Traits Of Successful Financial Hires – What Should You Look For In Your Next CFO?
Senior finance professionals are responsible for everything from providing financial guidance to overseeing your finances and helping you to meet your financial goals and objectives.
As such a critical component of your business’s success, you can’t afford to make bad hiring decisions.
Acuity Associates takes the risk out of recruitment by employing a skills-based approach to hiring (which is backed up by assessment tools such as The Acuity Measure TM
Through years of data collection, we’ve bench-marked the traits that make successful financial hires.
Strategic thinkers
Successful senior finance professionals have a thorough understanding of your company’s goals. They’re great at then looking at the bigger picture so they can develop a plan to ensure you achieve those goals.
A strategic mindset means finance professionals can be more proactive when it comes to identifying potential issues, mitigating risk and creating solutions.
They should also be able to anticipate future trends and challenges within the industry and then use data to back these insights to make strategic business decisions.
Excellent communicators
Finance professionals need to be able to communicate complex data simply and effectively so that others working within the organisation who aren’t financially-minded, can understand and interpret the information.
They’re leaders
Leadership is a critical trait for a successful senior finance professional. They have a lot of eyes on them and depending on the size of your organisation, more than likely, more junior members of the team reporting into and learning from them.
CFOs and FDs should have the necessary skills to motivate and inspire their team to do the best possible job, while setting a good example and fostering a positive work culture.
Detail-orientated
A big part of the role of a senior finance professional is analysing complex data. Strong attention to detail along with an ability to identify errors and discrepancies is therefore a key skill.
A great CFO/FD will go above and beyond to ensure that financial reports are correct because they understand that even the smallest error can have serious repercussions.
Good technical ability
Senior finance professionals need to be digitally minded in today’s technology-driven world.
Technological influences have altered the traditional definition of what makes a great CFO or FD. A great hire should be able to understand and embrace these changes so you can future-proof your business.
We’ve created a comprehensive whitepaper which highlights the top five dimensions of an effective senior financial professional. This can be used to identify if your existing team has the skills you need. Alternatively, it can be used as a recruitment tool to ensure you’re making successful hiring decisions.
What help to find your next senior finance professional? Contact Acuity Associates today.
