Walk into any boardroom, and you’ll find a world fully dominated by numbers: revenue charts, margin trends, capital ratios, forecasts. Rishi Oberoi, the deputy CFO of Varo Bank and a finance veteran for over two decades, emphasizes how big a mistake this is and yet, how he has seen it play out over and over again: leaders treating finance as math, rather than as people.
Many leaders tend to forget that the real stories of a company are written by humans: employees who create value, leaders who set direction, and cultures that determine the rise or fall of a company. When leaders ignore the human element within finance, they pay a cost far greater than any missed quarterly target. Spreadsheets don’t stay up late to save a deal. Budgets don’t negotiate trade-offs in tough markets. People do.
When Numbers Hide Reality
Many leaders in finance focus almost exclusively on achieving monthly results or celebrate efficiency gains from automation and tighter controls, but they forget to notice how, slowly, behind the scenes, employee turnovers rise, institutional knowledge drains away, and relationships with investors and regulators weaken.
The reasons are common to all industries: board pressure, public targets, and incentive plans that reward short-term goals. However, Rishi notes that the consequences are uniquely costly in finance. When experienced professionals walk out the door, you don’t just lose headcount; you lose judgment, continuity, and trust. Foresight erodes, deals stall, compliance risks proliferate, and institutions begin to drift away from the very communities they serve, because the people who carried the mission are no longer there to serve it.
When Finance Must Say No (or Pivot)
Rishi highlights that the obsession with short-term gain creates a culture where stress is normalized, even celebrated. He recalls a funding negotiation during his early consulting career where investors pressed for aggressive terms. On paper, the deal appeared sound, but in reality, it threatened heavy dilution for employees and early backers—the very people who had built the company’s foundation. It fell to the finance team to highlight the risk and say NO.
Only, not every organization has the privilege of walking away. Rishi insists that in such moments, finance must be the guardian of people rather than a gatekeeper: negotiating retention packages, preserving upside, and structuring flexibility for all employees. The task of a finance leader is to ensure that humans aren’t erased by the deal, no matter the constraints—”Companies that protect their people even under the harshest terms are not being ‘soft’. They’re building resilience that balance sheets alone cannot show.”
Empathy and Communication: The E + C Equation
If leadership in finance has a formula that can ensure an environment suitable for long-term thinking and sustainable growth for a company, here’s the one Rishi stands by: Empathy + Communication = Trust.
Empathy allows leaders to put themselves in the shoes of employees, customers, and even regulators, preventing tone-deaf decisions that look good in Excel but fail in execution. On the other hand, only with clear communication of the “why” behind decisions, passive employees can be transformed into engaged partners, and skeptical investors into long-term allies.
“Most problems can be solved, or avoided altogether,” Rishi explains, “if leaders simply communicate openly and listen actively.”
The Future of Finance Leadership Isn’t About Tech, but Human Connections
With AI and predictive analytics, it’s tempting to think machines will fill the human gap in finance. They won’t. AI can flag anomalies, model scenarios, and offer efficiency, but it’s only humans who can be trustworthy enough to persuade regulators or reassure investors. Only a human can decide if an anomaly is noise, fraud, or the cost of a necessary strategic bet.
So what does embracing the human side of finance look like in practice? Here are the principles Rishi Oberoi carried across his career:
- Prioritise purpose alongside profit. Numbers matter, but they must be anchored to a mission for long-term sustainability. Profit should fund progress, but it must not become the sole measure of success.
- Lead with empathy and clarity. From the position of leadership, sharing truths can be difficult, but delivered with honesty and humanity, they build resilience instead of fear. That’s the “E + C equation” in action.
- Treat trust as capital. A culture of trust is an operating system that, like reserves, must be refreshed and reinforced regularly. The culture of trust, transparency, and inclusion is often invisible on balance sheets, but it compounds and comes out when a crisis hits—then there’s nothing more valuable.
- Balance technology with human judgment. Numbers can only highlight anomalies, but you need human judgment to interpret the patterns. Leaders must be translators, not mere reporters; they must see beyond the numbers and decide if they’re warnings or an invitation for a bold strategy.
Final Words
Rishi predicts that the companies that will thrive in the next decade won’t be those that master the fastest algorithm or hit the most aggressive quarterly targets, but the ones that master trust and human connection. At the end of the day, finance really is for people, and it really needs to be developed by people.
As Rishi reminds us of the old African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”