In this next episode of the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast, Heidrick & Struggles’ Sean McLean speaks to Theresa Roessel, the CFO of Canada Diagnostic Centres, about her 30-year career journey in finance. Theresa has led large global teams through strategic, collaborative leadership and proactive approaches to complex business issues. She has worked as CFO at the Calgary Zoo, as well as with CNOOC International. She also has served on the board of the Canadian Red Cross, among many others.

In this conversation, Theresa shares her journey and discusses the leadership capabilities that have helped her succeed and navigate changes, as well as how the finance function is adapting to evolving AI tools and capabilities, how her board experience has impacted how she approaches her executive mandates, and what organizations can do to build a more gender-diverse finance function.

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Welcome to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they are meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Sean McLean: Hello and welcome to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. I'm Sean McLean, member of the global Financial Officers and Industrial practices. Today, I'm joined by Theresa Roessel, the chief financial officer at Canada Diagnostic Centres. Theresa Roessel is a finance executive with over 30 years of experience, having led large global teams through strategic, collaborative leadership and proactive approaches to complex business issues.

As the CFO at Canada Diagnostic Centres, Theresa leads accounting, treasury planning, and risk management. Prior to that, she was the CFO at the Calgary Zoo. Theresa also worked for many years with CNOOC International and its predecessor, Nexen. She held various positions, including vice president and controller, and worked both domestically and internationally.

She has served on the Canadian Red Cross board of directors since 2020 and is a member of the Audit and Finance Committee. She also serves on the board of directors of Athabasca Oil Corporation. Her volunteer work includes serving as the past chair of the Finance and Audit Committee for the Calgary Police Commission, as well as previously serving as chair of the Finance Committee for Hockey Calgary and chair of the Finance, governance, and HR Committee for Youth Link Calgary.

Theresa, welcome, and thank you so much for being here today. 

Theresa Roessel: Thank you. I'm happy to be here. 

Sean McLean: Theresa, as you know, one of the many reasons I love doing CFO work is because the transferability of finance competencies allows me to work across diversified industries. More than most, you've demonstrated the ability of finance leaders to have varied careers.

You've done international and domestic Big Four audit and assurance, international major integrated energy, local visitor attraction, and now healthcare. And that doesn't include your board experience in emergency response, and domestic oil and gas. Did you set out to have such a varied career, or did it just unfold that way? Any surprises in shifting sectors and what capabilities helped you succeed across them all? 

Theresa Roessel: I definitely did not set out to have so much variety in my career. I actually wanted to be an accountant because I was good at numbers and I was really shy. I thought accountants just sat at a desk and they used their calculator and they did not have to talk to people, and that's what I wanted to do.

I was so wrong. But thankfully when I started working as an auditor, I found I enjoyed asking questions and I liked talking to clients. And a lot of my career has really been due to a mix of good timing, a little bit of adventurousness, a huge craving to learn new things, and I think a willingness to say yes to things that seemed kind of terrifying at the time.

When I was finishing my CPA a long time ago, a lot of folks were moving to Bermuda. You know, it's a tax-free environment, so everybody wanted to go and live there and I thought, you know, well that would be really neat. Maybe I should try that. And then a couple years later, I wanted to move to another location, decided to try Singapore.

And both of those were such amazing experiences, and I really grew as a person living away from Calgary and having to fit into those totally new environments. And then when I moved back to Canada, I took a job at an oil company, Calgary's an oil town. That's where most of the jobs are, but I thought, oh, I'll stay for a couple years and then I'll move overseas again.

But Nexen, which became CNOOC International, gave me such incredible opportunities to broaden my knowledge and experience, that I ended up staying there for 20 years. I went from corporate accounting to oil and gas marketing to corporate planning and then became the VP finance of all of our international locations before moving into the controller role.

And it was so incredible and I was very blessed to have those opportunities. But then when I left oil and gas, I wanted to do something different. You know, when you're in oil and gas for a long time, it's a great career and I really, really loved it. But I wanted to do something different, do something for the community. I wasn't sure what. And a friend of mine on a board that I was on at the time convinced me to come to the zoo and help their finance team because they were really struggling with their internal processes. I was really nervous about moving from the for-profit environment to non-profit, but I had always loved the zoo, and I decided it'd be really kind of fun to go and help them.

And then a few years later, I had done what I came to the zoo to do, and I wanted a new challenge.  And then you called me and it was just at the right time, and I've now been in what is probably the most challenging role in my career. So no, I definitely did not plan to have such a varied career, but I've really, really enjoyed learning so many different industries, doing so many different roles, so many locations, and I'm definitely a very different person now than when I started out in accounting, not nearly as shy. 

You asked about the surprises shifting sectors, and I think my biggest surprise was definitely that finance and leadership is very similar across all sectors, like whether it's for-profit or nonprofit, oil and gas, or healthcare. There are nuances between the industries, but the basic functions are the same. The basic issues are similar. Everybody needs financial analysis and reporting, good financial control functions, cash management, capital spend decisions—all those kinds of things—people management. But it is basically the same between the sectors when you're a finance person, and then you just have to deal with the little differences, the nuances, and the capabilities that help me succeed across those are—I feel like it's flexibility, which is really important when you work across different businesses because what works in one environment might not work in another. Big company processes don't work in a smaller company in the same way; they have to be adapted. 

And grit—for me anyways, that's been really important because when you're moving into a new company or a new industry, it's hard, like it's fun because you're learning and meeting new people, but every single thing that you do is harder than it was at the old company for a while. You have to figure out where to find the information, where the information goes, how to work in the new culture. In the first months, everything just takes so much more effort than it should. So definitely flexibility, grit, you know?

And then the other thing for me has been, I think having a high EQ, you know, you have to have the ability to work well with lots of different people. That's been really important for me. I think it's critical for any leader. You can't get things done you can't create sustainable change, and you can't create an environment that people want to work in if you're not in tune with the people that you work with.

Sean McLean: I'm glad you mentioned the international experience. I wanted to ask a couple questions about that today. The first of which is, do you feel that international experience made you a better executive today, and if so, how? 

Theresa Roessel: Absolutely it has. Living in Bermuda really broadened my outlook. There were a lot of European and Australian folks there and they knew so much more about the world than I did. I didn't realize that Canada is actually a pretty insulated environment. Our close connection with the US means that most of our news is about Canadian and American topics, but Europeans are really focused on the world around them and it made me to want to know more about global eco-economics and politics.

And then living in Singapore, and later in my career in the UK, and being responsible for finance in different countries made me a lot more aware of cultural differences and the need to respect those differences and actively learn to work in different ways in different environments. I feel like living overseas made me more flexible and having those experiences under my belt made me braver and more willing to put myself into uncomfortable situations.

Gaining such broad experience gave me the confidence to speak up and have the hard conversations that I see other people tiptoeing around. There's a great phrase that I heard a long time ago that says, “A leader is host to the conversations that matter most” and I really, I believe in that. I believe that that's really important. But doing that takes courage and the ability to bring up issues in a way that isn't going to put people on defense and I feel like I learned a lot of that from living overseas. Moving internationally made me a lot more comfortable with uncertainty. When you enter a new environment, you don't know what's going to happen.

You're moving to a new country. You have to find housing and new friends and get to know a new job and new coworkers. And in the case of Singapore, even food was an adventure, it’s very different there. But you learn to be comfortable in uncertain situations. You learn how to take one step at a time and not let the entire situation overwhelm you. And that's really helped me a lot in my career, and I feel like it's helped me help other people navigate uncertain situations as well. 

Sean McLean: In the introduction, I summarized your extensive board experience. Theresa, tell me about simultaneously serving as a board director while sitting as an executive officer.

I have a couple questions on this I'll group together. Has your board experience impacted how you approach your executive mandates? Has it made you a more effective director? Do you recommend to other CFOs that they take on board work despite their demanding schedules? 

Theresa Roessel: My board experience has definitely impacted how I approach my role as a CFO.

I'm a lot more aware of what would be important to the board and to my own CEO, and it shapes my own priorities as well. I feel like it's helped me think more strategically. As a board director, we focus on high-level governance strategy and long-term value creation, which really broadens my perspective beyond the operational and financial details that I get dragged into at work every day.

Being on boards has translated into improved communication with my own board as well. And being on boards that are outside of my industry really gives me exposure to different business models and different challenges and innovations that I've been able to leverage to identify risks and opportunities in my own organization.

So that's been really good and vice versa, I feel that being a sitting CFO definitely helps me be a better director, though, to be honest, I'm not sure it's so much being a sitting CFO versus the fact that I've been in these roles for a long time and I have a lot of experience. As a CFO, I'm really able to bring a deep understanding of financial statements, budgets, and forecast to my board work, which helps me really assess the financial health of the organization in a way that a non-financial person would find more difficult.

I'm more actively able to participate in discussions on investment priorities, cost management, growth strategies, and I have a very good understanding of how operational levers impact financial outcomes. My experience as a senior executive gives me a really good understanding of the pressures and challenges faced by management, which I feel helps me provide more constructive support in a way that doesn't make management defensive.

I understand where they're coming from. It also allows me to see when a board is not being given the full picture about something, or when an important issue is not being discussed, or the board may not fully understand the financial implications of something that management is talking about. And for me personally, because I've led the IT function in my organizations a couple of times, I'm able to ask questions about important topics like cybersecurity that other people might not be knowledgeable enough to ask about and really kind of dig into those things.

You asked if I'd recommend that other CFOs take on board work. I think, you know, taking on board work, adding that to your life, especially volunteer board work while you're a CFO, is a great add to your life. It's busy. It does cut into your personal time, but you get a lot out of it. You meet so many incredible people who are usually and often outside of your profession or your industry, and you learn a lot. It has helped me in my own work. I definitely have gotten out more than I put in, but you do need to be realistic about the time commitment. Once you commit, you're in and you're responsible for being a contributing board member, so you need to make sure that you really can commit that time.

Sean McLean: Thank you. That's a topic that comes up with sitting CFOs all the time, so I appreciate your insight. Theresa, despite some improvements, we continue to see relatively low numbers of gender diverse CFOs, despite generally better balance within the finance function. What do organizations need to do better to drive the numbers up?

Theresa Roessel: That's a tough question. For me, it's, you know, every situation is different. I've seen a lot of great women self-select out of senior roles. They're either not willing to put in the extra hours [or] take on the stress that's often required at an executive level. I'm sure there are men that are the same, but I do see a lot of women struggle more than men have, to gain the confidence that's needed to be able to function well as an executive.

There are also broader issues around women getting sufficient support at home so that they can take on those roles without feeling that they're compromising their families or their personal lives too much. A lot of the women that I've seen succeed in senior roles have partners that decided to stay at home or take less-demanding roles so that they could better support their spouse's career.

And I'm not saying it's not doable, but it's definitely harder—I've done it. It's definitely harder if both partners have demanding careers and there are kids at home. So that there are a lot of things we can do, but personally I think one key action that would make a difference for a lot of women would be to encourage them to get broader experience across a variety of roles in their career, not just try to move straight up through the chain to CFO, broader roles and areas outside of corporate reporting like operations, planning, treasury, M&A.

That would really help give them the ability to think and the confidence to speak up, as an executive needs to do. And the women that I've seen take on those broader roles, those are the ones that, they do gain that confidence and they're able to kind of move up in a different way than if they just came up through corporate reporting as a controller and then a CFO. They don't have that broad experience and they don't have the confidence. 

Sean McLean: It's great advice and we often encourage leaders to think laterally as well as vertically about their careers. That will benefit you as an enterprise executive as well as a future board director if that's something people aspire to.

Canada's productivity gap with the US has received much attention lately. Any experience from your international and multi-industry experience that you'd share with boards and C-suites who are targeting improved productivity in 2025 and beyond? 

Theresa Roessel: Yes, actually, I read a lot about technology and, to me, technology and productivity are completely linked. I've seen two big things on my boards and through my work that are hampering productivity improvements. First, a lot of senior executives out there, they're great leaders. They're super smart people who know their businesses inside and out, but they grew up in the era before AI and the technological advancements that we're seeing today, and they don't know where to start.

They may want to become more knowledgeable, but they don't know where to start to find out more about technology and how the recent advancements in tech can help their business. And the various consulting firms that are out there that are advising on tech are not as helpful as they could be because they speak “consultant-ese” instead of translating their knowledge into practical advice with real examples.

So in my view, there needs to be a lot more tools available for folks that are in their later career years who tend to be more senior to help them get up to speed on how technology can really help their business. I was thinking about this, and I do think industry organizations could be more helpful in this.

They could be out there investigating new technologies, sharing the information that they get with the organizations they serve. I think some of them are doing that really well, and some of them not so much, that I've seen. Senior executives also need to be pushing their organizations to actively look for new technologies.

It is so easy when you're in a company to get caught up in the day-to-day work of running the organization. And then you just, you don't have the time, you don't make the time to really find new technologies that are going to help push your organization forward. So where it's practical, if a company's large enough, it really needs a person or a group that has that responsibility set out so that that opportunity to make step changes doesn't pass the organization by.

Sean McLean: I am glad you mentioned technology is one of the solutions. Let's double click on one of the hot topics within the technology domain, artificial intelligence and machine learning. In a survey we conducted with finance leaders, we found that most are using it for internal purposes and expect to be using it most for FP&A, budgeting, and accounting two years from now. What are your expectations and how do you think finance functions will need to change to make the most of AI and machine learning? Have you started to incorporate AI? 

Theresa Roessel: I think the biggest change to finance is bringing in people that have the skill sets needed and upskilling existing stuff. What I see is that finance is good at bringing in people with strong technical accounting or finance skills, but what's needed on these teams is more people with technological skills who can structure data across the organization and really use technology to understand, analyze, and use the data that's there.

On my own team, I've started only hiring accountants that have those skill sets, and it is a huge shift, and there's a lot of folks that don't have that, but it is totally necessary to bring the organization into the future. And once you have those skill sets on your team, it's a lot easier to start automating routine tasks like reconciliations, journal entries, reporting, payroll, all those kinds of things that will free up time for higher value-added activities.

We really need to automate data gathering and use AI to help us forecast operational results in a more efficient way and help us gain insights into operations that would otherwise be harder or too time-consuming to get. When I was at CNOOC, we were implementing RPA Robotic Process Automation on routine journal entries.

And we'll be doing the same at my current company over the next year or two. We're currently focusing on putting into place operational and financial dashboards that will allow management to pull data as needed in ways that will help them better operate their business in real time. And we've automated a lot of our reporting, but we do still have a long way to go to get where we need to be. There are so many opportunities. 

Sean McLean: One of the lingering impacts of Covid-19 is figuring out where employees should work. It's been well publicized that many CEOs want people back in office. However, some of our research has actually found that on the whole executives at all levels see no difference in how effectively they can develop leaders in hybrid models versus full-time in-office.

What do you see as the right model for the finance function, and across functions, and what leadership capabilities do you think are most important in this post-Covid era? 

Theresa Roessel: I believe in the hybrid model. I do see some leaders struggling with it. Sometimes, what I've seen is that it's simply because they enjoy the in-office interactions themselves and they have a hard time being in an emptier office.

Or maybe there are leaders that like to lead by walking around, and that's really hard to do when half your staff isn't there half the time, and sometimes there's a lack of trust in the work environment. But, for finance in particular hybrid works, it's not hard to understand productivity in finance. You know how long a task should take and how much a person should be able to get done in a day.

And as long as they get that done and do it well, it shouldn't matter where they work from. Working collaboratively is important, of course. You need people that are quick to pick up the phone when they need help or when they need to bring others into the conversation. You need to make sure that there's a team building aspect to long distance.

I've read a lot about that and we certainly see it at my own work. Whether you bring people together physically on occasion, or you make sure that everybody's in the office one day a week, or you do online team building. As a leader, you do have to make a more active effort in this when you have a hybrid workforce.

At my current company, several members of my accounting team work from home every day, some are only in one day a week, and then there's a few that choose to work from the office every day—which is fine as well—and they love the flexibility that that provides. And I really believe that we have stronger retention because of it.

I think hybrid works for a lot of support or office functions, especially where you can measure productivity easily. But I do think that functions that have hybrid capability need to be conscious of those that don't. There's an equity factor that can create rifts between the groups if one group is seen to be advantaged over another group because one can work from home and the other can't.

I've seen that both at my current company and at the zoo as well. So you have to be careful about that. You know, you asked what leadership capabilities I think are most important in the post-Covid era. Obviously a lot hasn't changed, but I think the ability to engage people from a distance in a hybrid environment is more important now. We have to put more effort into that. Empathy is also a lot more important than before. It sounds weird, but people's priorities changed during Covid, and a lot of people are looking for, or demanding better support for their overall well-being than they were before. And if you can't provide that, they leave.

They're not willing to sacrifice their personal well-being. And last, I think adaptability is more important than ever. The pace of change has accelerated and you have to really be able to adapt easily, not just to survive, but to thrive.

Sean McLean: That's a perfect segue to our last question today. You mentioned change:

The thread that has connected all of our topics today was change. You've experienced major changes during your career. What one piece of advice do you have for finance leaders who feel more and bigger changes are coming at them faster than perhaps at any other time in history? 

Theresa Roessel: I think it's super important as a leader to foster your own learning.

There is so much change coming so fast. We all need to be proactive in trying to learn about AI and related technological changes that are coming, so that it's not a big, scary unknown thing. Change is coming whether we want it or not. You can either learn about it and embrace it. We can make it an enabler for our businesses, or it will hit us in an unpleasant way because we'll be behind the curve.

So my one piece of advice would be to just start reading or listening to podcasts. There are some great podcasts and books out there that can give you a start, and the more you read, the more you get a sense for the possibilities, and then it'll become way less scary and way more exciting. There is so much possibility, I'm really excited about the things coming down the pipe from a technological perspective.

Sean McLean: Well, I think our listeners have learned a great deal from you today. This concludes our time together. Theresa, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. 

Theresa Roessel: Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don’t miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you’re listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Sean McLean (smclean@heidrick.com) is partner in charge of Heidrick & Struggles’ Calgary office and a member of the global Industrial and Financial Officers practices.