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When the U.S. President announced sweeping tariff measures under the Great Trade Reset on April 5, 2025, no one had more to think about than Apple. And not much time to do it.

The new rules were set to apply from April 15, giving Apple, at best, ten days to figure out what a 100% duty on China-made iPhones could mean. There were already rumors of a delay or reversal (which, of course, did eventually come to pass). But Apple couldn’t bet on that. They had to plan as if the tariffs would bite within those ten days.

Crude math says Apple sources roughly $100 billion worth of iPhones from China each year. A 100% tariff would, on paper, have doubled that cost exposure. The questions in the C-Suite in Cupertino were existential: Do we raise prices overnight? Absorb margin hits? Reallocate supply from India? And how do we explain all of this to customers, carriers, and investors?

That’s why eyebrows went up when Apple chartered six cargo planes from Chennai to the U.S., carrying about 600 tons of iPhones, roughly 1.5 million units. That is only a week or two of U.S. demand. And it wasn’t cheap. Airfreight can add $10 to $20 per device, burning millions before a single sale. Cheaper than the potential tariff impact, maybe. But wasn’t that a bit small time from Apple, given the size of the problem?

No. It was a brilliant crisis response move. Despite how it was reported, this wasn’t a decision made about cost.

It was about something more valuable: response time.

By landing another 10 days or so of inventory cover in the U.S., Apple effectively doubled its response window. Instead of making irreversible calls in ten days, it bought time to model pricing scenarios, prepare messaging, lobby regulators, and line up investor communications.

And then, on April 13, Washington unexpectedly announced that smartphones and computers would be temporarily excluded from the steepest tariffs. Apple’s stockpile wasn’t a stranded liability. It became a planning buffer.

Without those flights, Apple might have been forced into snap moves: slapping tariffs into retail prices, pulling marketing campaigns, or signaling weakness to investors. Decisions that are easy enough to make in the moment, but hard to reverse once the market has seen them.

A few planes of inventory didn’t change Apple’s financial exposure in dollar terms. What it bought was runway. It is a great example of supply chain and finance teams playing a supporting role, clearing space so that the real epicenter of the crisis (brand, strategy, comms, legal) could be managed on Apple’s terms, not Washington’s.

Welcome to part 3 of this 4-week series on the Crisis Management Playbook for CFOs:

Having Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids means I get a front-row seat to their latest slang.

In a case of worlds colliding, I’m borrowing one of their go-tos: “NPC” — short for Non-Player Character.

In gaming, NPCs are the background figures. They’re not driving the story, they just exist to make the world feel real.

Apparently, today’s youth now use “NPC” as an insult for anyone who isn’t ‘relevant’, the opposite of a “main character.”

Puzzled? Same. But I have to admit, it’s a funny idea.

Because sometimes, in a crisis, that’s exactly the role a CFO needs to play: the NPC. Helpful and clearing the way for the main characters to work their magic.

So today, we are focusing on the playbook for CFOs in a crisis where the issue isn’t directly in the finance domain. It might be operational, reputational, product related, etc.

So when you, my NPC CFO friend, are standing in the eye of the storm, chaos all around, and not sure how to help, here are 8 ways you can:

Let’s take each in turn

1) Enable the real heroes

In a non-finance crisis, the CFO has two fundamental duties: make sure it doesn’t become a finance crisis, and clear the runway for the heroes of the hour to do their work.

When two fatal crashes grounded the 737 MAX worldwide in 2019, Boeing faced an existential crisis. This wasn’t a finance-first problem. It was engineering, safety, regulatory, and reputational.

During that period, Boeing CFO Greg Smith played the NPC role: raising liquidity, drawing down credit lines, and keeping the financial system stable while the operational and regulatory teams fought to get the plane back in the air.

None of that fixed the aircraft. But it ensured an operational crisis didn’t become a financial one… he bought runway … so to speak.

And as we saw at Apple earlier this year, the finance and supply chain teams created the breathing room others needed to manage brand, legal, and strategy fallout from the tariff shock.

2) Keep perspective

By being a step removed from the epicenter of the crisis, you have a little more oxygen than some of your colleagues. When things are moving at breakneck speed, it’s easy to miss crucial details. Working fast and accurately under severe pressure is hard. Things get missed.

That’s where the CFO can add value in a non-finance crisis. One step back means you can spot gaps and connect dots others can’t. Finance is uniquely placed for this anyway. Our function spans the whole organization.

And remember, one day the shoe might be on the other foot. I recall a cashflow crisis where we were about to roll out a comms plan to key stakeholders. We thought we’d covered everyone. Then our product and quality director asked, “What about the credit insurers?” We’d somehow left them out completely. She was a long way from her home turf, but was completely right.

That would have been a costly miss. As the NPC in that particular crisis she had the room to step back and see the wood when the rest of us were lost in the trees.

3) Own board and investor comms

As we said last week, some crises play out in public, others do not. Either way, you will have a board and, likely, investors to communicate with privately.

At a minimum, they will need reassurance. And you may need things from them quickly, especially the board. A rapid CapEx approval. A green light on a press release. Swift decisions depend on trust and clarity.

Sometimes the CEO will own that dialogue, and publicly, they certainly should. But behind the scenes, you can add huge value by keeping private reassurance flowing.

In a fast-moving situation, it is easy for outsiders to feel left out. Your job is to make sure they don’t. By offering transparency and responsiveness, you signal respect for their stake in the crisis.

Practical moves help:

Write a short daily update to the full board (aligned with the CEO) while the storm is raging, so they never feel like events are running without them. Offer one-to-one calls where needed. Present yourself as the conduit.

Investors will not need anything as frequently, but they will appreciate proactive reassurance. A timely outreach in those moments can build roots that last years. The benefit endures long after the crisis itself. You will be remembered as someone who communicates well and who can be trusted when things are moving fast.

I remember in my early days as a young CFO, sitting around a mature boardroom table and struggling to find my voice among industry heavyweights. It was a non-finance crisis that changed my relationship with the board. The directors were chasing for updates. The CEO was stressed — very stressed…

When I asked what to tell them, he snapped back: “Tell them to f*ck off. And when they’ve finished that, tell them to f*ck off again.” It was something of a catchphrase for him. No, I didn’t work for Logan Roy.

So I improvised. I started sending a short daily bullet-point update and called a couple of the needy directors just to relay what was happening. Even though it was well outside the finance domain.

That turned out to be all they needed. It gave the CEO the space to do his thing. And it was the start of a transformation in my relationship with those directors, and the whole board.

4) Diffuse politics

From my experience, in a true crisis, there is usually no room for politics. People focus on outcomes and on what needs to be done. MOST of the time.

But not always.

As days pass, half an eye inevitably turns to what comes after. Why did this happen? What changes will be needed? Who is to blame? Execs closest to the epicenter may start lobbying you, and others, ahead of the inevitable post-mortem.

None of this is helpful.

In most crises I’ve been part of, there has always come a point in some forum where someone has to say:

“There will be a time to pull this apart. And maybe that will include some finger-pointing. But that time is not now. Right now, we need to keep focus on reducing the blast radius, solving the problem and getting this under control.”

If you, as CFO, have the luxury of more oxygen than your colleagues in the middle of the storm, use it to quietly diffuse this kind of talk in the background.

For more on how to do this, see our recent series on corporate politics.

5) Provide moral support

Crises are physically and emotionally draining. They toughen execs up, but only after the scar tissue has formed. That comes later, with the benefit of reflection.

In the moment, people are fragile. If you’re lucky enough that you are not the one grinding 20-hour days, your role is to support those who are. Be the safe space. Execs will often vent to the CFO about things they can’t say to their teams and colleagues. Listen without judgment, and remind them they’re good at what they do.

Practical moves help: a five-minute check-in call, a short note of recognition, or simply being the calmest person in the room. Small gestures count for a lot when people are running on fumes.

Don’t underestimate morale. Without it, the technical fixes don’t stick.

One of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic was that it gave a generation of execs a crash course in crisis response. Some emerged as tougher, sharper, and better leaders for it.

6) Make sure the crisis isn’t wasted

In week one, we talked about why a crisis should never be wasted. That is hard to do in practice. Sometimes it needs forcing, as Andreas did to great effect in the story I shared at the start of the seriesi.

While the people at ground zero are focused on putting out fires, you can see the bigger pattern: whether the organization is just powering through, or whether it is using the moment to unlock change.

That outsider vantage point is a powerful privilege. You’re close enough to feel the heat, but detached enough to spot when the business is about to let the moment pass. Sometimes you need to be the one to say, “I know everyone’s exhausted, but if we don’t lock in these changes now, they’ll die in peacetime.”

It is a careful balance: protect your colleagues’ bandwidth, but don’t let the crisis window close unspent.

7) Run the war room

If you really want to get hands-on, you can run the war room. That moves you from NPC firmly into the main character.

You become the person coordinating the response effort and managing the flow of information and tasks. It is a long way from finance’s home territory, but not completely alien. The job calls for clear communication, attention to detail, relentless follow-up, and project management. It typically suits a Chief of Staff or a seasoned project lead — but in the absence of one, the CFO can step in:

I have done this once. I wasn’t good at it. I didn’t have the organization skills for it. But I’m glad I gave it a go. Kind of an “everyone should try it at least once” thing - like karaoke, or CrossFit.

8) Babysit the day job

The whole principle of crisis management is that you set up a separate reporting structure to manage the crisis itself. This - by definition - leaves a leadership vacuum in the normal (unaffected) operations. And depending on how long the crisis lasts, that could lead to neglect, making the crisis itself worse.

One role you could play as CFO - especially if the CEO is totally consumed by the crisis - is to deputize for the CEO in their day job. Divide and conquer, leave the CEO to focus 100% on the crisis response, and you, as CFO, act as defacto CEO on the day to day operations. Coordinating with the CEO and war room on any overlap points.

Even if it’s only for a short time, it’s a great way to take pressure off the CEO, and also a way to broaden your own operational skills. Especially if you have your eyes on the big job one day…

As you’ve probably gathered, even when finance is not at the epicenter, your role is anything but background. After all, your crisis management capabilities are at least part of the reason you’re in the C-Suite. You are the one keeping the business liquid, the board calm, the politics quiet, and the main characters free to fight the real battle.

Handled well, these moments build your reputation as much as any finance-first crises ever will. People remember who gave them oxygen, who steadied the room, who bought time. That is leadership.

Next week, we will flip the script. When the crisis really is your crisis… You’ve breached a covenant, you are running out of cash, or you’ve taken a seismic shock to the P&L.

That’s when there really is nowhere to hide. It is all on you.

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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.