CFOs widen remit as firms seek broader finance chiefs

CFO Recruit North America said 64% of the chief financial officers it interviews have responsibilities beyond finance, pointing to a broader shift in how the role is defined.

Christine Schneider, Regional Director at CFO Recruit North America, said the pattern appears consistently across roughly 800 CFO interviews a year. In one recent targeted search, nearly half the shortlisted candidates were already leading at least one function beyond finance.

Gartner has also found that more than 70% of CFOs report responsibilities outside their traditional remit. Depending on a company's size and structure, those duties can include enterprise data and analytics, corporate strategy, technology, operations, human resources and legal oversight.

The expansion is especially pronounced in smaller and founder-led businesses, where executive teams are often leaner. In those companies, the CFO may oversee much of the back office, taking on functions that would sit with separate senior leaders in a larger organisation.

That can leave one executive handling a wide range of work, from vendor contract negotiations and payroll decisions to IT security reviews and monthly reporting. Despite the broader remit, Schneider said pay is still often set by company revenue rather than by the role's actual scope.

CFO Recruit's US Salary Guide puts base pay for mid-market CFOs at USD $350,000 to USD $425,000, while small-company CFOs earn USD $200,000 to USD $300,000 before bonuses and long-term incentives. Bonuses typically range from 20% to 50%, the guide said.

As a result, some CFOs with the widest operational responsibilities sit at the lower end of the market, according to the firm. That gap can create problems when boards and chief executives draft job briefs and set compensation for a new hire.

Pay mismatch

Schneider said companies can run into difficulty when they use the CFO title as a proxy for a standard market rate without defining the job's actual scope. A role covering finance, HR, IT, legal and operations may be benchmarked against peers with a much narrower remit.

"The CFOs who have had responsibility for technology or operations alongside finance are the ones boards compete hardest for, as we are increasingly seeing the CFO brief requiring the wider functional responsibility," Schneider said.

The issue also affects hiring across different company sizes. Experience gained in a large organisation does not necessarily translate to a smaller business, where the finance leader may need to manage several departments with limited support.

A CFO from a more specialised corporate structure may find a smaller-company role much broader and less segmented. By contrast, a finance chief from a smaller company may move into a large organisation and find the role more tightly defined than they are used to.

Search criteria

Schneider said boards and chief executives need to identify the role's true shape before launching a search. That includes the stage of the business, the size of the leadership team and whether non-finance functions sit with the CFO.

Recruiters said those details affect both candidate fit and salary expectations. A mismatch between the written brief and the actual workload can narrow the field or lead to a hire that does not last.

Automation has also changed the role by reducing the staffing needed for routine finance processes, according to the firm. That has made it easier for some companies to extend the CFO's remit rather than appoint separate leaders for adjacent support functions.

In practice, the modern CFO title can cover very different roles from one business to another. The divergence is most visible between large organisations with formal leadership structures and smaller companies where one executive may oversee multiple internal functions.

Schneider said employers tend to respond best when they focus less on the title and more on whether a candidate has handled a similar company size and set of demands.

"What reassures a CEO is a CFO who has led a business of a similar size and successfully navigated the same challenges," Schneider said.