Eric Krucke Shares How CFOs Enable Growth with Inc.

March 22, 2024 –  In a recent article published by Inc. Eric Krucke, National practice director of CFO advisory at Aprio, challenges traditional CFO stereotypes, emphasizing their pivotal role in driving organizational growth. Eric asserts, “Modern CFOs are active, essential members of the C-suite, serving as growth engines for their companies.”

He outlines three surprising strategies for CFOs to actively drive growth:

Forward-looking Insights: Advocating for CFOs to prioritize forward-looking financial analysis over backward-looking reports. He emphasizes the importance of developing predictive models, building forecasts and identifying trends to inform strategic decision-making. “Under their leadership, the finance team develops models, builds forecasts and conducts analyses to identify trends, opportunities and risks.”

Leverage Financial Resources: Advising CFOs to continuously reallocate resources to areas that drive growth rather than withholding them. “Part of a strategic CFO’s job should be constantly looking for ways to secure enough funding to enable the rest of the organization to undertake projects that can help fuel growth.”

Active Representation: Highlighting the importance of CFOs being actively involved in external engagements as representatives of the company. “Never forget that part of a strategic CFO’s job is functioning as the face of the firm in concert with the CEO during meetings with lenders, investors and shareholders.”

Eric’s insights challenge CFOs to embrace their strategic mandate and actively drive growth and innovation within their organizations, reshaping their role beyond traditional financial management. The full article, “CFOs Should Drive and Enable Growth. Three surprising ways to think about how chief financial officers can actively and strategically use their role” was published in Inc. on March 22, 2024, and is available here.