Asher & Company and PwC Interamericas: A Strategic Finance Center of Excellence for Latin America
Panama City, December 2024
In September 2024, a CFO at a Central American bank asked me a question I hear far too often: "We have Oracle EPM. We have data. But we're still making profitability decisions with spreadsheets and good intentions. What are we missing?"
What he was missing wasn't technology. It was a decision architecture.
That conversation captures why Asher & Company and PwC Interamericas formalized a strategic alliance: the creation of the Strategic Finance Center of Excellence (CoE), a joint venture based in Panama with a clear mandate — to transform how Latin American organizations connect financial decisions to value creation.
What the CoE is and how it operates
This is not a traditional consulting practice. It's a joint venture with defined roles:
PwC Interamericas brings the channel — access to strategic accounts, a regional advisory network spanning 12 countries, and the institutional credibility of a Big Four firm.
Asher & Company brings the methodology and the technology: the proprietary Decision-to-Value (D2V) framework, Oracle EPM architectures, Activity-Based Costing and Management (ABC/M) models, and applied artificial intelligence capabilities for strategic finance.
The operating principle: Asher leads the methodology, the CoE validates, D2V differentiates. In client-facing materials, PwC is the primary visible brand with Asher as the methodology accelerator behind it. The combination solves a problem neither could solve alone — PwC has the relationships, Asher has the financial engineering.
The problem we solve
In over 20 years working with organizations across 15+ countries, I've seen the same pattern repeat in banking, healthcare, consumer goods, and logistics:
Companies invest in EPM platforms but never activate their decision-making potential. They buy Oracle Cloud, implement planning and consolidation modules, and generate dashboards. But the gap between data and profitability decisions stays wide open. The CFO reports. The CFO doesn't govern.
The CoE exists to close that gap. We do it through four levers:
Profitability models with ABC/M. Knowing what a product costs isn't enough. You need to know what it costs to serve each customer, through each channel, in each geography. Activity-Based Costing provides that granularity — and it transforms conversations around pricing, product mix, and resource allocation.
Activated Oracle EPM architectures. Many organizations are sitting on underutilized EPM licenses. Modules purchased but never configured. Planning capabilities are running at 30% of their potential. The CoE activates what already exists before proposing additional investments.
The Decision-to-Value (D2V) framework. It connects every strategic decision to a measurable financial outcome. This is not a theoretical model — it's a governance tool that integrates into the Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting (PB&F) cycle, ensuring every initiative has a living business case, not a document defended once and forgotten.
StrategicFinance.ai as an intelligence layer. An AI-powered platform that enables finance teams to simulate scenarios, accelerate profitability analysis, and democratize access to real-time financial intelligence. It doesn't replace FP&A teams — it amplifies them.
Who this is for
The CoE works with organizations that meet at least two of these conditions:
They operate in regulated industries (banking, insurance, healthcare, energy)
They have Oracle EPM implementations that aren't delivering expected value
They need profitability models that go beyond the traditional P&L
They face regulatory complexity such as BEPS 2.0, IFRS 18, or ESG requirements
They want to transform shared services (GBS) with real cost-benefit metrics
What the leaders say
Bismark Rodríguez, Managing Partner, PwC Interamericas: "Creating the CoE with Asher represents a strategic step in our regional capability. We're not adding another vendor to the ecosystem — we're integrating a profitability methodology that directly complements our advisory practice."
Pedro San Martín, Principal, Asher & Company: "Our purpose is to be strategic copilots for the most demanding CFOs in the region. The CoE allows us to combine the best of PwC — its network, its institutional trust — with the best of Asher — the financial decision engineering that turns data into competitive advantage."
Measurable impact
We don't talk about "digital transformation" in the abstract. The CoE model is designed to deliver concrete results:
Structural cost reduction through applied ABC/M — not linear cuts, but intelligent reallocation of resources toward margin-generating activities.
Improved ROIC through customer, product, and channel profitability models that enable evidence-based investment and divestment decisions.
Alignment between operational planning and strategy — closing the gap between what gets planned in the boardroom and what gets executed in operations.
Activation of underutilized EPM modules — generating value from existing technology investments before proposing new ones.
Next step
If you're a CFO, VP of Finance, or financial transformation leader in Latin America and you recognize any of these challenges in your organization, this conversation is for you.
Schedule a diagnostic session → asher.company/contact
Pedro San Martín is Principal at Asher & Company, Strategic Finance Center of Excellence in partnership with PwC Interamericas. He chairs the IMA Profitability & Cost Management SIG and teaches at ITAM and Universidad Anáhuac. Contact: psanmartin@asheranalytics.com
