Knowledge Hub | Finance Recruitment Insights & Trends

Harper May partnered with a rapidly scaling hospitality group to appoint a commercially focused Finance Director who modernised fragmented financial systems, improved multi-site reporting visibility, automated operational workflows, and strengthened financial governance, enabling sustainable expansion, tighter margin control, and significantly improved operational efficiency.

Why Do Strategic CFOs Struggle Without a Credible Second-in-Command? Deploying a standalone CFO without a strong deputy creates an expensive operational bottleneck. While the CFO drives macro investor strategy, an underpowered control layer compromises data integrity, forcing the senior executive into transactional firefighting and stalling enterprise growth.

Growing businesses must hire a Financial Controller when bookkeeping can no longer handle scaling complexity. Signs include delayed month-end closes, poor cash visibility, audit issues and multi-entity growth. Controllers provide systems, controls, investor-ready reporting, reducing risk and enabling scalable governance.

As artificial intelligence reshapes finance operations, businesses must decide whether to prioritise traditional compliance expertise or digital transformation capability in their next finance hire. The strongest organisations now seek balanced leaders who combine accounting rigour, automation literacy, strategic thinking, and scalable operational execution.

Modern CFOs are no longer hired purely for compliance and reporting expertise. In today’s private equity and venture capital landscape, finance leaders are expected to drive commercial growth, manage investor confidence, navigate complex equity structures, and build scalable financial infrastructure aligned with long-term enterprise value creation.

The traditional linear path to the CFO chair—rooted strictly in audit and technical compliance—is fracturing. Modern boards now bypass compliance-first candidates, prioritising commercially minded leaders with proven systems transformation, data analytics, and operational growth experience to drive predictive business value.