When recruiting a CFO what kind of background and skills set should you be looking out for?
Answers
Generally, a
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I would add that they should have familiarity or understanding of the culture of the organization. A CFO who wears jeans and a golf shirt isn't going to fit into a 3-piece suit organization - or visa versa easily.
Ditto on Regis, and;
CxO implies a certain scale of business. Certainly, a 3 person shop can have a CFO, CEO et cetera...however I look at those roles quite differently. My Mom (a CFO) counseled me when I was doing my first start-up to avoid the CxO title...as people like her would look at the title as a bit of a wanna-be.
My shortlist of skills / exp (although industry and company needs will color this);
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-Business Partnering...Should have worked at the board level and with Cx0 or VPx peers.
-International / Divisional / Multi-company...experience in working with divisions and managing the interactions between them.
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Keith,
I like your mom's comment on titles. If you look at some titles of people on LinkedIn, you begin to scratch your head.
Sometimes less is really best!
Depending on the size of the company and the other C-levels present, your CFO may also need to help build the strategic direction of the company and help the President/CEO manage the other departmental heads. For many entrepreneurial companies, the ability for the CFO to be either a team leader and/or a consensus builder is also important.
That would depend primarily on where in the life cycle of the company you are. Does a start-up need someone with experience managing a payables department of 20? Probably not. Can a company needing to replace $75 million in bank debt do it with a controller who couldn't make it to manager at a Big 4 accounting firm? Probably not. As you grow, not just in terms of size but in terms of financial complexity, you need different skills and experience.
Operational CFOs along with those who know/understand IT are both high-value targets ... but it is really what your specific organization needs rather than what is generally acceptable.
On a general level, I think Ben Paramore's post on this site actually gives a good overview of what you should look for in a CFO: https://www.proformative.com/blogs/ben-paramore/2009/09/16/difference-between-cfo-controller.
His post compares the CFO to a controller, and is very effective at highlighting many critical skills and attributes.
The answer varies highly by entity. CFOs generally have to have a good knowledge of