Philanthrope LLP
18 Nov 2025
The modern CFO's responsibilities and how Finance Directors, Controllers and FP&A teams evolve.
Part II: Senior finance roles and responsibilities
Part of the accessible full-text edition of Philanthrope LLP's November 2025 report, Building Finance for Growth and Impact. The original designed PDF remains available from the main report page.
3. The CFO’s portfolio in growing businesses
Across the businesses and investor-backed organisations underlying this report, the CFO role rarely consists of a single, cleanly defined job. Instead, it is better understood as a portfolio of responsibilities that expand and shift as the organisation grows.
CFOs typically describe their work as spanning five domains. How much time and attention each receives is influenced by scale, ownership, external expectations and the depth of the team around them.
3.1 Five domains of work in senior finance
Although terminology varies, the same underlying domains appear repeatedly in practice.
Control and assurance
This domain covers the integrity of the numbers and the basic safeguards around them. It normally includes:
Overall responsibility for the truthfulness of financial statements
Oversight of controls, reconciliations and key policies
Comfort that tax, regulatory and statutory obligations are being met
Interaction with auditors and, where present, audit committees
In the organisations considered here, both boards and investors tend to view this as a foundation. If confidence in this area is weak, attention often moves away from performance and decisions and onto basic reliability.
Finance operations
Finance operations is the work that keeps transactions flowing and the organisation functioning. Typical elements include:
Billing and collections
Supplier payments and expenses
Payroll oversight
Month-end close and routine internal reporting
The systems and tools that support these processes
In smaller and mid-sized businesses, CFOs often remain closely involved in this domain, particularly where teams are lean or where historic issues have existed. As scale increases, a recurring theme is the need for clearer distinction between operational responsibilities and the CFO’s wider agenda.
Planning and analysis
Planning and analysis covers the forward-looking and interpretive work of finance. It commonly includes:
Budgets and forecasts
Analysis of revenue, margin, cost and cash drivers
Scenario work around different growth paths or shocks
Support for evaluations of significant projects, contracts or investments
In many of the organisations studied, this domain begins informally, spread across a Controller, an analyst and the CFO. Over time, especially once external investors are involved, it tends to emerge as a distinct capability, often referred to as financial planning and analysis (FP&A).
Performance and resource allocation
This domain concerns how information is translated into action. Observed elements include:
Connecting financial and operational performance for leaders of functions or units
Helping to align plans, budgets and headcount with strategy
Monitoring follow-through on agreed initiatives
Supporting conversations about where to focus and where to pull back
In practice, this often depends on the quality of relationships between finance and other parts of the organisation. In responsible businesses, it also touches on how financial information is brought into decisions that involve trade-offs between different stakeholder interests.
Capital and external stakeholders
The fifth domain is the CFO’s outward-facing role. It usually comprises:
Responsibility for how the organisation presents itself financially to banks, investors and, in some cases, regulators or potential acquirers
Input into capital structure and funding choices
Ongoing management of key financial relationships
Preparation for, and support through, capital raises, refinancings or transactions
CFOs in investor-backed responsible businesses frequently report that this domain grows in significance as institutional capital becomes more central to the organisation’s plans, and as funders form views not only on the numbers, but on the quality of the finance function itself.
Taken together, these five domains illustrate the breadth of the modern CFO role in businesses. The balance between them, and the support available in each area, has a strong influence on how finance is experienced by the rest of the organisation.
3.2 Shifts in emphasis as organisations scale and take on investors
While each organisation has its own history, certain shifts in emphasis are visible across the cases drawn on for this report.
Early and lower complexity stages
When businesses are smaller and less complex:
Control and finance operations tend to dominate.
CFOs, or those in equivalent senior roles, spend significant time ensuring that the basics are correct and that reporting has some rhythm.
Planning and analysis, performance work and capital topics are often addressed in bursts around the annual budget, a board cycle or a specific funding conversation.
At this point, finance leadership is frequently described in terms of stabilising and formalising what was previously informal.
Growth with formalised governance
As boards develop and responsible business commitments become more embedded:
Expectations on planning and analysis increase.
There is more regular interest from non-executive directors in drivers, unit economics and risk.
The finance function is asked to support a broader range of conversations, including those about the financial implications of decisions with cultural or stakeholder dimensions.
CFOs often report that this is the stage at which they begin to feel a distinct pull between maintaining operational reliability and meeting the demand for deeper insight.
Investor-backed and more complex stages
Once institutional investors or more significant lenders are involved, and as businesses undertake larger initiatives:
Planning and analysis becomes a core focus, rather than an occasional exercise.
The capital and external stakeholder domain assumes greater weight, with more time spent on investor and lender interactions, capital structure and transaction- related work.
Performance and resource allocation work becomes more structured, with finance expected to support more formal approaches to investment, prioritisation and follow-up.
In these organisations, CFOs frequently describe their role in terms very similar to those seen in other high-growth, investor-backed contexts, with the additional feature that responsible business commitments bring more attention to how decisions are made and communicated.
Across these stages, the underlying tension is similar: the demands on the CFO increase in scope and complexity faster than team capacity automatically adjusts. How organisations respond to this tension, particularly through the definition of adjacent senior roles, is a core theme in the next section of the report.
3.3 Tensions between operational load and strategic contribution
One of the most common observations from CFOs in responsible businesses and similar organisations concerns the tension between operational load and strategic contribution.
Several patterns appear repeatedly.
Operational work absorbing disproportionate time
In many organisations, CFOs report that:
A substantial portion of their time remains tied up in resolving issues in finance operations or control, especially where systems are evolving or where historic problems have existed.
Preparation of monthly, quarterly and board reporting consumes more effort than they believe should be necessary, given the value it delivers.
This is rarely described as unnecessary work. In most cases, it reflects the reality that the organisation has grown faster than its finance infrastructure and team depth.
Limited room for planning and analysis
Where operational demands remain high:
Structured planning, scenario work and analysis are often compressed into short periods.
Finance leaders sometimes indicate that they would like to engage earlier and more extensively in strategic discussions, but find themselves arriving when key parameters have already been set.
In organisations where investor expectations are high, this can create a sense that the CFO is continually catching up with both internal and external information needs.
Capital and external relationships competing for attention
For CFOs in businesses with significant bank or investor involvement:
Time spent on capital and external relationships is often described as essential but unpredictable.
Processes such as refinancings, raises or due diligence exercises can temporarily displace other elements of the role.
Some CFOs observe that, when external demands peak, their ability to support internal decision-making and
performance discussions reduces, despite those being areas where they believe they could add substantial value.
Impact on how the role is perceived
These tensions influence how the CFO role is seen by others. In organisations where operational issues are frequent, the CFO may be viewed primarily as the person who resolves problems and ensures compliance. In those where capital events are prominent, the CFO may be associated mainly with investor and lender engagement.
In the cases where finance is regarded as a strong contributor to leadership decisions, there is usually a clearer alignment between how the CFO’s time is spent and the areas where their presence is most needed for the organisation’s next phase. Achieving that alignment typically involves attention to the surrounding senior finance bench, as described in the following chapter.
3.4 The CFO’s role in impact and growth decisions
In responsible businesses and related organisations, CFOs are often located at the junction of impact and growth considerations. The way they participate in key decisions frequently shapes both external perceptions and internal culture.
Illustrative themes include:
Articulating constraints and possibilities
CFOs in these organisations often describe their role as making clear:
What is financially possible within existing commitments and structures
Where constraints are binding and where there is room to move
How different growth paths or initiatives would alter the organisation’s resilience
This articulation is not presented as a veto, but as a way of enabling leadership and boards to choose with a clearer picture of the consequences.
Describing the financial implications of impact choices
When decisions involve significant commitments to employees, communities or environmental initiatives, CFOs recurrently:
Quantify the immediate financial effects where practicable
Indicate how choices may influence future flexibility, including the ability to raise capital or withstand downturns
Help express to funders and boards why certain investments have been prioritised, and on what assumptions
In organisations with external investors, this translation work is often central to maintaining alignment between responsible business commitments and investor expectations.
Providing a steady voice under pressure
Several CFOs referenced in this report describe periods where performance, impact commitments and capital structures have all been under strain. In those instances, their role has often included:
Maintaining factual clarity about the organisation’s position
Ensuring that decisions made under pressure remain consistent with basic standards of reporting and conduct
Supporting leadership in communicating with employees, boards and investors in a way that is transparent about trade-offs
Boards and investors frequently note that their confidence during such periods is influenced as much by the quality of the CFO’s communication and judgement as by the numbers themselves.
In this sense, the CFO role in businesses and investor- backed, purpose-driven organisations bears many of the features seen in other high-growth contexts, while also carrying an additional layer linked to the organisation’s stated commitments. How that load is shared with other senior finance roles is the subject of the next chapter.
4. Configuring the senior finance bench
Across the businesses and investor-backed organisations behind this report, the effectiveness of finance rarely depends on a single senior individual. It tends to rest on a small group of roles that, together, carry control, analysis, business connection and external representation.
Titles vary, but four senior roles appear often enough, and with enough consistency of content, to be useful as a reference point.
4.1 Four senior roles commonly seen in practice
In the organisations examined here, senior finance responsibilities are most often shared across some combination of the following roles, even where the job titles differ.
Financial Controller or Head of Finance
This role usually carries primary responsibility for:
Integrity of ledgers and financial statements
Month-end close and management accounts production
Core financial controls and reconciliations
Coordination with auditors and tax advisers
Controllers are frequently described as the anchor of trust in the numbers. When this role is strong, leadership and boards report fewer debates about data quality and more time spent on interpretation.
Head of FP&A or FP&A lead
Where present as a distinct role, FP&A leaders tend to focus on:
Budgets, forecasts and periodic reforecasts
Analysis of revenue, margin, cost and cash drivers
Scenario work and sensitivities around key uncertainties
Financial input into major projects, pricing and investment cases
In businesses and investor-backed organisations, FP&A is often regarded as the bridge between data and decisions. Its emergence as a separate capability is one of the clearer markers of finance maturity.
Finance Director or equivalent
This role often sits between technical control and the CFO’s broader remit, with an emphasis on:
Connecting finance to day-to-day operations
Working alongside functional or business unit leaders on plans and performance
Coordinating the financial aspects of change initiatives
Taking a visible leadership role inside the organisation on financial matters
In some organisations, the Finance Director is the most senior finance role. In others, the position sits alongside the Controller and FP&A lead, enabling the CFO to focus more on capital, external relationships and the wider leadership agenda.
Chief Financial Officer
The CFO role typically encompasses:
Overall stewardship of the finance function
Ownership of the financial narrative to boards, investors and lenders
Responsibility for capital structure and key financial relationships
Participation in strategy, risk and major decision- making at executive level
In businesses, particularly those with external investors, CFOs are often expected to engage credibly with both the impact commitments of the organisation and the expectations of capital providers. This dual focus shapes how they use and depend on the other senior finance roles.
These four roles are not a template. They are recurring ways in which organisations have divided senior finance responsibilities as the demands on finance have grown.
4.2 Patterns of overlap and stretch in growing organisations
In practice, relatively few businesses at growth stage maintain four fully separated senior finance roles. Overlap and stretch are common, especially in periods where the organisation has grown faster than the finance function.
Several recurring arrangements appear in the underlying cases.
Controller plus CFO, with limited FP&A
A frequent pattern is a strong Controller and a CFO, with planning and analysis spread between them. Indicators of this arrangement include:
Budgets and forecasts largely assembled by the Controller with periodic input from the CFO and other leaders
Analysis that is informative but constrained by available time and tools
Scenario work undertaken mainly around board cycles or funding events
This set-up is often described as stable but underpowered for organisations facing more complex decisions and external expectations.
Controller as de facto Head of Finance and FP&A
In some businesses, particularly those earlier in their growth journey, the Controller or Head of Finance covers control, operations and much of the analytical work. The CFO title may not yet be in use.
In these situations:
Month-end, reporting and budgeting depend heavily on one person
Forward-looking insight can be strong, but remains closely tied to operational workload
External relationships with banks or investors may be shared between this role and the chief executive
As complexity and capital increase, this concentration often becomes a point of concern for boards.
CFO with extensive operational responsibilities
Where team depth is limited, CFOs are sometimes drawn into detailed operational tasks that could, in other circumstances, sit with a Controller or Finance Director. Common examples include:
Direct oversight of transaction processing and reconciliations
Hands-on involvement in system implementations and fixes
Personal ownership of complex models and key reconciliations
In the organisations reviewed, CFOs in this position frequently express a wish to devote more time to planning, capital and performance work, but find operational demands hard to reduce without structural change.
Emerging FP&A capacity, not yet formalised
In many responsible businesses, an analyst or small group undertakes planning and analysis work without a clearly defined FP&A mandate. This can result in:
High-quality analysis in particular areas, but uneven coverage overall
Dependence on specific individuals for certain models or insights
Difficulty sustaining analysis alongside other responsibilities when activity peaks
Across the cases that have moved beyond this stage, leaders often note that clearer definition of FP&A responsibility was a turning point in improving the organisation’s forward view.
These patterns are not necessarily problematic in themselves. Their significance tends to grow as decisions become larger, as boards become more demanding and as external funders pay closer attention to the shape and resilience of finance.
4.3 When FP&A tends to emerge as a distinct capability
Across the businesses and investor-backed organisations in scope, the point at which FP&A becomes a defined capability is influenced less by a specific revenue or headcount level, and more by the nature of decisions being taken.
Common features at the stage where FP&A emerges include:
A greater number of initiatives competing for capital and management attention
Increased interest from boards and investors in understanding underlying drivers and scenarios
More frequent adjustments to plans, driven by changes in markets, products or capital availability
At that point, several limitations of ad hoc analysis begin to show:
Difficulty exploring multiple strategic options in a structured way
Reliance on individual spreadsheets that are hard to maintain or explain under scrutiny
Limited time to integrate financial and non-financial information in support of decisions
Organisations that have introduced a clearer FP&A role, whether through reassignment or hiring, often report:
More consistent forecasting and scenario work
Improved ability to connect financial outcomes with operational activity
Greater capacity to respond to questions from boards, investors and lenders without diverting the CFO from other domains
In responsible businesses, the FP&A function is also frequently involved in quantifying aspects of performance that are relevant to sustainability and impact reporting or to investor narratives on impact and growth, even where responsibility for non-financial metrics sits elsewhere.
4.4 Examples of how senior finance structures evolve over three to five years
Looking across multiple businesses and investor-backed organisations over three-to-five-year periods, certain trajectories in senior finance structure appear more often than others. These are not prescriptions, but they illustrate the kinds of adjustments that organisations have made as demands on finance increased.
From Controller led to CFO plus Controller
In organisations that began with a Controller or Head of Finance as the most senior role:
The introduction of a CFO has often coincided with larger funding events, more formal boards or increased strategic complexity.
The Controller role has, in many cases, been retained and clarified, with a focus on control, reporting and technical matters.
The CFO has taken primary responsibility for capital, external relationships and a more visible presence at board level.
This shift is often cited where boards and investors have expressed a desire for a senior finance voice with broader experience.
From CFO doing “everything” to a clearer bench
In organisations where the CFO initially held responsibility for control, operations, planning and external relationships:
The addition or strengthening of a dedicated Controller has reduced reliance on the CFO for detailed control work.
The establishment of a defined FP&A lead or small FP&A team has provided structure around planning and analysis.
In some cases, a Finance Director or similar role has been added to support business-facing activity and internal performance work.
CFOs in these organisations frequently report that these changes have allowed them to spend more time on capital, strategy and board engagement, while improving the quality of information available to the rest of the leadership team.
From informal to more deliberate business-facing roles
Across both businesses and other high-growth organisations, there is a trend toward more explicit business-facing finance roles as complexity increases. Over three to five years, this has taken forms such as:
Finance leaders aligned to major functions or business units, working closely with their non-finance counterparts
Greater emphasis on communication skills and organisational understanding in senior finance appointments
Shared responsibility between finance and other leaders for performance discussions and follow- through
These developments are often described as responses to the need for finance to be understood and used across the organisation, not only at the centre.
Adjustment in response to investor involvement
When businesses take on institutional equity or more significant debt, senior finance structures frequently adapt. Observed changes include:
Strengthening of Controller and FP&A positions to support more intense and regular scrutiny from boards, investors and lenders
Refinement of the CFO remit to emphasise capital, external representation and contribution to strategy, rather than detailed operational tasks
Occasional introduction of specialist roles, for example in treasury or investor relations, where funding structures and stakeholder groups become more varied
Boards and investors in these cases often comment that such adjustments increase their confidence that the organisation can handle both its internal plans and its external obligations.
Across these examples, the underlying pattern is one of gradual clarification and deepening of roles as the organisation’s needs evolve. The following chapter looks beyond the senior bench to the wider finance team, and at the building blocks that support the contributions described earlier in the report.
5. Development of the wider finance team
As businesses grow, the experience of finance for most people in the organisation is shaped less by the CFO and more by the wider team. The way that team develops over time influences how well finance can sustain reliability, provide insight and support decisions without operating in a constant state of strain.
Across the organisations behind this report, the progression is rarely linear, but certain stages and building blocks appear often enough to be useful reference points.
5.1 A typical progression in finance team maturity
The details vary, but many responsible businesses and investor-backed organisations move through broadly similar phases in how their finance teams are configured.
Initial consolidation of basic finance activity
In early growth stages:
Finance work is concentrated in a small number of people.
The same individuals may handle bookkeeping, payroll, invoicing and basic reporting.
Processes are often informal, with varying levels of documentation.
The focus is on keeping up with volume and avoiding obvious errors, rather than on structure.
Establishment of a clear “engine room”
As volume and complexity increase:
Transaction processing, reconciliations and month- end move onto a more defined footing.
Roles emerge around accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll and general ledger.
Basic controls, such as approval limits and segregation of duties, are formalised.
In organisations at this stage, finance teams often report that their workload is still high, but more predictable, with a clearer rhythm around monthly reporting and cash management.
Introduction of more specialised roles
Once basic processing and control are stable:
Technical expertise (for example in tax or accounting policy) may be strengthened, either in-house or through closer use of external advisers.
Analysts begin to focus more deliberately on planning and performance, even if FP&A is not yet a separate function.
Some team members spend more time working with particular functions or business units.
Leaders in these organisations commonly note an improvement in the quality and speed of explanations, alongside greater resilience in routine activity.
Development of business-facing finance capacity
In later stages of growth, particularly where investor expectations are significant:
Finance roles aligned to specific parts of the business become more common.
Individuals in these roles are expected to understand both financial and operational drivers and to participate in local planning and performance discussions.
The central finance team focuses more on standards, consolidation, capital and cross-organisational issues.
Where this model has been adopted with care, CFOs often describe a shift in how finance is perceived: from a central function that provides numbers to a set of colleagues who can help leaders across the organisation understand and act on those numbers.
The timing and exact configuration of these stages differ, but the underlying movement is consistent: from concentration and informality towards clearer structure, specialised capability and greater connection to the rest of the organisation.
5.2 Core building blocks in the finance team
Beneath these stages sit a number of building blocks that recur across businesses and investor-backed organisations. Whatever the organisational chart, effective finance teams tend to maintain capacity in each of these areas.
Processing and control
This includes:
Sales invoicing and revenue recognition
Payables, expenses and payroll
Ledger management and reconciliations
Routine controls around approvals and access
In teams where this building block is strong, month-end and basic reporting are described as predictable and dependable. Where it is weak, much of the energy of finance leadership is drawn into resolving operational issues.
Technical and regulatory expertise
Here the emphasis is on:
Accounting policies for areas of judgement or complexity
Tax compliance and planning, including VAT, corporation tax and, where relevant, cross-border matters
Understanding of regulatory requirements that affect financial reporting
In many responsible businesses, this expertise is a mix of internal capability and external advice. As organisations grow, the level of internal awareness required typically increases, particularly when investor or lender documentation contains specific financial undertakings.
Planning, analysis and modelling
This building block covers:
Budgeting and forecasting processes
Analysis of performance drivers
Model development for scenarios, projects and funding questions
In several of the organisations referenced in this report, the gradual formalisation of this area into a recognisable FP&A function has been a significant step in improving both internal decision-making and external confidence.
Business-facing finance roles
These roles are characterised by:
Close working relationships with leaders of functions, business units or geographies
Shared involvement in planning and performance discussions
Focus on translating financial insight into operational and commercial choices
In businesses, business-facing finance roles are often involved in discussions about initiatives with both financial and non-financial implications, reflecting the organisation’s wider commitments.
Leadership and coordination
Beyond specific tasks, the finance team also requires:
Direction on priorities and standards
Coordination between sub-teams and with other functions
Attention to development, succession and workload balance
In larger businesses, this leadership is typically shared between the CFO and other senior finance roles, such as the Controller, FP&A lead or Finance Director.
The relative size and shape of each building block varies with scale and business model. However, in the organisations studied, gaps in any one area tend to show up quickly as specific kinds of strain.
5.3 Matching finance capacity to the scale and reversibility of decisions
One recurring observation from CFOs and boards in this report is that the appropriate size and shape of a finance team is influenced at least as much by the nature of decisions being taken as by headline revenue or headcount.
Several aspects emerge:
Scale of commitments
Where organisations are making larger commitments – for example to major capital projects, multi-year contracts or significant hiring ahead of revenue – there is greater reliance on finance to provide robust analysis and ongoing monitoring.
In these situations, limited planning and analysis capacity is often experienced as a constraint not on reporting, but on leadership’s ability to test options thoroughly.
Reversibility of decisions
Decisions that are hard to reverse, such as entering new countries, taking on long-term leases or altering capital structure, tend to require more preparation and follow- through from finance.
CFOs in the cases examined here often highlight that, when such decisions are being made frequently, ad hoc or minimal analysis is rarely adequate, regardless of the organisation’s overall size.
Sensitivity to external conditions
Organisations with business models that are highly sensitive to changes in demand, input costs or funding conditions often describe a need for:
More frequent reforecasting
Greater attention to scenarios
Closer integration between finance and operational planning
In these contexts, finance teams that are sized and structured only for steady state conditions can find themselves under sustained pressure.
Number and type of external stakeholders
Businesses that answer to multiple funders, investors or regulators – alongside their own internal, sustainability and impact reporting – often require more finance capacity in areas such as:
Coordination of external information requests
Maintenance of covenant and headroom visibility
Preparation of analysis to support discussions with different stakeholder groups
In organisations where this has not been recognised explicitly, finance teams sometimes report feeling perpetually reactive.
Across the cases informing this report, finance functions that are described as effective in supporting leadership tend to be those where team configuration and capacity have been considered in the light of these decision characteristics, rather than only as a percentage of revenue or total headcount.
5.4 Recurrent themes in deepening teams over time
When businesses and investor-backed organisations have chosen to deepen their finance teams, several themes appear repeatedly in how they have done so.
Strengthening the “engine room” before adding complexity elsewhere
In organisations where basic processing and control were fragile, leaders who later reported satisfaction with finance often invested first in:
Improving processes and documentation
Clarifying responsibilities within the team
Ensuring that month-end and reporting could be delivered consistently
Only after this foundation was in place did they add more specialised or business-facing roles.
Formalising planning and analysis
A number of organisations describe a point at which they moved from:
Ad hoc forecasting and analysis handled by whoever had capacity to
A clearer FP&A function with defined responsibilities and, in some cases, dedicated tools
CFOs often highlight this shift as enabling more thoughtful strategy and funding discussions, as well as more structured engagement with boards and investors.
Developing finance people who can operate outside the function
In responsible businesses and other organisations with broader stakeholder commitments, finance team members who can:
Work comfortably with colleagues in non-finance roles
Explain financial implications in straightforward terms
Engage in discussions about both financial and non- financial outcomes are frequently singled out as particularly valuable. Over time, several organisations have adjusted hiring and development to favour these capabilities alongside technical competence.
Balancing internal development and external hiring
The organisations reflected in this report have taken different approaches to building their teams. Common considerations have included:
Where existing team members can grow into new responsibilities with support
Where specific experience or expertise is required at a level that is unlikely to be developed quickly enough internally
How to maintain stability and institutional knowledge while introducing new skills and perspectives
In many cases, boards and CFOs describe the most effective developments as being neither sudden overhauls nor purely incremental additions, but targeted changes that recognised both current contribution and future needs.
Taken together, these patterns suggest that development of the wider finance team in businesses is less about following a fixed model and more about paying attention to the kinds of decisions being made, the expectations of stakeholders and the areas where current capacity is most stretched. The next part of the report looks at how these internal configurations of finance appear from the board table and to those who provide capital.