The CFO role for both large and small companies has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years. No longer just the source of financial, accounting, and budgeting expertise, the CFO is increasingly in charge of guiding the strategy development and execution process in order to increase profits, margins, and cash flow.
In our role as part-time CFO to small companies and startups in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, we work as a true business partner to the CEO / Founder / Owner of the business. The CFO is the most inter-connected role across the functions of marketing, IT, operations, R&D, sourcing, etc.
Here are some interesting tidbits from this article by www.strategy-business.com:
“A chief financial officer can be found in almost every company around the world today. Yet only a few decades ago, the role barely existed. For example, less than 10 percent of the major companies in the U.S. had CFOs before 1978—compared to 80 percent or more each year after 2000.”
“Sometimes the CFO has to be the person who tells the CEO and other business leaders the things that they don’t want to hear,” says Verizon chief financial officer Francis (Fran) Shammo. “We’re there to make sure that they see the full picture, and the direction we’re going is right. Is there a reasonable business case? Are the expectations real? Or is there a fallacy in this?”
“All CFOs define the metrics that track performance, which means defining the ways in which success is recognized. Since the numbers reveal trends, risks, and opportunities, these metrics also determine the company’s awareness of the outside world. A strategically oriented CFO can thus ensure that the whole company focuses on a few key business drivers that convey a broad understanding of the value proposition and how the company fulfills it. They are among the company’s principal levers for articulating and delivering its strategic agenda.”
The CFO role for both large and small companies has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years. No longer just the source of financial, accounting, and budgeting expertise, the CFO is increasingly in charge of guiding the strategy development and execution process in order to increase profits, margins, and cash flow.