CFO Job Description

CFO is the Chief financial officer who manages the finance of the company, which involves planning, taking significant decisions relating to investment, making strategies, and managing financial activities, including budgeting, forecasting expenses, mitigating financial risks for sustainable growth with overall supervision of finance and accounts team the employees.

A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is the senior executive in an organization managing the financial actions of a company. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is one of the key people to provide programmatic and operational support to the company. The CFO supervises the entire finance unit and is the chief financial spokesperson for the organization.

The Chief Financial Officer job description is of great interest for any professional who wants to make a career in the field of finance and successfully achieve the best level and experience in the industry. The professionals in this designation are considered to be among the executives at the top level who are efficient in handling finance, tax, audit, investment, or cash flow-related issues and guide the management to achieve the objective within a limited time frame.

The strategic CFO job description also have the responsibility of looking after cost reduction, optimum resource usage, and reduction of wastage within the business. They play a very vital role in strategy implementation and checking for deviations by strictly following all financial rules and standards. They are experts in number crunching, management, analysis, idea generation, persistence and consistency.  

The primary role of a chief financial officer includes driving company finances, performing risk management, and deciding on investment strategies.

Generally, the CFO reports directly to the president/ CEO and assists the Chief operating officer (COO) in all the strategic and day-to-day matters relating to cost-benefit analysis, budget management, forecasting needs, and securing new funding.

This designation is accountable for the company's financial, administrative, and risk management operations. The primary strategic CFO job description includes the development of an operational and financial strategy, metrics tied to the overall group strategy, and the ongoing monitoring and development of control systems designed to report accurate financial results and preserve company assets.

The work profile of both big and small business CFO job description involves management of a wide variety of financial aspects along with planning and analysis. The role is very similar of a treasurer or the financial controller, with the additional responsibility of financial planning involved in this case. Some common roles and responsibilities of the designation are given below:

• Prepare and present financial data: The primary CFO job description includes presenting and reporting accurate and timely company financial information. It includes working on annual financial reporting, corporate revenue/expense reporting, press releases, development, and monitoring contract/grant and organizational budgets. All stakeholders like shareholders, creditors, investors, management, and other interested persons rely on the financial information provided by the CFO job description.
• Taking a decision and maintain capital structure: is another important work included in the CFO job description. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is responsible for the company's overall financial health. He has to decide how a company's funds should be invested to make the financial position better. He should consider all factors like risk, liquidity, market conditions, etc. A CFO's job description also determines an adequate capital structure of the company. He must know the best debt-equity ratio mix for the company so that the company’s funds are managed in the best possible manner.
• Not only the past but looking for future also: Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is responsible for the company's past and present financial condition and keeps an eye on the company's future financial health. He must be able to identify the most efficient areas of the company and know how to capitalize on them.
• The role of the Chief Financial Officer is to Participate in developing new business and assist the CEO and COO in the drafting of prospective programmatic budgets, identifying new funding opportunities, and determining the cost-effectiveness of future service delivery. It will include working with other key senior persons of the organization to ensure financial and operational success through cost-benefit analysis and compliance with all related contractual and programmatic requirements.
• Training and increasing awareness and knowledge related to financial management matters across the organization.
• The other role of the Chief Financial Officer is to work with the President/CEO on the company's long-term strategic vision, which includes fostering and cultivating stakeholder relationships across various levels and assisting in the development and negotiation of contracts.
• The Chief Financial Officer's role is to develop and maintain a check of internal controls to safeguard the organization's financial assets.
• Chief Financial Officer's role is to Attend Board and subcommittee meetings regularly and provide useful/necessary financial inputs on various parameters.
• The Chief Financial Officer's role is to Monitor the banking activities of the organization.
• The Chief Financial Officer's role is to ensure adequate cash flow to meet the organization’s needs.

Let us study some of the essential skills that the candidate of both big and small business CFO job description should possess in order to become the best in this position.

The role of Chief Financial Officer job description is essential to the success of the organization because it is the Chief Financial Officer job to look for the company's strengths and understand weakness and deal with them and prepare financial reports and communicate it with other people and assure them that we are on the right path. The requirement to become a CFO is different based on the organization's structure. However, common traits include:

• Strategist: The CFO needs to understand the company's perspective broadly as the role of Chief Financial Officer job description is not confined to the finance department only. CFO's have to be more strategic and act as more of a business partner in assisting the President/CEO.
• Translator: The CFO must be able to translate financial KPIs of the organization into useful information for the CEO and turn the CEO's strategy into a financial number that can be shared with the public or across the organization. The CFO must feed actual results back to management and suggest ways to improve them.
• Financial information: Reporting financial information to the board and approving all financial reports.
• Spokesperson: The group CFO job description is responsible for media/shareholders for any financial issues/updates, which includes communicating with shareholders and motivating colleagues to execute the company’s strategy.
• Broad technical knowledge: The CFO needs to have broad technical knowledge. Along with financial management and reporting, CFO’s should know the basics of credit, investment, and cash flow forecasting, information about technology systems, and much more.
• Risk manager: The CFO needs to be a trusted advisor regarding risk, especially as businesses become more complex and international. Not only do they need to identify, assess, and respond to ongoing and emerging risks to the organization, but they need to ensure compliance with a growing number of regulations and laws.
• Experience in corporate governance and good negotiable skills

Let us take an example to understand the concept of group CFO job description. We assume that Jonathan is the CFO of an Multinational Corporation, ABC Industries, which is into manufacturing motors of four-wheelers. He has more than 10 years of experience in the manufacturing sectors and started his career as a business development manager. He holds the qualification of an MBA in Corporate Finance along with bachelor’s in economics from a prestigious university.

After becoming the senior manager of business development, he got the position of assistant CFO in the same company. He started looking after the cost and audit procedures of manufacture, storage and transportation requirements of the motors to the clients. He also implemented various strategies to improve and speed up the billing and collection process. He trained the team to adopt better accounting and forecasting methods.

Finally, he become the CFO of the organization and is currently dedicated towards the growth and expansion of the business. He successfully implemented strategies to expand and increase the free cash flow through reduction in receivables, increase sales and revenue, and overall profitability.

• Must have a master's degree in accounting or business administration or equivalent business experience. Preferred candidates with an MBA in Finance and the Certified Public Accountant or Certified Management Accountant designations
• 10+ years of experience for a major company or division of a large corporation.
• Experience in partnering with an executive team, and have a high level of written and oral communication skills.

The position of a CFO is quite lucrative in terms of salary due to the immense work related responsibilities that the candidate has to handle. The average salary may be $437,711 annually, which will also depend on the variety of job they are handling, the type of sector and nature and size of the company.

This sample CFO job description is well deserved by professionals who are very well experiences and have good level of knowledge and skill in the financial field. They should have a great track record in handling tough situations and have already proved their ability to steer the business towards a positive path which assisted in growth and expansion.

The sample CFO job description are typically very well equipped with very good educational record with the best level of hand-on training and experience. Backgrounds like finance, economics, investment banking and accounting are common for these professionals, with degrees in MBA, CFA, etc.

The role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is always evolving and has changed a lot with a change in industry structure. As the chief financial officer, the job description demands the person to think from both the financial and operational perspective, information and knowledge about the latest trend, and always acting as a catalyst to the candidate's success in the role.