Job description

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) — Job Description

Position: Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Role Purpose

The CFO is responsible for the overall financial leadership, integrity, resilience, and long-term financial sustainability of the organization. The CFO serves as a strategic partner to the CEO and Board, translating corporate strategy into financial plans, capital allocation decisions, performance targets, and risk-adjusted returns.

Key Responsibilities

1. Financial Strategy & Executive Leadership

* Act as the principal financial advisor to the CEO, Board, and executive leadership team.

* Develop the organization’s long-term financial strategy in alignment with corporate objectives.

* Lead financial evaluation of major strategic initiatives, investments, expansions, partnerships, and restructuring.

* Challenge business assumptions and provide independent financial perspectives on executive decisions.

* Translate strategy into measurable financial objectives and targets.

2. Financial Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting

* Lead annual budgets, multi-year business plans, rolling forecasts, and scenario analysis.

* Establish financial targets across business units and subsidiaries.

* Monitor actual performance against budget and forecast.

* Identify emerging financial risks and opportunities and initiate corrective actions.

* Develop sensitivity and stress-testing models for major financial assumptions.

3. Performance & Profitability Management

* Establish enterprise-wide financial KPIs and management reporting.

* Analyze revenue, margins, operating costs, EBITDA, cash generation, ROIC/ROE and other relevant performance measures.

* Evaluate profitability by business unit, product, customer, geography, and investment.

* Work with business leaders to improve margins, productivity, working capital, and returns.

* Ensure management decisions are supported by reliable financial and commercial analysis.

4. Capital Allocation & Investment

* Establish disciplined capital allocation frameworks.

* Evaluate CAPEX, acquisitions, new ventures, strategic projects, and major contracts.

* Assess expected returns, NPV, IRR, payback, risk, and strategic value.

* Conduct post-investment reviews to determine whether approved investments achieved their business cases.

* Recommend whether capital should be invested, retained, distributed, refinanced, or redeployed.

5. Treasury, Funding & Liquidity

* Maintain sufficient liquidity and appropriate funding capacity.

* Oversee cash management, banking relationships, debt facilities, investments, and treasury operations.

* Optimize the organization’s cost of capital and funding structure.

* Manage interest-rate, foreign-exchange, liquidity, and other financial exposures.

* Oversee working-capital optimization, including receivables, payables, and cash conversion.

6. Accounting, Financial Reporting & Consolidation

* Ensure accurate and timely preparation of financial statements and management accounts.

* Maintain appropriate accounting policies and financial controls.

* Oversee consolidation across subsidiaries, divisions, and legal entities.

* Ensure compliance with applicable accounting standards, regulatory requirements, and statutory reporting obligations.

* Maintain the integrity and reliability of financial information presented to management and the Board.

7. Internal Controls & Financial Governance

* Establish a strong financial control environment throughout the organization.

* Maintain appropriate segregation of duties, approval authorities, reconciliations, and financial controls.

* Oversee the financial components of the Delegation of Authority.

* Prevent and detect financial irregularities, leakage, unauthorized expenditure, and control failures.

* Coordinate effectively with Internal Audit, Risk, Compliance, Legal, and external auditors while preserving their respective independence.

8. Risk Management

* Identify and manage material financial risks affecting the organization.

* Integrate risk considerations into budgets, forecasts, investments, and capital decisions.

* Oversee financial stress testing and scenario planning.

* Ensure adequate insurance and financial risk-transfer arrangements where appropriate.

* Support the Board and relevant committees in understanding the organization’s financial risk profile.

9. Tax & Regulatory Compliance

* Oversee corporate tax, VAT, zakat and other applicable taxation requirements.

* Ensure appropriate tax planning while maintaining regulatory compliance.

* Manage relationships with tax and financial regulatory authorities.

* Monitor regulatory developments that could materially affect financial performance or capital requirements.

10. Board, Audit Committee & External Stakeholders

* Present financial results, forecasts, budgets, capital requirements, and financial risks to the CEO and Board.

* Provide the Audit Committee and other Board committees with transparent and reliable financial information.

* Manage relationships with external auditors, banks, lenders, rating agencies, investors, and other financial stakeholders.

* For listed organizations, support investor relations, market disclosures, earnings communications, and capital-market activities.

11. M&A, Corporate Finance & Strategic Transactions

* Lead financial due diligence, valuation, transaction structuring, and financing for acquisitions and disposals.

* Evaluate joint ventures, partnerships, restructuring, and divestments.

* Oversee financial integration following acquisitions.

* Advise the CEO and Board on transaction economics and shareholder value implications.

12. Finance Organization & Digital Transformation

* Lead Accounting, FP&A, Treasury, Tax, Corporate Finance and other finance functions.

* Develop succession plans and build a high-performing finance leadership team.

* Modernize finance through ERP, automation, analytics, AI, and integrated reporting.

* Improve closing cycles, forecasting accuracy, data quality, and management visibility.

* Establish a finance organization capable of supporting a large and complex enterprise.

Skills

Typical Functions Reporting to the CFO

In a large corporation, the CFO organization commonly includes:

CFO

→ Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)

→ Accounting & Financial Reporting

→ Treasury

→ Tax / Zakat

→ Corporate Finance

→ Budgeting & Cost Control

→ Accounts Receivable / Credit Control

→ Accounts Payable

→ Financial Systems / Finance Transformation

→ Investment / Capital Planning, where applicable

→ Investor Relations, particularly in listed companies

Internal Audit would normally not report operationally to the CFO; its independence generally requires direct functional access to the Audit Committee/Board.

Qualifications & Experience

Typically:

* Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or related discipline; Master’s/MBA preferred.

* Professional qualification such as CPA, ACCA, ACA, CMA, CFA or equivalent is highly desirable.

* Approximately 15–20+ years of progressive financial leadership experience, depending on organizational scale.

* Significant experience leading finance in a large, complex, multi-entity organization.

* Strong understanding of corporate finance, accounting, treasury, capital allocation, risk, and governance.

* Experience interacting with Boards and Board committees.

* Experience managing major banking and financing relationships.

* Listed-company, regulated-industry, banking, or capital-market experience where relevant.

* Demonstrated ability to lead large finance teams and organizational transformation.

Key CFO KPIs

For a large corporation, I would avoid assessing the CFO simply on “accurate financial statements.” A stronger scorecard would include cash generation and liquidity, EBITDA/margin performance, ROIC/ROE, working-capital efficiency, budget/forecast accuracy, cost optimization, financing cost, capital allocation performance, financial-control effectiveness, audit findings, closing/reporting timeliness, and finance transformation/productivity.