Your first 100 days give you a powerful foundation. By this stage, you can see how the organisation operates, where value is created, where it’s lost, and how finance can influence the future. With a clearer understanding of performance drivers and business ambition, you can now begin shaping the forward agenda for both the finance function and the wider organisation.
Here are two priority areas to keep front‑of‑mind as you step into the next phase of your role.
Review your KPIs
As you approach the end of your first 100 days, you’ll have a comprehensive knowledge of what success looks like for your business and finance function.
This will allow you to confidently assess whether your finance function’s KPIs are the right ones to meet business strategy and pace, or just the ones you inherited. If the latter is the case, it’s time to update them.
To identify the right KPIs, reflect on the questions below.
Are the current metrics aligned to your strategy and business vision?
Lots of companies describe their focus as growth. You should now have the insight to clarify what that growth truly means. Is it revenue or profit? Customer numbers or spend per customer? Product breadth or customer retention? Domestic expansion or new territories? Pick KPIs that reflect the real, coren.
A mixture of leading and lagging?
Lag indicators track results happening now or in the past, such as revenue. They are easy to measure – but are too late to enable corrective action. Whereas lead indicators track a current activity that will change future performance. Lead indicators are fallible, as it can be tricky to pick ones that will definitely change future performance, but they do provide a view of likely future performance, and can be an early warning of any corrective action.
Are they properly spotlighted?
Metrics only gain traction if they receive attention. If your strategic priority is profitability but the Board packs and internal communications continue to spotlight revenue, behaviours will follow the loudest number, not the most important one.
As an incoming CFO, it’s likely that you’ll make changes to the finance function’s strategy or plans. So, it’s essential to review KPIs to ensure you’re measuring what you value, not valuing what you measure.
Accelerating transformation
Once you have settled in, you will likely have identified areas where transformation is required. Momentum is valuable and there is usually pressure to make changes, but acceleration must be controlled and grounded in a clear business case.
Work closely alongside your senior leadership colleagues and functional leads to review
the extent of your business’s transformation plans, alongside business-as-usual change, to ensure that both the costs and benefits have been baked into your business plan.
You’ll also need to consider your organisation's appetite for change. Are you in a strong cash position and willing to invest for long‑term payback, or is stability the priority with a focus on essential operational or legislative change?
Taking these considerations into account will help your senior leadership team take collective accountability for prioritising strategic transformation and other business change.
By positioning financials as a key driver of transformation, you create clarity around what to start, stop and continue, and you help set the tempo for delivery. Clear and consistent messaging around financial and business risk appetite gives your transformation efforts the guardrails they need to be delivered safely and effectively.
Factoring in ESG
ESG may not be at the top of your agenda in your first weeks in the role. However, the modern CFO plays a critical role in ESG strategy and execution – both as a gatekeeper for signing off investment, and as a key challenger of your leadership team, identifying why investment proposals should or shouldn’t be brought forward.
There are five core themes you should look to gain an initial understanding of.
1. Find out what your stakeholders expect
Has your business researched the market, understood industry trends, and engaged with a broad range of stakeholders, both internally and externally, to identify your most important ESG priorities? What do your clients expect from you?
2. Understand your Board’s priorities
What is the level of their ESG ambition? Do they fully understand why ESG should be a strategic priority, and not just a ‘nice to do, but not now’ agenda item?
3. Review your current ESG policy
Is there an ESG policy in place? Is it meeting the strategic requirements of your business, or should it be updated?
4. Identify ESG metrics and targets
Which ESG metrics and targets are currently being tracked, and how aligned and integrated are these to the core business strategy? Are business decisions being taken through an ESG lens as well as a financial lens?
5. Understand reporting requirements
If you’re not yet caught by a formal reporting requirement, will you soon be? Or is there an opportunity to establish a competitive advantage through voluntary reporting against your ESG agenda?
If addressed as a strategic focus, ESG can be a major contributor to profitability; attracting finance and gaining and retaining customers and talent, so understanding the role it can and should play in your business early on will set you up for success.