Change in an organization can happen overnight, or it can be planned for. While the stress of day-to-day duties can become top of mind for most, it’s important to take a look into preparing a succession plan for your CFO – an integral part of your organization’s success.
Whether your CFO is planning on retiring this year, or otherwise, the departure of an executive leads to much disruption and challenges organization-wide. According to a survey published by Robert Half Management Resources, 48% of CFOs have not identified a successor for their position.
Lack of having a succession plan can lead to the following challenges:
- Disruption in organizational productivity
- Legacy knowledge is removed from the business
- Strategic decisions may be put on hold
- Impaired internal professional development
- A protracted leadership void may be created
You may be thinking that if about half the businesses out there don’t have a plan, why do you need one? Not only will having a succession plan for your CFO help you to avoid the items listed above, it can prepare you and your business to have a solid plan looking into the future.
If you haven’t ever had experience with a succession plan or think you may need to re-evaluate your current plan, here are some helpful tips to get you started:
- Involve the CEO and leadership team
- Identify potential successors’ ambitions, goals and qualifications
- Start planning early and provide development programs
- Develop soft skills in a potential successor
- Stay in touch with recruitment agencies
- Re-assess your plan periodically as skillsets and experiences change
If your company finds itself with a looming time gap between CFOs, a solution is to fill the void with an interim (or fractional) CFO to fulfill the role until the right full-time candidate can be put into place. Others use fractional CFO services as their business is growing and needs financial expertise but do not yet need someone in a full-time position.
Not sure where to start? In addition to providing business succession plans and fractional CFO services, BerganKDV provides an array of business, financial and technology solutions. See what we can do for you. Start here.
