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Executive Summary

• Today's CFO influences strategy, operations, technology investments, and growth initiatives.
• Finding the right CFO is increasingly difficult because many top candidates are not actively searching.
• A poorly aligned CFO can disrupt forecasting, reporting, investor communication, execution, and company culture.
• Executive search improves access to passive talent and provides a structured process for evaluating leadership fit.
• A disciplined search process helps organizations identify leaders who can execute the value creation plan and enhance enterprise value.

The most sought-after CFOs are leading successful organizations and focused on driving results, not searching job postings. For companies seeking a leader who can drive strategy, support growth, improve operations, and lead through change, these are the candidates they want to reach.

As the role has expanded, so have the consequences of the hire. The right CFO can strengthen execution and help position the business for future opportunities, while the wrong fit can hinder progress at critical moments.

Executive search firms provide access to broader talent networks, stronger candidate assessment, and a more strategic hiring process. This article examines why executive search remains a valuable investment when making one of a company's most important leadership hires.

Business Events That Often Trigger a CFO Search

The need for a CFO is usually driven by a significant business transition that requires financial leaders with new capabilities and experience.

Common drivers include:

• Transactions and capital events such as a sale, recapitalization, merger, or capital raise.
• Private equity investment, which often increases expectations around reporting, forecasting, KPI visibility, and value creation.
• Business expansion and operational complexity, when growth, margin pressure, or technology transformation expose limitations in financial processes, planning, and reporting.
• ERP and finance transformation initiatives, where finance leadership is critical to modernization, data visibility, and change management.
• Succession planning or founder transition, when organizations need stronger governance, financial discipline, and leadership continuity.
• Confidential transactions or leadership changes, when organizations must navigate a sensitive leadership change without attracting market speculation or creating undue anxiety among employees.

Executive search helps identify candidates whose backgrounds match the organization's priorities and growth trajectory.

Why the CFO Search Is Harder Than It Looks

At first glance, hiring a CFO may seem straightforward. A company needs a senior finance leader, so it posts the role, reviews resumes, interviews candidates, and makes a selection. In practice, the process is rarely that simple.

Top CFO candidates come from a variety of professional backgrounds. Some have deep accounting and controllership experience, while others specialize in transactions and business transformation.

The challenge is determining which capabilities the organization needs most. Without a clear understanding of the organization’s priorities, culture, and stage of growth, companies can waste time evaluating candidates who cannot address their most pressing needs.

Why the Best Candidates Are Rarely Active Job Seekers

The strongest CFO candidates are already busy leading successful organizations. They are unlikely to browse job postings or respond to traditional recruiting outreach. Companies that rely solely on inbound applicants or personal networks may miss highly qualified talent.

Executive search addresses this gap through proactive market mapping, confidential outreach, and calibrated candidate development.

The stakes are high. The wrong CFO can create reporting delays, weaken forecasting, and limit visibility into business performance. A disciplined executive search process helps organizations reduce hiring risk and identify a leader with the experience and capabilities needed to support their business objectives.

The Business Case for Retained Executive Search

Executive search is typically viewed as a recruiting expense. For a CFO hire, it is more accurately a business investment tied to leadership effectiveness, execution, and organizational performance.

Retained search provides access to passive candidates, market intelligence on compensation and role design, and a more rigorous evaluation process. Structured interviews, leadership assessments, and in-depth referencing can improve decision quality while reducing the risk of an expensive mis-hire.

An open CFO role can slow execution and create leadership gaps. By helping organizations identify qualified candidates and support onboarding and transition, retained executive search improves the likelihood of a successful hire and faster impact.

After the Hire: Setting the CFO Up for Success

The search does not end when the offer is accepted. For a CFO to be effective, the transition must be intentional.

A strong onboarding plan helps the CFO understand the business, build relationships with key stakeholders, assess the current finance function, and identify priorities for the first 100 days. This is especially important when the role includes operational integration, capital planning, transaction readiness, systems improvement, or board-level reporting.

Executive search firms can support onboarding and transition planning, helping new CFOs establish credibility, build key relationships, and contribute more quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions

1.      When should a company hire a CFO? Companies typically hire a CFO during periods of growth, transactions, private equity investment, increasing operational complexity, or leadership transition. These events often require more sophisticated financial leadership and oversight.

2.      How do I find the right CFO for my business? Start by identifying the experience, leadership style, and capabilities needed to support your business objectives. Executive search firms can help assess candidates and expand access to qualified talent.

3.      When should a company hire a professional executive search team? Companies often engage executive search firms when a CFO hire is tied to a transaction, private equity investment, ERP modernization, rapid expansion, or succession planning. These situations frequently require specialized experience and a broader candidate search.

4.      How long does a CFO search take? A CFO search typically takes a few months, depending on the role requirements, candidate availability, and hiring process. Searches requiring specialized experience may take longer. Working with a retained search firm provides a structured process, weekly progress reporting, and full visibility into the candidate pipeline, helping improve efficiency and giving stakeholders greater confidence in the final hiring decision.

5.      Does executive search help with private equity, transactions, and business transformation? Yes. Executive search firms help organizations identify CFOs with experience leading transactions, private equity-backed companies, and business transformation initiatives through broader market access and structured candidate evaluation.

We Can Help

Through AMPLOS, powered by Elliott Davis, companies gain a retained executive search team focused on identifying senior leaders who align with business needs, leadership priorities, and future objectives.

For CFO searches, AMPLOS brings market insight, rigorous assessment, and a confidential search process to help organizations secure leaders with the experience relevant to their operational, financial, and strategic challenges.

Whether your company is preparing for a transaction, expanding operations, or building a stronger finance function, our team can help define the role, identify qualified candidates, and facilitate a successful transition.

Contact us today to start the conversation.

Edit: Originally published on August 8, 2023. Updated to reflect current internal controls best practices.

A day at any business may differ from company to company based on the services or products it offers, but all businesses have perform similar operational activities, including meetings, contracts, approvals, reporting, and execution. These tasks introduce risks, such as missing or inappropriate approvals, incomplete or inaccurate data, fraud, inconsistent execution, inefficient handoffs, and reputational damage, among others. Without a defined structure to govern how work gets done, these risks compound over time, creating control failures, inefficiencies, and exposure that can impact financial reporting, decision-making, and the organization’s ability to scale.

This is where internal controls play an important role. When thoughtfully designed and well executed, internal controls bring structure and accountability to routine activities, reducing the likelihood and impact of operational, financial, and compliance risks. Having good internal controls in place is the key for any business to thrive. When questions arise about the effectiveness of existing controls, it is often a signal for leadership to reassess, reorganize, and, when appropriate, seek additional perspective.

Strengthening internal controls does not always require a significant new investment. Many times, all that is needed is a recalibration of what is already in place. Reassessing current processes, ownership, and system use can reduce risk while improving efficiency and consistency.

What Internal Controls Are and How They Reduce Operational Risk

Internal controls are deliberate activities carried out or governed by people, embedded in processes, and enabled by technology to reduce risk and strengthen how an organization operates. They establish clear expectations around who is responsible, how work should be performed, and where oversight occurs. Without this structure, variability in execution increases, making it harder to identify issues, enforce accountability, or support well-informed decision-making.

Internal controls operate across three interconnected components: people, process, and technology. When aligned, they create a coordinated control environment that drives greater efficiency, enhances risk mitigation, and enables scalable, sustainable growth.

• People (the “who”) People are accountable for the consistent execution of control activities and for responding when something deviates from expectations. When roles are unclear, overloaded, or misaligned, control activities are more likely to break down, increasing the risk of errors, missed deadlines, or ineffective oversight.
• Process (the “how”) Processes define the specific steps required to perform a control effectively and mitigate associated risks. They translate accountability into action by defining what must occur, when it must occur, and how consistency is maintained with control processes aligned to the organization’s structure, objectives, and risk profile.
• Technology (the “what”) Technology includes the tools that support or perform control activities, including automated controls. When configured and implemented based on clearly defined processes, technology supports consistent and reliable execution of control activities.

Bringing It Together

Internal controls designed through an integrated people, process, and technology lens help organizations manage risk in line with their risk appetite, drive productivity and efficiency, create value, and support the achievement of strategic goals.

This article is the first in a series that explores each area—people, process, and technology—why they are important, and how to evaluate where risk may be building and where improvements can have the greatest impact.

We Can Help

Strong governance frameworks reinforce transparency, accountability, and sustained performance. Effective organizations rely on disciplined controls and well-defined processes to support sound decision-making, manage risk, and remain audit-ready.

At Elliott Davis, our team helps organizations identify and implement practical improvements across governance, processes, and reporting, including the ability to:

• Evaluate the current internal controls framework to understand how well it addresses operational and reporting risk
• Identify gaps in risk assessment, control activities, and monitoring that could lead to adverse events and risk realization.
• Enhance reporting processes to improve transparency and uncover inefficiencies, manual workarounds, or areas of increased risk
• Align oversight mechanisms with business goals and regulatory expectations to improve accountability and visibility
• Support leadership decision-making with clear insights into risk exposure, control effectiveness, and operational consistency

Contact us today to get started and explore other articles in the series:

• Improve Organizational Performance: Focus on People – Having the Right People, with the Right Skills, in the Right Place
• Improve Organizational Performance: Focus on Processes – Strengthen Controls and Reduce Operational Friction
• Improve Organizational Performance: Focus on Technology – The Automation Enabler

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