Developing excellent people management skills and having a proactive nature are critical for anyone aspiring to become a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in Asia, according to new research released today by recruiting experts Hays.
The research, outlined in a new report, the ‘DNA of a CFO’, shows that while most CFOs build their careers exclusively within finance they value non-finance related skills and attributes as key for career development.
The report, based on an extensive survey of 411 senior finance professionals and in-depth interviews with five leading CFOs in Asia, provides finance professionals with insight into what they need to focus on if they want to rise to a position of leadership.
“CFOs are typically the right hand of the CEO and – as our research shows - must have superior leadership skills, excellent interpersonal skills and a thorough understanding of how every part of the business impacts costs and earnings,” says Marc Burrage, Managing Director of Hays Japan.
“We found CFOs typically pursue the top job by building their career exclusively within finance – only five per cent of our respondents had worked in another speciality for part of their career,” says Marc.
“However, most of our respondents advise aspiring CFOs to pay close attention to developing interpersonal skills and not just their financial technical knowledge,” he says.
The top three skills CFOs advise the next generation of finance leaders to develop are commercial awareness (nominated by 53 per cent of respondents), people skills (48 per cent) and to gain experience in operations and not just numbers (45 per cent).
“Obviously finance and analytical thinking are crucial skills for any CFO but in addition to these skills, 52 per cent of our respondents said people management skills were crucial to their success.”
“The top skills nominated by respondents in Asia were strategic planning (54 per cent), people management (52 per cent) commercial acumen (38 per cent) and communication (34 per cent),” says Marc.
Respondents nominated the top five personal attributes needed to become CFO as having a proactive nature (61 per cent), hard working (46 per cent), analytical (42 per cent), being goal-focused (39 per cent) and collaborative (37 per cent).
“Looking at the results from all respondents, we found the biggest challenge facing CFOs today is changing industry and economic conditions. A quarter of respondents also identified the digitisation of the economy as a major challenge and 14 per cent were concerned about responding to advances in technology,” says Marc.
“Hays is fortunate to have had the invaluable input of five outstanding CFOs as well as 411 other financial leaders across Asia to help bring to life just what makes a CFO stand apart from other executives in the organisation.”
“This is our second DNA of a CFO report – back by popular demand. This shows that many of the finance executives we deal with at Hays have lofty ambitions and are keen to learn from those that have gone before them,” says Marc.
The DNA of a CFO is the fourth in the Hays DNA series in Asia and follows the DNA of CFO 2015, DNA of a CIO and DNA of an HRD.
To learn more about the DNA of a CFO 2018 Asia report, please click here.
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About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2017 the Group employed 10,000 staff operating from 250 offices in 33 markets across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2017:
– the Group reported net fees of £954.6 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £211.5 million; – the Group placed around 70,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 240,000 people into temporary assignments;
– 24% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific, 49% in Continental Europe & RoW (CERoW) and 27% in the United Kingdom & Ireland; – the temporary placement business represented 59% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 41% of net fees;
– Hays operates in the following markets: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Mainland China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA.