February 18, 2025

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CFO Job-Hopping: How Much Is Too Much?

While govt recruiter David Arnold and the CEO of a significant-profile Silicon Valley business had been talking about the company’s CFO look for, the CEO told Arnold, “If you send out me another person who has experienced a lot of small stops, I’ll be skeptical.” That was a pink flag and her “number one particular pet peeve,” says Arnold, president of Arnold Companions, LLC.

Much too small a tenure at as well numerous businesses — job-hopping — delivers job threats like the concern cited by Arnold’s customer. But how do you define how a lot is as well a lot movement? And are the downsides important?

The answer on how a lot is as well a lot is subjective and can fluctuate from market to market. Organizational consulting business Korn Ferry experiences the average CFO tenure is four.seven decades, when the most latest Crist|Kolder Associates Volatility Report sets it marginally higher, at four.86 decades. According to the Korn Ferry analysis, the details technological know-how market has the shortest CFO tenure at four.1 decades, when the industrial section has the longest, at 5.

So is any tenure shorter than that job-hopping? Drew Keith, govt vice president and CFO of Dallas-based Texas Security Financial institution, sees a few decades as the least to keep in a job if the CFO is in the middle of their job. For another person owning just moved up to a CFO purpose, the least might be for a longer period, four to 5 decades.

Continue to, consulting business Korn Ferry’s Jeff Constable, senior customer partner and co-lead of the world fiscal officers’ observe, cautions from preconceived notions about as well a lot or as well minor job movement.

“I try out challenging to dispel the notion that there’s some sort of great number of moves,” he says.

Compared with length of time, owning been in a vital place long adequate to practical experience an entire organization cycle might be additional important, says CFO Keith. “I look at a particular market, its vital cash factors, and its cycle. Have you been through the comprehensive cash cycle for the organization relative to that market?” he asks. That can give a employing CEO and board of administrators self esteem.

Not all organization cycles are of the identical length, of class. The organization cycles in technological know-how are typically faster than in other industries. “It’s the speed of adjust and the [merger and acquisition] action,” says Constable. “Plus, personal organizations are heading general public through [unique intent acquisition organizations] or IPOs or currently being sold.” All of those circumstances lead to additional business movement amongst CFOs and prompt businesses to switch CFOs.

Constable says that ownership adjust from that sort of action is one particular of the two largest variables driving CFO departures in any market or item group. A new CEO is the other. And, if there’s heading to be a CFO adjust when a new CEO requires over, it transpires most frequently in the initial six to 8 months.

Possession adjust performed a purpose in Katherine Edenbach’s practical experience previously in her job. Immediately after performing in a range of finance environments at a substantial semiconductor business for additional than a decade, she accepted a CFO place at a distinct business that was obtained soon right after. She put in only two-and-a-fifty percent decades in that purpose right before leaving, but it was for very good good reasons.

“I took them through an acquisition and realized what I wished to. It was time to go on and begin over with yet another business,” says Edenbach, who is now CFO of fintech Emburse.

These situations describe why Constable and others say it’s vital to look for the tale at the rear of any pink flags or inquiries all around the length of keep. Maybe the govt made a geographic go for particular good reasons, or there wasn’t room for advancement. The latter is one particular that Constable expects to see additional of as organizations operate to recruit traditionally underrepresented expertise into the C-suite.

“Maybe another person felt blocked from relocating and remaining because of a bias in the society. We’re all heading to have to keep on to get sharper at genuinely knowing job stories,” he says.

The Challenges

Nevertheless, even when CFOs and recruiters are unwilling to define what’s regarded job-hopping, they agree that as well a lot movement among organizations arrives with tangible and intangible threats.

Two of the largest, according to work methods and litigation lawyer Lauren Paxton, are “job trajectory impairment” and long-expression payment decline. Paxton, a partner at New York-based Calcagni & Kanfesky LLP, says CFOs frequently have publish-work restrictive covenants this sort of as non-levels of competition clauses.

“A CFO who hops from one particular job to yet another may uncover their trajectory impaired by durations out of the market,” she says.

In addition, most CFO payment deals consist of small-expression and long-expression payment. That for a longer period-expression fork out, typically limited stock units and incentive stock options, might take a few to 5 decades or for a longer period to vest.

“CFOs will typically forfeit the unvested and limited parts of their long-expression payment when they resign. As a consequence, the decline of considerable incentive payment should be weighed from the improved small-expression payment a new job may provide,” Paxton says.

Other threats are a lot less tangible. Crucial amongst them are the issues lifted about a CFO candidate’s judgment. Folks realize when a finance main leaves a management purpose immediately when — or even 2 times — because the business wasn’t a very good in shape. But when it goes beyond that threshold and can not be described by mitigating variables that consist of currently being promoted, following a mentor, or relocating to yet another geographic region for particular good reasons, it’s “a fatal flaw,” says recruiter Arnold.

“What sort of judgment is this person working out? Are they building very good choices? This is important because the CFO is a vital adviser to the CEO and board of administrators,” he says.

For the reason that CEOs and boards also want CFOs with the formative practical experience of owning been section of a vital job or initiative from beginning to conclusion, job-hoppers who can not reveal that have minimal job advancement possibilities, Arnold provides. “Even if they weren’t the CFO, we look for candidates who experienced a prominent purpose helping a business go from X to Y.”

Not Sufficient Time

There is also the draw back that job-hopping does not permit a finance chief to keep with a business long adequate to turn into immersed in techniques that assistance build strategic thinking capabilities.

“It’s challenging to turn into strategic if you keep relocating from one particular business to yet another. You do not get to find out what drives the business or turn into a partner to the functions side of the organization,” says Emburse’s Edenbach.

One CFO cautions from viewing latest as well-transient tenures as well harshly, however. Citing the February/March 2021 CFO write-up “10 Crucial Roles for CFOs” and the organization pressures affiliated with the COVID-19 pandemic, David Neaves, CFO of Lendmark Monetary Services, says some of his friends are experiencing burnout. The CFO purpose requires additional capabilities than it did a decade back, he notes, and when enjoyable, it can also be exhausting.

“Business has turn into additional intensely reliant on technological know-how, and it is transforming additional immediately. I do not have to be an pro in all features of a company’s technological know-how, but I do have to realize the main technological know-how,” Neaves says, adding, “That finding out is one particular additional section of your working day for which you have to uncover the time.” Toss in the crisis administration connected to the world pandemic, and it’s not strange to see friends leaving their C-suite positions to recharge, examine, and re-concentrate, he says.

Just do not do as well a lot of that, cautions Korn Ferry’s Constable.

“There are people today in final decision-building capacities — board users and CEOs — who can have a little bit of an allergic response to as well a lot movement,” he says. “No make any difference how perfectly described the transitions are, they may not want to listen to about it.”

Sandra Beckwith is a freelance business writer.

CFO job, CFO strategy, CFO turnover, job hopping