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From the very start of our talk with CFO Claire Bramley, she let us know that she has long been part of the bigger conversation represented by the everyday back-and-forth discourse that punctuates decision-making inside a business.

\u201cI\u2019m always saying that If you can\u2019t explain it to the business, if you can\u2019t explain it to a customer, it doesn\u2019t matter how great your insight or idea is\u2014if they don\u2019t get it and you can\u2019t communicate it, then it\u2019s wasted,\u201d explains Bramley, whose June 2021 appointment as CFO of Teradata had been preceded by a 15-year multi-continental climb up Hewlett-Packard\u2019s finance career ladder\u2014an impressive stint that ended with Bramley serving as the tech giant\u2019s global controller.

Turn back the clock on her HP years, and we see Bramley being recruited as a technical accountant in the UK before shortly thereafter being dispatched to the FP&A trenches of HP\u2019s EMEA headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

\u201cIt was intense learning for me at the time, but it was really helpful because it immediately made me realize that you have to understand the business to add value,\u201d comments Bramley, who let us know that it was during her early days in Geneva when she first started joining HP\u2019s bigger discussion, where she quickly began to amplify the concerns and challenges facing HP\u2019s EMEA\u2019s country management.

\u201cI was pushing corporate, and I was pushing the worldwide team and, to be honest, I think that they were like, \u2018This is really becoming quite annoying\u2014who\xa0is\xa0this person?,'\u201d recalls Bramley, who received a number of promotions before being transferred to the U.S. to oversee HP\u2019s worldwide FP&A team from its Palo Alto, California, headquarters.

\u201cSuddenly, I was on the other side of the fence looking back from the corporate perspective, and I realized how there\u2019s not just one way of looking at things,\u201d says Bramley, who lets us know that her contribution to the bigger discussion broadened as she climbed into upper management.

Before advancing into HP\u2019s global controller role, Bramley would once more be stationed in Geneva, this time serving as EMEA\u2019s head of finance\u2014a role that required her to be regularly engaged with EMEA\u2019s sales leaders. It was here, Bramley tells us, amidst the everyday back-and-forth with some of HP\u2019s top sales professionals, where she really began to glean an insight that every finance executive should keep in mind as they join the broader discussion.

She explains: \u201cThere were explanations as to why something wasn\u2019t what we expected it to be, and I remember taking these at face value and not digging down to the next level of detail. About a month later, I came to realize the error of my ways, and the strategic lesson for me was to let the data tell the story.\u201d\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney