The Role of a Modern CFO
I had written this article earlier and it had been published by caalley.com. Thought of sharing it through my blog. Through the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990’s the role of the CFO – nomenclature then was Finance Controller - was more in the nature of arranging bank finance at reasonable costs for business growth, due to scarcity of growth capital due to tight liquidity conditions. It was more in the nature of a tactical, bean counting job. The CFO was primarily responsible for tedious budgeting and various accounting and internal reporting functions. The other expectation in those days was to have decent treasury management skills which helped in raising debt or equity capital and basic cash management. The CFO then was more of a workhorse than a show horse. The nineties was the decade of economic liberalization with the primary markets becoming an easy source of money for businesses as the regulatory environment was still in the formative stage. At this point in time the role of the...