📬 On the Outside Looking In: How Do You Deal With a CEO Who Used To Be a CFO?

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Lottie from the UK asked:

I am a CFO working for a CEO who used to be a forensic accountant/Chief Restructuring Officer. As they have had such a financial background and operated in a CFO space before, they do not include me in the strategic discussions with the shareholders and micromanage a lot of the tasks that I am responsible for, including doing some for me.

Is this normal for a CEO with such a financial background? And any advice on how I approach it, or do I accept it?

Hi Lottie,

The short answer is, yes, it is common. No, it is not acceptable.

I hate to break the bad news, but it sounds like you aren’t doing the CFO job. Your CEO is.

CFO is more than a title. It’s about the work you are doing and how you do it.

This is a common predicament with CFOs who move into CEO roles. They don’t just struggle to let go, sometimes, they don’t know what letting go looks like. So they fall back on what is familiar and comfortable.

I’ve never worked for a CEO who was recently a CFO for this reason. I have seen it plenty of times, though. I’ve seen BU CFOs step up to BU President/CEO. It’s always the same… they struggle to wear the clothes of the CEO role. Which has a knock-on effect for the new CFO under them.

This is a reason why CFOs often don’t make great CEOs (there are many exceptions to this, of course, but as a general rule…). The job of the CEO is not to run the finance function. It’s to drive product, growth, and delight customers.

Your options:

1. Accept that your role is more like a head of finance/controller with title inflation

2. Confront your boss and explain that you need them to give you space

3. Find another job (the title inflation is a useful tool here)

These options are not mutually exclusive. It feels like the first step would be option 2.

Sit down with your boss and explain that you a) need to get more directly involved with strategic discussions and b) need space to do finance your way.

Try and be specific and use examples. Explain also how you think you can help them do their (true) CEO responsibilities better.

If you have a good boss, they will understand and listen. If not, then at least you know where you stand, and you can choose between options 1 & 3.

Best of luck, Lottie, and thank you for your question.

Jon from Philadelphia asked:

I currently work in corporate development for a public company and have been here for about 5 years. I have worked with many private company CFOs at target co's over the years and have become very interested in trying to move over to a private company. CFO role one day. What do you think is the best path to get there?

There are a few options that seem doable in my view:

1) Move to an FP&A role at my current company within one of the BUs I work with in my current role

2) Move to corp dev at a private co. and then try to move into their finance team or at least try to prove myself by taking on some FP&A-type work in addition to the corp dev position.

3) Try to move directly to a private company finance role.

Not sure which of these would be the best path to take. From your prior posts, it seems getting in reps in the FP&A cycle would be the best experience for me.

Thanks, Jon.

The first thing I would say here is that ‘private company’ doesn’t really mean anything in this context.

Do you mean:

• An SMB

• A PE-backed business

• VC Backed

• Family-owned business

These are all as different from each other as they are different to a public company. So it sounds like your aspiration is one that means ‘running away’ from public companies as much as it is towards something specific.

So first up, get specific. What is it you want to experience? Hyper-growth? VC-backed. Leverage/Performance Improvement? PE. ‘Succession’-like melodramas? Family-owned. Be able to see the whole business? SMB.

Once you are clear on what and why, you should move directly towards the thing you want to experience. That might mean some compromise on the role itself to start with, so make your mind up on what you are and are not prepared to compromise.

I think getting some FP&A experience before you leave your current company would be good if that is an option. It’s a far more transferable skill than corp dev. Especially with smaller businesses.

I think getting that on your resume will help recruiters market you as a strategic FP&A pro.

Thanks for the question, and best of luck.

Wouter from the Netherlands asked:

I read your piece on KPIs this weekend. Where does ESG fit in?

Yes, you are right. I left ESG out of Saturday's post on KPIs. I have a full series coming later in the year on managing ESG KPIs. I’ve had quite a bit of experience with measuring ESG KPIs, and it’s not easy.

The extent to which ESG features in your tier 1 KPIs depends on how important it is for your business. If ESG is core to your strategy, it could make up 3-4 KPIs of your scorecard. In this kind of business, I would redefine the people-profit chain and treat ESG as 'upstream' from people.

So, rather than a people-profit chain, you would have a planet-profit chain, i.e., you commit that profit comes downstream from doing right by the planet. People is then another link in the chain (probably the second link after Plant).

One of the challenges with setting ESG KPIs, is that the agenda is so broad. For example:

• Carbon emissions/carbon intensity

• Energy usage

• DEI metrics

• Societal impact measures

• Board independence

• Risk management

A common approach is to draw up a separate ESG scorecard - one that runs in parallel to the full business scorecard. The problem with this is that management will never take it as seriously unless you get it measured on the main scorecard, and tie comp to it. So it comes back to the same question … how important is ESG for your business? Only your board can answer that.

There is a world of complexity here - the devil is in the detail. And it is worth diving into if it’s important to your business. But know that every KPI you add is taking focus from another, so make sure you apply the same principle of being ruthless with adding new KPIs we discussed on Saturday.

Thanks for the question.

Every week, I’ll share a book I loved or found useful.

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Disclaimer: I am not your accountant, tax advisor, lawyer, CFO, director, or friend. Well, maybe I’m your friend, but I am not any of those other things. Everything I publish represents my opinions only, not advice. Running the finances for a company is serious business, and you should take the proper advice you need.