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I've heard that sentence from finance leaders for more than fifteen years.
After hearing it so often, I've come to believe something.
We're solving the wrong problem.
The talent isn't the problem.
The pipeline is.
South Africa produces some of the best chartered accountants in the world, and the world knows it.
Our finance professionals are highly sought after in London, Sydney, Dubai, and many other international markets because the quality of our training is exceptional and the talent is real.
Sometimes I wonder if that's part of the reason we feel so short at home. The better our people become, the more the world wants them.
With only around 48,000 chartered accountants in South Africa and an estimated shortage of more than 20,000 skilled finance professionals, it's easy to understand why that belief exists.
But after watching the same pattern repeat itself for years, I've reached a different conclusion.
The issue isn't a lack of talented people.
It's a lack of organisations building enough of them.
Many organisations still treat finance capability as a recruitment challenge.
A senior finance professional resigns.
HR advertises the position internally for six or eight weeks, even though everyone already knows there isn't an internal successor ready to step into the role.
Eventually, the search moves outside the organisation.
By then, the business has changed, priorities have shifted, and the role often looks very different from the one that was originally advertised.
If you've ever sat in that meeting, you already know how the story ends.
Buying experienced professionals is expensive.
Research suggests that replacing a senior employee can cost up to one and a half times their annual salary once recruitment costs, lost productivity, onboarding, and the time needed to become fully effective are considered.
External recruitment will always have its place.
There are genuine situations where specialist expertise or fresh perspectives are exactly what a business needs.
The problem isn't hiring externally.
The problem is relying on it.
When recruitment becomes the primary strategy for building capability, organisations find themselves competing for the same limited pool of experienced professionals year after year.
There's a simpler way.
Build your talent pipeline every day.
The strongest finance teams don't rely on buying finished specialists.
They develop them.
When someone leaves a leadership role, the person below is ready to move up.
That creates another opportunity for the next person to grow.
The only position that usually needs to be filled externally is at the bottom of the organisation, where graduates and trainees begin their careers.
That is where talent is most affordable.
More importantly, it is where future finance leaders are developed.
A finance talent pipeline is a structured approach to developing people from graduate and junior roles into senior finance, management and leadership positions.
A healthy finance function creates continuous movement throughout the organisation.
Instead of constantly competing for scarce experienced talent, organisations create their own.
When finance teams tell me they have a talent problem, I usually hear something different.
I hear a pipeline problem.
They've spent years buying talent when they could have been building it.
Every finance leader has a choice.
You can continue competing for a limited pool of experienced professionals.
Or you can invest in developing the people who will become tomorrow's finance leaders.
The organisations that consistently outperform aren't simply better at hiring.
They're better at building.
So I'll leave you with one question.
Are you out bidding, outsourcing, or building?
And if you're not building yet, what's actually stopping you?
