Boards used to treat CFO references as a formality, a box ticked after the offer was drafted. That has changed. A year ago the reference call confirmed a decision that had effectively already been made. Now it interrogates one, and the questions are tougher, more specific and far more revealing.
The shift is driven by a harder market. Capital costs more, growth is slower to earn, and the CFO is expected to hold the business together through both. When the margin for error narrows, boards stop asking whether someone is good and start asking whether they are good at the exact problem in front of them.
Here is what has entered the reference conversation over the past twelve months.
What do boards ask now that they didn't before?
The biggest change is the move from character questions to situation questions. A year ago references asked "Is she strong technically?" and "Would you rehire him?" Those still get asked, but they no longer decide anything. The questions that decide things now sound like this.
"Walk me through a month where cash was tighter than the board realised. What did they do, and when did they tell you?"
"When the numbers were going to miss, how early did the CFO flag it, and what did they bring alongside the bad news?"
"Describe a time they had to say no to the CEO. What happened next?"
These questions work because they force the referee to describe behaviour, not summarise it. A strong reference produces a story. A weak one produces adjectives.
Why has the reference conversation shifted this way?
Because the failures boards have seen recently were rarely about technical competence. Most CFOs who did not work out could build a model, close a set of accounts and pass an audit. What they could not do was manage cash under pressure, deliver hard news to an impatient board, or hold a line with a dominant founder.
Boards learned this the expensive way. A finance leader can look excellent in interview and in the first two quarters, then unravel the moment the plan stops working. So the reference now targets the failure modes, not the strengths.
There is also more scrutiny from investors. PE operating partners and board chairs are increasingly present on reference calls that they would once have delegated. When an operating partner is on the line, the questions get specific fast, because they have watched the same CFO archetype fail across a portfolio.
Which specific questions carry the most weight?
Three areas dominate the sharper reference calls we run at Harper May.
Cash and forecasting honesty. Boards want to know whether the CFO's forecasts held up, and how they behaved when they didn't. The telling question is not "Were they accurate?" but "When they were wrong, how did they handle being wrong?"
Relationship with the CEO. The most useful reference now probes the tension in that relationship. A CFO who never disagreed with the CEO is not a reassurance, it is a warning. Boards ask referees to describe a genuine clash and how it resolved.
Team and succession. Boards ask whether the CFO built a finance function that could function without them. "If they had left suddenly, what would have broken?" is a question that exposes whether someone concentrated power or distributed capability.
What does a good answer actually sound like?
Strong references are concrete and slightly uncomfortable. A referee who rates someone highly but still describes a real weakness is worth more than one who offers unbroken praise. The best answers include a moment where the CFO was under strain and behaved well anyway.
Weak references are smooth. They stay general, avoid specifics, and reach for words like "safe pair of hands" without ever describing the hands doing anything. When a referee cannot produce a single hard moment, that absence is the finding.
How should boards run the reference now?
Do it before the decision hardens, not after. A reference taken once the offer is emotionally settled changes nothing, because the board has already committed and will explain away anything awkward.
Use referees the candidate did not hand pick. A backdoor reference from someone who worked alongside the CFO, sourced discreetly, tends to be more honest than the polished names on the list.
Ask the same behavioural question of two different referees and compare the stories. Consistency across independent accounts is far more reliable than any single glowing call.
And match the questions to your actual situation. A business heading into a refinancing needs different evidence from one integrating an acquisition. If you are still shaping the brief, our view on what the role demands is set out across our current finance leadership mandates.
What this signals about the wider market
The deeper point is that boards have stopped hiring on potential and started hiring on evidence. The reference call has become the place where evidence is tested, which is why it now carries weight it never used to.
That is healthy. A CFO appointment that survives a rigorous reference process is more likely to survive the job. The discomfort of asking harder questions is small next to the cost of the wrong hire.
Common questions
How many references should a board take for a CFO? At least three, and ideally one that the candidate did not nominate. The independent reference is usually the most useful.
Should the board chair make the reference calls personally? For a CFO hire, yes, at least for the final references. Delegating the most important call to the least senior person in the process is a common and avoidable mistake.
What is the single most revealing reference question? "Tell me about a time the numbers were going to miss. How early did they know, and how did they handle telling you?" It tests honesty, courage and judgement in one answer.
