How CFOs can Improve Financial Strategy

After being a CFO myself and talking to over 200 CFOs, I’ve realized something: the best ones don’t just run meetings. They build routines that make the whole company better. And it’s rarely about the perfect agenda or the fanciest dashboard. It’s about how they show up every week - curious, collaborative, and just a bit obsessed with connecting the dots. The CFOs who have the biggest impact all do some version of this: 🟢 Weekly rhythm → A quick cash & AR pulse — know where you stand today, not just at month-end. → Talk to GTM leads — not just reading the report; asking sales & marketing what’s changing in the pipeline and CAC. → Highlight 2–3 green & red flags — so the CEO knows what deserves attention right now. → Track key KPIs weekly — plan vs actual, growth rate, burn multiple, runway, margins, and revenue pace. You can’t fix what you don’t see early enough, and the best CFOs make sure the company knows if it’s moving in the right direction before the month is over. 🔵 Monthly rhythm → Plan vs Actual vs Forecast — by department, for the next 3–6 months. → ROI review — ask, “Are we really getting the return on this spend?” → Scenario thinking — keep a live “if X happens” runway plan. → 1:1s with other leaders — not just about numbers, but priorities and trade-offs. → Board-ready insights — so there are zero surprises in the boardroom. → Expense reviews — cut what’s outdated or unused. → AR check-ins — always. → Strategic insights from data — translating finance into strategy. Great CFOs bring insights from pricing analysis, margin shifts, or automation opportunities that can change direction at the leadership table. They look at trends in customer behavior or cost structure and turn them into action. → And my personal favorite — leadership meetings. Good CFOs lead them alongside the founder so everyone knows where the company’s headed and which metrics matter most. Little things that make a big difference: I picked up these habits from some of the best CFOs I’ve worked with: → Keep a short decision log — so you can look back and learn what calls were right. → Block dashboard time in your calendar — especially if all your data lives in one place (Fuel helps here). → During tough months, do 5-min daily CEO syncs — saves hours later. → Always tell the story behind the numbers — founders don’t need a P&L walkthrough, they need to know what to do next. → Stay curious — join webinars, try AI tools, keep exploring. Finance leaders grow with the company only if they keep learning. This is just a short list. --- I’ve put together a full CFO Routine Notion page for anyone who wants a deeper dive. Leave a comment and I will send it to you👇 CFOs and finance leads: what’s the one routine that gives you the highest ROI?

CFOs are obsessed with cost-cutting. But they’re ignoring the hidden cost of bad decisions. We’ll scrutinise every supplier contract. Delay new hires. Trim travel, tools, and team spend. But what about: • A delayed product launch because finance didn’t support it early? • A missed market entry because the business case got stuck in red tape? • A top performer who left because we couldn’t see the value they brought? These aren’t on the P&L. But they drain growth, morale, and opportunity quietly and consistently. Strategic CFOs don’t just look for savings. They build decision frameworks that prevent value leakage. ✅ They enable smart bets, not just safe ones ✅ They prioritise clarity over control ✅ They coach teams on financial thinking, not just reporting. Because in today’s economy, the most expensive thing in your business. It might be a risk-averse finance team holding back progress. Where is your finance function helping the business decide better, not just spend less? #CFO #StrategicFinance #DecisionIntelligence #Leadership #CostOfInaction #BusinessPartnering

When I was hired as a CFO, I was probably the least qualified candidate. No CFO experience. No Big 4 pedigree. Never built a finance team from scratch. Honestly, I loved being the underdog. Because it taught me something important: Most finance leaders don’t fail from lack of qualifications; they fail from lack of clarity. They think finance is about reporting what already happened. But I saw finance as a team that shapes what happens next. So, three years ago, I had a clear vision that shaped my mission: Finance wouldn't just be a cost center. It would become the intelligence hub of our company. If you're a finance leader, here’s exactly how you can do the same: 1️⃣ Hire people smarter than you...fast. Stop hiring mini-versions of yourself. Identify your blind spots and fill them immediately. Great teams are built from diverse strengths; not comfortable copies. 2️⃣ Fix your data foundation first. Your finance function is only as strong as your data clarity. We upgraded our ERP, revamped our chart of accounts, and built dashboards that gave us insight. 3️⃣ Become an internal business partner, not the finance police. Your job isn’t just budgets and controls. Your role is enabling Sales, Marketing, and Ops to clearly see exactly how their daily decisions create shareholder value. That’s when finance stops reviewing results and starts driving them. Our mantra became crystal clear: “We are the compass of the company. We put the business back on the rails. And we guide it toward value.” So if you’re an FP&A lead, a VP Finance, or a CFO-in-the-making: Don’t wait for permission to lead. Design your finance function to drive strategy. It starts with mindset. Then systems. Then trust. #CFOInsight #FPandA #StrategicFinance

I've been a CFO for 5 years. And I've also worked with good, average, and bad CFOs. Here's what good CFOs do (that others don't): 1. Understand the business. This is top priority. Their baseline understanding of the company will form the foundation of each decision they make. They need to fully review the company’s objectives, operations, and financial position before speaking with ALL the key people. 2. Optimize for cash first. A good CFO focuses on optimizing working capital first. Stretching payables, streamlining the collections process, identifying better ways to use credit, and making payments more efficient. Then create an updated cash flow forecast. 3. Improve financial processes. There are 2 parts to this: The first focuses on the business’s financial infrastructure. At this stage, a good CFO is going after the low-hanging fruit to improve performance, cleaning up the books, and eliminating sources of waste. The second focuses on optimization: Automated reporting, predictive study, and upgrading tech to do more with less. The goal here is to free up your team for higher-value work. 4. Cut costs. This is the quickest way to boost cash flow. With my clients, I do this by first reviewing budgets with each department leader and then implementing cost-cutting measures in order of efficiency. The goal is to reduce expenses without taking a hit to quality. 5. Build a financial plan. At this point, your new CFO has plenty of data to build a financial roadmap. I work with the executives to come up with core KPIs to track, actions to improve them, and an agreed-upon approach for balancing risk and future growth. 6. Communicate clearly. I stick to 2 rules of thumb: 1. Avoid using jargon 2. Never present just data I translate it into plain English by calling out growth opportunities, benchmarking performance against the competition, and linking present insights to future actions. By keeping everyone in the loop, even the most junior employee will be empowered to make the best decisions for your business in their day-to-day. I’ve helped over 75 SMBs grow with good finance and accounting practices. If you need help or have any questions, feel free to send me a DM.

After 15 years in the CFO seat, leading 2 IPOs and 4 exits, I’ve learned something: Most CFOs think the job is about getting better at finance. It’s not. The job is about increasing your impact on the business. Here’s what that progression looks like 👇 1️⃣ Mastering the Numbers You focus on forecasts, cash flow, board decks, and variance analysis. You believe the person with the best analysis wins. Then you discover something uncomfortable: The quality of your analysis is rarely what is holding the company back. 2️⃣ Learning the Business You stop looking at metrics in isolation. You start understanding the operational decisions driving them. Product, pricing, sales, hiring, and operational decisions. You stop asking, “What happened?” And start asking, “Why did it happen?” 3️⃣ Allocating Capital (and Risk) You stop focusing on what happened this quarter and you start deciding where the company should place its biggest bets. You’re no longer just allocating capital. You’re allocating risk, attention, and pace. - Growth or profitability? - Product or sales? - Organic growth or inorganic? You become a portfolio manager of uncertainty. 4️⃣ Influencing Decisions This is where many CFOs get stuck. You know what the company should do because you have the data and the analysis. Yet the organization doesn’t always move in that direction. You discover that being right isn’t enough. And so you start learning: - How to challenge executives without creating defensiveness. - How to navigate boardroom debates. - How to build alignment around difficult trade-offs. - How to frame recommendations around business outcomes, not financial metrics. 5️⃣ Shaping Strategy At this level, you’re no longer just evaluating strategy. You’re helping create it. You think like an owner, not a finance leader. You’re helping shape capital allocation, organizational design, M&A, and the long-term direction of the business. Remember: The strongest CFOs don’t climb the ladder by getting better at finance. They climb it by increasing their impact on the business. P.S. After 15 years in the C-suite and serving on four boards, I work with CFOs and senior executives on leadership, board effectiveness, and executive communication. Feel free to reach out if that’s your focus.

Your CFO just spent 30 minutes explaining variance analysis to your CEO. The CEO stopped listening after minute two. Most CFOs think their job is perfecting the numbers. Then they wonder why they're excluded from strategic discussions. They walk into executive meetings armed with reconciliations, journal entries, and accounting updates. Meanwhile, the CEO is thinking about market share, competitive threats, and growth opportunities. This happens when CFOs stay buried in the weeds of financial operations. They spend 80% of their time assembling numbers. The remaining 20% barely covers formatting the deck. There's no time left to interpret what the data actually means for the business. The CFO becomes a reporter, not an advisor. They recite what happened instead of shaping what happens next. Smart CFOs delegate the number-crunching to their teams. They spend their time translating financial data into strategic insights. They know the difference between accuracy and influence. The best CEOs don't need their CFO to explain debits and credits. They need someone who can connect financial reality to business strategy. Someone who sees patterns, not just periods. Great CFOs see the forest, not just the trees. They understand that perfect books mean nothing if you can't articulate how those numbers drive business decisions. If your CFO spends more time building reports than building strategy, you don't have a strategic partner. You have an expensive translator who forgot to learn the CEO's language.

CFOs, nobody will remember: - How many hours you spent on the month-end close - How many expense reports have you reviewed - How many invoices have you approved Everybody will remember: - How you drove growth and profitability - How you automated repetitive finance tasks - How you improved your finance team's digital skills - How you provided real-time insights to the executive team - How you partnered with the business to make strategic decisions As a CFO, it's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day transactional work of finance. But the most impactful CFOs understand that their time is best spent on high-level strategic activities that create value for the company. Instead of wasting time on low-level accounting and reporting tasks, CFOs should focus on: → Automating repetitive processes to free up capacity → Upskilling their teams to embrace digital transformation → Leveraging data and analytics to uncover new business opportunities → Collaborating cross-functionally to align finance with broader company priorities → Providing forward-looking insights to help the executive team make informed decisions The CFOs who make the greatest impact are those who can break free from the transaction treadmill and truly partner with the business. And that's what you want people to remember you for.

I see a lot of finance banter on what makes a CFO strategic and I think accounting and accountants do not get nearly enough credit! As CFOs, we're tasked with steering the ship toward sustainable growth and profitability. While strategy is front and center, I firmly believe that the foundation of strategic leadership starts with a deep understanding of accounting.  Accounting isn’t just about keeping the books; it’s a critical tool for driving decision-making, managing risks, and creating value. But when overlooked or misunderstood, the consequences can be significant internally and externally. Here are a few examples of how accounting becomes a strategic lever—and what happens when it doesn’t:  1. Properly managing revenue recognition policies ensures compliance while offering insights into the timing and quality of revenue streams. For SaaS companies, understanding deferred revenue can help align sales incentives, predict cash flow, and communicate long-term value to investors. Missteps in this area, however, can lead to restatements that erode stakeholder trust, as we saw with Macy's recent challenges, impacting both reputation and stock price.  2. CFOs can strategically optimize the effective tax rate by leveraging credits, managing tax losses, and structuring international operations efficiently. This not only supports profitability but also reassures investors about fiscal prudence. Poor management in this area, however, can trigger regulatory penalties and impact quarterly earnings reports—both of which can rattle markets.  Remember BEPS and the elimination of the double Dutch/Irish structures? 3. Late filings or misstatements are red flags for investors. They create uncertainty about the company’s financial health and often lead to stock price declines. When companies miss filing deadlines or announce the need to restate earnings, markets react swiftly—and not in the company’s favor. For public companies, these delays can also attract regulatory scrutiny, compounding the issue.  4. Compliance Risks Inaccurate or negligent accounting isn’t just an internal issue—it can have legal and market ramifications. Tyson Foods’ former CFO serves as a cautionary tale, highlighting how accounting missteps can escalate into fraud allegations, restatements, or even jail time. These events inevitably shake investor confidence and hit share prices.  #enron 5. Accounting provides the tools to forecast and manage cash flow effectively. Strategic CFOs use this to time investments, secure favorable credit terms, and ensure liquidity during market downturns. Mismanagement of cash flow accounting, however, can strain operations and amplify investor concerns.  6. An accounting lens is vital for evaluating the target’s financial health, identifying synergies, and ensuring a smooth post-deal integration. Without proper diligence, overpaying for a deal or misjudging liabilities can spook markets once the true financial picture comes to light.  

I used to think a CFO's job was to understand the numbers. I was wrong. A CFO's job is to translate the numbers into decisions the CEO can act on. I've seen brilliant finance leaders overlooked for promotion because they mastered the wrong thing. They could tell you: → Exactly where every variance came from → The precise breakdown of every cost center → The detailed reconciliation of every account But they couldn't answer: "If we invest $500K more in sales, what does our cash runway look like in Q3?" Not because they didn't know. Because getting to that answer took too long. The CFOs who become true partners to their CEOs have figured something out: Speed of insight matters more than perfection of detail. A CEO told me: "I don't need my CFO to be right to the penny. I need them to be roughly right while I can still do something about it." The best finance leaders I know have made a fundamental shift: They've stopped optimizing for accuracy in isolation. They've started optimizing for decisions in context. That doesn't mean sloppy work. It means having systems that let them move between 30,000 feet and ground level without rebuilding everything. One CFO described it perfectly: "My CEO needs me to zoom in when details matter and zoom out when strategy matters. If I can only do one at a time, I'm not doing my job." The partnership works when finance can match the speed at which the CEO needs to think. Not faster. Not slower. The same speed. That's when you stop being the person who reports on decisions. And become the person who shapes them. #CFO #Leadership #CEOPartnership #StrategicThinking #FPandA