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This article was first published in the January 2017 Singapore edition of Accounting and Business magazine.

Work in the finance department is sometimes portrayed, albeit wrongly, as a desk-bound role, with staff spending most of their time behind computer monitors. But Alexander Joramsa, CFO of GE Healthcare, ASEAN, believes that nothing is further from the truth. His inspiring philosophy is that, when you break it all down, numbers are often the thing closest to a person’s heart.

‘When people think of sales, they think of the selling activities. What I’ve come to realise is that finance people have an edge,’ he says. ‘Because we are able to interpret and explain numbers beyond just numbers themselves, we are in the best position to create a convincing business case for our clients.’

Joramsa says that it is not enough as a finance department to just generate reports. ‘I always tell my team that it is our responsibility as much as it is any other department’s to do what we can to help our business to grow,’ he says.

‘Here at GE Healthcare, 30% to 40% of the finance department’s time is spent on customer-facing activities. We try and understand their priorities and constraints, and, as we understand the customers’ needs better, we are able to help them come up with the right solution that makes good business and financial sense.’

The story of how Joramsa found his way into the healthcare industry is one of a man who strongly believes in following his heart. Originally a science student from Bandung, Indonesia, Joramsa tells us that he came across an opportunity during his undergraduate days to try accountancy. He liked numbers but had never taken any accounting subjects before, so he decided to try it out for a year; if he didn’t like it, he could always switch back to engineering or some other science-related course.

People interaction

He quickly realised, however, that he really enjoyed the subject and decided to complete his accountancy degree. Upon graduation, he joined one of the then Big Five accountancy firms: Arthur Andersen. 

It was at this point that, Joramsa says, ‘I realised that traditional accounting and auditing was not really my cup of tea. I wanted more people interaction.’

After he had been with Arthur Andersen for a year, Joramsa had the chance to take on a scholarship to do his Master’s in Australia. He leapt at the opportunity. Then, on his return to Indonesia, he joined the treasury department of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO.

Feeling a lack of stimulation, he jumped once more to the corporate banking department. This was the point at which he first worked in the healthcare sector, servicing Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he would later spend a decade.

In terms of personal qualities, Joramsa believes that having an open mind and embracing challenges have served him well. Joramsa shares that when he was first offered a job by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1999, there were two positions available: one in treasury and one in business. Having already tried his hand at treasury, he decided to go for the role of commercial operations manager – something that he had no prior experience in.

Steep learning curve

‘Having to develop an understanding of areas such as supply chain, distribution and sales force effectiveness was a steep learning curve for me, but it is something that has helped me to better understand the business and no doubt helped me in my finance career,’ he says.

Another aspect that Joramsa believes has influenced the way he runs his finance department today is his experience of working in different countries. Since 2002, he has been based outside Indonesia – first in Malaysia, then Singapore, and with a short stint in India in between. Through his experience of working with different cultures, he has learnt to appreciate the advantages that diversity brings; today, his finance team includes people from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

‘Living in Singapore, we can sometimes take for granted the multicultural diversity which we enjoy,’ he says. ‘Having a good cultural and gender mix has enabled us as a team to broaden our perspectives, and strengthened our ability in solving problems.’

Working in different markets has also shaped Joramsa’s global mindset, which he says is important for surviving in today’s increasingly globalised economy. ‘Thinking globally means that we are able to solve problems by thinking out of the box, with a strong focus on how we can help our customers to be successful. In the past three years, we have worked to come up with various solutions such as crossborder financing, simplified leasing arrangements for small clinics and lowering cancer scanning costs,’ he explains.

Simplification process

Having spent more than 20 years in the finance industry, Joramsa has witnessed dramatic changes driven by today’s volatile economic business climate, where anything and everything could happen in an instant. He says that, with forecasting becoming more unpredictable, the only thing that finance can reasonably control is cost structure. 

As a result, Joramsa explains, GE Healthcare has embarked on a simplification process, ‘to zoom in to what matters most for the company,’ he explains. ‘Our strategy is to keep a lean and agile team, which is ready to react to changing economic conditions at a moment’s notice. 

‘Finance plays two important roles,’ he continues. ‘We are the stewards of the company as well as business partners. We need to perfect the fine art of balancing these two roles.’

When dealing with change, Joramsa says that it is important to maintain a positive attitude. ‘Life is not linear,’ he says. ‘When business is down, we just need to think of solutions. After all, if there were no challenges, why would there exist a need for people like us? Nobody likes to work with negativity.’ 

While entering the healthcare industry might have happened by chance, Joramsa has certainly grown to love and appreciate it over time. And, perhaps because of his desire to connect with others, he feels that the sector’s relatable nature makes it particularly enjoyable. ‘Healthcare is something that everyone will experience at some point in their lives,’ he says. ‘For me, I had a personal experience when I was posted to Malaysia and my father-in-law came to visit us. He suddenly fell ill, so we went to see a doctor and discovered that he had stage-four lung cancer with only a few months to live. It was during this time that I realised that what we did in healthcare made a real difference in people’s lives.’

‘I now feel like I have a personal stake in the industry and I try to champion for early detection and early screening to make sure that what happened to my father-in-law will not happen to others.’

Looking back, Joramsa feels grateful for the numerous experiences that he’s had over the course of his career. He also credits his formative years in accountancy with helping him to develop a systematic and structured thought process. Today, he puts 250 hours each year towards coaching and sharing his expertise with the industry. This includes participating in five to six events each year, one of which was the recent ACCA shared-services business process outsourcing (BPO) morning epiphany event, where he joined a panel discussion to discuss how robotic process automation would exponentially transform shared services and BPO. ‘It is important for us to continually engage with industry and to engage in a culture of lifelong learning,’ he says. 

Finally, for finance and accounting professionals looking to advance in their career, Joramsa shares a piece of valuable advice: ‘Don’t be stuck behind your desks,’ he says. ‘The world is bigger than this. Reach out, engage with other departments and ask for help when you need it. People are generally willing to help if you ask.’

Rufus Tan, journalist