The Many Hats Worn by the CFO

January 12, 2022

Today’s modern CFO of an enterprise operation may be juggling more roles than ever before.

‍The Five Hats of the CFO, co-authored by Frank Manzi and Mark Martinelli, argues five key CFO responsibilities. 


The Five Hats of the CFO are as follows:
  • Financial steward
  • Communicator of financial results
  • Leader of financial planning and analysis
  • Driver of internal controls and process improvements
  • Strategist.

You can almost visualize the CFO’s head spinning 360 degrees as their responsibilities include activities covering the past, present, and future. 

They are more accountable for past results than just about any other executive in the company. While the Chief Accounting Officer is also responsible for managing financial results, the CFO holds a higher level of accountability for those results externally to the market, investors, and regulatory bodies.

The CFO manages the FP&A team responsible for painting the most accurate picture possible about the future across plans, budgets, financial models, and forecasts.

Every other business leader relies on timely real-time (present) data analysis to make crucial decisions to drive the business forward. 

In addition, the CFO manages the company’s overall governance and controls, tax, treasury, and in some cases, even IT and HR. 

Today’s modern CFO will benefit from an agile FP&A solution like FinLogic.io to provide strong data governance, calculation performance, improve collaboration across large teams, and bring a large quantity of spreadsheet files flying around under control.