CFO and Audit are cornerstones of business and must ably execute a miscellany of responsibilities. Ensuring compliance, managing investors and supervising international capital flows are pressing assignments within their remit.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Audit are instrumental in meeting these aims and must mature alongside markets and technology. Their insights are not purely reflective or reactionary; increasingly, they spark development.

A CFO does more than lead and organise. They elevate performance through their acuity, digital activities and the interpretations they circulate within the C-suite apparatus. With the purview of the role only expanding, financial recruitment must then account for continually changing contexts and, as an effect, be future-driven, make sure CFOs sound out and carry through their ideas with alignment, and make internal succession fluid when possible.

FUTURE-DRIVEN

The vision and powers of interpretation of financial officers can be decisive. So too, their budgetary management. The first makes them proactive figures; the latter affords them the reactive know-how to deal with the inevitability of change. Adjusting to uncertainty is now normative, and a CFO has enormous fiscal and organisational responsibility in relation to this. Infallible judgement is required and informed by past experiences and future-driven perspectives.

ALIGNMENT

Corporate entities are constellations made up of many constituent parts. The alignment and cohesion of its disparate spheres govern its success. As head of finance, a CFO is one of the most instrumental figures within an organisation and has a leading role and voice in the boardroom. If we extend this authority to all members of a finance leadership team, having a united group of supporting managers multiplies the impact of a CFO.

SUCCESSION

Organisational capacity is the sum of its teams, and these units supersede any individual. When bolstered by a support team’s collective strength and talent, CFOs are far more effective and likely to achieve financial goals. Our search and selection process focuses on lifting the total capacity of a finance team including Controllers, Treasurers, Heads of Tax, Investor Relations, Corporate Development, and Internal Audit and, by placing candidates with consistency and future evolution in mind, carve out succession pathways organically. Progress is often a continuum.