A CFO exit interview with Kajima Building & Designs' Bona Allen

Yahoo

03-07-2025

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Bona Allen, senior vice president and CFO at commercial and residential construction company Kajima Building & Design Group, has more than 40 years of experience in finance. Last week, he and the company formally announced his exit plan.
Allen has spent most of his career in real estate development and construction, working with both private and public companies. At KBD, he helped build a high-performing finance and accounting team and guided the organization through significant growth and transformation on a global scale.
Allen's insight and contributions to events hosted by the Atlanta chapter of the CFO Leadership Council and vendor conferences are frequently praised for their clarity and authenticity. As he now transitions out of his CFO role, Allen is expanding his focus on board service and mission-driven leadership.
Though he detailed how he plans to stay active through consulting, fractional CFO work and continued board engagement, whether he takes on another CFO post full time at some point in the future remains to be seen.
CFO and senior vice president, Kajima Building & Design Group
First CFO position: 1997
Notable previous employers:
Montgomery Financial Services
NYLO Hotels
PRS Companies
Host Funding
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
BONA ALLEN: The team at KBD is amazing, and it's a great company. That group is part of the overall building and design organization in the U.S., and they design and build amazing facilities. The team that has been built, especially in finance and accounting, is incredible.
So I can't say they don't need me anymore, but they're such a strong team that this felt like the right time for me to say, I've been here 12 years, and it's time to do something else. The timing is good, and I don't feel like there's a gap because the team is so strong.
I'm retiring from KBD, but I'm not retiring. I can't stop completely — what would I do?
So ostensibly, on the surface, what has stayed the same is the accounting and the depth of accounting expertise. But at the same time, that's sort of changed too. The top accounting or finance person was the accounting expert, except even then, leadership came into play.
As it progressed over time, what's changed is that now the CFO role truly is C-Suite strategic leadership and has a strategic vision for the company or companies as a whole, beyond just finance and accounting.
I like the idea that you don't have to be a CPA or an accounting person to be a CFO. Especially in larger companies, there's too much responsibility for one person. You have to bring in people who are experts in tax or specific areas of GAAP and reporting.
So it gets back to leadership. That's changed, except it hasn't. Maybe the headlines say, 'The evolving role of the CFO: more strategic, more leadership,' but the companies that were looking to the future were already doing that. They were already including the CFO in those conversations.
It's developing teams and bringing teams along. For sure at KBD, but also other places. It's not me, it's bringing strong leaders in. The phrase that's used too much but applies is, 'Never be the smartest person in the room.' I always try to hire people who are smarter than I am, and that's not difficult to do.
If we hire the right people, good strong people, and give them the tools to be successful, that's very fulfilling. Because then they're off doing things I was doing, and it pushes me to be better.
Case in point, Jennie Robison, the vice president and controller at KBD. When she started, I told her from the beginning, once you're acclimated, please start taking things from me. And that's what she did. She said, 'You don't need to do this anymore, let me do it.' Then she started delegating some of that stuff. So it forced me to raise my game and improve my skills.
That's when I started looking more into board-level roles, seeing things from a board perspective, not just as someone in the C-Suite or at the company.
It's a combination of a lot of things. Yeah, trial and error. Getting to know somebody as well as you can in the process. Also leaning on outside resources.
We've developed a really good relationship with a couple of recruiting firms here in Atlanta. The one that brought me to KBD is Accountants One, and they've presented multiple candidates to us, including Jennie, our controller.
They know me. They don't just try to place somebody to get the fee. They want long-term success. You can only get to know someone at a fairly superficial level in the interview process, so it's really more about looking into their backgrounds, getting to know them and using outside resources as well.
It started with individuals. Over the years, I've had great resources and mentors, generally at the C-level. CEOs, some board members and friends I'd call over the years.
As far as organizations, the CFO Leadership Council is a huge one; they've been a great resource. I've also gotten involved in the Private Directors Association and the National Association of Corporate Directors. I've made friends there too and they've been great resources.
Being a mentor and a mentee, I view those as interchangeable roles. I've been an official, structured mentor a couple of times, but I find I get mentored just as often. I probably learn as much, maybe more, from early career professionals than they learn from me.
To stay relevant, we've got to understand leadership and how it evolves. There are fundamentals: Respect everybody and treat them with the highest level of respect. But especially as workplace environments change, we have to be open to listening to people earlier in their careers. That helps us stay at least current, if not relevant.
I can't just jump 25 years into the future without thinking about the transition process. That process is everything you just mentioned: talent, technology, data. How do we use it all and bring in the right tools to stay competitive without compromising data security or people's well-being?
I think it's about being open-minded because things are changing daily. And being focused on transitions and transformation. That means looking at our business today and understanding that it will change tomorrow. How do we stay relevant without chasing every shiny object?
The CFO of tomorrow will be watching transformational technologies, being aware of them and understanding how to bring them in to keep the company competitive. I've seen it throughout my career, crossing departmental lines. Financial people have visibility into every department, every product line. But only recently have companies started breaking down silos and bringing financial leaders into broader conversations.
That's where I've seen great success, even at KBD. People working closely across departments using new technologies. A technology doesn't have to be only accounting or operations. It can be both.
For a while, at various points in my career, I thought, 'You know, I bet I could do a better job as a CEO than that person.' But on the other hand, I think I had a strong enough impact in the roles I was in. And I'm not done. I've been very involved at the board level for a nonprofit here in Atlanta called 3Keys.
My future is expanding board roles. I've been on the board of 3Keys for six years now. They provide permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless in Atlanta. People who've been diagnosed with mental illness and have been on the street. The concept is housing first. Get someone a roof over their head, then help them with their struggles. This group provides on-site counseling and support services. They have five properties in the Atlanta area.
It's said to be one of the largest, if not the largest, of its kind in the Southeast. There are around 500 units, 500 people who were chronically homeless and now have homes. I've been involved there at the board level for several years. Another group with whom I've become involved is the World Affairs Council of Atlanta.
I'm looking to perhaps expand my role there at 3Keys, but I am also looking at other board seats. I've looked into several in the construction arena and elsewhere. I've also talked to a lot of people about doing consulting work, fractional CFO roles and interim CFO, those types of things.
Mission-driven. I don't have a real mandate at this point. I'm doing stuff around the house — it's been less than a week since I stepped away. There's a lot to catch up on that's fallen by the wayside. This past weekend, my wife and I went up to see our children.
One of our sons lives north of Boston with his two little girls, so we visited our grandkids. It was good to be able to have the time to do that. I'm open to opportunities where I can provide value and have a positive impact. The 80-hour weeks don't appeal to me anymore, but I don't have any specific limits either.
Right now, I'm also serving on the board of a small municipality in North Carolina, a local Alcohol License Review Board. It's a quasi-judicial board. Retail outlets that violate alcohol service standards come before me and the board to review their license if they commit a violation.
For example, some counties will run sting operations by sending in underage individuals to try to purchase alcohol. If the store sells to them, they're in violation, and the case comes before us to decide whether their license should be suspended. That group meets at least once a year, sometimes twice, but it depends on the number of violations. It's not a huge time commitment, but it's interesting work.
As per my full-time future, if something great came along I would possibly consider it. But we'll see.
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It's all about your people: Kajima Building and Design Group CFO Bona Allen