CFO: Skills, Education, Salaries, Responsibilities

Do you wish to become a CFO? If your answer is yes, then you must have taken into consideration the responsibilities, skills, education and salary of a CFO. But before you decide on this career jump, first understand who a CFO is and what does he do?

A CFO is the head of the finance and accounts department of an organisation. Hence, he is the man in charge of managing the flow of money in a firm. A CFO takes part in the day-to-day operations of his/her department and ensures that things are running smoothly with the company not facing any major financial hit. Moreover, he analyses the financial statements and related data and makes recommendations to better the performance.

Resultantly, he/she is the one who shoulders the responsibility of ensuring proper planning for a fiscal year and plays a pivotal part in implementing that outline.

Responsibilities of a CFO

As a CFO, you have many duties and responsibilities. Some of them have been given below -

Manage the company’s finance and accounting teams and give them the necessary directions as a leader.
Brief the CEO and other executive directors on the financial proposition of business plans.
Review finance, human resources, or tax-relevant financial procedures for formulating or enforcing internal control policies.
Upgrade the financial systems, cash flow processes, and associated technologies in the organisations.
Connecting with investors or shareholders to understand their expectations.
Compute data-driven analyses for giving the necessary financial recommendations to the company.
Supervise third-party auditors.

That’s not all. The CFO has to also manage the following professionals in the company –

Accounting professionals
Tax professionals
Financial analysts
Human resources personnel
Investor relations professionals
Financial controllers

Education of a CFO

Becoming a CFO takes time as you need the experience to manage a team. However, the academic background that you need to start your journey on this career path will include the following –

Following the completion of your class 10 or equivalent, it is ideal for taking up commerce as a stream.
Once you complete your 10+2 or equivalent, you can choose accounting and finance as your major in college, supported by subjects like business administration, audit, etc.
Now, after completing your college, you can enrol for specialised courses like MBA, or you can simply go ahead with the master’s degree.
At the same time, remember that completing the chartered accounting course can be another way of building your career as a CFO; you can study for the CA course after your graduation.

Now, if you don’t want to get into any confusion, you can simply opt for a specialised course like the chief financial officer course. Leading educational institutes like Imarticus Learning, along with the IIM Indore, is conducting such professional courses.

Now, a CFO executive training course will help you gather the knowledge to perform your duty as the departmental head. It will also give you an insight into the running and management of a business so that you can perform your duties better.

Skills of a CFO

Having the theoretical knowledge is not enough to become a CFO; for this, you need a few skills; these are –

Leadership and management skills

A CFO needs to manage teams and implement new financial models in an organisation. To achieve this, a CFO needs to have excellent management and leadership skills. They need to also make financial plans from scratch and implement them all across the organisation.

Problem-solving skills and data analysis

CFOs make business decisions across large corporate organisations to find feasible solutions to a problem in business. This needs problem-solving skills. Moreover, companies assume a CFO to offer explanations that are easy to implement and solve any organisational hurdles with the help of their data analysis skills. They are capable of handling financial analytics necessary for business and presenting strategic decisions for reducing exposure to risk.

Ethical Integrity

CFOs need integrity when it comes to matters of financial reporting because they are handling the entire finance at the senior-most level. Having ethically strong morals and principles is important, so employers hire candidates with high integrity for a company’s financial stability. The importance of this skill cannot be stressed enough. If a CFO is dishonest, the entire financial team will follow suit, reflecting on the company.

Communication skills

Top financial employees in an organisation communicate with all kinds of professionals in the company. This could mean they need to convey their ideas and reports to the CEO, business stakeholders and board of directors. The ability to communicate verbally and digitally with others is a role-specific job essential skill. Written communication skills could come in handy while preparing financial reports.

Salary of CFO

The average salary of a CFO in a medium-level organisation is ₹75,000- ₹1,00,000 per month. The salary in top organisations in the country could be astronomical. But the whole salary thing depends on the size and type of company. Other factors that come into play are the candidate's qualification and experience and the job location. For instance, the average salary in Chennai could be higher than in Bengaluru for financial professionals. But that is just a rough estimate. It is better to extract this data from the company itself.

To conclude, being aware of the skills, responsibilities and salary of a CFO is only half the job done; what follows is the efficiency of using this knowledge to your advantage. In this regard, different professional courses can help you besides your traditional academic knowledge. In this regard, complete a CFO executive training from Imarticus Learning to give your career the required boost.