The CFO role evolved more during the early 2000s than it did during the entire history of the role. By 2020, a typical CFO would have significant areas of responsibilities across all four roles and required significant levels of skills and experience to effectively perform the role.
Finance leaders have now become vital members of the management team and are often referred to as “Strategic Business Partners” to the CEO. The ever-increasing range of responsibilities include:
- Becoming ever-more accountable for delivering compliance and achieving robust governance;
- Maintaining responsibility for preserving the company’s assets and taking ownership of a growing number of business operations;
- Regularly supporting the wider organisation with insights and decision-making by providing detailed analysis of both financial and non-financial data; and
- Managing many key stakeholder relationships, drive business transformation and execute transactions.
Finance leaders typically dedicate at least 15-20% of their time towards each of these four roles and the Guardian/Operations responsibilities now consumes around 40% of the finance leader’s time. The following diagram illustrates the current four roles of the CFO and some examples of typical responsibilities in 2020: