Your first 100 days as a CFO
Insight and guidance to help you succeed
Find out more
Download the guide
As a newly-appointed CFO, you need to establish your credibility and equip yourself with the information needed to add value to your business as quickly as possible.
There is no one-size-fits-all formula for success for every CFO. However, from our conversations with finance leaders through CFO Rooms and other conversations, we have identified the five core areas every CFO needs to focus on early in the role.
In this guide, you’ll find insights designed to help you hit the ground running, from engaging the board and senior leadership team to ensuring regulatory compliance.
Gain insights from other CFOs and Grant Thornton UK experts on:
Getting to know your finance function
The CFO Scorecard helps to define the current and future role of finance, and understanding how much weighting is placed on different quadrants of the scorecard in your finance function will be key in your first few weeks.
What type of finance team have you inherited – one focussed on efficient transactional processing and controls (business protection and operational delivery); or challenging the business to make better decisions (value creation and stakeholder management)? Where do you need the focus to lie – for you yourself and for your team as a whole?
The CFO Scorecard
Stakeholder management
Operational
delivery
Value creation
Business protection
The CFO Room
Do your finance functions priorities align with the wider business strategy?
Reporting, risk, and compliance
Key questions to ask
Spend time with your internal finance and legal teams to identify how debt obligations are managed on a day-to-day basis. You’ll also need to meet with your lenders to review the terms of the debt agreement and identify potential issues. They key questions that your need to answer to include:
How much debt do you have outstanding?
They key questions that your need to answer to include:
You could spend a couple of weeks turning the pages on every balance sheet reconciliation, but what does that signal to your team? They’re there for a reason, and they were working on the balance sheet before I came along – so when I started, I let them present it to me in their format first, and then I asked questions.
Vineta Bajaj, Group CFO, Rohlik Group
Engaging the senior leadership team and the Board
Your first 100 days will be crucial in establishing yourself as a credible, knowledgeable, and reliable strategic leader to the Board and senior leadership team.
Act as a
strategic adviser
Take time to understand their expectations
Be proactive and transparent
Stress management and strategies for success
While it’s an exciting time for your career, embarking on a new role as a CFO is a stressful experience for even the most experienced of finance leaders. There are some key reminders that can help to alleviate some of the pressure and make the transition more manageable.
Six tips to avoid overwhelm in your first 100 days
1
You don’t need to change everything from day one
2
Lean on your mentors and trusted advisors
3
Get your head around stakeholders’ expectations
4
Develop a
transition plan
5
Protect your diary
6
Expect the unexpected
CFO Room workshop
During a CFO Room workshop, our team can work with you to build a personalised roadmap for success.
Find out in your first 20-40 days or so what information investors want, and how often you should connect – because it shouldn’t be just at board meetings – and how they want to receive information. Have those conversations early on to establish what they really want, because it might not necessarily be what’s been done historically.
Amman Boughan, CFO, PreventX
Our CFO Room one-to-one workshop helps you step back from the firefighting and getting caught up in the details to help set your finance function up for success.
Download the full The First 100 Days as a CFO for more insights, guides and resources
GRANTTHORNTON.CO.UK
© 2024 Grant Thornton UK LLP - All rights reserved. “Grant Thornton” refers to the brand under which the Grant Thornton member firms provide assurance, tax and advisory services to their clients and/or refers to one or more member firms, as the context requires. Grant Thornton UK LLP is a member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd (GTIL). GTIL and the member firms are not a worldwide partnership. GTIL and each member firm is a separate legal entity. Services are delivered by the member firms. GTIL does not provide services to clients. GTIL and its member firms are not agents of, and do not obligate, one another and are not liable for one another’s acts or omissions.
Stakeholder management
Ensuring appropriate controls, processes and governance are effective to identify and mitigate risks faced by the organisation and discharge relevant compliance responsibilities.
Operational delivery
Completing core finance function tasks such as transaction processing, ledger maintenance, and statutory reporting.
Business protection
Ensuring appropriate controls, processes and governance are effective to identify and mitigate risks faced by the organisation and discharge relevant compliance responsibilities.
Value creation
Helping to generate value for the organisation through delivery of insights, involvement in strategic decisions, and leadership of change initiatives.
Find out more
Download the guide
When preparing for your first Board meeting, remember that your role isn’t only to present the financial numbers collated by the finance team. You’ll be expected to succinctly communicate how these fit into the bigger picture and share strategic input on the way forward.
In your initial meetings with the executive team and Board members, focus on understanding their individual and collective vision and priorities, and their expectations of how you can help them achieve these goals.
To build trust, proactively anticipate the expectations of senior stakeholders and identify potential financial risks and opportunities, instead of waiting for them to come to you with their questions or concerns.
You may feel under pressure to prove yourself by driving change as early as possible – especially if you’ve been brought in to transform the finance function – but that doesn’t mean you need to start making decisions the day you start.
Mentors aren’t just there to help you reach the top role in finance – they’re also there to help you succeed once you reach it. With so many spinning plates, no one can tackle the CFO role alone.
Focusing on finding out what stakeholders across the business expect from a CFO – from the relationship they want to where they expect your priorities to lie – will prevent you from feeling acting in the dark. It will also allow you to identify gaps between the expectations of different groups of stakeholders.
Each of the CFOs we’ve spoken to shared that while they didn’t stick rigidly to a plan, they found it helpful to map out and stick to a high-level timeline such as ‘by the end of week 3, I want to have spoken with A and know B about the finance function’s performance, by the end of month 2 I want to have a plan in place to approach C…’ to help them stay on track and meet their goals.
Particularly when you start in the role, your diary is likely to be packed back-to-back with meetings. For some new CFOs, it can be tempting to take every meeting that comes your way as you look to build relationships and get your head around the business, but with such a large influx of information, blocking out a set amount of time each day will help you to process it all and start to build a plan for your finance function.
Unforeseen challenges are inevitably going to crop up during your first 100 days in the role regardless of your level of preparation. Embrace this reality going into the role, remembering that adaptability and agility will be your allies in navigating unpredictability both during and beyond your first 100 days.
What are the tax implications of your debt agreements?
What are the terms of debt agreements and how are repayments organised?
Is there an immediate or future need for additional capital, and why?
What are the assets or collateral pledged to secure the debt?
Are there any financial covenants in the debt agreements?
How does your company’s debt structure impact its overall strategy and long-term objectives?
“
“
“
“
Simon Davidson Partner, Business Consulting
Getting to know
the business
Familiarise yourself with the business's mission statement and strategy and how your finance function aligns with them.
Reporting, risk
and compliance
Building relationships
Efficient and effective operations
Looking to the future
Stress management and strategies for success
Understand the role you and other stakeholders play in risk management, and ensure effective processes and controls are in place.
From engaging the Board to establishing trust within your team, building strong relationships will help you secure trust early on.
Evaluate current operations, from tax planning to cybersecurity, and identify opportunities to add value.
Establish the direction you want to take your finance function in and shift your focus to strategic planning.
Embarking on a new CFO role is a stressful experience - but there are some key reminders that can help alleviate some of the pressure.
See related insights:
Vineta Bajaj
Group CFO, Rohlik Group
Interview
Read
Amman Boughan
CFO, PreventX
Interview
Read
Ciara Allan
CFO
Interview
Read
Find out more