Executive Search: The CFO Role

The CFO holds a key leadership role in an organization, one that often requires wearing a number of strategic and operational hats. Ultimately they are the trusted business advisor to the CEO and the Board of Directors, providing them an objective view of the financial performance of the business, while holistically assessing the company’s risks and opportunities.

Today the CFO role is not solely about keeping score or providing operational management (i.e. cost containment, controls, quality of data, defined processes, etc.) it is about “operational agility” and the CFO’s ability to collaborate, focus on growth, embrace a culture of adaptive learning and to effectively deliver analytics that are both meaningful and a change agent for the company.

For your next CFO executive search, while it is critical that CFOs understand the past, present and future financial outlook of the company, it is paramount that they are able to:

• Strategize and execute the organization’s vision/mission

• Accelerate their organization’s ability to take new products to market, drive growth and profitability and maintain integrity/compliance across the business

• Build a framework to quickly assess new business opportunities and continually analyze the current corporate structure and infrastructure to mitigate risks (audit, reporting, tax planning, working capital management)

• Lead the company on understanding and measuring both the financial and the intangible drivers of value of the business by delivering forward looking business metrics

• Foster key business relationships (boards, external advisors, investors, etc.) to ensure stakeholders understand business and operational objectives in order to make well-informed decisions

• Help manage a company, its employees and stakeholders through a period of distress, should industry factors change causing a decrease in profitability and liquidity

Author: Candace Enman, CPA, CA – President of Welch Capital Partners