How to Make the CFO the 2nd Most Important Person in the Company

Why influence in the CFO role is not about reporting the numbers, but shaping the decisions before they are made. By Jon Brett

I often say the CFO should be the second most important person in the company. Not because of hierarchy, but because they are the only executive expected to see the entire system. Capital, risk, strategy and consequence all converge in the role. That position is not given. It is claimed.

What continues to surprise me is how rarely CFOs see their role this way, and how often others step into that position in their absence – not quietly, but noisily and demonstrably. You see it most clearly in the moments that matter.

I was sitting in a boardroom not that long ago when a CEO was pushing hard for an acquisition.  On the surface, it looked compelling. The strategic rationale was clear. The narrative held together. There was energy in the room. But as I listened, it became obvious that what was actually being proposed was a transfer of value from our shareholders to those of the company being acquired. Not subtle. Not marginal. Meaningful.

What struck me was not just the structure of the deal, but how quickly the discussion moved past it. The focus shifted to the opportunity, the positioning, the logic of doing something. There was a sense that this was a deal we should want to do. Very little time was spent properly understanding the mechanics of the transaction itself.

At one point, the directors were asked how they felt about the deal. One said they were “excited”– it was their first acquisition as a non-executive director.

Excited?

In that moment, we were no longer discussing the quality of the deal, but the experience of doing one.

What was equally striking was that directors who would normally interrogate the smallest operational details showed little real interest in understanding the parameters of the deal, beyond getting it done.

The CFO understood exactly what was happening.

But in the boardroom, where it mattered, they did not press it with the clarity or force the situation required. That is where the gap starts to show. Not in the model. Not in the assumptions. But in that moment, when the tone is set and the direction starts to feel inevitable. Once that happens, the numbers begin to follow the narrative rather than test it.

I have seen that same pattern play out in less obvious ways. A set of numbers presented cleanly. Assumptions that are individually reasonable. Sensitivities that exist, but do not meaningfully test the downside. Nothing is obviously wrong. Nothing that can be easily challenged in isolation. But taken together, the outcome becomes far more certain than reality ever is.

The CFO knows it. You can see it in the language. Slight qualifications. Careful phrasing. Enough to acknowledge uncertainty, but not enough to change the trajectory of the discussion. The decision proceeds.

Months later, when things do not go as expected, the explanation is rarely that anything was wrong. Only that things did not quite go to plan. They rarely do. When you look back, the issue is not that the risks were unknown. It is that they were never given enough weight, early enough, to change the shape of the decision. That is the difference.

The real influence of a CFO is not in building the model. It is in deciding whether the model deserves to be relied upon.

I have also seen what happens when that line is drawn properly. A CFO interrupts early. Not forcefully, just clearly enough to reset the conversation. “We are assuming a level of execution here that we have not demonstrated before. If that assumption is wrong, the economics of this deal change materially.” The deal does not disappear. The strategy still holds. But something shifts.

The conversation moves away from whether to proceed, and towards what would need to be true for it to work. That is a very different discussion. And it leads to very different decisions.

Influence in this role is rarely about stopping something outright. It is about changing its shape before it hardens. Once momentum takes hold, that becomes much harder to do.

Which is why so many CFOs find themselves adjusting rather than shaping. Not because they do not see the issue, but because stepping in earlier carries a cost. It introduces friction. It slows things down. It puts them slightly at odds with the direction of the room. So they refine, rather than reset. And over time, the role shifts. Almost imperceptibly. From shaping decisions to explaining them. That shift is rarely acknowledged in the moment. It only becomes visible later, when outcomes start to diverge and everyone looks back at what they missed. Usually, nothing was missed. It just wasn’t pressed hard enough, early enough, in the room when it mattered.

The idea that the CFO is the second most important person in the company is both right and, in many cases, untrue. The role has that potential.  It is just not always exercised.

In every organisation, someone is shaping the decisions that matter. If it is not the CFO, it will be someone else. And that shift is never subtle. It is in the conversation. It is in the decisions It is in the outcomes. Sometimes, it even sounds like excitement.

If you are not shaping your organisation’s biggest decisions, you are not its second most important executive.

You are its most expensive spectator.  Spectators do not stay on the field for long.