Editor’s note: In today’s A Day in the Life, Musi Samosir (pictured), chief financial officer at Zurich Indonesia, shares with FutureCFO audiences how his experience during the COVID-19 pandemic became key to his professional growth and why he rewatches at least once a year the critically acclaimed movie, Interstellar.
FutureCFO: What does a typical day look like for you?
Musi Samosir (MS): The day starts early at our house with both school and work a good distance away from home.
My breakfast is typically a double espresso with a side of energising back-and-forth with my two daughters as they ready themselves for school.
After the children leave, I take a few calming minutes for myself in front of the piano before the day begins in earnest with a long commute. If you’re willing to be flexible, though, a long commute can be a blessing – quietly go through emails, coordinate virtually with colleagues abroad, pick up an e-learning, or read.
Once I'm in the office, it's a constant stream of meetings and emails on a wide array of topics. Business cases, portfolio monitoring, board meeting preparations, financial forecasting, regulatory reporting and audits are but a few examples of topics requiring attention just in the last quarter – not to mention the various firefighting that is often inevitable.
On top of practically being a job requirement, I enjoy having visibility of various parts of the business and being able to provide a balanced and multi-layered contribution to business decisions.
Lunch is, more often than not, a simple affair of boiled eggs and some fruit at our office pantry. The uninspiring menu and limited duration are, however, frequently supplemented by appetising conversations with friends and colleagues (often about food, hence appetising).
I try not to stay in the office very late and as much as I can time my clock out with my wife's so we can travel home together and catch up on the way.
On an ideal day, after a light exercise (which is often neglected I am ashamed to admit) I would cook dinner for me and my wife (the children will have finished dinner by the time we arrive home).
I enjoy this part of the day as cooking is therapeutic for me and it gives the family something engaging to centre around and share a small amount of quality time at night.
I then give myself an hour or so to catch up on emails and look at my calendar for the next day before I wind down usually shortly after midnight.
FutureCFO: What excites you the most when you work with the Finance Function?
MS: CFOs are a technical bunch – we like our jargons and train ourselves to ask difficult questions, but at the core what every CFO wants to do is help the business create, protect, and communicate value.
What's exciting about being in the finance function is when you can get your stakeholders see exactly this. One of the reasons it's satisfying is because that stakeholder perception does not always come naturally.
I'm conscious that engagement with the finance crowd is not always the easiest which is why I take pride in our team's willingness to spend time understanding not only surface-level business perspectives but how things work behind the scene which enable more meaningful and solution-oriented collaboration with every part of the business.
It is when this conscious effort in trying to make something work collaboratively (and profitably), even though some compromises will need to be made here and there, bears fruit that being in finance can feel very rewarding.
Musi Samosir, CFO, Zurich Indonesia
Over time, doing this consistently translates to credibility and in turn ability to not only influence but drive outcomes. That is exciting.
FutureCFO: Can you share an experience which was key to your professional growth?
MS: When COVID hit, I was the Chief Risk Officer for Zurich Indonesia and responsible for its crisis management program.
It was one of the most stressful periods of my career as I tried balancing between keeping our people safe and upholding our promise to customers – all in a highly uncertain environment where you literally couldn’t know what would happen next.
I learned something very valuable during this time which is that at the worst of times people can choose to be the best version of themselves.
I'm not talking about myself, rather my team, the business as a whole, the community, the industry, and the regulators working together to get through the terrible crisis.
We worked with the various elements of society in sharing information, putting in place safety measures, taking care of those affected, administering public vaccination programs, all while remaining operational as a business and continuing to provide peace of mind to our customers.
COVID was a humbling experience in many ways. It diminished us, stripped us off our ego and ambitions.
At the same time, though, it reduced us to our core, most brilliant essence: our humanity. I was able to see up close how that carried us through. That changed my perspective.
I now make conscious effort in seeing the human aspect of what we do. We are a business, yes, but we are in the business of being there when bad things happen and making people whole, of providing peace of mind. There is something very human about all of that and we need to make sure that it is felt.
FutureCFO: Is there anything outside work—such as a travel experience, a book, participation in a sport event or any volunteering experience—that serves as an important inspiration to your work or life?
MS: It's hard to choose just one, to be honest. Inspiration comes to me incrementally and not often through a single defining moment or experience.
My parents' teachings and actions played a critical role in the formative years, as can be expected. As is often the case with less privileged Bataknese families, my parents worked hard to put me and my siblings through school. They believe that efforts matter and education makes a difference. This underpins two of my key values: hard work and learning which I firmly believe to be a big part of the reason I am where I am know.
These values influence my volunteering as well. All my volunteering activities are centred around education. Zurich has a really good program in partnership with Prestasi Junior Indonesia which aims to enable and empower high school students to experiment with running their own small business.
I serve as a mentor but in truth I probably am more inspired by the students than the other way around. The degree of creativity they show in generating business ideas (always with a strong social or environmental sustainability angle) is matched (if not exceeded) by the drive and tenacity they have in executing on their plans (all their businesses have been profitable) – some really incredible examples of learning and hard work coming together.
Now for a more fun answer. There is a movie that I rewatch at least annually and it's Christoper Nolan's Interstellar.
It's got a neat high-concept idea about space, father-daughter relationship, superb cast, tight directing, and excellent music – all of which I enjoy.
There is a scene towards the end of the movie's second act where the protagonist, Cooper, who was piloting a small spacecraft toward a mobile space station that was currently spinning out of control due to an accident, had to perform a dangerously difficult maneuver to dock.
When one of the onboard AI computers realised what Cooper was trying to do, it told him: “It's not possible.” Cooper simply responded “No, it's necessary.”
That's some cask-strength determination right there.
Life and business are not scripted conveniently like movies but sometimes when faced with difficult decisions knowing that the right thing to do is one that feels impossible, I wish I could Cooper my way through it, say “it's necessary”, and just get it done.
