This is an excellent article from the Wall Street Journal (27th June). Particularly within the Financial Services sector there has been an increased trend of CFOs moving into the CEO role. Graham Beale – CEO of Nationwide, David Nish of Standard Life and Andrew Moss, CEO of Aviva – would be UK examples of this. This process needs careful preparation by the incumbent CEO to prepare the CFO over time. At the WSJs inaugural CFO network annual meeting the conclusion would seem to have been that CFOs must make sure their finance function is in order before widening responsibilities into strategy etc. They comment, “CFOs can insert themselves into strategic discussions by leveraging the financial data they possess…”
In early November – Per Ardua Associates will be hosting a dinner at the City Club in London with a well known UK example of a CFO that has successfully moved to CEO. The theme for the dinner will be “Successfully moving from CFO to CEO”. We will be inviting CFOs from the Financial Services sector – the dinner and speaker will be confirmed in late August.
