The CFO will be the person who is making sure these issues are


getting solved. They tend to be everything back office


HOW SHOULD YOU DEVELOP? What would recruiters advise those working in finance already contemplating becoming an FD at a later stage in their careers? “One of the first things you can do is get out of the accounts


department,” laughs Oates. “Think of yourself as partnering the business rather than just being back-office support. Get as much experience as you can. Think about ways you can add to that experience.” Oates points out that a lot of training is about audit work,


which is looking backwards rather than helping the business. He advocates getting a job in the commercial sector as soon as possible rather than staying in an accounting firm. “They’ve got to think from a very early age about gathering a


set of experiences that is required to do a CFO job,” agrees Bailey. “Reporting and control, business partnering and getting some exposure to external stakeholders.” One word of caution – it can oſten take longer to migrate to an


FD role than you might think, between three and five years extra from when someone first has the idea they’re ready to assume more responsibility. As they say, everything takes longer than you think it’s going to. And as the FD role becomes more complex and challenging,


Norrie Johnston Recruitment recently conducted research into


the COO role, which it found was much more concerned with organisational transformation and transformational projects. “There are definitely many organisations would like to have a


CFO who takes on the COO mantle,” Oates. If they do assume a more strategic role – which is something


all head-hunters do agree on – they will have to fight against their innate caution. CEOs want somebody who can manage the risk but not so


much that they strangle the opportunities. Putting numbers behind key business decisions, they have to be more optimistic, not pessimistic. “What infuriates them is that they were so risk averse,” says


Scott. “There’s a risk associated with every key decision but not strangle every opportunity. The key thing they’re looking for is that optimism.


so the jobs themselves become harder to land. Opportunities do not come very oſten, so it’s easy to miss the boat if you get stuck in the daily grind and don’t get out there promoting yourself to prospective employers. Bailey says: “People who want to become CFOs need to


prepare early on in their career positively going out and get experiences outside their comfort zone so they can assemble the skills they need. People can’t afford to leave that preparation until they are in their late thirties. They’ve got to start thinking about building those experiences in their twenties. Heppenstall adds: “I would tell any young person to gain as


much experience as possible in order to widen their skills base. Very narrow deep roles are the realm of the large corporate entities. The benefit from having seen and experienced a number of sectors is invaluable.”


TECHNOLOGICAL EVANGELIST Some suggest that because FDs will be in charge of implementing AI and being an evangelist for digital disruption, because they will be the ones okaying the implementation of AI, that means digital will become their core skill, not accounting. In a world where a computer can answer any question, less value will be put on qualifications, runs the argument. It will become about juggling and gaining insights from data, not just parsing a balance sheet. Several recruiters that Director of Finance spoke to say


they have already appointed FDs who do not come from an accounting background. However, Heppenstall is sceptical about FDs becoming


a hybrid visionary and digital evangelist. “Finance is all about P&L and budgets and forecasts, and


if you haven’t got that right, you can be as digitally savvy as you want but the business will still fall over.” ■


DOFONLINE.COM DIRECTOR OF FINANCE 33


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