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Ernst & Young Report: Most CFOs Aren’t Interested in Becoming CEOs

Posted on by GoingConcern

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

A surprising new report from Ernst & Young makes the bold claim that only 10 percent of CFOs actually want to become CEO. The report – entitled ‘DNA of the CFO’ – was based around a survey of 699 CFOs in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia and included in depth interviews with CFOs of leading companies such as Heineken, Dubai Aerospace Enterprises and Marks & Spencer.

The accepted wisdom is that in times of trouble, boards turn to CFOs to become CEOs. CFOs are seen as having a good handle on the numbers, attention to which is seen as the cure to the company’s problems.

While CFOs are generally seen as detail focused but not necessarily strategically focused, the survey shows that some 35 percent of all CFOs are intimately involved in the strategic side of the business. This is in addition to their day to day duties of keeping on top of the numbers.


While only 10 percent say that they want to be CEO, 73 percent say that they would like to remain in their role while taking on more strategic responsibility. This suggests that CFOs are put off by the unwelcome levels of scrutiny that CEOs face, which as CFOs they can largely avoid. And if CFOs can undertake much of the interesting strategic work which CEOs do but without the glare of publicity, that would appear to be a good bargain.

The survey also laid out CFOs’ professional failings, with a majority saying that their biggest lay in communication with external stakeholders, especially the media. Any financial journalist can attest that CFOs are difficult people to communicate with. They might possess the keys to the kingdom, in terms of the juiciest details about what’s actually going on in a company, but they are generally woeful at crafting a positive message. Those few that can are usually the ones who make it to the top.

Even so, the survey shows that not many CFOs actually want this. Rather what is revealed is that the CFO position is the destination itself, not the staging post to a role any higher. To that end, the report crafted a list of the competencies that finance professionals need to reach the role of CFO. These competencies are listed below, in order of priority.

• Extremely strong financial professionalism
• A strong commercial sensibility
• Deep understanding of the business
• Skill with people
• Ability to think strategically
• Excellent communication skills – the ability to translate complex issues in a simple, straightforward way
• Ability to manage conflict
• Inclination to solve rather than create problems
• International experience
• Language skills
• Experience of running major projects
• Business analytical skills
• Ability to manage stress and complexity under pressure
• Good health
• Operational experience
• Ability to adapt to change
• Experience of adversity
• Passion

Many of these are the normal, boilerplate nonsense that headhunters come up with: it is difficult to do any job if you are not in good health, or even if you lack passion for the job in hand. Others seem bland enough to apply to any high level job such as the ability to adapt to change. Others might seem mutually exclusive: experience running major projects can often conflict with the task of managing the finances around those projects.

International experience and excellent communication are also skills that can be acquired. More challenging, perhaps, is the need to be a problem solver and not a creator while at the same time being excellent with numbers. Financial results are obviously not a day at the beach. If you can master them and don’t feel the need to be an excellent communicator, then like 90 percent of the respondents, becoming CFO is the end itself, not a path to the other corner office.

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Fired Marc Jacobs CFO Will Have You Know That Deloitte Never Complained About His Work

Last month we told you about Patrice Lataillade, the former Marc Jacobs CFO who was fired, he claims, because he complained about all the porn floating around the office, mandatory pole dances forced upon employees and various other things. Lataillade has sued the company saying that after he complained about the rampant lewdness, he was later told that his services were no longer needed.

The company disputes this, saying that Lataillade was actually doing a little double-entry magic for about $20 million or so in order to earn himself a nicer bonus. Lataillade has now pulled a Chinese stunt of sorts, claiming that Deloitte said everything was hunky dory and that should convince anyone that doubts his CFO prowess:

Lataillade and his lawyers said that the company, which fired Lataillade last September, never had any trouble with his monitoring of its finances in his long tenure at Marc Jacobs International. His work was checked and rechecked not only by accountants for LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate that owns Marc Jacobs International, but also by the company’s accounting firm Deloitte and Touch [sic]. Lataillade claims he never heard a complaint about his performance, and that he was really fired for speaking out against sexual discrimination at work.

Fired Marc Jacobs Exec Says Company Is Ignoring The Facts [Styleite]

CFO: Philips’ Efforts Have Company Moving Up the Outsourcing Ladder

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

As a follow-up to last week’s blog on Molson Coors’ experience with outsourcing, the CFO of the Latin American division of Dutch comglomerate Philips provided a different perspective Thursday morning at the Hackett Group’s best practices conference in Atlanta.

While Molson Coors’ CFO Stewart Glendinning expressed disappointment over high turnover rates at the outsourcing company the beer company signed up with, Philips’ Latin American CFO Ronald Eikelenboom said he planned on high turnover when he inked a deal with Indian outsourcer Infosys in late 2008 to expand the two companies’ relationship to Brazil, where Philips’ Latin American operations are based.


Eikelenboom told the audience (and me in a follow up video interview that will be posted shortly) that high turnover was central to Infosys’ business model, as the outsourcer keeps salary costs low by rotating from older to younger workers. But that turnover was priced into the terms of the deal, which at $250 million (for, I believe, the global contract, not just the Latin American part) is considered one of the largest of all such transactions. Too, the terms set a minimum level of performance, so it’s up to Infosys to manage the downside of high turnover.

Infosys had few qualms about Philips’ demands, said Eikelenboom, because the company was eager to expand into Brazil and the Philips deal gave it an entrée. So the CFO had enough leverage with the outsourcer to reassure himself about the potential risks.

“We’re building something together with Infosys,” he told the gathering. “We share the same aspirations.”

For that reason, Eikelenboom also expressed less concern than Glendinning did about outsourcing complex financial processes. And he said that was important for Philips as labor cost advantages in emerging markets dwindle over time as wages rise, and innovation and process improvement thus become more critical to the value that outsourcing creates.

“We’re moving up the ladder in BPO,” he said, referring to business process outsourcing.

With outsourcing, as with everything, I suppose, it’s different strokes for different folks.

Andy Fastow Is Out of Prison

Technically! He’ll be in a halfway house until later this year (BOP says December 17) but getting out of the big house has to feel good.

However, Drew won’t be able to apply for a position at one of those Chinese companies who are losing CFOs left and right. He still has to get reacquainted with society and whatnot:

“It’s a bridge, if you will, a transition period,” said bureau spokesman Edmond Ross. The purpose of the halfway house is for prisoners to reestablish family ties and adjust to society outside of prison, he said. Prisoners are allowed to leave the facility to go to their jobs, but their movements are still controlled. “They cannot come and go as they please,” said Ross. “Their lives are restricted to the rules of the halfway house.”

First things first, Andy – Twitter account. Oh, and maybe subscribe to our enewsletter.

Enron exec Fastow nears prison release [CNN]