There is a misguided perception that a CFO is a solitary role within a company that doesn’t work well with marketing, sales, and other operational functions. This article from a marketing perspective addresses that misconception head on by highlighting crucial areas that CFOs add critical value even to marketing teams. These include:
Equilibrium: CFOs provide important balance to the hard-driving CEO. This is especially true here in San Francisco and Silicon Valley with the incredibly hectic pace that startups and SMBs lead.
Planning: “CFO-led planning processes are necessary for any company of any size to grow profitably.”
Metrics: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. [Emphasis added] One of the reasons that marketing has a bad rap is that marketers play it fast and loose with their budgets without demonstrating ROI. Finance is big on metrics. Marketers should be too.”
Perspective: CFOs provide a much-needed objective perspective to the business.
Order: CFOs can help bring order among the normal business chaos.