- What philanthropists do you admire or look up to?
- What are your current goals in life at a personal and professional level?
- What previous volunteer experiences do you have?
- What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
What makes a good chief financial officer (CFO)—and how do you spot them? These interview questions will help you identify ability and prowess in your next CFO. Here, you’ll find questions to help assess a candidate’s hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.
The CFO is in charge of making sure your company remains well capitalized, with healthy topline growth, strong margins, proactive tax planning, and other factors. They must be able to forecast revenue using precise financial modeling—informed by sales trends, economic and industry context, and more. If you rely on outside capital (e.g. fundraising), they should also be able to seize capital opportunities.
Budgeting and forecasting are two key components of a CFO’s job, helping companies to anticipate revenue and plan expenses for an upcoming quarter or fiscal year. Top CFOs understand how to prioritize the resources and tools available to them, often working cross-departmentally to gather what they need to develop strong models.
This question tests your candidate’s tax expertise, while also giving you insight into their ability to help your company navigate any future mergers, acquisitions, or sales. Even if a candidate hasn’t advised on an M&A transaction in the past, they should be able to confidently explain the tax considerations that go into one.
Have you ever been involved in helping your company evaluate a potential investment? If so, how did you determine whether this investment would be profitable?
Your next CFO will play a vital role in helping the executive management team and board of directors make major financial decisions, including assessing prospective investments. A good CFO uses their financial acumen to make strategic recommendations, taking both risk and potential profitably into account.
Tell me about a time you simplified or streamlined an accounting process in a previous role.
The best CFOs don’t just maintain the status quo—they’re always looking for ways to optimize processes and improve efficiency. Whether that means eliminating an unnecessary extra step or modernizing a process by implementing new technology, they’re dedicated to helping the accounting and finance teams function better.
Dealing with a company’s finances on a daily basis, CFOs must be bastions of ethical behavior. They are not only responsible for acting ethically themselves, but for ensuring that their direct reports do the same. Candidates should have a clear understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior and what doesn’t—and recognize their role in preventing misconduct and fraud.
As part of your executive team, your next CFO will regularly have to engage with the company’s board of directors. This requires strong communication skills and an ability to disseminate information in a clear, objective, and honest manner. Nobody enjoys delivering bad news, but you need to know your new hire won’t try to gloss over challenging details.
Chief financial officers don’t operate in a vacuum—nor should they. Since your next CFO will work closely with other members of the finance department to plan and manage the company’s financial activities, you need to know that they can foster healthy working relationships with their direct reports and collaborate effectively to solve challenges.
This question can help you assess a candidate’s leadership skills and empathy. You want to know that your new executive hire will create a team culture in which employees are empowered to do their best work. That means leading with empathy, while still driving high performance and addressing issues when they arise.
CFO Interview Questions and Answers! (How to PASS a Chief Financial Officer Interview!)
SummaryThe FAQ below was developed based on in-depth interviews with a diverse set of chief financial officers (CFO), industry experts, and funders in an effort to create a broad overview of the nonprofit CFO role and how to approach hiring for it.
We developed these questions and answers based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 25 nonprofit chief financial officers (CFOs) and 15 nonprofit technical assistance providers and funders. We also tapped into executive search consultants deep experience with recruiting and placing nonprofit CFOs. The CFOs interviewed represent a diversity of industry sub-sectors, budget sizes, funding sources, organizational growth stages, and individual backgrounds and tenures.
Q: What is a CFO?
A: Depending on the size of the nonprofit and the complexity of the nonprofit’s revenue sources, nonprofit CFO positions vary widely from organization to organization. However, for the purposes of this discussion, we consider any senior-level manager who oversees the accounting and finances for the organization to be a CFO. Other titles used for this position include: chief financial and administrative officer, director of financial services, senior director of finance, director of finance, director of finance and administration, director of finance and operations, finance director, and fiscal director. Learn more about the role in “The Nonprofit Chief Financial Officer.”
What are your goals?
This question helps me see what a candidate’s motivations are. Since a person’s motivation can show whether or not they will fit in well with the company and its goals, I think this question is important. By knowing their motivation from the get-go, it’s easier to start a successful relationship.
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FAQ
What are good questions to ask a CFO in an interview?
- What are the most difficult decisions for a CFO to make?
- How do you approach strategic workforce planning?
- What financial initiatives have you introduced and how were they successful?
- How would you determine the financial value of our company?
How do you answer a CFO interview question?
What are some questions to ask a nonprofit for an interview?
- Tell us why you want to lead this organization. …
- Offer your assessment of the programs and services of our organization. …
- What do you believe is the key to successful fundraising? …
- How will you balance the inside / outside element of your role?
How do you prepare for a nonprofit executive director interview?
- Tell us why you want to lead this organization. …
- Offer your assessment of the programs and services of our organization. …
- What do you believe is the key to successful fundraising? …
- How will you balance the inside / outside element of your role?
