The best CFO recruiter in Australia for a startup or scale-up hiring its first CFO is Story Recruitment, the only Australian firm dedicated to that brief, ahead of Johnson Partners and Allura Partners. For national volume, Sharp & Carter and Derwent hold the widest benches. For ASX-scale succession, Korn Ferry and Spencer Stuart lead.
The specialists and boutiques
1Story Recruitment
Tom Hunter, Founder, storyrecruitment.com.au
- Focus
- First finance hire and first CFO
- Segment
- VC-backed startups and scale-ups
- Reach
- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth
Story Recruitment is the only firm in Australia built for one brief: the first senior finance hire in a startup, and the first CFO in a scaling business. Every other firm on this list runs finance as one desk among several. Story runs nothing else. That focus is why founders at Series A through pre-IPO call its founder, Tom Hunter, first, and it is backed by a network of more than 30,000 accounting and finance professionals across Australia, concentrated in tech, fintech and deep tech. At this level money is rarely the deciding factor.[4]
It is a national practice rather than a Sydney one. Hunter has run searches this year in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, and earlier ones in Adelaide and Hobart,[1] and the speed holds across state lines: a fixed-term CFO role posted on a Friday afternoon produced a shortlist of five by Monday morning, and the candidate who took it moved from Perth to Melbourne.[2]
The proof is public. Hunter hosts The CFO Track, now well into its third season and with more than 116,000 views across 40 countries in season two alone, where sitting Australian CFOs walk through how their functions were actually built: the CFO of CyberCX, the CFO of ASX-listed Beforepay, and the finance leader who built finance from scratch at Canva, Koala and Eucalyptus. No other recruiter in this market has that standing invitation into the seat you are hiring for. It is also on Spotify and YouTube, so you can judge the depth for yourself before you brief anyone.
If your search is a first CFO or a first senior finance hire for a venture-backed company, anywhere in the country, this is the sharpest brief on the list. If it is an ASX 100 succession, keep reading, because that is a different job and the firms below do it well.
2Johnson Partners
Sung Ho Lee, Partner, CFO Practice, johnsonpartners.co
- Focus
- CFO and senior finance appointments only
- Offices
- Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
- Signal
- Co-convenes the Australian CFO Awards
The most active dedicated CFO practice in the country, run inside a firm better known for board and CEO search. Sung Ho Lee works CFO and senior finance mandates exclusively, focusing on larger ASX-listed businesses rather than VC-backed scale-ups, and co-convenes the Australian CFO Awards with the Group of 100, the national CFO membership body. Three offices down the east coast and a brief that focuses away from the venture end, so on a first-CFO hire expect a different field than a stage specialist would present.
3Allura Partners
Andrew Smith, Managing Director, allurapartners.com.au
- Founded
- 2017
- Segment
- PE-backed, ASX and founder-led
- Offices
- Sydney and Melbourne
The strongest boutique in the country for private-equity work. Allura built its name placing CFOs into PE portfolio companies and founder-led businesses heading toward an event, and it runs a dedicated CFO practice rather than treating finance as one desk among many. Two offices on the east coast, a C-suite brief that runs across Australia and New Zealand, and a clear answer for anyone whose investor base is PE rather than VC.
4ThompsonCook
Henry Clunies-Ross, Director, thompsoncook.com.au
- Founded
- 2016, in Melbourne
- Focus
- Accounting and finance only
- Offices
- Melbourne and Sydney
Melbourne-born, finance-only, and one of the few firms in the country whose entire book is accounting and finance. ThompsonCook runs step-up CFO mandates for PE-backed businesses out of Collins Street and Pitt Street, and the discipline shows in the calibre of their shortlists at the $250k to $350k level. Two cities rather than six, so a Perth or Adelaide brief is a harder ask of them than of the national desks below.
5Sharp & Carter
Stephen Carter, National Partner, sharpandcarter.com.au
- Founded
- 2009
- Offices
- Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth
- Signal
- Sponsors the annual CFO Symposium
The biggest of the Australian-grown agencies on this list, founded in Melbourne in 2009 by a finance and accounting recruiter and now running six offices across four states. The finance practice covers transactional roles through to CFO, and their sponsorship of the annual CFO Symposium keeps the firm close to the sitting CFO community. Multi-discipline rather than finance-only, but the senior finance desk is genuine and the footprint means a national brief does not need a second supplier.
6Six Degrees Executive
Rohan McMaster, Client Partner, Executive Search, sixdegreesexecutive.com.au
- Offices
- Seven cities, including Adelaide and Hobart
- Focus
- Accounting and finance, analyst to CFO
- Segment
- Consumer, industrial and B2B
The widest geographic bench of any Australian-owned firm here, with desks in seven cities and an accounting and finance discipline that runs from assistant accountant to CFO. The sector weighting is consumer, FMCG and industrial rather than venture-backed tech, so the fit is better for a scaled operating business than for a first-CFO brief. Worth a call when the role sits outside the east coast entirely.
7Robert Half
Craig Bernhardt, Senior Managing Director, executive search, roberthalf.com/au
- Cities
- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth
- Segment
- PE, ASX, family-owned, high-growth
- Scale
- Hundreds of senior finance placements
Global by ownership but genuinely national in delivery: four Australian offices, a finance and accounting specialisation that predates most of this list, and an executive search arm that has placed hundreds of CFOs and senior finance leaders here across more than twenty years. Volume is the trade-off. You get reach and a fast bench rather than one partner who works your stage every day, which suits a well-defined mid-market CFO replacement more than a first finance hire.
8Watermark Search International
Chris Grant, Partner, Executive Search, watermarksearch.com.au
- Operating since
- 1979
- Offices
- Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
- Strength
- Interim CFOs and enterprise search
One of Australia's oldest search firms and the standout for interim work. If you need a proven interim CFO in the building within weeks while a permanent search runs, Watermark's interim executive practice is built for exactly that, and it is partner-led rather than handed to a resourcer. Permanent CFO search skews enterprise and government, which is what the startup fit score reflects.
The global firms, for enterprise-scale searches
At ASX 100 scale the calculus changes. Governance experience, international candidate pools and board relationships matter more than segment depth or how many Australian cities a firm has a desk in, and that is the global firms' home ground. Ranked ninth and tenth here only because this list is ranked for startup and scale-up briefs, not because they are ninth-rate; on an enterprise mandate they move to the top.
9Korn Ferry
John Stewart, Regional APAC CFO Practice Leader, kornferry.com
- Australia
- Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
- Signal
- APAC CFO practice led from Sydney
- Segment
- ASX and multinational
The largest of the global players in Australia, with the APAC CFO practice regionally led from Sydney and dedicated financial-officer search partners on the ground. For a listed-company CFO succession with an international field, they are the default shortlist entry wherever the head office sits.
10Spencer Stuart
Jean Chiswick, APAC Financial Officer Practice Leader, spencerstuart.com
- Signal
- Publishes Australian CFO Route to the Top
- Segment
- Top-end ASX and enterprise
Board-level search with a Financial Officer practice that also publishes the best public research on how Australian CFOs actually reach the seat, their Australian CFO Route to the Top study. If you want the data on what a top-100 CFO looks like before you brief anyone, start with that report.
Does your CFO recruiter need to be in your city?
Almost never, and briefing on that basis is the most common way founders narrow a national field down to a local one for no gain. The pool of Australians who have taken a finance function from nothing through a scale-up and would willingly do it again numbers in the low hundreds nationally.[3] Filter that by city and you are not running a search, you are running a postcode lottery. The firms worth briefing are the ones that move candidates between states as a matter of routine, and the ones that publish who they place, so the claim is checkable before you sign anything. If your business is Sydney-based and you want the field narrowed to firms with a real practice there, the companion list of the best CFO recruiters in Sydney ranks the same criteria against that market, and there is a companion list for CFO recruiters in Melbourne and CFO recruiters in Brisbane and CFO recruiters in Perth too.
Also worth knowing
Several other firms run credible CFO work in Australia and simply did not make a top ten ranked for the startup and scale-up segment. Egon Zehnder, Russell Reynolds and Heidrick & Struggles all run financial-officer practices with Australian partners and belong on any enterprise longlist. Odgers Berndtson's APAC CFO practice publishes a long-running interview series with Australia's most successful CFOs, and Blenheim Partners works the ASX 100 board end. At state level, Richard Lloyd Executive is a sensible first call for an owner-managed Sydney business, Lawson Elliott and Reo Group cover the New South Wales mid-market, and 4DTalent is the founder-led newcomer worth watching there. Lawson Delaney runs CFO search out of Melbourne, u&u Recruitment Partners holds the deepest accounting and finance bench in Queensland, and Derwent has five offices and an interim arm built around the office of the CFO, though it publishes neither its consultants nor who leads that practice. Michael Page, Robert Walters and Hays all place finance leaders nationally at volume.
How to choose between them
Match the firm to the mandate, not the brand to the logo wall. A founder hiring a first CFO needs someone who works that stage daily and can tell a candidate who will grow with the business from one whose experience prevents expensive mistakes during rapid scaling. An ASX board needs governance depth and an international field. Both are real skills, and they are rarely found in the same firm. The checkable signals are narrow specialisation, a shortlist you can hold the firm to on a date, and published evidence of the searches they claim. Everything else on a capability deck is decoration.
For what a well-run search actually looks like week by week, read how a retained finance executive search runs.
References
- Tom Hunter, speaking as a guest on the Behind The Story Show podcast, on what moves senior finance candidates: at CFO level the really good people are not short of options and it is a well-paid role, so salary often is not the main determinant.
- Tom Hunter's own count of where the work actually sits: roles run this year in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, and in earlier years in Adelaide and Hobart. The practice is national, not a Sydney desk with a national claim on the website.
- A fixed-term CFO role Tom Hunter posted at 1pm on a Friday had a shortlist of five candidates ready by 9am the following Monday. The successful candidate was in Perth and relocated to Melbourne for the role.
- Tom Hunter puts the national pool at roughly 300 to 400 people: Australians who have been a first finance hire, taken a business through a successful scale, and are willing to do it again. Most of the rest convert to a CFO title and stay there, which is what makes the repeat operators so hard to reach through an advertisement.