The CFO who's right for next year, not last year

Operating companies tend to be very precise about most senior hires and surprisingly loose about CFO. The pattern is consistent: the company hires the CFO it needed twelve months ago, after the situation that made it need a CFO has already changed.

The four CFO archetypes

We run CFO searches against one of four shapes, depending on the phase:

1. The Controller-Plus CFO. Best for £2–10m revenue companies still finding product-market fit. Strong on monthly close, cash discipline, board reporting, supplier hygiene. Comfortable being the only finance person.
2. The Scaling CFO. Best for £10–40m revenue companies past PMF, into scaling. Strong on FP&A, hiring a finance team, building the operating cadence, partnering with the GTM leadership on unit economics.
3. The Transactional CFO. Best for the year before a transaction. Strong on QoE prep, M&A diligence experience, debt and equity instrument fluency. Often interim or contract-to-perm.
4. The Public-Market CFO. For post-IPO or pre-IPO companies. Different beast — investor relations, segment reporting, audit committee management. Rarely the same person as the previous archetypes.

The most common mistake

Hiring archetype 2 (scaling) when you need archetype 1 (controller). Companies pay a £180k base for someone who's never closed a month and is going to delegate the actual finance work that needs doing today. The hire is theoretically right for where the company is going, but it can't get there without the work the controller would have done.

The reverse mistake — hiring archetype 1 when you need archetype 2 — is less common but more damaging. The controller can't scale a finance team, can't partner with sales on unit economics, can't sit credibly in front of a sophisticated investor. The company outgrows the hire within a year.

What we ask before opening a CFO search

• What are the three biggest finance decisions the next twelve months will force?
• How many finance people are reporting to this CFO in eighteen months?
• Is there a transaction within the planning horizon — raise, sale, recapitalisation?
• Who's currently doing the things a CFO should be doing, and what does the gap look like?

These four questions usually surface which archetype the brief should target — and frequently surface that it should be a sequence (interim controller-plus now, scaling CFO in eighteen months).

The right CFO for the phase you're in is almost never the prestigious one. It's the one who's done the exact specific phase you're entering.

How we run the search

Retained, with brief pressure-test before the search opens. Typical shortlist of three to five candidates within ten weeks of mandate. Stay through onboarding and 90-day check-in. Fees in the £30–55k range depending on seniority.

If you're heading toward a CFO hire, the highest-leverage thing is brief work before the search. Send two or three lines on the seat and the phase — we reply within 48 hours.