For businesses at the £15m to £30m turnover mark, we now flag one specific hiring order that gets missed.
Often the right first hire is a Group Financial Controller, not a CFO.
Why the CFO hire is the wrong instinct at this stage
At £15m to £30m, the finance work is dominated by consolidation, controls, close discipline, and building repeatable process. That is Group Financial Controller work. It is not CFO work.
A strong CFO wants to spend their time on capital allocation, investor communication, board narrative, and the executive-team strategy conversations. Give them a business where 80 percent of the finance work is close discipline and consolidation and they will be miscast within six months.
The predictable failure mode: the CFO gets pulled into operational close work they do not enjoy. Board strategy work stays with the CEO because the CFO does not have time for it. Six months in, the CFO feels the role was oversold. Nine months in, they are having conversations elsewhere. Twelve months in, they leave.
What hiring the Group FC first actually buys
Twelve months of the finance function being properly built before the CFO seat is even opened.
A strong Group Financial Controller at this business scale will:
- Put close discipline in place, targeting four to five working days for month-end.
- Rebuild the reporting pack so it actually reflects business performance.
- Get controls to a standard that would survive first-round investor diligence.
- Build the second layer of the finance team (Financial Accountant, Management Accountant, Assistant Controller).
- Handle the audit relationship without the CEO needing to be involved.
None of this is glamorous. All of it is essential. And crucially, all of it needs to exist before a CFO hire will succeed.
Twelve months of that work turns a £15m business with a scrappy finance function into a £20m business with a proper foundation. At that point, the CFO conversation becomes different. You are hiring a CFO into a function that is ready for one, rather than asking a CFO to build the function they should be leading.
What we hear back from founders
The pushback on this advice is almost always about title, not about substance.
"We need a CFO title to look institutional to investors." Sometimes true, usually not. Investors care about the quality of the finance function, not the title on the org chart. A £20m business with a strong Group FC and clean reporting is more credible than a £20m business with a CFO title and a struggling function.
"A CFO can do both." Rarely true in practice. CFOs who accept a job that is 80 percent Controller work usually leave within a year, and the CFOs who genuinely want that mix are usually not the strongest candidates.
"The Group FC will not want to report to a future CFO." This is a fair concern. The way to handle it is to be honest at hire: "This role will report to a CFO in 12 to 18 months. I would like your commitment to build the function to the point where hiring a CFO makes sense, and to build a strong working relationship with that future CFO when they join."
Good Group FCs take this framing well. They usually want the responsibility of the build phase and are comfortable stepping back to a Controller shape once a CFO is in seat, particularly if the compensation reflects the build contribution.
When to make the CFO hire
Roughly 12 to 18 months after the Group FC starts, if the business has scaled to £25m to £40m turnover, and if the finance function is genuinely ready for the strategic layer above it.
At that point the CFO you can hire is different. Higher calibre because the seat is more attractive. Lower risk because they are not being asked to do both the Controller and CFO jobs. Faster to productive because the foundation already exists.
The unfashionable but honest advice
If your business is £15m to £30m and you are about to hire your first CFO, pause. Ask honestly whether the finance function is actually ready for a CFO or whether it needs a Group Financial Controller for 12 months first.
The Group FC route costs less, moves faster, and materially reduces the risk of a bad first CFO hire. It is the unfashionable answer. It is usually the right one.
If you would like to talk through which shape your business actually needs, get in touch.
