Waters Corporation CFO Amol Chaubal has cracked the code on the strategic CFO role, and he’s willing to share a snapshot of his formula for success.

“A lot of companies focus on data and the insights coming out of that data,” reveals Chaubal, who amassed finance leadership experience in consumer products, pharma, and energy before joining Waters Corporation—a publicly listed analytical Laboratory instrument and software company—earlier this year. “Our focus is a few steps ahead. We say that data and insights are table stakes. You have to go one step further to take these insights and create action options for the business leaders. And you have to then use these options to come up with decision support and recommendations on what actions to pursue.”

After helping to execute a tricky COVID pivot at his previous company, Chaubal now tries to apply his laserlike focus to commercial operations at Waters in order to drive recurring revenue gains and help to enhance the vitality of the company’s product portfolio. On a daily basis, he and his finance team monitor the opportunities pipeline by tracking incoming orders (by instrument category, business area, geography, customer type), order–sales conversions, supply chain and inventory health, operations productivity, and product portfolio vitality.

Chaubal’s secret for optimizing his own levels involves taking a series of 5- to 7-minute breaks throughout the day to relax, refocus, and reinvigorate. He channels this vigor into expanding his relationships with business leaders throughout the organization: “I strongly feel that the most successful CFO is a social CFO. One who connects with the deepest deep corners of the organization. One who is able to pull information out, connect the dots, and come up with: What does this mean?” –Jack Sweeney