Meet our Chief Financial Officer, Cheryl Nobert.
In her role, Cheryl is responsible for financial strategy and operations including budget management and financial performance for both the Sacramento Metro Chamber and Foundation.
Leadership and literacy
As a member of our C-Suite, a huge part of Cheryl’s leadership approach is keeping the team at the heart of everything she does and striving for group excellence. “Involvement in the budgeting process empowers the team members by giving them responsibility for their financial performance,” states Cheryl. “Individuals work better when they have achievable targets and goals.”
In order to increase financial literacy, Cheryl provides 1-on-1 coaching to staff to fully understand how to read company financial statements and how to adjust strategies in response to trends. She knows that finance is often a complicated topic for non-finance-related team members but understands that it is vital to keep key team members informed on financial matters.
Keeping it simple
Instead of talking through a long list of facts and figures, which can be hard for certain audiences to concentrate on, Cheryl keeps it simple. This means breaking down complex information and data into bite-size chunks. It also means knowing who your audience is and speaking their language.
“Different departments will have different interests and ideas of where they measure value, so I try to identify what these are in advance and adapt my presentation to fit that need,” explains Cheryl.
This is reflected in her quarterly team budget presentations where she pinpoints key contributing factors for each department as well as identifies how this affects the total budget. She strongly believes that clarifying goals and impact is crucial for engaging team members on finance. While organizational finances like budgeting is often seen as a daunting task, Cheryl makes it easier for our team by providing an open space to ask questions and learn more.
Tips from the expert
In recognition of Financial Literacy Month, Cheryl has a few tips for those wanting to become more financially literate. While there are many tools available to improve over-all financial literacy such as newsletters, podcasts and social media, her tip is keeping a personal finance budget. This can be as simple as starting a log of monthly income and expenses.
You can even take it a step further by creating a manageable spreadsheet with your monthly budget against the actual expenses. “It’s eye opening when you begin journaling your actual expenses and quickly determine what you can live without. This easy exercise can be a motivator to creating personal financial freedom.” Cheryl advises.
You can see the full list of our amazing team members like Cheryl on our new Teams page at metrochamber.org/team.