From financial silo to collaborative hub: How ASC transformed their finance function
The story of how one CFO broke down barriers and repositioned finance at the heart of organisational decision-making.When Helga Edwards walked into her new role as Chief Financial Officer at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), she immediately spotted a problem that many finance leaders will recognise: her team was an island.
The ASC is a global non-profit committed to improving the sustainability of seafood farming. With consumers in over 115 countries, payroll spanning 19 countries, and a turnover of approximately £14 million, ASC ensures traceability and transparency throughout the supply chain.
While the rest of ASC operated on modern, cloud-based platforms that encouraged collaboration, the finance team was trapped on an outdated system that literally and figuratively separated them from the organisation they served.
“The finance system was sitting on an isolated legacy platform, whereas the rest of the organisation were all using cloud-based tools,” Edwards recalls. “What that created was a silo for finance. Not only were the finance team working somewhere differently from everyone else, they were actually acting differently as well. And we’re quite isolated.”
This is the story of how Edwards transformed not just her team’s technology, but their entire role within the organisation—and what other finance leaders can learn from her journey.
The isolation trap: When finance becomes an island
ASC had a strong culture of “empowered collaboration,” as Edwards describes it. The organisation actively sought to push decision-making to the most appropriate level rather than forcing everything up through hierarchy. It was exactly the kind of agile, responsive culture that helps non-profits maximize their impact.
But the finance team couldn’t participate.
“You can only do that if you have a finance system where the decision makers can actually access the information that they need,” Edwards explains. “So it’s more than just getting purchase ordering, more than just the reporting. It’s a whole transformation piece.”
The technical limitations were clear enough: no purchase ordering system, poor reporting capabilities, heavy reliance on manual processes, and the constant risk that comes with unsupported legacy infrastructure. But Edwards recognised that the real problem went deeper.
Her finance team had become reactive rather than strategic, isolated rather than integrated, a cost centre rather than a business partner. The technology wasn’t just inefficient—it was fundamentally misaligned with how the organisation needed to work.
The vision: Finance at the centre
Edwards had a clear vision for where finance needed to be: “I wanted to bring the finance team more into the centre, because that’s where I believe they should be.”
This wasn’t just about proximity or visibility. In a global organisation working on complex environmental and social challenges, finance needed to be an enabling function that helped programme teams, country market development, and senior leadership make better decisions faster.
But achieving this vision required more than good intentions. It demanded a systematic approach to transformation that addressed technology, processes, and culture simultaneously.
The strategic approach: Building for the future, not recreating the past
Rather than rushing into partner selection, Edwards took a step back to think strategically about what ASC needed—not just to solve current problems, but to support future growth and evolution.
“I was sensing that we were starting to articulate what we already had, and I wanted to ensure that we were challenging ourselves effectively to capture, not what we have, but what we need to have for the future,” she explains.
This forward-thinking approach became the foundation for everything that followed. Edwards partnered with Hart Square to help challenge assumptions and ensure the requirements process focused on organisational needs rather than system limitations.
The human side: Change management as the critical success factor
For all the technical complexity involved in replacing a global finance system, Edwards quickly identified that the biggest challenge would be human, not technical.
“People don’t know what they don’t know, and it takes a lot of time to help people to understand,” she reflects. This was particularly true for purchase ordering—a fundamental shift not just for the wider organisation, but for the finance team itself.
Edwards’ approach to change management was both practical and empathetic. She used powerful analogies to help people understand what they were going through: “I likened it as the finance team have been learning to drive, and on go live, this is our first day of driving on the road. We’ve just put our L plates to one side, and our first job is to teach everybody else how to drive—except we’re actually going to go on to the Continent, and we’re going to drive on the other side of the road.”
This analogy did more than just explain the situation—it created psychological safety. By acknowledging the difficulty and asking for patience, Edwards helped both her team and the wider organisation approach the transition with realistic expectations and mutual support.
The practical toolkit: What actually worked
Beyond the high-level strategy, Edwards developed several practical approaches that other finance leaders can adapt:
Process visualisation: Working with Hart Square, she created comprehensive flowcharts for all new processes. “It wasn’t the actual having the chart at the end. It was the conversation that, bringing the team together and talking through how all the steps worked that helped enormously with the understanding.”
Structured support systems: Rather than allowing random questions to overwhelm the team post-launch, she established dedicated communication channels. “We’ve got our own little Xledger support email as an example. So don’t email everybody in finance.”
Champion development: She identified and empowered internal advocates who could help support the change. “We found champions. So I got people to talk about who’d come across similar systems who went, ‘Oh, yes, this will work great.'”
Celebration of quick wins: The new expense system provided immediate benefits for frequent travellers. “The expenses module was a real big quick win for us, because it handles multi-currency, and you can just do it on your app.”
The transformation: Beyond efficiency to cultural change
The results went far beyond the typical metrics of system implementation success:
Operational efficiency: The team freed up over one full-time equivalent in manual processing time, enabling them to focus on higher-value work.
Cultural integration: Finance moved from being isolated to being integrated into collaborative decision-making across teams.
Empowered decision-making: Managers throughout the organisation gained access to the real-time financial information they needed to make better decisions faster.
Global scalability: The new cloud-based system seamlessly handles complex multi-country operations that would have been impossible with the legacy platform.
Perhaps most importantly, the transformation was cost-neutral—ASC achieved all these benefits while keeping their operational costs flat.
The ongoing journey: Sustaining momentum
Edwards is refreshingly honest about the ongoing nature of transformation. “Do we stop and celebrate it? No, we just continue going, thinking ‘what’s our next problem we’ve got to solve?’ I’ve got to deliberately step back and say ‘No, this is great. Look what we’ve done so far.'”
This reflects a mature understanding that organisational transformation is not a destination but a capability. By building systems and processes that support ongoing adaptation, ASC has positioned itself not just to solve current challenges, but to evolve with future needs.
Lessons for other finance leaders
Edwards’ journey offers several key insights for other CFOs facing similar challenges:
Start with culture, not technology: The most successful finance transformations address organisational alignment before technical specifications.
Invest in change management: “The biggest challenge is change management and people,” Edwards notes. Technical implementation is the easy part.
Plan for the marathon: “Right from the get-go, I said to the team, ‘This is a Marathon.’ We’ve got to book holidays. You’ve still got to have time off.”
Focus on partnership, not just procurement: “It wasn’t just selecting the software. It’s selecting a partner that we can work with.”
Be kind to yourself and your team: Edwards’ most heartfelt advice is simply this: “Be kind to yourself and your team. Just be kind, be kind to yourself.”
The broader impact: Finance as organisational catalyst
What makes Edwards’ story compelling isn’t just the successful system implementation—it’s the demonstration that finance transformation can be a catalyst for broader organisational change.
By moving from silo to hub, ASC’s finance function became an enabler of the collaborative culture the organisation needed to achieve its mission. The transformation removed barriers, empowered decision-makers, and created the infrastructure for sustainable growth.
For other finance leaders struggling with similar challenges, Edwards’ journey proves that it’s possible to break free from legacy constraints and reposition finance as a strategic partner. The key is approaching it not as a technology project, but as an organisational transformation that happens to involve technology.
To find out more about ASC’s path to modern solutions, watch the full webinar on-demand with Helga and Xledger.
Hart Square helps non-profit organisations navigate complex technology transformations, with particular expertise in finance system modernisation and organisational change management. Our technology-neutral approach ensures you get the right solution for your specific needs, with the support you need to make it successful. Get in touch today and speak to one of our experts.