Beijing—(Busienss Wire)--Way back in 1890, guess who the United States assumed the title as world’s largest economy from?

Not traditional powerhouses like Britain, France or Spain but China. And with the Chinese economy set to regain the title once again by the 2015 according to Goldman Sachs and the World Bank.

With surmountable growth expected over the next 15 years in China, how has the role of CFO’s in the country changed. 75 percent of today’s CFOs are now assuming a greater role in a firm’s management strategy.

China, as everyone knows, is one of the world’s most popular investment destinations, and when the economy is doing well there are plenty of challenges that CFO have to overcome besides keeping the firm’s bottom line healthy. Meanwhile, China is a unique market and has its own characteristics due to constantly changing policies and nontransparent business environment, which makes business planning difficult.

Nina Tan, CFO of Jurong Port, believes that an effective CFO should endeavor to bring a positive professional collaboration and positive influence to CEO in delivering business results not just processing the financial results and managing risk.

“A key challenge a CFO faces is to add value to the business line in the midst of a business environment that requires stronger governance, increased transparency to shareholders in the midst of new government regulations; which in turn leads to increased demand by colleagues for voluminous data to justify decisions or actions taken. This may result in stretching the CFO too thin that there may be insufficient resource left to participate in strategic planning for growth, operation analysis for cost effectiveness and be an insightful counsel to the CEO.” Nina said.

“With changing regulatory demands, volatile economic circumstances and complex market conditions, function-specific finance positions can be created or groomed within to support CFO in fulfilling finance systems, compliance and risk management functions.

It is also worthwhile getting company business leaders to acknowledge and buy in on the need to focus and prioritize activities that add maximum value.” She added.

Nina Tan, CFO of Jurong Port. She will be speaking at the CFO China Summit along with Tan Li Xia, CFO of Haier Group and Ms Liu Xinyi, CFO OF Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

For more information on the conference visit www.cfo-chinasummit.com

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