When a new CFO inherits a fractured leadership team
The first hundred days as a director of finance are often spent proving numeracy the room already assumes. Meanwhile the fracture sits in operations and sales, who have been running parallel forecasts since the last restructure.
We tell incoming CFOs to make the first three papers boring on purpose. Paper one: the cash picture without adjectives. Paper two: the list of decisions that currently have two owners. Paper three: a request to stop dual reporting on one named process. If those three cannot pass, a transformation narrative will not save the year.
First Hundred Days as a Director is built around this sequence. It is not a confidence course. It is a way to keep a new executive from becoming the audience for other people’s unfinished fights.
A mild warning: if the CEO wants the new CFO to “settle the culture” without attending the meetings, decline that assignment. Culture work without the chair present becomes gossip with a spreadsheet.