Day in the life of
CFO – Alex Williams
I’m Alex Williams, the CFO of FindThisBest. As someone who’s been in the finance field for more than a decade now, I can say comfortably that it is extremely rewarding if you put the time in.
My main responsibility is to make sure that the company takes on profitable projects to invest in because money is scarce and investment opportunities are limitless.
If you’re a CFO, you have to be great at juggling different things at once. You have to look over the accounts of the company and make sure everything is in proper order there but you also have to handle external stakeholders such as your investors, creditors, tax departments, and the whole lot.
I think the main skill that you need to have as a CFO is critical thinking. They will teach you about financial theories and how to calculate the cost of equity in school, but if you really aim to make it to the top of the financial world, you have to be detail-oriented.
My typical day
So when you get to the C-suite of any company, you’re main responsibility shifts from actively doing work to overseeing work. Therefore, I’m more involved in making short-to-medium-term decisions and responding to different queries throughout the day.
No day is the same for a CFO. One day you’ll be building a financial model for an investment in a new marketing campaign and the next day you’ll be analyzing and preparing financial statements.
But here’s what an average day looks like for me:
- 7 am – Wake up and get ready for work
- 8 am – Log into work and read up on any emails that I missed out on last night
- 9-11 am – Attend team meetings and discuss company-related goals and objectives
- 11 am – 2 pm – Looking at cash flow projections, amending financial statements, figuring out whether a certain investment is worth it or not
- 3 – 4 pm – Meetings with external stakeholders
- 5 – 6 pm – Figuring out the agenda for tomorrow and signing off from work.
Keep in mind that this is a very general outlook on a CFO’s daily work routine. There are a whole lot of things that go on but for the purpose of conciseness, this is what I wrote down.
Pros
The biggest pro obviously is the monetary rewards. I’m not going to lie, what first got me interested in Finance was the opportunity to make money.
Another pro apart from your salary and bonus is the fact that you get to overlook the company’s entire finances – and if you’re as interested in the world of finance as me, that really means something. You have complete discretion over what investments to make and how to drive the company forward. You’re basically a watchdog making sure that the company is taking the right steps. With this responsibility, you receive a lot of authority as well, and thus for people who want to work in a job that provides them complete discretion, then being a CFO is one of the best ones out there.
You also tend to build some solid connections with different people so in a way you’re also gaining transactional power while you work as a CFO.
Cons
During your early years in the finance field whether you’re a banker or an analyst or whatever, you’re going to have to sacrifice a lot of your personal time. There will be days where you won’t have time to eat but you’re going to have to suck it up and keep pushing. This field is cutthroat and whilst many may enter, only a few stay.
The CFO job also brings with it stressful times. Each basis point matters when you’re making decisions. When you’re at the C-suite, you have to cater to different departments at once and attend meeting after meeting. Not going to lie, the job does wear me out but the fact that keeps me motivated is the struggle I went through to reach this point.
