How to hire a Financial Professional for your business?

written by Alexey Knysh, Senior Partner, Head of Financial Advisory Arm

Hiring a Financial Executive is one of the most important decisions a business owner can make for the company.

I see many examples of companies that wait way too long to take this step. Their management distributes the financial duties among team members who lack proper financial background and expertise. Thus, COO, CLO, Investment Directors, Analysts, and Portfolio Managers get involved in the business’s finance function. Needless to say, this only brings more chaos in reporting, accounting, tax, and financial planning of the business.

While entrepreneurs see more value in the sales and operations team, they must not overlook the position of CFO.

The correctly chosen finance professional will boost the growth of the business and safeguard it from financial scrutiny, allowing sustainable development of the company. I consider CFO as a fifth element that would tie and tune all the business operations.

When is the best time to hire a CFO or Senior Finance Manager?

When the company needs help with accounting, finance, tax, audit, and long-term strategic planning on an ongoing basis. The definitive evidence to recognize the need is fast revenue growth, outside audit requirements, extensive fundraising, etc. However, the most significant sign is when the CEO makes decisions that are not supported by financial calculations and forecasts.

Is it easy to find the right person for the position?

Absolutely not. There are many accounting and finance professionals, but not all of them possess the required skills to be an actual new-era CFO. CFO is no longer only sits with numbers, presents reports, and files tax returns. CFO is the most important business partner to the CEO, and might even know more about the business than the latter.

There are several crucial skills any top-performing CFO must have:

• Accounting and Finance Expertise. It is the initial threshold for any candidate. The proactive Finance Professional always stays on top of changes in accounting and reporting being a member of professional bodies, and having relevant industry certificates (ACCA, CIMA, CPA).
• CFO is a Business Partner / Trusted Advisor to the Board of Directors. He attends all the key managerial meetings, provides cross-department communications, and plays a vital part in the Company’s KPI design. You would like your CFO to be forward-looking and not focused only on past data and performance.
• Industry Experience. In most cases, your perfect candidate must be well familiar with the industry you are working in. At some point in a career, a Finance Executive tends to have a clear focus and experience in specific business areas. With the industry knowledge, the person would better & faster flow into your business and bring immediate improvements to your processes and procedures.
• Communication skills. The financial director is not a guy sitting in his office 16 hours a day on his own doing reports. He is the Company’s voice, highlighting the issues, foreseeing the opportunities, and supporting business decisions. To be a strong figure in your management team, he should convince his peers, manage the team and communicate to internal and external stakeholders.

How to start and structure the hiring process?

If you feel like it is about time to bring the finance professional to your Company, there are several basic steps to follow:

• Write the position description. DO NOT delegate this to your HR manager. It would be the best if your management team decides what areas in the Company need improvement, what processes you are missing, what improvements you need to make your business working more efficiently. A one-hour team meeting would allow you to outline the key areas you would like a CFO to cover.
• When describing job responsibilities and remuneration package, you should try attracting a strong candidate. As mentioned above, there are thousands of accountants, but only a few of them are top performers who fit the CFO role you are trying to get.

Things that motivate a good CFO (apart from the money) are the ability to impact the Company’s performance, be a part of the Senior Management Team, be involved in all key business aspects, and be trusted by the Board.

• When you write job duties of CFO, avoid using words “help”, “assist”, “support”. Instead, use “drive”, “lead”, “design”. A good professional knows the difference between a back-end accountant who helps, assists, or supports and a strategic advisor who leads, drives, and designs, and who are you looking for.
• Share your description with your colleagues in the industry, recruitment agencies to check if the description and remuneration package you are offering will let you find the right professional.

Interview process

As you did the screening of the candidates, try to select not more than 5–10 candidates for the interview.

During the interview, remember the following:

• It is a 2-way road: not only is a candidate selling himself to you, but you also must convince him that your company is worth joining. It will help you find the right words & questions.
• Ask the candidate how he can improve your business and what first steps he would take first.
• Pay attention if the candidate asks about the resource he needs to achieve the goals (how many employees and the outsourced team would be assisting him). This would indicate that he had managerial experience and can evaluate if existing resources are sufficient for plans.
• Focus on communication & leadership skills. Assuming you did your screening right, this is more important than testing the hard skills, which, as I mentioned before, are a basic threshold requirement.
• Try to make the process as fast as possible, respect candidates’ time, and do not forget that other companies are also looking for their ideal CFO. If you are confident that the person fits — make an offer asap, do not let slow HR procedures lose the hire.

A financial specialist is very important to a growing business — he is involved in making strategic decisions for the company; he highlights problems and helps avoid them.

Hiring a CFO is not an easy process. It is necessary to consider professional qualifications, knowledge of a particular industry, communication skills, and leadership qualities. Before you dive into the recruitment process, determine what areas in the company need to be improved and what functions the CFO could cover for your business to work more efficiently.

We hope our advice will help you ease your search and hire a great specialist.