Unnatural progression
9 January 2012:
Renowned entrepreneur Luke Johnson argues that while a CFO may be the obvious choice to take over the top job of CEO, the two roles often require fundamentally different experience, temperaments and skill sets.
Do CFOs make great leaders? This is a key question, because often they are in pole position to take the reins of a company. But they are by no means always the best choice.
I often wonder if CFOs are temperamentally suited to becoming bosses. For most of their career they focus on the numbers - especially the costs. By contrast, the man or woman running the show must have other priorities: sales, staff, customers, products and service.
My experience is that founders of companies tend to be extroverted, confident and strong communicators. They have grand ideas, but are often bored by administration, detail and spreadsheets. By nature they tend to be positive in outlook - and sometimes dangerously over-optimistic.
Such personalities need a reliable and cautious partner to initiate and police financial controls. That individual might be the chairman (or woman), but is more likely to be the finance director.
It strikes me that enduring the necessary training to gain a chartered accountancy qualification, or similar, requires a degree of patience lacking in most born entrepreneurs. The visionaries I've worked with were too impetuous for years of post-graduate study. They wanted to get out there and follow their dreams.
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Source: Finance Director Europe
