Corporate Finance to CEO

Hi Everyone,

I've been always interested in corporate development in tech company and want to learn more about the long term career progression about it.

From my research very few CEO comes from being a CFO. I was wondering why this is the case?

People said that if you want to become a CEO, you need to have more operation experience instead of deal experience in CD. I was wondering when will be a good time to jump from CD to a more operational role?

Finally, if my ultimately goal is to become a CEO, should I start in CD or a more operational role?

Thank you so much in advance!

2 Comments
 

There are plenty of CFO's who become CEO's in my geography/industry. What doesn't happen is corporate development to CFO. M&A is simply such a small part of a CFO's scope that the experience is not enough.

Becoming operational is harder the higher up you are. Have seen plenty ex consultants on principal/partner level struggle to get operational roles that match their seniority when they don't have that kind of experience.

Would actually say you have a better shot at the CEO title from a CD or strategy role. The CEO role is closer in scope to those roles than any operational role is.

 
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