Finance ‘Super Hub’ Cities to Draw in Top Talent

The findings were released at the conference themed The Future in Finance Talents is organized by The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) on August 18 in Ho Chi Minh City.

The event will rally more than 350 representatives of representatives from international and domestic financial associations, chief executive officers, chief financial officers, and financial leaders.

On this conference, ACCA R&I report “The Future of Finance Talents” suggests a number of trends that could affect talent management in the future. The seven trends are: Rise of finance ‘super delivery’ hubs; Locational strategy of finance operations is now shifting from cost to capability; Revolutionising technology and robotic software; Traction moving to global business services; The push to more effective global workforce planning; The ‘hollowing out’ of the finance workforce; and Increasing performance expectations from the finance organisation.

The report also suggests that access to talent may take precedence over cost as one of the primary drivers for the locational strategy of global business service and outsourcing finance operations in the future, as well as significantly altering the demographic profile across global finance functions.

Ms. Lucia Real Martin, Director, Emerging Markets, ACCA said that 'New contenders may be excluded from the finance delivery map. Young finance professionals in these aspiring ‘hubs’ might find fewer opportunities as the largest businesses concentrate in a few key cities for most of their finance operations. There is also a concentration risk with further consolidation of finance operations into particular locations

The implications of these findings were discussed in the conference’s panel discussion. Panelists include Mr. Jon Whitehead, Country Manager, Robert Walters, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son, General Director, T&A Ogilvy and Ms. Lucia Real Martin, Director, Emerging Markets, ACCA.