Reinventing the CFO: How Financial Managers Can Transform Their Roles And Add Greater Value

CHAPTER TWO

THE CFO AS ANALYST AND ADVISER

In our culture, the CFO has always been a part of the business team and, in some cases, grown into leading that team.

—Jim Parke, CFO, GE Capital

SURVEYS SHOW THAT most CFOs want to upgrade their role from accounting specialists to strategic or business partners. But this aspiration has remained exactly that—an aspiration. The gap between rhetoric and reality has remained uncomfortably large and reasonably consistent for the past ten years. Few CFOs have actually made the change primarily because they have neither the time nor the necessary capabilities within the current finance team. But for those who have, the rewards have been tangible. They have become trusted and indispensable members of the ...