(7 December 2004 – Australia) Almost two-thirds of chief financial officers at Australia’s Top 500 corporate companies have their sights set on becoming chief executive officer, East & Partners has found.
More than 40 percent of CFOs said they spend more than 10 weekends away from
home on business each year while another 23 percent said they typically work
more than 70 hours a week.
East added proprietary questions to the most recent round of Top 500 Customer
Satisfaction research to get a sense of the working culture of CFOs at
Australia’s largest companies.
Nearly 27 percent of interviewees said they “definitely” wanted to become CEO
while a further 38.9 percent said they “probably” wanted the top job. Just over
14 percent said they “definitely” did not want to be CEO.
The study found that 44.7 percent of CFOs still spend the lion’s share of their
day on improving internal financial performance while 22.3 percent spent their
days mostly focussing on strategic planning and development.
Asked what they considered to be the ideal length of tenure for a CFO at any one
organisation, 40.2 percent said three to five years, followed by 29.4 percent
who said up to three years. Almost 17 percent said there was no ideal length of
tenure.
Illustrating the extent to which work impinges on family life, 40.6 percent said
they normally spend four to 10 weekends away from home; 15.1 percent said they
were away on business more than 10 weekends each year; and 35.5 percent said
they could be away on business up to four weekends each year.
But not all CFOs are jet setting around the globe. More than a quarter of
interviewees say they do not venture overseas on business trips at all. However,
almost 48 percent of CFOs said they travel overseas for business purposes up to
four times a year. A further 10.8 percent said they travel overseas four to 8
times a year.
The results of the Top 500 Corporate CFO proprietary questions in full:
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For more information please contact:
Paul Bartholomew
Senior Consultant
East & Partners
Tel: +61-2-9222 1588
Mob: +61-410 400 156
paul.b@eastandpartners.com