Do You Have a Superb CFO? Part 1
What should you expect from your private company CFO—or from yourself if you’re the CFO or senior finance person?
We like this summary, developed from several sources. [i], [ii], [iii]
The CFO:
Must serve as the fiscal authority in the organization, ensuring the integrity of financial data while modeling transparency and accountability.
Is as much a part of governance and oversight as the CEO, playing a fundamental role in the development and critique of strategic choices.
Is clearly a leader and team builder who sets the financial agenda for the organization, supports the CEO directly, and provides timely advice to the company, including the board of directors.
From our work over the last 25 years, we’ve found that only about 20% of private company CFOs and senior finance executives have all the competencies that they need in each of the three, “critical skill areas”.
These critical skill areas are:
Controllership.
Treasury and Cash Management.
Strategy, Planning, and Forecasting.
If you’re a CFO
Do you know what’s required of you in each of these areas? Are you able to execute proficiently and with depth in each one?
If you’re a CEO or Founder
Are you getting everything that you need to run your business skillfully today and for the next five years? What are you missing?
The CEO <—> CFO team can make or break a company. To help you excel, in the next few articles we’ll dig into the three critical skill areas that a private company CFO needs to help her company thrive and review the required competencies for each one. Our goal is to help you determine what type of CFO you are or have on staff and what you can do to move to exemplary performance in all three critical skill areas.
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The CFO Assessment Tool™
As CEO: Are you missing key pieces of information and analyses from your CFO in reporting, finance, strategy, or planning? Do you know if your CFO has the critical skills needed to help ensure your success?
As CFO: Want to understand all the skills that you need to excel as a finance executive?
We’ve created an online tool that allows C-level executives and board directors to evaluate their finance groups and create a superbly competent senior finance team.
Get in touch to use our on-line CFO Assessment Tool and discuss how we can help you excel in your role as a C-level executive.
All the best,
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[i] Zwilling, Martin (2016-03-18). "Good Chief Financial Officers Focus on Much More Than Finance". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
[ii] Maureen O'Connell, Scholastic Inc. (28 October 2014). "How CFO's Can Turn Stakeholders Into Allies - By Maureen O'Connell". Slideshare.net. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
[iii] "What Board expects from CFO". TopFinanceProfessionals.com. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
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