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Busy life and ambitions of CFOs revealed

Busy life and ambitions of CFOs revealed

(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:

What do you spend most of your day doing?

Average % of Time Reported
Strategic planning and development 22.3
Internal financial performance improvement 44.7
Reporting and governance 16.2
Managing people/teams 10.3
Other 6.5
What’s an ideal length of tenure as a CFO at any one organisation? % of Top 500 CFOs
Up to 3 years 29.4
3-5 years 40.2
5 plus years 13.5
No ideal length of tenure 16.9
Would you like to become CEO? % of Top 500 CFOs
Yes, definitely 26.7
Yes, probably 38.9
Not really 12.1
Definitely not 14.1
Never thought about it / don’t know 8.2
How many hours do you work a week on average? % of Top 500 CFOs
Up to 50 hours 17.9
50-70 hours 59.4
70 plus 22.7
How many weekends do you spend away from home on business a year? % of Top 500 CFOs
Nil to nominal 8.8
Up to 4 35.5
4 to 10 40.6
10 plus 15.1
How many overseas trips do you take each year for business reasons? % of Top 500 CFOs
None 27.6
Up to 4 47.9
4 to 8 10.8
8 plus 13.7

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
East & Partners's avatar

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