Most CFOs I work with set up Claude training for their teams, then step back. The instinct makes sense. The clearest productivity gains from Claude show up in repetitive, high-volume work, and CFOs do less of that than their analysts and accountants. So they organize the licenses, run the sessions, and quietly treat Claude as something for the team.

That misses something. CFOs have plenty of ways to get real value from Claude. The work just looks different from the team's. It is not about automating a manual task. It is about thinking, judgment, and the parts of the job that never show up as a repeatable workflow.

One of those uses is team development, and it is the one I want to focus on here. I have helped several clients put it in place, and it works well. The idea is simple. You already know what holds each person on your team back. Claude can help you act on that, between formal reviews, consistently and at scale. This sits alongside your one-on-ones and coaching conversations. It does not replace them.

Today's edition assumes one thing: your team can already use Claude. Skills only work if the person loading them knows the tool.

That is what this cohort builds, all the way to skills and plugins.

Four sessions, 60 minutes each, every Tuesday from July 14 to August 4. A mixed group of finance leaders, one focused topic per week, hands-on throughout.

The first cohort just wrapped. People left with ready workflows they use every week.

If you are a CFO, bring your team. But do not leave yourself out. This edition was about coaching them. The cohort is for you too.

Early bird $499 through June 30, then $799. Register here.

CFOs I work with can usually describe what holds each person on their team back. Not in a critical way. Just the honest read that comes from working closely with someone. This one is technically excellent but cannot connect the numbers to the business. That one tells a great story but gets nervous once the detail gets specific. Another wants to move into FP&A but still thinks like an accountant, looking backward when the job is to look forward.

You know this about your people. The hard part has always been what to do with it between formal feedback conversations. You cannot sit with each person every time they work.

This is where Claude Skills change things. A Skill is a short set of instructions someone loads into Claude before they start a task. It shapes how Claude responds to them: the questions it asks, the numbers it flags, the direction it pushes. So you can take the diagnosis you already carry in your head and build it into the tool your team member uses every day.

Three patterns I've seen in teams I work with. You will probably recognize someone in each.

Some of the strongest technical people share one gap. They build the model, run the variance, get every number right. Ask what it means and they go quiet. Ask what the business should do about it and they have nothing.

That is a habit, not a capability. They were trained that getting the numbers right was the job, and getting the numbers right felt like enough.

If this person uses Claude for any part of their analysis, you can shape how Claude responds to their work. Build in the questions you always ask: what does this mean for the business, what would you recommend, does this number actually make sense. Claude also flags results that look implausible and asks them to explain, and suggests other ways to cut the data they may not have considered. Over time, the questions Claude asks become the questions they ask themselves.

The opposite is just as common. Strong on narrative, convincing in the room, shaky once the detail gets specific. They tell a clean story about the quarter, then leave a rounding error in the deck that undercuts the whole thing.

The risk is not only accuracy. It is confidence. People who are unsure of their numbers learn to keep things vague, which limits how useful they can be in senior conversations.

Claude can sit in as a checking layer, built into how they work. Not doing the work for them, catching what they miss: totals that do not add up, an extra zero, a line where the narrative says one thing and the numbers say another. The aim is that they internalize the process and need the check less over time.

This is a very common development conversation in finance. Someone strong in a technical accounting role wants to grow into a planning and analysis role. The gap is almost always the same. They are comfortable with what happened and uncomfortable with what might happen. They want every number in place before they will commit to anything.

Your CFO does not want to hear that the numbers are not in yet. They want a view, with the assumptions stated. That is the skill this person needs to build.

Here is the forward-looking skill in action. An analyst has been asked for a Q3 and second-half reforecast before the quarter is settled. Instead of stalling for clean numbers, the skill walks them to a credible view: start from the Q2 exit run rate, state every assumption out loud, and carry a base case and a downside case where the outcome is still uncertain. This is the move you want your team making on their own. 

Before you run with any of this, be honest with yourself about what it is. You are a CFO shaping how an AI tool pushes someone who reports to you. That is a power dynamic, and pretending otherwise is how good intentions turn into something that feels like monitoring. A few lines keep it on the right side.

You probably recognized at least one person in each of these. The harder question is what you do with that recognition.

In the paid section, I share the three Claude Skills, one per archetype, ready to use or adapt in under ten minutes. Plus how to introduce a Skill to someone without it feeling like surveillance, and a diagnostic prompt for when you are not sure which gap applies.

The CFO I am describing here does not know more about AI than their team. They use what they know about their team to shape how AI works for each person. That is a different skill, and it compounds over time.

Claude Skills take time to build once. After that, they work every time someone on your team uses them. And every time they do, the gap closes a little.

As always, I would like to hear what you think. Reply to this email, or find me on LinkedIn. If you try any of these with your team, let me know how it goes.

This newsletter is for you, and we want to make it as valuable as possible. Please reply to this email with your questions, comments, or topics you'd like to see covered in future issues. Your input shapes our content!

Want to dive deeper into balanced AI adoption for your finance team? Or do you want to hire an AI-powered CFO? Book a consultation!

Did you find this newsletter helpful? Forward it to a colleague who might benefit!

Until next Tuesday, keep balancing!

Anna Tiomina
AI-Powered CFO