Finance Team Coaching
As the former CFO of Microsoft's Worldwide Operations, Ken Hickey has sat in the chair his clients sit in now. He brings that lived experienceto help senior finance leaders strengthen judgement, influence, and leadership impact through the growth, transformation, and complexity they increasingly face.
Team Coaching
As a former CFO of Microsoft Worldwide Operations, Ken Hickey brings real-world C-suite executive experience to his client's leadership and business opportunities.
How Team Coaching Works
The Finance function can only perform at its best when the team around the CFO is aligned, decisive, and able to deliver under pressure. As Finance takes on a bigger role in strategy, transformation, governance, and business performance, the team must operate at a higher level - not simply work harder.
Team coaching builds the clarity, trust, and operating discipline that help a finance team think together, make better decisions, and perform without everything depending on the CFO.
Schedule a confidential, no-obligation introductory call through the “Get Started” button. In 30 minutes, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your team, where performance or alignment is under strain, and whether team coaching is the right intervention.
For more complex situations, we may agree a further scoping conversation before proceeding.
Together, we establish the purpose and scope of the work: the business context, team composition, objectives, measures of success, timeline, and level of sponsor involvement.
We also agree how progress will be communicated, what the team needs to know, and the practical commitment required from participants. You then receive a clear proposal and delivery plan.
Once approved, I build an honest picture of how the team currently works: its strengths, friction points, role clarity, decision-making, communication, meeting rhythms, stakeholder relationships, and ability to deliver.
This may include individual conversations, team observation, and relevant stakeholder input. The outcome is a practical diagnosis of what needs to change - and what the team can build on.
Using facilitated workshops and structured work between sessions, we turn the diagnosis into practical action. Sessions are normally half-day, or full-day workshops spread across several weeks or months, with the cadence matched to your business context.
The programme typically moves through three stages:
- Aligning on the current reality and creating a shared case for change.
- Designing new ways of working for the Team...including priorities, roles, decision rights, accountability, communication, and performance management.
- Applying, reviewing, and embedding those ways of working in live business situations.
As the programme concludes, we review progress against the objectives, identify the practices that are working, and agree the routines, ownership, and measures that will sustain them.The team leaves with clearer roles, stronger alignment, more constructive challenge, and a more reliable operating rhythm - so improved performance continues well beyond the engagement.
What Changes for Your Finance Team
A Team That Performs Under Pressure
Tight deadlines, board scrutiny, ownership changes, transformation, and growth expose how well a team really operates. Team coaching builds a finance team that stays aligned, sharp, and reliable when pressure is highest - not only when conditions are calm.
Decisions Made Faster, and Better
Reduce unnecessary dependency on the CFO. Your team learns to work through issues, weigh trade-offs, and make sound decisions at the right level - so the function moves faster and your attention stays focused on the decisions only you can make.
A Team That Partners With the Business
Move beyond producing the numbers to shaping what the business does with them. Coaching builds the confidence, commercial understanding, and credibility for your people to be involved earlier in decisions - not simply brought in to report on the outcome.
Stronger Communication and Trust
Less friction, fewer crossed wires, and more constructive challenge. Your team learns to raise issues earlier, challenge one another well, and operate as a joined-up leadership team - so problems are resolved before they escalate to you.
A Team That Scales With the Business
Growth, transformation, and increased expectations stretch a finance team quickly. Coaching strengthens the team’s capacity, resilience, accountability, and ways of working - so Finance can take on more without losing clarity, pace, or control.
Performance That Compounds
A stronger finance team creates benefits that build over time: better decisions, faster cycles, fewer errors, stronger retention, and less unnecessary escalation to the CFO. The result is a more reliable function and more capacity for the work that moves the business forward.
Team Coaching FAQs
Here are some of the most common questions when it comes to team coaching. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out.
What is Finance Team Coaching?
Finance team coaching is a structured process that helps an intact team improve how it performs together.
Where individual coaching develops one leader, team coaching develops the unit around them: how the team communicates, makes decisions, handles pressure, works across boundaries, and delivers as one.
It is not a one-off workshop. Real improvement in team performance takes time, practical application, and honest reflection on how the team operates in live business situations.
What is the difference between Team Coaching, Team Facilitation, and Team Building?
Facilitation and team building are usually one-off eventswith a narrow aim. Facilitation helps a team work through a specific meeting, decision, or issue. Team building typically focuses on relationships, connection, and trust, often through a one-off session or event.
Team coaching is broader and more sustained. It focuses on the team’s actual performance: how people work together, make decisions, manage conflict, create accountability, and deliver against the demands of the business.
Workshops may form part of the process, but the objective is not a good day away from the office. It is lasting improvement in how the team operates.
How is Team Coaching different from individual coaching?
Individual coaching develops you as a leader. Team coaching develops the team around you.
Individual coaching may focus on how you lead the Finance function, influence stakeholders, or make decisions under pressure. Team coaching focuses on how your finance leadership team works together: its priorities, communication, decision-making, accountability, and ability to deliver.
The two can work powerfully together. One strengthens the leader; the other strengthens the system around them. Where both are in place, the work is aligned around shared business objectives while maintaining appropriate confidentiality and clear boundaries.
How long does Team Coaching typically last?
Most engagements run from three to twelve months, with a typical programme lasting around nine months.
Team coaching takes time because it works through a sequence: understanding how the team operates today, aligning on what needs to change, practising new ways of working, and embedding them in the rhythm of the business.
We agree the length and cadence at the outset, shaped around your team, business priorities, and the outcomes you want to create.
Does Team Coaching take place in-person or online?
Both, depending on what will best support the work.
Some sessions are most effective in person - particularly early workshops, where building trust, creating candour, and working through important issues together benefit from being in the room. Other sessions work very well online.
We shape the format around how your team already operates and what is practical, so the logistics support the work rather than getting in the way.
What is the role of the Team Leader in Team Coaching?
The team leader’s role is central. Team coaching does not sideline the leader; it works alongside them.
Your role is to sponsor the work, set the tone for openness and constructive challenge, participate fully, and reinforce the new ways of working between sessions. You help ensure that the work remains connected to the team’s real business priorities - not simply the workshop room.
Done well, team coaching strengthens rather than undermines your authority. The team sees you investing in how it performs, while the changes are sustained because you are actively leading them, not simply observing from the side.
How will we know Team Coaching is working?
We agree what better looks like before the work begins.
Depending on your team and business context, that may mean faster decisions at the right level, fewer unnecessary escalations to the CFO, clearer accountability, stronger business partnering, more reliable planning and reporting cycles, better stakeholder feedback, or stronger retention within the team.
We then look for evidence in how the team operates day today: how it handles pressure, solves problems, challenges one another, makes decisions, and follows through on commitments.
My approach is grounded in first-hand experience of building and leading high-performance finance teams at scale, including a global Finance organisation at Microsoft. I know that stronger team performance does not come from a single workshop or a set of generic values. It comes from improving both the culture and practical disciplines that shape how the team works together.
The objective is not simply a more positive team experience. It is a Finance function that is more aligned, more decisive, more trusted by the business, and less dependent on the CFO for every important call.
Results that speaks for themselves
A significant impact on me, as a person and an executive
Energised, excited, and clearer about how I lead
Expert guidance through career transformation
Clarity, challenge, and lightbulb moments that stick
Genuinely transformative, with impact beyond the sessions
Clearer priorities, stronger leadership, more deliberate decisions
An outstanding coach
One of the best that I have worked with
An excellent executive coach
Provided a safe environment for us to push our boundaries
Guided me on a journey of self-discovery