CFO 4.0 - The Future of Finance

34. Getting that first CFO role! with Andrew Waters

• Hannah Munro • Episode 34

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Join Hannah as she speaks to Andrew Waters, Founding Partner of Zanda a Board and Financial recruitment firm.

Andrew knows both sides corporate structures, having both 15 years experience in recruitment and an Angel Investor role in various start-ups.

He and Hannah discuss the important attributes that makes the CFO position so vital to companies growth ambitions and getting that first CFO role!

Other topics covered in this episode include:

  • How does someone gain the extra skills needed to become a CFO
  • What makes someone right for the CFO role
  • How is tech baked into the CFO role 
  • CFO self-assessment and self-improvement

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Zanda Website
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Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly, moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Munro, Managing Director of ITAS, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people and data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance.

Hannah Munro:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. As usual, I am your host, Hannah Munro, and with me today, I have Andrew Waters, founder of Zander. So welcome, Andrew. It's awesome to have you on the show.

Andrew Waters:

Nice to meet you.

Hannah Munro:

And so tell us a little bit about what you're seeing at the moment, and then we'll get into the nuts and bolts of that shift to the CFO role.

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, so I guess my background, and thank you for inviting me on, by the way. It's great to kind of meet you finally. I've listened to a copy of your podcast. Very good. So for my sins, I've been in finance search for the last 15, 20 years. And basically... support businesses to identify the right CFO or finance director or financial controller to be the finance leader of the business. And yeah, I'm the founder of a business called Zanda and Zanda support high growth startups and scale up specifically as they look to identify the appropriate finance leader and establish their first, I guess, functional, scalable, insightful finance function.

Hannah Munro:

Let's just talk a bit about that because that's quite a specific niche in terms of who you work with. What's different about that versus working with larger PLCs and large organizations? What do they look for that's different?

Andrew Waters:

The reason we've moved specifically into this space is a key finance hire is such a big, important decision for a founder or a VC to make versus... Historically, I have recruited for FTSE-listed businesses or larger private equity-backed businesses. But when we set up Zanda a few years prior to that, I was really focused on startups and scale-ups because the impact making key senior hires into the business was far greater than into corporates. So personally, it's a passion project, I suppose, to support as many startups and scale-ups with the right people. Because I think when you get to a seed or a series A or maybe even series B stage, the founders are stretched and doing too many of the functional areas that they're not a specialist in or not an expert in. So two co-founders or one founder who's a CTO background or product background you shouldn't be focusing on finance and modeling and ops. They should be focusing and doubling down on their strengths. So that's kind of why it's such a key hire for a startup or a scale-up and choosing the right time to make that hire and hiring the right person is obviously massively key. And what we find when we talk to founders or VCs that are looking after a portfolio of startups is once they identify that right person as a CFO, COO, head of finance, FC, they always go, why enough did we wait so long? It's just like a game changer. The same with any founder. When they hire their first A-plus person, they always question why they didn't do it sooner because it's just a weight off your shoulders. And you can then focus on the things you're most interested in and you've got the most strength in and it will drive the business in the right direction, really.

Hannah Munro:

Absolutely. And I think, you know, that, like you say, it's that right person. So how, when people are looking for the right role, because obviously a lot of our listeners are either looking for CFO to shift into a CFO role or they're looking for that FD role. How do you know when it's an FD position or when it's a CFO position?

Andrew Waters:

It's a really tricky one. There's no qualification for a CFO role, as you know. There's a qualification for becoming an accountant. And you could look at a few different ways to say you're now a CFO. And actually, quite often when I'm doing interviews with CFOs, that have just concluded on their first one or they look back, I ask them from a scale of zero to 10, how ready were they for that first CFO role? I quite often get the number six, six or seven. And actually, that's quite a low number, really. You're not that much over half. So there's always going to be an element of uncomfortability around stepping into a CFO role because nobody, even now, can tick every single one of those boxes. Even experienced CFOs, they're unlikely to have done everything. So someone said to me recently, actually, a CFO who I admire a great deal, mentioned to me recently that if he scaled himself from zero to 10 in terms of desire and work ethic and want to do a CFO role, he would give himself 10. I actually thought he'd probably say 11 or 12, but he said 10. But in terms of skills and experience, it was a six. But it's about how you approach that challenge. And I think being aware of your blind spots and your development areas and having a plan to attack those in the first 90 days or 100 days is obviously key. I've not really answered your question. But I think the difference, in fairness, it's so specific on the industry sector, the founders you're supporting, the investors you're dealing with. And sometimes people have an FD job title and they're doing a CFO job. And sometimes people have a CFO job and they're doing an FD job. It does depend somewhat to the organization size and the way they do things. If I was pushed on it, I think it's about CFOs being very, very impactful at board level and at investor level. And they have a gravitas and an amazing ability to influence the strategy of their business with a combination of their natural commercial awareness of the industry sector, the use of data, and their emotional intelligence to read the audience and to change the message depending on who the audience is. If I'm pushed, it's that. It's that ability to influence and be impactful. And I think a finance director probably doesn't do that quite as well or as much.

Hannah Munro:

They're more in the operational side and less sitting at the board?

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, I think any CFO or FD that we place, I think the first three months... is a focus on guardian and ops, making sure that the controllership functions and the ops functions are appropriate so that you can sleep at night, you don't have to worry about any issues, and you've got the team set up so that guardian and ops are covered. So then a CFO can focus on strategy and change because that's the areas where they're getting paid the big bucks. to actually bring their expertise to, their emotional intelligence, their commerciality, their knowledge of raising finance or leading an IPO. It's not about the guardian nops piece. That could be done by a group controller or a head of finance, but they do need to establish that in the first few months to make sure they can then add the value that's required at the strategic and the change management perspective.

Hannah Munro:

And you've mentioned a few, so you mentioned it earlier, but sort of like when that CFO that you knew was ranking their skills, what are the groups of skills that your clients are actually looking for in that CFO role? What is it that they're sort of measuring their candidates against?

Andrew Waters:

It's interesting, actually, because we work with a partner called Grow CFO on a future CFO program. So it's a 12-month cohort accelerator, really, for head of finance, FCs, FDs, to understand what the CFO role is and where they fit. And it's scored out of 45. So you can actually assess yourself, and you get a score out of 45, and you'll get a benchmark report back. And it's nine categories with five questions or five subsections. Are you testing me now whether I can remember all of the nine subsections? But I'll definitely give it a go. So there's one, they're kind of split into three areas. So there's like a foundations area, which is this bit around guardians. So there's a bit on governance and control, operation driver, FP&A. Then there's a piece on kind of implementation, which is becoming a strategic business partner, being a catalyst for change, fundraising M&A potentially. And then it's the impactful piece that I was talking to you about before, which is your kind of commercial mindset, commerciality, strategic skills. And then it's leadership. Definitely. And then the soft skills is the last one, which is all about emotional intelligence of how you communicate a message and influence a sales director versus a COO versus a chairman versus the lead VC investor. So I would say that, you know, a head of finance or a finance director is very good in those first two segments, potentially of, you know, kind of, you Controllership, FP&A, potentially the M&A, fundraising, systems, tech, automation, and maybe leadership. But the last couple on commercial awareness and on soft skills and emotional intelligence tend to be the bit that really evolve when you go into the CFO role.

Hannah Munro:

And how do you as a recruiter and how do you advise or how do you actually assess potential candidates, particularly those that are not coming from an existing CFO role? How do you assess that they are at a point where they're going to be a success in that role and that they have the right level of skills in those different areas for that CFO role?

Andrew Waters:

I think it's a combination of lots of things. It's looking at the experience they've had to date from a responsibilities and achievements perspective. So if we take, for example, establishing a finance function that's scalable and has automation, then you can obviously ascertain how they've used tech to automate and streamline processes and how they've structured the team to make month end as efficient as possible to mean that they've got more time to focus on the FP&A, not just being kind of standard FP&A, more insightful KPI dashboards that come up on an iPad every day and daily kind of reports and that aren't just a backward-looking variance analysis, but are non-financial KPIs that can be impacted on to drive performance in the future. So essentially we will ask competency-based and skills-based questions on their previous experience and achievements. We will also look at their character and assess their track record of promotions, their track record of delivery. We will look at recommendations and if they're not in a role. We can obviously ask for references from the last place, but likewise, any recommendations we can get from previous positions. We get people recommended to us via CFOs that they've got someone in their team that they couldn't live without. So individuals where we get a recommendation from the CFO or founder or CEO that they're amazing, we prioritize them because we've had someone who's worked with that person for two, three, four years and believe that they have given everything from an effort perspective, but also have the skills and experience to step up. The other thing I really like is individuals that demonstrate that they are proactive around their own development. So people that go on our Future CFO program, for instance, are taking responsibility for pushing themselves, knowing what they don't know, and investing time to get better at it. And for me, if I'm placing someone into a scale up, I know they're not going to get the support they would in a FTSE business. So therefore, I need people that are going to be prioritizing their own development and have got the commitment to do that without needing support. Because it's quite a lonely place being a CFO in a startup when nobody really knows what finance blueprint should look like. So they need to be responsible to take ownership for it themselves. And for me, anyone that in their weekends and evenings is studying to become a better CFO, one, I question why they're doing that. But genuinely, it's a good sign that they love their job as well.

Hannah Munro:

Absolutely. So two things that people can do is obviously, you know, recommendations from their existing management team, whether CFO, CEO is a great piece to sort of give you a leg up and make sure you've got those relationships there. But secondly, actually looking at your personal development. And I think you made a really good point there about understanding your strengths and your weaknesses and areas that you need to focus on.

Andrew Waters:

I think someone... I think someone interviewing internally or externally for a CFO job should have a plan of attack when they land with their boots on the ground. And that plan should involve getting as quickly as possible to a role where they're focusing in an area where their strengths lie because they will naturally be stronger in it. So they need to have a plan about their blind spots. either by using tech to automate outsourcing or hiring or building the appropriate team around them because the end client will get the value that they are paying that salary from that individual. And it's worth the investment. So I think going into interviews, people should be having a high degree, a level of awareness of themselves and have a plan of attack for being successful. And you don't need to be arrogant about if I'm successful, this is what I want to do. I think it's being pragmatic about you've logically thought about it.

Hannah Munro:

That adds a lot. Absolutely. And because one of the challenges, I guess, is those other areas of skills that you mentioned, like the commercial awareness and some of the more CFO-focused skills that a FD or an FC wouldn't normally have a chance to demonstrate in their day-to-day role. So how can people, you know, those that are listening, that are looking for that stuff, how can they get ahead of that and, you know, actually find ways to show that they're ready to take that step up and build those skills without necessarily being given opportunities or are there opportunities available at that lower level that can demonstrate that?

Andrew Waters:

I think, are you talking about individuals that might be ahead of finance or an FD now, but looking for their first CFO role?

Hannah Munro:

Yeah, absolutely. Because they're obviously hopefully going to have a good handle on the op side and like you say, the tech side and what you would say like good finance operations. But as you said earlier, the CFO role is about much more than that. It's the strategic side and that stepping up to speak to investors and offering that pathway piece. How do you know or what do you look for to demonstrate that somebody can do that path? of the role? And are you looking for specific experiences in NETI? Or do you assume that they will pick those up as part of that step up?

Andrew Waters:

I think it's case by case. So I think a business that's... So when we assess a startup to decide what type of individual they hire as their first finance leader... If that business is growing ridiculously quickly, is a very complex industry sector and the founder doesn't have a finance background and their next milestone is a Series C and they want to do an IPO, then clearly this individual is not appropriate. They need an experienced CFO. But if budgets are tight and it's a Series A business and the founder may have led the Series A raise and comes from an investment banking background, and is the product expert, it becomes less of an issue to hire a head of finance or an FD. And in some ways it's a benefit because you get more on the hands-on controllership ops, scaling the finance function, and they're comfortable to do that. And they're excited to do that in their first FD job. And they can learn on the job, the industry sector, the product, They've maybe piggybacked on the knowledge of the investment banker founder who's led the Series A raise so that they are in a better place to have more of an impact on the Series B. So I think the areas that we've talked about so far around commercial awareness and adding strategic value and the emotional intelligence of approaching conversations with investors and the board members and maybe leadership, Some of those, they wouldn't need to have demonstrated any of those areas, but you naturally have a feel for what they're like in person and whether they've got the ability to do it. Do they have the intellect and modeling skills to support a founder in a head of finance capacity to subsequently lead funding rounds? Yes. Are they a good communicator? Are they likeable? Are they intelligent to know that they need to change their style to different audiences? Yes. And have they got the intellect and will they put the hard work into understanding the key drivers in the industry sector? Will they look at a SWOT analysis or a holistic view of the industry sector from a key competitor's valuation models? there's going to be an element of risk, but you can alleviate those risks by making sure that, you know, those areas where they've not done it before, you feel they've got the character, the intellect and the desire to pick it up.

Hannah Munro:

I love that. You've actually made, I think, made a really interesting point there about, it's actually about the company that you're going into. And even though it's a startup and a scale up, if you're, experience is almost like an opposite to those that you're going into, or compliment is probably the better word, then actually that's where you're more likely to have an opportunity because you can bring something that they don't have, but also they could potentially, like you say, take you through the funding mechanisms, you know, so that you can pick that up ready for the next phase when you might be ready then to set up into that CFO role as it were.

Andrew Waters:

I think the phrase is win-win. I love the job I do because I feel like it's win-win. If I do my job well, which most of the time I do, I hope, the client is over the moon, the candidate's over the moon because it's win-win. It's an amazing opportunity for the candidate to step up and have progression and opportunity. and it's an amazing opportunity for the founder or the CEO or the CFO if we support the CFO below and build a group controller below the CFO because that's their blind spot. It's a win-win for the CFO because it just gives them time to focus on what they need to do and their strengths. That's why it's good fun, to be honest, being able to think about is this a win-win scenario that we're putting these two people together to make this a success in the next three, four years.

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Hannah Munro:

And just along those lines of that shift up into CFO role, in your experience, how many times does it happen internally versus shifting externally into a different organization and getting a CFO role? What's your gut instinct about how often it happens? Is it most likely to be internal or is it most likely to be with a new organization?

Andrew Waters:

You should have told me about this before. I could have analyzed some numbers, but I do it off gut feel. I do it off gut feel. I think, you know, obviously I focus now more in the startup scale up space. And I think it happens quite a lot personally. I think it happens quite a lot for the startups that are growing very well, but not ridiculously well, if that makes sense. If it's an obscene growth trajectory and there's a finance controller or a head of finance and they're looking to IPO a head of schedule in three years' time and they're going to go into 30 countries and they weren't planning on doing that, then clearly it's not appropriate for the head of finance to step up into the CFO role. They need to hire a CFO as quickly as possible above that individual and structure it in a way that the head of finance still will gain experience and really good experience and knowledge for that three-year period. But if it's a head of finance and the business is growing by X percentage, which is very good growth, but it's not ridiculous, and maybe it's a high margin, low volume business or high value, low volume business, then actually they're the best placed person to step up Especially if they've shadowed the founders on a seed or a series A, they are then ready to lead on the next stage because they might know some of the investors that are following on. And so I think, and it happens in private equity businesses a lot, you know, there's three or four people I know in the last couple of months that were kind of the CFO either stepped up into the CEO role. And then the FD stepped into the CFO role or the CFO moved to another business and they suggested that their number two became the CFO. It's slightly harder in a private equity-backed business because they've had maybe slightly less exposure of that number two in finance from an investor perspective, less exposure of that number two in finance versus the CFO. whereas the VC investors would have had more exposure of a number one head of finance person. But it does still happen. It probably happens at a greater degree if that individual has been at the business for a few years. It's unlikely to happen if the number two to the CFO of a private equity-backed business has only been there a year, and then the CFO goes on. I don't think they've had a long enough track record of knowing the industry sector, the complexities of what the business is trying to do. So I think longevity, the size and growth trajectory are factors that can either increase or decrease your chances of landing the internal CFO role. You've clearly got to be doing amazing work and be highly visible. So fundamentally, any internal promotion is about going above and beyond the duty of your role, always pushing the boundaries, always putting your hands up to do more, focusing in areas that you really enjoy because then you'll do great work and making sure that you're visible because people will look after people that do great work and are ambitious. And I've got that humility as well to ask for feedback and how I could do things better.

Hannah Munro:

What is the likelihood of you guests going to a CFO role in a different organization if you're currently in an FD role?

Andrew Waters:

I think it's tricky in a FTSE listed business because obviously there'd be an external search. I think if it's a large business, it would be harder as well. It does happen, but I'd say the percentages are lower. Again, it's very... There's so many variables involved because the number of people that are involved in choosing the CFO and the number of interview stages, you think you've got the HRD personal opinion of what they're trying to get from the interview. You've got a CEO. You've got a chair. You've got the investor. It's a very kind of complex process, to be fair.

Hannah Munro:

And I guess along, so what I think what we're saying there is that, you know, with FTSE and large organizations, the likelihood of you stepping from an FD into a CFO role is fairly unlikely. You're more likely to push up. But with a startup and a scale-up, it offers more opportunity if you find the right founder to support you through.

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that's fair. Because, you know, in a startup, there's less variables at play. You know, if you think about the... the equity and the shareholder table. The vast majority will be with the founder or the founding team or a lead investor, whereas obviously within a corporate, there's many, many more kind of stakeholders involved in that.

Hannah Munro:

Absolutely. And I guess it's making sure that you're ready for that startup scale-up world, which can be very different from the corporate conversation as well, can't it?

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, I think... Yeah, not everyone would transition from a corporate into a startup because what you're doing, you're going into a business and a role where it's more senior than you've ever been before, it's more broad than you've ever been before, and it's also more junior than you've ever been before. So if you think you're a divisional financial controller in a SaaS business that's FTSE listed and you want to do a FD job in a SaaS startup, you'll get board exposure and investment exposure. You've never had that before. But also you'll be doing ledger work, which you've not done in a very long time. And you'll also be doing ops and BI and data analytics. So people who like that breadth, hands-on, always changing type environment and are quite adept in those areas will would transition very well into kind of a slightly more scrappy startup world. But those that like structure and a nine to five, maybe not.

Hannah Munro:

Yeah, I think that's a really good shout that. I love your term scrappy. I think that describes quite a few startups, to be fair.

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, I don't put it on many of the job descriptions, but I always make sure that it is, is communicated clearly.

Hannah Munro:

So if we flip this around, so if you were speaking to maybe somebody that's currently in an FD role and is looking to step up into that CFO role, what's the advice that you would give them to give them the best possible chance of scoring that top spot?

Andrew Waters:

I think Are you talking about internal or external or

Hannah Munro:

both? Let's start with internal. How do you get yourself in the right position? What should you be thinking of and planning for?

Andrew Waters:

I think you should be prioritising your own career development internally. So you should be doing amazing work and being visible. You should be having conversations with the CEO, the founder, whoever your boss is about your desire to step up to a CFO role and be honest and humble about that and demonstrate your ambition, but be honest and ask, what would you like to see from me to be a credible candidate for that CFO role? And obviously, if you get that feedback, that might point you in the right direction. It might be quite simple. It might be genuinely, they already think you're doing the CFO job and they don't really think about job titles because CEOs, founders, may have been a CEO founder all of their life, and they've never worked in an environment where job titles are important to people as a motivator. So you might get very good shock. Oh, yeah, we'll sort that out in the next three months. You never know. But you've got to ask, you've got to demonstrate that you want it, and then action the areas that the feedback says that they'd like to see. The feedback is likely to be positive. you know, have a bigger impact at board meetings, come up with more insightful, strategic direction. And if those areas can't be done in your current role because of timeframes. So, for example, it might be add more strategic input at the board meetings or provide more direction. But if your current job is so full on that you only really look at the board pack for, 30 30 minutes before you go into a board meeting then your chances are are limited um but if you can spend more time on the kpi dashboard the board pack looking at competitor analysis um looking at you know kind of international territories that you could expand into um then you're obviously going to be able to add more value if you can spend more time with other areas outside of finance, you're going to build better emotional intelligence, better awareness of the business to be able to kind of have those impactful situations. Now, if to get to that stage, you need more time, then the conversation needs to be with the founder, the CEO, your boss. How do I get more time? Well, if I had a finance manager or a BI analyst or an FP&A, head of FP&A, would free up time for me to do add value in these areas which i think from a bottom line perspective could add x and will cost us y because of the salary and ni etc so it is kind of working out um from either the your own research and knowledge of yourself um obviously the future cfo program is a good example of that or from talking to the to the founder ceo and making a plan around how plugging those gaps and proving yourself to a certain degree and putting your case forward. Yeah.

Hannah Munro:

That's a great list. And I think there's hopefully a few people scribbling away frantically while they're listening to this podcast going, those are all great ideas. And because we talked, that was very much about from an internal perspective. What can candidates do to maximize their chances of getting a CFO role in a different organization? What could they be thinking of?

Andrew Waters:

I think if it's their first CFO role, yeah. This may not be what everyone wants to hear, but it's the truth. It needs to be a related industry sector to the one that they are currently in or have worked the majority of their time in because it just is a differentiator because if it's SaaS, if it's e-commerce, it just means that if you think what we talked about with regard to the CFO role, an impactful CFO needs to have commercial awareness. and strategic input. And the chances of being able to do that more quickly will be greater if you go to a sector which is similar to what you've worked in before. It is just logical fact. So you will genuinely increase your chances of landing a CFO role if you're sticking to an industry sector that you're particularly knowledgeable in. Likewise, sticking to a similar size or structure. So if it's VC backed, then you're likely to get your first CFO role in a VC backed business or PE or whatever. And you typically also are more likely to land your CFO role if you go one rung smaller in your current business. So someone who's in a number two role in a private equity backed business or a number two role in a series D business, is more likely to land a number one role in a Series A business because they've shadowed a CFO as they've gone Series B, C, D, and actually they've got good awareness of what those stages were throughout that process. And therefore, when it gets to that company they're in now, but four years ago, four years previous, they're actually in a very good place to take that number one job on. There's obviously other things around your CV and your LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn is kind of now, because of social media and the way that the world is, it's your shop window, I suppose, for being noticed in relevant researchers, headhunters, in-house team searches. and also your profile, which companies you're following, which networks you're part of, all plays a part of being noticed. And from there, then, you need to make sure you've got the relevant Boolean keywords, job titles to be noticed for a CFO role. And then from there, obviously, it's having the right CV that not only gets you noticed, but then demonstrates you have got the skills and experiences to step up. And I think with the LinkedIn and the CV, you need to provide some direction around what you're looking for. Clearly, that's challenging if you're in a full-time role and you don't want your current employer to know, but the subtle things you can do to obviously help you in that area.

Hannah Munro:

Brilliant. And I think that's a really good shout there. I think LinkedIn has, I guess, become so much more important to the recruitment piece than it ever has been in the last few years. How much notice do people take of LinkedIn in terms of a profile piece when they're actually looking for candidates? Is that the main place that they would go?

Andrew Waters:

It's not the only place at the state that we would... Personal recommendations and our network of people we've previously placed or worked with that have got a great track record of delivering will probably be always our first point of call because it's tried and trusted. But those individuals will also be on LinkedIn, in fairness. But in terms of building a LinkedIn search and creating a long list, we'll look at many parameters. But yeah, their profile is obviously really important on that. If you're not building a specific long list, but you're more passively looking at, I don't know, articles on LinkedIn and you see a particularly interesting head of finance, FD, that's commented lots or liked lots or has been quite active in the circle where they're looking to go, they could get spotted that way more passively in fairness. So that's also an interesting angle that I think you've always got to, in my opinion, a head of finance or a finance director, their LinkedIn profile and the way that they operate externally should always be from a personal brand perspective, one year, two years ahead of where they are currently. They should already be moving in the circles and having the conversations that a CFO would in a high-growth e-commerce business, even if they're not in that business. So their LinkedIn profile, the way the networks they move in, the conversations they take part in should be, from a personal brand perspective, ahead of where they are now.

Hannah Munro:

No, I love that. So there's two really big takeaways from that. brand and your CFO? And are you engaging in the right networks and making yourself known to the wider audience? So amazing tips. Anything else you want to add to that list?

Andrew Waters:

I think obviously once you've got noticed, you've then got the CV and the interview stages. And I think it's setting up your CV so that it helps you for the interview. So know obviously if you're you know the first third of your cv really should grab people's attention as your shop window um so people know what you've done what your key achievements are where you want to go with your career you're taking ownership for your direction this is what i want and uh this is what i bring and this is what i've done in the past and that will then again You give people confidence so they're a right fit and ask you in for an interview. So I think the first third is very, very impactful. I think making sure that you spit out your roles, responsibilities and achievements and tailoring the order of the responsibilities and achievements related to the role you're interviewing for so that the ones that are most senior or most relevant for a CFO role you're applying for come at the top of those bullet points. So they're again more impactful. I think the achievements piece, obviously think about the CFO role, and we've obviously talked about nine core elements of a CFO role, and make sure that the achievements cover as many of those nine areas as possible, because someone who's reviewing the CV will also have a view of a holistic CFO or the CFO they're trying to find. And if they can see someone from a responsibilities and key achievements perspective that ticks those core elements that people are looking for in each of their last two or three roles and then that's going to put them and make them feel comfortable and confident and focus more on the last five years of experience and put more detail in that than what's happened before so that they really get to see what you've been doing most recently um if you set up with the right achievements and you're asked competency-based interview questions you can obviously give a star format that's related to something you want to talk about because they're going to ask questions about what's in your CV or a particular question. And if you know your CV inside out and they ask you a question about your CV or they ask you a question related to an experience, you'll know already what you want to talk about because it's on your CV and it's already something that is one of your key achievements. The more time during an interview you can talk about your best bits, the better opinion they're going to have of you. So that's obviously a key piece of advice. I think also, and I appreciate I'm kind of gabbling on here, do think about the different interview stages because each interviewer will want something different from a CFO. A HRD will want someone different. They'll be focusing on leadership, emotional intelligence, collaborative, culture ad. The CEO will be looking for business partner, challenger. product knowledge the chair and the investor the COO they'll all want different things and they'll ask different questions related to that

Hannah Munro:

absolutely and that's all to be fair I think that if somebody can nail that they've absolutely set themselves up for success in that role. But like you said, I guess it's also practice makes perfect. You're going to take a few attempts at potentially getting that CFO role before you find the right one that is a good fit for you as well, both as an organization. And it's not just the first one that you want to go for as well.

Andrew Waters:

No, no, definitely. But sometimes... You know, luck is weird and the first one might be the best one.

Ad 1:

Yeah, and you just don't know it.

Andrew Waters:

Yeah, you just don't know it. So it's a great job because you land it and you've got the same data feeds that the CEO has in and out of the business. And therefore that enables you to have as good a view as them and if not more of an impactful view because you own the data. And then you can present that accordingly and you'll be the first to see those patterns. So it's quite exciting.

Hannah Munro:

Absolutely. And your passion for placing people, by the way, completely comes through as part of this conversation. And thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and your insights from the other side of the fence, as it were, with the team here. So if the team here, you know, if people that are listening want to reach out and have a conversation with you about potential roles or on the other side, potentially they're looking to find somebody, what is the best way to get hold of you?

Andrew Waters:

Probably LinkedIn, to be fair, because I didn't know you were going to ask me that question. I do know my email address, but I'm not going to give it on the podcast. I'm sure you'll tag me in. So, yeah, happy to kind of– we're very much a firm that kind of focuses on what comes around, goes around. Like, we're happy to help, happy to have conversations. Yeah, we've been doing it for quite a while, and we're going to be– unfortunately, I don't have many other skills, so I'm going to be doing it for quite a lot longer. So, yeah. Yeah, we'd be pleased to help.

Hannah Munro:

Absolutely. And for those listening, if you'd like to speak to Andrew or reach out, I will pop his LinkedIn profile and obviously a link to the website address of Xander as well in the show notes. And yeah, so thank you, Andrew. It's been really insightful. So thank you for sharing your knowledge and for taking the time to take us through it.

Andrew Waters:

No worries. Thank you for inviting me on.

Hannah Munro:

Fantastic.

Andrew Waters:

Take care.

Hannah Munro:

Take care.

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