The CEO-CFO Relationship
Over the last 3.5 years i have been extremely fortunate enough to work with an excellent CFO – Georg Chmiel. Georg and his family moved from Munich to Australia in early 2005 to work for the REA Group. He and I had known each other from the McKinsey days and had kept in touch over the years. Having him come on board to the business was a blessing. He has a strong mix of strategic, financial and people skills that meant we were able to complement each other on our day to day running of the business.
The strong relationship and the mix of skills meant that we were able to share the work load of managing the business. Quite often when i was travelling, he was able to take over the decision making on the home front and i would trust his decisions while he was able to run past me financial issues knowing that i would be able to understand what was happening and that i would more often than not go with his recommendations.
It is important for any CEO to have a great CFO and for a CFO to work with a strong, passionate, and decisive CEO. It is through this combination of skills that a business is able to accelerate forward. Therefore when selecting a CFO, the CEO should look for the following skills and characteristics:
- Strong financial skills
- Experience in the role if possible
- Strong people skills
- A network of people they can bring with them
- An understanding of strategy and the ability to think strategically
- The ability to integrate into the business culture and positively add to it
- Strong leadership skills
- Passion for what they do and the desire to go above and beyond
If you can find all of these, you are doing very well. Georg Chmiel certainly has these characteristics.
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