The best CFO recruiter in Melbourne 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 ThompsonCook. 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
- Melbourne
- One of two core markets
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. It is also not a Sydney firm dabbling in Victoria: Melbourne and Sydney are the two markets where almost all of founder Tom Hunter's work sits.[1] He grew up in country Victoria and spent years in Melbourne before moving to Sydney.[2]
The Melbourne proof is specific. Of the CFO placements he ran in 2026 for Melbourne-based roles, two went to candidates living in Perth, both of whom found him through a post and approached him directly rather than through an advertised process.[3] That is what a national network does for a Melbourne brief, and it is backed by more than 30,000 accounting and finance professionals across Australia, concentrated in tech, fintech and deep tech.
The wider 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. It is also on Spotify and YouTube, so you can judge the depth before you brief anyone.
2Johnson Partners
Sung Ho Lee, Partner, CFO Practice, johnsonpartners.co
- Focus
- CFO and senior finance appointments only
- Offices
- Melbourne, Sydney 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, across ASX-listed companies, multinationals, PE-backed businesses and VC-backed scale-ups, and co-convenes the Australian CFO Awards with the Group of 100, the national CFO membership body. The Melbourne office is a real one on Collins Street rather than a mailing address. The brief runs wider than the venture end, so on a first-CFO hire expect a broader field than a stage specialist would present.
3ThompsonCook
Henry Clunies-Ross, Director, thompsoncook.com.au
- Founded
- 2016, in Melbourne
- Focus
- Accounting and finance only
- Base
- 360 Collins Street
The Melbourne finance-only firm, and one of the few in the country whose entire book is accounting and finance. ThompsonCook was founded here in 2016 and runs step-up CFO mandates for PE-backed businesses out of Collins Street, with a Sydney office second. The discipline shows in the calibre of their shortlists at the $250k to $350k level. On a venture-backed first CFO the segment fit is looser than the stage specialists above.
4Allura Partners
Andrew Smith, Managing Director, allurapartners.com.au
- Founded
- 2017
- Segment
- PE-backed, ASX and founder-led
- Melbourne
- Collins Street, Sydney head office
The strongest boutique in the country for private-equity work, with a dedicated CFO practice rather than finance as one desk among many. Allura built its name placing CFOs into PE portfolio companies and founder-led businesses heading toward an event. The centre of gravity is Sydney and the Melbourne office is the second one, which is the only reason it does not rank higher on a Melbourne list.
5Sharp & Carter
Stephen Carter, National Partner, sharpandcarter.com.au
- Founded
- Melbourne, 2009
- Melbourne
- Two offices, CBD and east
- Signal
- Runs an annual CFO Symposium
The Melbourne-founded agency that grew into the biggest Australian-owned firm on this list. Stephen Carter started it here in 2009 after a decade leading finance and accounting recruitment elsewhere, and the finance practice still runs from transactional roles through to CFO, with an annual CFO Symposium that keeps the firm close to the sitting CFO community. Multi-discipline rather than finance-only, which is what the specialisation score reflects.
6Six Degrees Executive
Rohan McMaster, Client Partner, Melbourne, sixdegreesexecutive.com.au
- Base
- Melbourne, seven offices nationally
- Focus
- Senior finance and CFO appointments
- Segment
- Consumer, industrial and B2B
Melbourne-headquartered with the widest geographic bench of any Australian-owned firm here, and an executive search team that partners with CFOs on permanent senior finance appointments. The sector weighting is consumer, FMCG, retail and industrial rather than venture-backed tech, so the fit is better for a scaled operating business than a first-CFO brief.
7Lawson Delaney
Richard Fischer, Director, Executive Search, lawsondelaney.com.au
- Base
- Melbourne
- Focus
- CFOs and their direct reports
- Extra
- Remuneration advisory alongside search
A quieter Melbourne firm doing consistently senior work: executive search built specifically around commercial accounting, with CFO appointments and their direct reports as the stated speciality, and remuneration advisory sitting next to it. Less published evidence than the larger names here, which is what the score reflects rather than any doubt about the desk.
8Robert Half
Cameron Eustice, Senior Managing Director, Melbourne, roberthalf.com/au
- In Australia
- More than twenty years
- Segment
- PE, ASX, family-owned, high-growth
- Scale
- Hundreds of senior finance placements
Global by ownership with a genuine Melbourne bench and a finance and accounting specialisation that predates most of this list. Volume is the trade-off: you get reach and a fast shortlist 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.
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 local segment depth, 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
- Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane
- Segment
- ASX and multinational
The largest of the global players in Australia, with a Melbourne office and the APAC CFO practice regionally led from Sydney. For a listed-company CFO succession with an international field, they are the default shortlist entry.
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 a Melbourne role need a Melbourne recruiter?
Not usually, and insisting on it narrows the field for no gain. The people who have built a finance function through a scale-up and would do it again number in the low hundreds nationally, so the right candidate for a Collins Street role is often not in Victoria at all. Two of the Melbourne CFO placements on this page's first entry went to candidates living in Perth.[3] What a local office genuinely buys you is ease of meeting in person and a read on the Melbourne salary market. What it does not buy you is a better shortlist. If your search could sit in either capital, the national ranking of CFO recruiters in Australia scores the same firms on reach as well, and there is a companion list for CFO recruiters in Sydney.
Also worth knowing
Several other firms run credible CFO work from Melbourne and simply did not make a top ten ranked for the startup and scale-up segment. Derwent has a Collins Street office and an interim arm built around the office of the CFO, which is useful when a permanent search needs cover while it runs. Egon Zehnder, Russell Reynolds, Heidrick & Struggles and Odgers Berndtson all run financial-officer practices in Australia and belong on any enterprise longlist. Michael Page, Robert Walters and Hays place finance leaders here at volume, and u&u Recruitment Partners brings a Queensland-grown accounting and finance bench into the Victorian market.
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.
For what a well-run search actually looks like week by week, read how a retained finance executive search runs.
References
- Tom Hunter's own split of where the work sits: Melbourne and Sydney are the two markets he primarily recruits in, with Brisbane accounting for only 10 to 20 per cent of the book.
- Hunter grew up in country Victoria and lived in Melbourne for several years before London and then Sydney, which is where he is based now. The Melbourne market is not new ground for him.
- Two CFO placements he ran in 2026 for Melbourne-based roles went to candidates living in Perth. Both found him through a post rather than an advertisement, and approached him directly with no prior contact.