A few years ago I advised the growth strategy, I went to market and investor relations. In the middle of the deposit, one of the founders turned to me and said: “Why will you not be our CFO?”
I shrugged: “I’m not an accountant.” In my opinion, CFOs were internal, full -time, focused on compliance, ready for audit and deeply technical. I used to be a strategic advisor, not a financial director.
But this comment got stuck. Not because I intended to work, but because I questioned my very own assumptions. Maybe the definition of the great financial director has evolved.
Great general directors are business operators dressed up as potential customers
Today’s CFOs are not financial historians. They are business thinkers who understand tips on how to turn capital into results.
Dave StephensonFor example, he wasn’t CPA when he joined Airbnb as CFO. He got here AmazonOperational team. What he didn’t bring was no knowledge about control, it was an operational insight, experience on a scale and a deep understanding of growth indicators. During the most difficult years, Airbnb made this industrial way of pondering.
Financial liquidity is mandatory, but the strategic judgment is priceless
CFO still must understand individual economics, the dynamics of money flow and shareholders’ expectations. But more importantly, they need to know which levers to tug out and when.
Budgeting is one thing, priorities are different. Do we employ 10 more sales representatives? Extend our runway by 6 months? Raise the recent round, sell the company or wait? These are the real questions that the founders are facing. And the great financial director helps them answer, not theory, but with grounded insight and planning of scripts.
The best general directors bring the clarity of chaos
The startups are disordered. There are too many data, too many plants and constant changes. The role of CFO is to introduce a structure, not through bureaucracy, but by focusing.
The strongest financial directors help teams make higher decisions faster. They simplify the complexity, define healthy KPIs and create a vision adaptation and performance. They don’t ask “how much do we spend?” They ask “Does it develop the company?”
When I work with the founders, that is where I spend the most time: bringing a financial perspective to strategic conversations.
In a world where capital matters, and the speed of performance is essential, the role of CFO has develop into much more entrepreneurial. You don’t have to be CPA to be a great financial director. But you have to think like a founder and behave like a partner.