Lisa joined LKAB as CFO of the Industrial Minerals Division in 2021.  LKAB Industrial Minerals is a global operation owned by LKAB, a Swedish state-owned mining company.  In the UK and globally, the Industrial Minerals division processes and sells iron ore mined by its parent, alongside other industrial minerals that suit a wide variety of end applications.  The UK head office is situated on Raynesway in Derby.  

Lisa was one of the first CFOs we consulted in the East Midlands during the establishment of our operations in the region.  With a solid history working alongside our team in Yorkshire, she has been a key contact within the Derby region.  

Lisa is an impressive CFO with 18 years of experience.  Following a law degree, she qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor with Deloitte, before working for a range of PLC's and PE backed businesses in South Yorkshire, and then joining LKAB as their CFO in Derby.

You landed your first Finance Director role after less than 15 years in the industry – an achievement that only one in five FDs can claim to have achieved. Can you tell us about your career journey to get to that point?

My journey to FD / CFO has been untypical as my starting point when leaving school was in a non accountancy-based subject (law).  I then chose a training contract in tax at Deloitte due to its strong link to law.  With a desire to generalise rather than specialise I took the leap into industry after 5 years in the profession.  My first role in industry was to establish a company’s in house tax function.  It was with the support of strong leaders and mentors across a range of employers that I was subsequently able to broaden my experience.  Some of those people could see my potential and that meant they were prepared to give me a chance.  My career expanded into Tax, Treasury and M&A, leading a Group Finance function, an operational FD role, and most recently as CFO. Through each of these roles I have been able to gain a range of experiences that I have learned from and re-applied.

Can you share any advice for those individuals on a similar career path to yourself?

When choosing to join a new business, I’ve always tried to find roles that balance my existing skillset with a new area to develop.  I’ve particularly enjoyed roles that contain project elements as I find it rewarding to see impact quickly.  I’ve always found it helpful to be open with new and existing employers about my ambitions, as this has enabled me to assess my potential in the business early, and then to be considered for internal progression opportunities.  At a point, I’ve also been aware that it is healthy and brave to acknowledge that ‘your work here is done’, which marks the time to start to think of what the next opportunity could entail.

We noticed that you are actively involved in volunteering outside of work. Can you tell us more about this and what valuable skills have you gained through your volunteering activities?

Most of my weekends are typically filled with some kind of volunteering activity.  I volunteer as an Independent Visitor supporting children in care by taking them on fun days out.  I also volunteer as an Event First Aider with Saint John Ambulance.  I decided to volunteer because I had spare time, but I subsequently found that it gives me an important sense of balance because the voluntary roles are totally different to what I do day to day.  The most important skill I’ve learned is first aid, and I’d recommend that everyone (whether they volunteer or not) do a first aid course.

At LKAB, your main impacting project has been to centralise finance.  How has that gone?

The project to centralise our UK Finance team into the Derby Head Office has been a journey, and we’re still on it.  The exercise started in 2021 with a transition from other locations to the new Derby team, with a 90% change in headcount in the space of a few months.  The transition started in the middle of a pandemic, and partly in a temporary office facility whilst ours was being refurbished.  The recruitment challenge impacted us most: finding the right team for our business at a time when the pandemic meant people were less likely to move roles was tough.  

I’m hugely grateful to the professionalism shown by departing team members in their handover.  With their input and co-operation, we were able to effectively manage risks associated with such rapid change.  The loss of inherent knowledge meant that every new task took longer at the beginning.  At the same time as managing the transition of business-as-usual, we identified a need to upgrade our ERP environment - a project we worked through and completed in late 2022.  There was a lot for a small team to do contemporaneously!  I’m really lucky to have a team that tried their best to pull together – without them, the task would have been much harder.  

The result almost 2 years on is that we’re feeling settled, we’ve made strides forward to simplify our ways of working, and we’re now looking towards continuous improvement of our systems, processes and controls.  We’re doing all of this in a brand spanking new office too, which makes for a lovely working environment.

LKAB are one of Northern Europe's largest mining and minerals groups. Could you share your experience of working in such a unique industry and how it has shaped your perspective as a finance director?

For those unfamiliar with us, our company name is pronounced L-K-A-B (not L-KAB!), and it stands for Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB, named after two mountains in Northern Sweden, where some of our mines are situated.  When I first joined LKAB, we were at the beginning of a transformation journey to decarbonise our mines and find new uses for mining waste minerals.  With significant investment, work has progressed at an astonishing rate since then, and we’ve successfully developed a new sustainable product called sponge iron.  The impact LKAB has locally and internationally shouldn’t be understated, and the ambition to deliver our part of the supply chain sustainably is not just commendable, but essential.  Through my work at LKAB, I have learned to appreciate the strong impacts business can have on society, and why sometimes the P&L isn’t always the most important factor in decision making.

Our CFO Network Annual Report highlights that 16% of existing finance leaders are female with 26% representation in the appointments over the past year. What are your views on this representation?

It feels wrong to say that I am proud to be part of a minority statistic.  I believe that diversity in the workplace is achieved through fair representation of different kinds of people.  What is clear from the statistic is that there is still a lot of work to do before fair representation can truly be achieved, and although gender balance is important, it is just one angle.  I believe that the journey towards diversity starts well before the next senior promotion in the workplace.  I think it goes right back to career choices at school, and supporting different people to do different jobs from the outset has got to be the key to improving the statistic.