The Role of the Financial Manager



The Role of the Financial Manager

Introduction

In corporate world, everybody tries to move up the ladder for growth and development. He strives to prove himself in numerous ways so to get recognition internally as well as externally. Finance departments may or may not be the best place for the training of future Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). A financial controller or the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has the knowledge of financial laws, their implementation, and their future projections but they have only the accounting and finance expertise in their hands. Although to run a successful business, one should have complete knowledge of all the departments, their operations and their compliance with the mission of the company. A CEO is one of the key management personnel who take the major responsibility of running and managing the company in a fluid way.

Discussion

CEOs can benefit largely from a CFO background because they have a diverse ground of how all the financial laws being implemented, their affects on the performance of the company and its impact on the stakeholders. On the other hand, CFO is limited to Accounting and Finance only, he does not know about Marketing; the central department of any company. CEO is the person who has a diverse perspective and hones his managerial skills professionally so to align with the mission and vision of the organization.

Right candidate gets the right place; if a person possesses the required skills to get the position of CEO he could definitely acquire that position. Today CFOs interact with their management boards specifically with the CEO to contribute to strategic planning. According to Rucker McCarty, earlier CFO was seemed to be a shopkeeper but now several organizations look CFOs as strategic partners for their businesses as they assist in building value to ...