Division CFO / Finance Director

Because modeling is only part of the role. Strong finance professionals must be able to challenge assumptions, communicate clearly with non-finance stakeholders, and influence decisions in real time. The candidates who struggle are often capable analysts but weak business partners.

A good analyst explains what happened. A strong business partner changes what happens next. That difference usually shows up in how the person works with operations, leadership, and planning decisions rather than in the spreadsheet itself.

Because many accounting and finance roles are really process-and-systems roles disguised as job titles. A candidate may know the accounting, but if they cannot operate effectively inside the company's environment, ramp time becomes risk. Exact system match is not always mandatory, but comparable complexity often is.

Strong candidates rarely evaluate a role based on title alone. They look at what the position actually owns, how the function is viewed internally, whether the environment is stable or in transition, and what success will realistically look like in the first 6 to 12 months. Many first discover a role through a posting, but the strongest career decisions usually come from understanding the context behind the opportunity, not just the job description. In accounting and finance hiring, that level of context is often what separates a lateral move from a meaningful one. Learn more about how strategic accounting and finance searches differ from transactional recruiting.

Sometimes yes, and often functionally yes even when the posting says "preferred." At leadership levels especially, the CPA frequently acts as a credibility signal for hiring managers, auditors, lenders, investors, or boards. There are exceptions, but in many accounting searches it remains one of the clearest markers of technical foundation.