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Executive Search: Chief Financial Officer
The CFO you need now is not the CFO you hired last time.
Boards and CEOs no longer want a controller with a bigger title. They want a financial leader who can allocate capital, carry the investor conversation, run a transformation and challenge the CEO in private while backing the plan in public. Finding that person, and confirming they will do it inside your culture, is what our CFO search practice exists for.
The Role Has Changed
Three CFO profiles, and why most searches confuse them.
A pre-IPO or public-company CFO, a private-equity value-creation CFO and a family-business professionalizing CFO share a title and little else. The first lives in capital markets and controls. The second lives in the 100-day plan, the lender covenant and the exit multiple. The third has to build the finance function and the trust of an owner at the same time.
Most failed CFO hires come from searching for the generic profile. Our Foresight™ process begins by defining which CFO your next three years actually require, what that person must accomplish to be judged a success, and what in your culture will help or hinder them. Then we search for that, not for a résumé.
Download: Twists and Turns in Recruiting a Great CFOWhat We Look For
Six things we assess in every CFO candidate.
Technical competence is the entry ticket. These are the dimensions that separate the CFOs who transform a company from the ones who keep the books.
Capital allocation judgment
Where the money goes, where it stops, and the discipline to say no to a CEO’s favorite project.
Board and investor credibility
Can this person stand in front of a board, a lender or a sponsor and be believed under pressure?
Operational partnership
A finance leader the COO and business-unit heads seek out, not route around.
Transformation experience
ERP, systems and process overhauls done with the business, not to it.
Talent builder
The ability to recruit and keep a controller, FP&A lead and treasury team that outlast the CFO.
Cultural alignment
Measured with VantagePoint™, not inferred from an interview, because fit is the reason CFOs leave at month eighteen.
How a CFO Search Runs
Foresight™, applied to the finance seat.
The same six-phase process behind every Allen Austin search, with the CFO-specific judgment calls built in.
01
Organizational and position needs analysis
We interview the CEO, the audit chair, the sponsor if there is one, and the leaders the CFO will serve. The output is a performance specification: the pivot the CFO must execute, the culture they must fit, and the trade-offs you are willing to make.
02
Define “The Pivot”
A liquidity event, an ERP implementation, a cost structure, a capital raise, a succession. We name the three or four outcomes that define success and recruit against them.
03
Original research and sourcing
CFOs who are performing are not on job boards. We build the market map from original research, including sitting CFOs, divisional CFOs ready to step up, and controllers with operating credibility.
04
Self-appraisal and VantagePoint™ assessment
Shortlisted candidates complete a structured self-appraisal against the specification and a VantagePoint™ assessment of decision-making under pressure, so the slate you see is evidence-based.
05
360° reference audit
References from the CEO, the audit chair, a lender or banker, and a direct report, taken before you meet the finalist. A complete picture, not a curated one.
06
Partner-led close and aftercare
The partner negotiates the offer, supports the first-year plan and stays engaged, because the first year is where CFO placements succeed or fail.
CFO Searches We Run
The situations that bring boards and CEOs to us.
Each has its own candidate pool and its own definition of success. We have run all of them, many times.
Private-equity-backed CFO
Value-creation CFOs for sponsor-owned companies, from first institutional capital through exit.
Pre-IPO and public-company readiness
SOX, investor relations, guidance and the controls that a listing demands.
Turnaround and transformation
CFOs who have restructured a balance sheet or rebuilt a finance function under time pressure.
Family-owned and founder-led businesses
A first professional CFO who can earn the owner’s trust and build the function from the ground up.
CFO succession and controller elevation
Objective assessment of an internal successor against the external market, with coaching where the gap is closable.
Divisional and group CFO
Finance leaders for business units and regions inside larger enterprises.
Practice Leadership
Partners who have hired and sat across from CFOs.
Every CFO search is run by a senior partner, start to finish, with no handoffs to junior staff.
Rob Andrews
Chairman & CEO
Former operating president with P&L responsibility for $2.4 billion in revenue; has led CFO searches for 30 years.
Nick McQuarry
Partner
Completed CFO and controller searches across manufacturing, oil & gas, commercial services and consumer products.
Jackie Gorman
Senior Advisor
CFO and CIO searches for family-owned businesses, private equity firms, Fortune 500 companies and institutions.
From the Touchpoint library
Twists and Turns in Recruiting a Great Private Equity CFO
What sponsors get wrong about the finance seat, and the profile that actually delivers through an exit.
“I have used all the major search firms over the years and found Allen Austin’s process extremely focused, detailed, and effective.“
Bob Phillips · Managing Partner, Liberty Capital
Questions we hear most
Before you call, a few straight answers.
How much does a retained CFO search cost?
Retained search fees are typically one-third of the CFO’s first-year total compensation, invoiced in three installments across the engagement. Every placement above $250,000 carries our full two-year guarantee.
How long does a CFO search take?
A qualified slate in six to eight weeks and a signed offer in 90 to 120 days is typical. The needs analysis at the start is what keeps the back end fast, because the specification does not change mid-search.
Should we promote our controller or go outside?
Often the right answer is to assess both. We evaluate the internal candidate with VantagePoint™ against the external market so the board decides with evidence rather than loyalty or doubt.
Do you place interim or fractional CFOs?
Our focus is permanent retained search. If an interim is needed to bridge a gap, we will say so and help you think through it, but we will not sell you a search you do not need.
Do you work outside Houston?
Yes. Allen Austin is headquartered in Houston and runs CFO searches across Texas, North America and Europe.