Not up to scratch: Over 1 in 3 chief executives are unimpressed with their CFOs

Find out why the bosses are not pleased.

Over a third of chief executive officers in the Asia Pacific region are unimpressed with the performance of their chief financial officers, a survey by KPMG revealed today.

While more than 70% of Asia Pacific CEOs believe that they see a powerful future for their CFO, 32% claimed that their CFOs are not helping enough with the challenges they face running their organisations.

More than half or 58% of CEOs also said they see performance and growth as the CFO’s greatest opportunity to contribute to the organisation.

“CEOs want their CFOs to focus on growth but the current typical CFO is too mired in costs and compliance issues, wading through the numbers,” said Martyn van Wensveen, Global Leader of Financial Management at KPMG in Singapore.

CFOs must focus on the key areas of concern – taking a more strategic approach; improving their leadership and talent management skills; leveraging technology and data better; and lastly streamlining reporting and control tasks so that they are not bogged down in compliance and regulatory issues.