According to CFO.com’s article in the Career Center today, Chief Financial Officer’s who work for a founding CEO are more likely to be terminated after a restatement than the CEO. In fact, the CFO is fired more than 80% of the time (vs. 65% for other irregularities).
I guess if there is any good news in the article, it’s the last paragraph …
Consistent with the idea that CFOs were being fired as scapegoats and not because of true culpability, they found that fired CFOs of founder-managed firms were less likely to be the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action and more likely to find subsequent employment in a private or public firm, compared with fired CFOs of nonfounder firms.
Founding CEO aside, is your CFO position safe? Maybe for today, but what about tomorrow? There are so many things that high-value Chief Financial Officers and senior finance executives can and should be doing … long before it’s even necessary to be doing them. Strategies that can mean the difference between a short search and an extended search, having to explain being terminated rather than being invited into something better, or even accepting a lesser paying role instead of continuing the career climb.
If no one outside of your firm knows about your brilliance, how will they find you?