Photo of me in a Finance cost center.
The sheepdog is part of the herd, but clearly not a sheep (and definitely not a wolf).
I spent all of my 8 years at Morgan Stanley in the global Finance organization. My actual work was managing / leading / doing global initiatives, risk, controls, projects, training, IT, cyber, SOX, new product governance, town halls, and even co-captained the dragon boat team.
I was also in the Finance Department with an Icelandic Bank and a UAE-based bank. Both times, my roles were >50% non-finance.
Finance departments are mission-critical. They perform vital services:
Financial statements, product control, regulatory reporting, valuation, FP&A, liquidity & capital, valuation, accounts payable / receivable, FX, tax reporting & planning, strategic financial advice for internal clients, and more.
Finance departments themselves can be complex organizations to run. They have internal clients to support, other support functions that require coordination, risks to control, incidents to manage, infrastructure to build and maintan, people that need training / development / performance management, and non-negotiable requirements from a vast array of stakeholders (internal / external audit, regulators in every conceivable jurisdiction, JV partners, clients, vendors, etc).
Sometimes you can’t tell a lot about a person by his or her cost center.
There can be a HUGE variation in scope among departmental Ops Officers, Admin Officers, Risk Officers… and Directors of Strategy Ops & Technology that roll up to the CFO organization.
Woof.
(Note: I passed the CPA exam. I have an accounting degree and a finance MBA. I worked in investment management, public accounting, and even launched a tokenized Cayman investment fund sold through licensed brokers in Hong Kong. I do finance well. It is the other stuff that really stands out from the finance herd.)