Watch and learn

“You need to clear the sh*t from your eyes.”

Tim (my mentor at the time) was being hard on me.

I was a few years into my post-Big 4 career, running a 50-person accounting and finance team for a small part of a massive public company.

It was a great role, and I was doing well, but I was still immature. Impatient. Temperamental. Probably a little overconfident at times.

It was time to grow up, and this was his way of telling me.

“Your problem is that you don’t have the mindset of a CFO.”

“I don’t have the pay packet of a CFO either…”

“And you never will unless you learn to think like one first. I’ve seen a few kids like you come and go. Fly up the organization, doing no wrong. Think you know it all. Then you hit a brick wall and wonder why. You don’t know what you don’t know. Until now you have been trading on your intelligence, and hard work. But you need to start thinking like a CFO thinks.”

This hit hard coming from Tim. He was the rising star on the finance team. Despite only being in his early 30s, he was unbelievably wise for his age. And next in line as group CFO. He was someone I admired, and someone I wanted to admire me.

It had certainly put me in my place.

“Oh… how do I do that?”

“I will show you, but you have to cut the bullsh*t act, accept you know only a little bit more than nothing. Start watching those around you. Really watch them. Then you will learn.”

The 7 Mindsets of the CFO

Over the years, I have observed 7 mindsets that I consistently see in great CFOs.

It started with that dressing down I got from Tim nearly twenty years ago, and I am still refining the list now.

When people ask me ‘What do I need to make the final step to CFO?’ often they are expecting an answer pointing to some part of their resume that is missing. Or a silver bullet action they can take.

But often what is missing is not on the surface, it’s one (or more) of these seven mindsets that are absent or not fully developed.

I’ve worked hard at practicing and deeply internalizing each. They are also qualities that I specifically look for in VPs of Finance, Business Unit CFOs, CAOs, etc. 

Firstly because they embody the type of energy I want in my finance teams. But also because those who live and breathe them are far more likely to develop into a successful CFO one day. And I like developing leaders who can go all the way.

Even further down the finance team, I am looking for people who have the potential to grow into these mindsets or would benefit from adopting them.

The seven mindsets of a successful CFO are:

1. Winning Mindset

2. Independence Mindset

3. Long Term Mindset

4. Urgency Mindset

5. Delegation Mindset

6. Controlling Mindset

7. Kaizen Mindset

These are not ‘things to do,’ nor are they sufficient on their own to make a CFO. But by approaching your CFO life with these in mind, you are more likely to find the right approach more consistently. And build better teams and businesses as a result.

Let’s get into it:

1) The Winning Mindset

Business isn’t a spectator sport. You’re here to win.

And as CFO, you’re one of the starting five.

No, you don’t sell the product. You don’t make it, either. But you absolutely influence what gets sold—at what cost, for what price, and how quickly. Your impact matters. Think John Stockton serving assists to Karl Malone—without him, there’s no score.

Great CFOs have an extraordinary level of agency over business performance. They don’t just support the team—they drive it. And they refuse to be part of a losing one.

This is the gap I see most often in Controllers or VPs of Finance wondering why they haven’t made the leap to CFO. They hear vague feedback like “You’re not quite ready” or “We’re looking for something else.”

What the board won’t say—but is absolutely thinking—is that when they look at them, they don’t see a killer.

I know, it’s uncomfortable to hear. It’s even more uncomfortable to say. But it’s true.

Winning isn’t about spreadsheets or perfect forecasts—it’s about owning outcomes, driving results, and stepping up when it matters most.

You need to defining ‘winning’ as an exec team, then get after it with a furious intensity.

I’ve never met a great CFO who wasn’t insanely competitive.

2) The Independence Mindset

Early in my CFO career, I worked with an audit committee chair who said a CFO’s most precious commodity is their ‘radical independence.’

Independence is the fuel for your judgments. It’s based on fact and rigorous thinking.

But here’s the thing…

Your independence is under threat from every angle. There are influences, biases, and groupthink everywhere. Some obvious, some more subtle.

Being radically independent is harder than it sounds. It’s not about being difficult or obtuse for the sake of it. This is a common pitfall. It’s not independent if you are approaching everything as a “no” man or to be deliberately contrarian. It’s weak and lazy.

It’s about leaving your ego, influences, and biases at the door. Forming your independent view based on the facts (and using your experience to fill gaps).

And communicating that judgment properly, while making it easy for others to distinguish between your views on facts vs the opinions (your own, or others).

I can think of endless examples where things that were commonly believed to be true were later proven false and completely changed how we needed to look at a problem.

One example stands out.

We had a competitor who was eating our lunch in one particular product category. For years we believed it was a cost leadership problem, as they were consistently beating us on price.

A time later, one of their sales VPs left and joined our business. We found out that they didn’t have us beaten on unit cost. In fact, it was the opposite. They were buying the product from a third party and selling it at zero gross margin as the thin end of a wedge for a much larger contract.

Once we learned this, it completely reframed the problem, and how we should win in this particular category. An assumption that seemed so logical turned out to be totally false.

A little radical independence in my thinking would have gotten to the truth sooner. 

3) Long Term Mindset

Finance operates in cycles—week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter. This natural rhythm can trap your focus on the short-term, prioritizing the next close or report over what truly matters: the future.

As CFO, your role is to break that trap. You must challenge both your team and the business to look beyond the immediate horizon. Great leaders don’t just react to problems—they anticipate them, often before they surface. That kind of foresight isn’t possible if you’re stuck going from one month-end to the next.

Bill Gates once said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but underestimate what they can do in ten.” It’s a lesson in the power of compounding effort. 

The more you focus on the right priorities, relentlessly and over time, the greater the chance of achieving outsized results.

After that pep talk from Tim, the first thing I did was build a three-year vision for my team. The goal was to transform the quality of our work, simplify processes, and cultivate the talent in the team.

It wasn’t a straight path. But having that vision front and center ensured every decision, big or small, was a step towards the long term goal. And by the end of the 3 years, the function was unrecognizable (in a good way.)

I’m certain without that vision, we would have made many small steps in no particular direction and 3 years later would be somewhere close to where we started.

4) Urgency Mindset

If a long-term mindset is about setting direction, an urgency mindset is about speed of travel.

Amazon calls this ‘bias for action’:

As CFO, you need to balance both: one eye on tomorrow and one on today. But while your gaze may be divided, your hands cannot be. Both must be firmly engaged in the present—where the real work happens—turning plans into action and momentum into results. And you must demand the same from your teams: impatient with action, but patient with results.

One trick I learned from a CEO I worked for was the “one-item” to-do list. He kept a page in his notepad with one row for each of the top 50 people in the business. There was a single key task or priority next to each name.

Whenever he saw one of those individuals, he’d ask about their specific priority. And he kept asking until it was either completed or something more important took its place. It was a simple system, but it sent a powerful message about focus, accountability, and adaptability.

5) The Delegation Mindset

Let me let you in on a secret: my Excel skills aren’t what they used to be.

Once upon a time, I was pretty good. But two things have changed:

First, the Excel skills of today’s analysts are leagues ahead of where they were in my analyst days. So are the tools they use. What might have been a 9 out of 10 in 2007? Probably a 6 today. I grew up on these streets:

Second, I don’t use Excel much anymore. So my skills have atrophied. I’ve never written an XLOOKUP formula. I can still put together a simple three-statement model if I need to (just about), but that’s about the limit of my skills.

But here’s the thing—I don’t need to. My job isn’t to be the best modeler in the room. My job is to build a team that can produce models 10 times better than I ever could, in a tenth of the time. And (must more importantly) then work out how to translate those models into better outcomes for the business.

To operate in the space between numbers and people.

Becoming a master builder of teams and good at delegating, is how you become most potent.

Seeing that now is easy. But earlier in my leadership career, that transition wasn’t so easy. My default was to build something myself rather than explain it to someone else. I had to break that habit.

Excel is just an example. This applies to every corner of the finance function. Real CFO work doesn’t happen in spreadsheets—it happens in the business. It’s about influencing and driving performance, not formatting cells.

The key is this: be relentless about delegation. Build capability in your team. Create the headspace to think strategically, so you can deliver better results. And if, after delegating, you find there’s nothing left for you to do? Fantastic. Mission accomplished. Gift the business the cost savings of your salary, and go do something else.

Note - there are some things that can’t be delegated. That must be done by you. That is your special sauce. Keep that list small, and make sure your execution of those things is A+.

6) Controlling Mindset

Most of the mindsets I’ve shared could apply to other C-suite or leadership roles. But this one? It’s CFO-specific.

Great CFOs are paranoid about controls. An accounting mishap on your watch is devastating—it signals to everyone that you’re not on your game.

Just this week, Macy’s announced a delay in their full-year report after discovering they had under-reported between $130 million and $154 million of small package delivery costs over four years.

They painted it as the work of a lone, rogue accountant. Hmmm… I’ve got some questions.

This isn’t just about balance sheet controls. Controls apply across the business. As CFO, you can help sales, operations, and other functions improve their performance by strengthening the frameworks they operate within.

Someone in the business has to take ultimate responsibility for ensuring the controls work. That the numbers are right. That risks are managed. That the business is solid.

That someone isn’t the controller. It’s not the CAO. It’s you as CFO. Remember, it’s your signature on the dotted line.

Of course, you can’t check everything yourself—not even close. But you can (and must) build a framework of controls that you trust.

7) The Kaizen Mindset

Kaizen means continuous improvement. It’s always been important to strive to be better—especially to evolve with technology.

The truth is, some people are happy with the way things work. They like the status quo. But those who embrace a Kaizen mindset—who are always asking how things can be done smarter, faster, or better—are the ones who will win.

As CFO, this mindset isn’t optional. You’re not just adopting better tools and methods—you’re setting the tone for your entire team. Are you leading the charge for continuous improvement? Or are you clinging to what’s comfortable?

It’s more important than ever to be pushing for marginal gains every day.

AI will transform accounting and finance functions more in the next five years than it has in the last twenty-five. That’s not just speculation—it’s unfolding right in front of us.

And because of that, careers will accelerate at a different pace. For young professionals, this is exciting. Those who are curious and constantly looking for better ways to work will outpace their peers.

In an AI-powered world, the gap in career outcomes between the curious and the complacent will be bigger than ever before. Some will thrive. Others will fall behind.

The choice you make here will determine whether you are still relevant as a finance leader in 2030.

Net-net

Those are the 7 mindsets of a successful CFO. There is some tension, even contradiction, between the 7. But it’s through this friction that you will make better decisions, be more focused, and deliver better results.

It is all about results, after all.

This was a special edition breaking down the 7 Mindsets of Winning CFOs.

Potential CFO from the UK asked:

Hi, I am currently a finance director and have been asked to step up to the CFO role, which is what I always worked for. The board has asked me to prepare and present a presentation for why I am the right choice. I am really struggling with the format and was hoping you could help me. It is a UK-listed company in the automotive industry with overseas manufacturing facilities with revenues of just over $100m. Appreciate any help you can give.

This is a difficult question to answer as it depends on the specific circumstances.

But here are a few principles that spring to mind.

First up, congratulations. The fact that you’ve been asked to do this means you are, at a minimum, ‘in the conversation’. And at best, it’s yours to lose. That means the role you have worked towards is either ready for you now or will be before too long.

And the presentation itself?

Keep it simple. 3-5 key points across 3-5 simple slides. Don’t overthink it. The most powerful presentation I ever saw was 3 slides long, with 3 points on it each. Blank white slides, Arial Size 24 font. But the points were golden.

So focus on content, not format. Don’t try to say too much.

As an internal candidate, your big advantage is that you know the business, and are known to the board. So lean into that. As an idea, you could organize it as a ‘start, stop, continue’ analysis versus the current function:

• 3 things you would continue doing

• 3 things you would stop doing

• 3 things you would start doing

Then make them powerful, deep, and memorable. If you can agitate any known frustrations/expectations of the board, even better.

Do you have a relationship with the previous/outgoing CFO? If so, I would try and use that. And do you have a relationship with any of the board members you can use? Speak to them, and get the inside track on what the board could be looking for. Anything to get a head start.

These processes are an experience in their own right. I didn’t get the first internal promotion to CFO I interviewed for. But it made me ready for the next one…

Thanks for the question and best of luck with your process.

If you would like to submit a question, please fill out this form.

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The Secret CFO

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Disclaimer: I am not your accountant, investment advisor, 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. And certainly is not investment advice. Running the finances for a company is serious business, and you should take the proper advice you need.