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CFO training and development: what is worth your time

CFO training and development covers everything aimed at moving a finance professional from technical competence to executive judgement: university executive programs, board-readiness courses, coaching, mentoring, peer communities and structured on-the-job exposure. Part of it is not optional, since CPA Australia requires members to log 120 CPD hours per triennium, with at least 20 each year. Most of it is aimed at people who already hold the seat. The harder problem is developing the people one and two levels below.

By Last updated 7 min read

CFO development comes from exposure far more than formal training: owning a raise, presenting your own board pack, managing people, and a mentor who tells you the truth. CPA Australia requires 120 CPD hours per triennium, but most content targets people already seated.

The gap nobody funds

There is so much learning and development content out there for CFOs, but very little for everyone at the levels below that. That is the honest state of the market. Once you are in the seat, the executive programs, the peer roundtables and the vendor-sponsored content all find you. Before that, when it would actually change your trajectory, you are largely on your own.

The other half of the gap is exposure. Most of the market operates in the SME bracket, and many finance professionals there miss out on career-triggering events like IPOs, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, or dealing with regulators, and often lack mentors who have navigated such high-growth or unusual situations. No course fills that hole. Proximity to the people who have lived it does.

It is the reason I started The CFO Track. The whole idea behind the pod is to give up and coming finance leaders the learnings and development that they might not have had the opportunity to otherwise. Free, unpaywalled, and aimed squarely at the people three to eight years out from the seat. The habit the strongest people describe to me is the same one: staying involved in the detail without living in it. That is the balance I keep hearing on The CFO Track, and it is the thing that keeps a finance leader credible as the team grows.

The formats, weighed honestly

Every format on this list has a genuine use. What kills people is picking the expensive one to solve a problem that a conversation would have fixed.

When each one earns its cost
University programsWhen you need the credential or the cohort, typically for a pivot into general management or a listed-company track. Rarely wins a startup CFO shortlist.
Board-readiness coursesIf you have never sat in a board meeting and want the vocabulary. No substitute for presenting your own section of the pack.
Executive coachingFor a specific behavioural problem: how you handle conflict with a CEO, how you present under pressure. Expensive as general development.
MentoringThe highest return per hour, especially in a role you have never done before. Someone senior in your corner who will tell you the truth.
Peer communitiesFor exposure to how other people solved the problem in front of you. Fills the gap formal programs leave for pre-CFO levels.
On-the-job exposureOwning a raise, a system implementation, a first hire. The only format that changes what a shortlist thinks of you, and the hardest to get.
The two at the bottom cost nothing and outperform the two at the top. That is the whole problem with how development budgets get spent.

Mentoring does the heavy lifting

Of everything on that list, mentoring is the one I see change outcomes most reliably. One finance leader put it plainly on The CFO Track: when you are starting a role you have never done before and feel you lack the skills, having a mentor who can be a raving fan on the sideline is critical for boosting confidence and combating self-doubt throughout your career. That is not a soft benefit. Self-doubt is what stops people applying for the seat they are ready for.

Peer communities do similar work for a different problem. Most senior finance leaders carry a version of self-doubt internally, but few express it aloud. A room of people at the same altitude is often the only place that conversation happens.

The CFO Track podcast is where I put this into practice, with Australian finance leaders talking honestly about how they got there.

The curriculum nobody teaches

If you are choosing what to develop, choose against where the market actually screens. The most important skill for finance professionals is the ability to communicate and business partner, working with the wider business so people act on the real meaning of the numbers. Technical skill gets you in the door for a senior finance role. Stakeholder skill is what keeps you in it.

Storytelling is the concrete version of that. At final-stage interviews, candidates who can deliver the story through a case study presentation or a real discussion about board packs make a significant difference. If you want one thing to practise this quarter, practise presenting a board pack to someone who is allowed to interrupt you.

The other live curriculum item is AI, and it needs a governance frame rather than a tools frame. My one rule is that AI produces a first draft, not a final answer. A qualified person checks every number and signs off anything that reaches a board, investor, auditor, client or regulator, so accountability stays human. Being replaced by AI is not what worries the finance people I speak to. Signing off something that turns out to be wrong is.

For the full list of what founders and boards actually screen for, see the CFO skills and qualifications breakdown.

What to do about it if you lead a team

For CFOs and Heads of Finance reading this from the other side: the development gap under you is a retention problem before it is a capability problem. A lack of career progression for capable finance professionals is most of the time not due to their capability. Hard work is visible in a finance career, but ambition often is not, so the proactive conversation has to come from somewhere. If you are not having it, someone else eventually will.

Common questions

What training does a CFO actually need?

Less formal training than most people assume, and more exposure. The technical base is usually already there by the time someone is a candidate. What gets tested is judgement, communication and the ability to hold a room, and those develop through owning a capital raise, presenting your own section of a board pack, hiring and managing people, and having a mentor who will tell you the truth. Executive programs help most when you need a credential or a cohort, not as a substitute for that exposure.

Is an executive education program worth the cost for an aspiring CFO?

It depends what you are buying. If you need the credential for a listed-company track, or the cohort and network for a pivot into general management, a university executive program can be worth it. For a first CFO seat at an Australian startup, I have not seen a program decide a shortlist. Founders want evidence you have raised capital, led a team and sat in a board meeting. Spend the money on getting closer to those things if you can.

Where can aspiring CFOs get development if their employer will not fund it?

This is the real gap. There is a large amount of learning and development content aimed at sitting CFOs and very little for the levels below. Free routes that work are mentoring, peer communities, and long-form content where practitioners explain how they actually solved a problem. The CFO Track podcast exists for exactly this reason: to give up-and-coming finance leaders the learning and development they might not otherwise have access to.

How should finance leaders develop their teams on AI?

Frame it as governance rather than tooling. The rule worth teaching is that AI produces a first draft, not a final answer, and a qualified person must check every number and sign off anything that reaches a board, investor, auditor, client or regulator. Being replaced by AI is not what worries finance professionals. What worries them is signing off on something that is wrong, so the training that lands is about where the human check sits rather than which tool to buy.

Building the finance team under you?

If you are a founder or CFO working out what your finance function needs next, whether that is a hire, a restructure or a development plan, tell us where things stand and we will give you a straight read.

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