Day in the Life of a Green Chief Financial Officer

Our latest look into the daily lives of the people behind the pharma community brings us to meet Juan Jose Piedra Galan, Global Financial Planning & Analysis Manager for Galderma, otherwise known as 'The Green CFO'.  

Please could you outline your background and the career path that has led you to your
current position?

I started my professional career in 1995, in Montesa-Honda (Motorcycles industry), in the logistics department. At that time, as my father passed away when I was 17, I had to combine a full-time job with classes at the university, until I received the Diploma in Business Administration. After 5 years, I moved from Logistics to Commercial Controlling and remained for 3 years. In 2002 I moved to Ferrero Spain (Chocolates industry) as Operational Controller. One year after, I began in Culligan International (Spanish branch of an American company belonging to the Water Treatment Industry) originally as Corporate Controller, and becoming CFO a few months later, at the age of 27. In 2008 I moved to Novartis (Pharma Industry) as Industrial Controller in a local manufacturing site.

Within Novartis I developed a successful career, first transferred to the country headquarters as Controller of the Oncology Division and then relocated to Basel (Switzerland) to the group headquarters as R&D Controller for Region Europe. In 2017 I decided to come back to my home-town Barcelona due to family reasons and luckily ended in Firmenich (Fragrances and Flavors industry) as Global Digital Controller. In 2019 came back to Novartis group as CFO of Sandoz Industrial Products, managing 2 different API manufacturing sites, until October 2023 when I moved to Galderma (Swiss company dedicated to Dermatology) to my current position as Global FP&A Manager, as part of their Global Capability Centre (GCC) located in Barcelona. 

Complementing my professional career, in 2017 I started to publish some articles addressed to the finance community. First I wrote the set of 10 articles named “Loving Controlling” with useful ideas from Excel tricks to tips regarding presentation skills. Then I composed “Parental Controlling”, another set of 10 articles with insightful thoughts and analogies between being a father and a good finance business partner. Since 2022 I am the publishing articles under the umbrella of “Green CFO”, connecting sustainability and finance, promoting the idea that Finance must play an active role in the design, implementation and execution of the sustainability strategy of the company, with special emphasis on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) reporting. In that context I have been invited as speaker in different international forums and most recently I was recognised by White-Page in the list of “Global 200 Power Leaders in Finance”.

What do you most like about your role?

Galderma's IPO on the Swiss Stock Exchange in March 2024 was a significant milestone, and being in a global position allowed me to be at the forefront of this event. I enjoy being a Finance Business Partner because it allows me to leverage my extensive experience in various finance roles to help my company achieve its financial targets. Personally, I believe my strategic mindset, storytelling, and analytical skills are highly valued by my internal customers and peers.

What made you consider getting into your field in the first place?

My interest in accounting began during my Vocational Education at the age of 14. The binary concepts of debit and credit, assets and liabilities, resonated with my way of thinking. Discovering Controlling and FP&A later on allowed me to apply my accounting knowledge to business decision-making processes. As a former boss used to say, Finance Business Partners should be the "guardians of the financial numbers," ensuring their integrity and contributing to the company's growth.

What would you consider your biggest achievement to date, what are you most proud of?

Choosing just one achievement is difficult, so let me share three: I’m proud of completing my University degree while working full-time. I’m also proud of my own career as such, moving a local manufacturing site controller to an international role in Switzerland and eventually becoming CFO. Finally I’m also proud of convincing Novartis top-management to implement the s-NPV (sustainability Net Present Value) to connect business cases with the financial equivalent of sustainability impact.

What advice would you give to other people aspiring to your position or getting into this
field?

The best advice I have ever received and often share is “Know yourself”. Most people who are not fully happy in their current companies would like to change their roles as soon as possible and, when they don’t get it the way they were expecting, the frustration is sometimes difficult to manage. So my advice to whoever reads this interview is to make a self-awareness exercise and be realistic with your own aspirations. Also, something that personally helped me very much and I practiced quite often is not being afraid to accept new professional challenges, even in the same company. 

What are the future trends in your professional area?

My natural answer would be Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to Finance.. but I don’t think that is the future necessarily, but the present – at least in most of multinational companies –  using RPA (Robotics-Process Automation) to handle repetitive tasks such General Ledger (G/L) or Treasury reconciliations, applying Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices to gather better information or forecasting financial outlooks leveraging Machine Learning (M/L) capabilities is now very much extended in many corporations. Yet, from my point of view the big challenge in the next 5–10 years will be how to adapt our society and economic system to a world with a very high level of automation. If you are more interested in seeing my perspective I wrote an article a few months ago on this topic (2025-2035: 10 years that will change the world forever | LinkedIn)

Who do you look up to in the industry? Who inspires you?

There have been different people who inspired me along my career, but if I would have to choose 3 names there will be Marco Venturelli and Frederic Simoes, both former top finance managers in Novartis, and Beranger (Berry) Ruchat current Chief Sustainability Officer in Richemont. 

From the outside world, a person who is an inspiration to me is Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and author of the book “Net Positive”, which I personally recommend as a must-read.

Is living sustainably important to you and how do you incorporate being environmentally
friendly into your day?

From the personal side I recycle regularly and drive both an electric car and an electric motorbike, so in general I try to be as environmentally friendly as possible. From the professional view, as mentioned earlier, I truly believe in embedding sustainability (the wide definition and not only the environmental part) into the finance role must be part of our own journey. Yet, I can see still a lot of scepticism on this approach.

If you weren’t in this field, what would you being doing?

I would likely pursue a career as a movie director, combining my love for storytelling and my passion of watching films.