Christian Wattig explains how modern finance leaders empower other teams
- 1. Don’t wait to be brought in
- 2. Speak their language, not just yours
- 3. Build trust through curiosity rather than control
- 4. Use technology to free up time for strategy
- Get more actionable advice
Finance leaders at many organizations have successfully recast themselves as strategic partners who bring unique and valuable perspectives to key decisions. But for finance professionals trying to step out of the back office and grow their influence, leading finance voice Christian Wattig has this advice: rethink your approach to cross-functional collaboration and finance business partnering.
Wattig, a former FP&A professional who now leads the FP&A certificate program at The Wharton School, shared his playbook for how top current or aspiring leaders can build credibility, foster trust, and create real influence across the organization. Here are five tips from his recent workshop with Ramp Director of Product Finance and FP&A Patrick Yang:
👉 Watch the full conversation on-demand here.
1. Don’t wait to be brought in
The best finance teams embed early in the planning cycle and contribute to strategy from day one. Too often, finance is looped in at the end of the process—when the numbers are locked and finance can only approve or push back. That’s why finance teams need to get involved early, Wattig said, especially at growing companies that are still ironing out their processes.
"If you're only interacting with other cross-functional leaders during the time of the month-end close or the monthly business reporting meeting where you need inputs, that's not enough,” Wattig said.
Action item: Ask product, marketing, and sales leads to invite you to their next roadmap or planning meeting—not to oversee, but to contribute and strengthen relationships. To encourage early collaboration, you could also add a Finance 101 class to new-hire onboarding covering the team’s key responsibilities, goals, and how they help other functions (with real examples of success).
2. Speak their language, not just yours
Finance often relies on complex models, ratios, and jargon. But to build influence, you need to speak and share information in a way someone without a finance degree can understand. Use the simplest possible terms. Rather than drowning stakeholders in dashboards and detailed models, distill information down to the data and insights that audience really needs.
“Finance leaders have to play the role of filtering, of determining what are the metrics that really do matter right now, that leaders need to pay attention to,” Wattig said.
Action item: Create a one-pager or slide with three to five metrics that matter to each department, and update it monthly. Aim for just one sentence to explain why each one matters.
3. Build trust through curiosity rather than control
For many, corporate finance teams bring visions of rigid policies and centralized control. But top finance leaders are replacing enforcement with curiosity. Wattig suggested adopting a learning-first mindset to understand the “why” behind other teams’ choices. This shift has the dual benefit of improving relationships and finding better, more collaborative solutions.
Action item: The next time you’re tempted to reject a budget or purchase request immediately, schedule a 15-minute conversation to understand their thinking. Then explore alternatives together.
4. Use technology to free up time for strategy
Even with an endless selection of tools available today, Wattig still encounters many finance departments that primarily operate out of Excel. Finance teams bogged down in spreadsheets have little time to build deeper partnerships. So technology that powers increased automation isn't just about getting work done faster—it’s about freeing up time to contribute cross-functionally.
“The modern tools that you can find on the market now, you can implement them without much IT support and in a much shorter time than you would think,” Wattig noted.
Action item: Audit the repeatable tasks that drain the most time from your team this month. Identify one manual task you can automate or eliminate, reinvest that time in cross-functional collaboration, and report back on the impact it drove.
Get more actionable advice
Wattig’s tips make finance more impactful. When teams across the organization trust finance, value their perspective, and feel supported—not policed—the entire organization makes better, faster decisions. For the full playbook, watch the webinar on demand above!
“I assumed I would have to choose between speed and control. What I found is that you can have both. A well-designed system takes friction out, for the finance function and for everyone else.”
Justin Webster
CFO, Denver Broncos
“A well-run district should not have to choose between getting work done at the school site and keeping control of the dollars behind it. We're not hiring more people to do more jobs, so we have to be smarter about the process. With Ramp, the purchase, the receipt, and the record stay together from the start. ”
Nick Brizeno
Director of Purchasing, San Marcos Unified School District
“In senior living, scale only works if the communities still feel personal. We needed the back office to carry more of the complexity, not the people serving residents. Ramp helped us build that infrastructure, so the experience in the community could stay human.”
Ryan Cole
CFO, Agemark Senior Living
“AI is moving faster than the finance context around it. Prices change, models change, and the value is not always obvious from an invoice. We needed enough detail to know which bets deserved more investment — and which ones did not.”
Greg Cooley
Controller, AngelList
“Invoices, cards, tokens. The categories change but the principle doesn't: know where the money is going, remove the work around it, and make sure the spend is worth it.”
Maciej Mylik. Finance
ElevenLabs
“We weren’t trying to retrofit an old finance system. We had a blank canvas, and Ramp gave us the foundation to build a global finance function of the future.”
Justin Dourado
Director of Finance, Othership
“There's just no surprises anymore. No more waiting two months to find out how a job did. We know how it's doing as it's happening.”
Erich Kuss
Financial Systems Manager, Infinity Home Services
“More token spend isn’t proof that AI is working. Less isn’t proof that it isn’t. What matters is whether we’re buying the right level of intelligence for the work. Ramp lets us make that judgment in the same place we manage every other type of spend.”
Cody Nutt
Senior Director of Business Systems, Daxko
