"The culture of high performing organisations reflects the diversity of its workforce and how they leverage this to attract and retain the right people to help the organisation succeed in a complex and competitive environment. CFOs recognise the importance of this and will choose organisations that align with their own values.”

David Fincher,
Partner,
Finance and Performance Management,
Ernst & Young, Australia

It is clear that the CFO role is evolving to an enabler of strategic business initiatives. It is how they are measuring their own personal success.

Supporting the notion of a value–creating role, CFO’s top measure of success is their personal contribution to business initiatives. This was seen as an even more important achievement than improving the organisation’s financial metrics.

Stepping stone or destination?

The survey results bust the myth that CFOs are aspiring to become CEOs with 24% happy to stay in their current CFO role and a further 40% of respondents stating their intended next career step is to a CFO role in a larger organisation. This shift is providing greater job satisfaction with CFOs measuring their personal success through their contribution to major business initiatives, rather than through traditional focus on improvements in financial metrics.

Achieving success through hard work

Asked about how they reached their current position, almost three quarters of CFOs cited personal motivation and hard work as the most significant contributing factor to date. The next was cultural fit. They attributed high importance to working for organisations compatible with their own values, beliefs and interests.

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