, sales and use, business license, property, tax IT, SOX, and telecommunications. He also co-led a corporate taxpayer advocacy group with the Washington Department of Revenue and was a Director on the Board of the Washington Research Council. Michael has also testified before administrative and lawmakers at both the federal and state level.

Michael earned both a J.D. and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Creighton University. He is a part-time lecturer of Law in the LLM program at the University of Washington School of Law. Michael also served on the board of directors, executive committee, and chaired committees for The Tax Executives Institute (TEI) for nearly 25 years.

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