Quotes About CFO

Social psychology comes into the picture here, because the answer that a truthful CFO would offer is plainly ridiculous. A CFO who informs his colleagues that "there is a good chance that the S&P returns will be between –10% and +30%" can expect to be laughed out of the room. The wide confidence interval is a confession of ignorance, which is not socially acceptable for someone who is paid to be knowledgeable in financial matters.

Over the time that I followed Warren Buffett, one CFO told me, it's very important to pay attention not only to what Warren Buffett says and what he actually does - often there are subtle differences between the two.

Because we weren't having success finding a CEO, our investors insisted that we hire these managers a temporary CEO and CFO. That didn't go great.

You see more women in the CFO ranks. It's an evolution.

The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.

I know a few CEOs who delegate the understanding of their financials and their business metrics to the CFO, and then stop worrying about all that 'numbers stuff.' Don't do that. You have to know your numbers inside and out - they are your life blood.

Those who want to blame all of Enron's woes on the greedy former CFO claim that Enron was a good business brought down by Andy Fastow. But that was never true. Ultimately, Enron was a bad business that was, for a time, propped up by Andy Fastow.

We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO"—Sterman's brother-in-law and former best friend—"the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled.

The only way people can really be excellent is with truth, so you have to have a CFO who will have the intellectual capacity and conviction to tell you you're wrong and try to support that with data.

CFO GOALS Health of company Revenue Market share Average order size Profitability Return on assets Health of Finance Order to cash cycle Accounts receivable Accurate and timely financial reporting Borrowing costs

Landing a million-dollar investment for your startup is exhilarating. But as big as that number sounds, it doesn't go far. Many startups just getting off the ground won't have a CFO to monitor finances. It doesn't take much for spending to spiral out of control.

Today, I think a CFO needs to be more of an operating CFO: someone who's using the financial data and the data of the company to help drive strategy, the allocation of capital, and the management of risks.

I try getting in front of as many opportunities as possible, but in the late '90s, I had no idea that I'd end up being CFO of a technology company. I'd no idea what venture capital was.