Claire Bramley: CFO, Storyteller, And Boundary-Breaker At Teradata

Claire Bramley is the CFO of Teradata, a hybrid cloud data analytics company specializing in large-scale data warehousing and analytics solutions, including AI and generative AI. The company believes people thrive when they are empowered with trusted information. Their best-in-class cloud analytics and data platform delivers the harmonized data and trusted AI/ML organizations need for confident decision-making, faster innovation, and impactful business results.

Claire and I recently connected to talk about the importance of storytelling in finance, leading Teradata’s shift to cloud-based solutions, and how CFOs can embrace opportunities that push boundaries.

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Claire Bramley has been destined to work in finance since she was 14 years old. Growing up and spending most of her childhood in Canterbury in Kent, she discovered an interest in the broader business environment in school. When a teacher encouraged and supported that curiosity, she spent four years of high school nurturing that interest.

“The finance piece struck a chord with me—being able to tell a story through the numbers and being able to relate it to decisions made and the case studies we were managing,” Bramley explained. “My business studies teacher gave me great case studies about companies to analyze. That fostered my enjoyment of connecting the dots through the numbers.”

She stayed in the UK for university, graduating from Loughborough University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and business management.

Throughout her career, however, Bramley has never let go of her 14-year-old self’s grasp of the power of communication in finance. In fact, the ability to tell a story about numbers is a skill she encourages other finance professionals to learn early on. With so many people trained on the technical side of the CFO role, the effective communicators will be the ones who stand out.

Bramley believes that it is an investment worth making…in oneself.

“I’ve heard a number of accountants and controllers who say, ‘I can’t present. I can’t communicate. I can’t tell a story,’” she said. “It’s not that you can’t. You need to practice. You need to say to yourself, ‘This is something I’m going to do.’ Invest like any other skill. You have to put the same investment into being a communicator. I encourage people to not put boundaries and barriers on themselves and to put the same time and effort into becoming a good communicator as they already have to become a good controller or financial analyst.”

Bramley is speaking from experience. One of her first roles was as controller and then financial analyst at SSP Group. From there, she moved into personal systems financial planning at HP. She stayed at the company, taking on various responsibilities and titles, over about 14 years.

During that time, she had the privilege of learning from and being challenged by leaders with different management styles–some that appeared difficult at first.

“The first manager I had found a different way of mentoring me and pushed me,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m never going to be enough. I’m never going to be able to get there,’ but he knew I would respond to that challenge. It was like, “You’ve got that now. What about this?” Honestly, that was the best thing that ever happened. It turned out that he knew he would be moving onto a new role and was trying to set me up to manage things in the interim, add more value and get up to speed quickly.”

HP represented the opportunity to be pushed in a supportive rather than aggressive way. She realizes now that her leadership guided her beyond the limitations she set for herself. Additionally, her father made sure to encourage her to go after jobs that might be outside of her comfort zone.

The ability to challenge boundaries is something she aims to share with others and is a concept that has impacted her life in significant ways. In fact, she took jobs in Switzerland and even moved to the U.S. to take advantage of what was in front of her.

Bramley’s role as CFO of Teradata is just that–her first time as CFO but an opportunity to expand. Before coming on board, her last role was Global Controller at HP, a job that prepared her well to move to Teradata. In addition to being capable and prepared for the key, day-to-day responsibilities, her role as Global Controller put her in front of HP’s Board of Directors, which afforded her invaluable experience.

“At HP, letting the controller manage the audit committee is fairly rare,” Bramley explained. “The CFO is there and attends, but the controller is the person who has the relationship with the audit committee chair. Running the audit committee and getting to know how the board of directors works was key exposure. I would encourage people thinking about wanting to be a CFO to get more involved and more connected to the board of directors in some form, because that is a very different relationship and a different way of communicating.”

At Teradata, those relationships were key in helping her adjust. She has invested in relationships with the board from day one, which has helped her take on such a dynamic range of departments and team members. In addition to the financial components, she also has IT, security, procurement, real estate, strategy, and transformation under her umbrella.

Other feedback that has proved critical is her rapport with Teradata CEO Steve McMillan.

“We have an amazing relationship,” she said. “Whether it’s the CEO or any business partner I have worked with, I know the importance of that relationship. When you talk about personality indexes, I’m an adapter. That helps a lot because I look at what I need to be. It’s not that you change your values or approach, but you find a way to ensure that you are a balanced team. If the CEO, for example, tends to focus on one area, I’ll intentionally adapt and focus on another area. At the same time, we try to ensure that we come together to ensure alignment. We must be aligned, stay connected and stay on the same page; if there’s a crack at our level, it becomes a canyon down through the organization.”

Bramley says that their alignment can sometimes involve difficult conversations, but they always lead to good outcomes. She values being able to talk openly, whiteboard ideas and occasionally pushing each other to think of different ways of moving forward.

It’s a diversity of perspectives and a desire to make each employee’s voice heard that strengthens Bramley’s team, especially as they work across functions.

“When we are together, it’s essential to support each other,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the chief accounting officer or the head of business finance. You bring perspective to the table and can all help each other out. You might not be the technical expert, and that’s not what I’m asking, but from a leadership standpoint and a support standpoint, you can help each other. We spend a lot of time focusing on that.”

The sense of teamwork is critical as they work together to help Teradata’s customers who are dealing with large amounts of data. Especially in the world of AI and generative AI, helping them get the best out of their data presents a big opportunity. One critical component is establishing trust not only in the output of AI but also in trusting AI at scale.

“Trust itself, when it comes to AI, means something,” she emphasized. AI itself means something, and at scale, it means doing it with the largest enterprises in the world. There has been a lot of hype over the last couple of months around generative AI, but companies are still figuring out how they can get a return and use this information and these capabilities better. We’re working with our customers to leverage the data they already have in a better way moving forward.”

As data continues to grow, the ability to be price performant is also an opportunity. As companies are running hundreds of millions of queries weekly and monthly, the cost of those queries is important because they add up. Conversely, Teradata has the lowest cost per query in the industry. The dashboards that they make available to customers prevent any surprises and manage costs.

Outside of her role, Bramley enjoys spending time outdoors, thanks to her husband, who is a raft guide, skiing instructor, and whitewater kayaker. Bramley regularly contributes content to LinkedIn, where readers will find articles such as, “How Kayaking Made Me a Better CFO,” inspired by her husband.

Whitewater kayaking is another example of how Bramley consistently seeks (and finds) ways to break down boundaries. She kayaked down the Grand Canyon, even though she hadn’t considered it. While there with her family, she thought that she would be the passenger, but her husband encouraged her to take the lead and row.

“Some of those rapids are scary,” she said. “But it’s about putting the work in and practicing. It’s about keeping a clear head. It’s about being able to adapt in the moment. It doesn’t go according to plan on every rapid. Something that you think is going to happen doesn’t happen. It’s about teamwork. You need someone to help you out if something goes wrong. It’s about keeping an eye on each other and working together.”

It proved, once again, that being out of her comfort zone and proving to herself that with the right attitude, the right approach and the right support, she can do anything.