What Makes a High-Performing CFO at Scale?

Universal Partners | In conversation with Axon Moore

Somewhere between £15m and £50m, the same question surfaces on both sides of the table.

For founders and boards: does our finance leadership match the business we're becoming?

For CFOs: has the role I was hired into quietly changed into a different job?

More often than not, both apply at the same time. The honest conversation is the same one. What's changing in the CFO role as a business scales, and what must change around it.

For financial leaders, the issue is seldom about capability. You were hired to do a job, and the job moved. So the real question becomes whether the CFO has the authority, time and partnership to invest in the necessary strategic work as the business grows.

We spoke with Aaron Conneran at Axon Moore, who has placed hundreds of CFOs into UK growth companies, to understand what changes when a finance leader moves from running the function to transforming the business.

Getting the Hire Right: Considerations for Both Sides

For a board considering a CFO change, or a CFO weighing whether the role still fits, where does this most often go wrong?

"The biggest mistake is hiring for the business you are today rather than the business you are trying to become. We see businesses either over-index on technical credentials or hire someone because they have an impressive brand on their CV. Neither guarantees that the individual will succeed in the role."

You might promote a strong £5m finance manager into a £15m CFO role. They were genuinely good at that size, but the role they excelled in rewarded control and execution rather than building teams and shaping commercial strategy. Those are different skills, and few people get the chance to develop them before they're needed.

Equally, a CFO from a large corporate or practice background may have depth the business genuinely needs, but in an environment with resources and structures that a £15m business simply doesn't have yet.

"The other common mistake is waiting too long. A business can reach a level of complexity where the existing finance structure is no longer fit for purpose, but the CFO appointment only happens once the problems have become urgent.

A poor CFO appointment is expensive in obvious ways: salary, recruitment costs and time. But the bigger cost is opportunity. Poor reporting, weak controls, delayed decision-making and a lack of commercial insight can all slow growth."

The Role Changes More Than Either Side Expects

For a CFO living through this transition, and for the board watching it, what actually changes?

"The biggest change is from doing and controlling to building and influencing. At £5m, the CFO may still be relatively close to the numbers and involved in many operational decisions. By £50m, the complexity is fundamentally different. The CFO needs to build a finance function that can support the scale of the business rather than remain the person everyone goes to for answers."

It’s an odd switch. You spent years becoming the person with the answers, and now your job is making sure your team has them. It calls for stronger systems, better processes, and far more rigorous forecasting and management information, alongside considerably more time with the CEO, the board, and your wider leadership team.

"The biggest challenge isn't necessarily whether someone can manage a larger P&L. It's whether they can evolve their leadership style as the business evolves around them. You need to become increasingly comfortable operating through others."

What Actually Transforms a Business

So, when a CFO genuinely transforms a business, what are they actually doing?

"A competent CFO answers the questions the business asks them. A high-performing CFO helps the business work out which questions it should be asking."

In practice that sounds like: why are margins moving? Where is cash actually being created or destroyed? Which customers, products or divisions are driving value?

They help the board understand the trade-offs embedded in those numbers, and they're prepared to challenge assumptions.

Conneran gives an example:

"We've seen CFOs come into businesses where the founder or CEO is making decisions based on instinct because the management information isn't good enough. A strong CFO can change that very quickly. They introduce meaningful KPIs, improve forecasting, create accountability across the leadership team.

Suddenly, conversations move from 'What happened last month?' to 'What should we do next?' That's transformational because the CFO has changed the quality and speed of decision-making across the whole business."

What Gets in the Way (For Both of You)

There's a hard problem underneath the hiring question. You can appoint exactly the right person and still find the business itself prevents them from doing the job.

For businesses scaling through the £10m–£30m revenue range, international expansion can introduce additional complexity into the finance function. A sales office in Germany. A distributor in the US. An acquisition or investment opportunity across Europe. Rapidly your CFO isn't managing a clean UK P&L anymore.

They’re paying suppliers in six currencies, keeping up with different tax rules in each country, reconciling across several bank accounts, and deciding when to hedge, all in the same week.

This is all crucial work. It's also all time consuming. A CFO hired specifically to transform the business can end up with valuable time absorbed by currency operations and reconciliation.

Universal Partners has no view on who you should hire. Our role is to support the financial environment around them, working alongside finance teams to help manage the operational demands associated with international payments and foreign exchange. For founders and boards, working with strategic partners, is key in setting up your financial leaders for success.

The Decision

So, what should ambitious businesses actually focus on?

According to Conneran:

"Stop hiring the biggest CV in the market. Hire the right CFO for the next stage of the business. The best appointment is rarely about finding the 'best CFO' in absolute terms. It's about finding the best CFO for this business, at this point in its journey."

Aaron Conneran is Director of Axon Moore, a leading UK recruitment firm specializing in CFO and finance leadership placements.

Axonmoore.com