To close a CFO or head of finance, assume their employer will counter and build the offer on what a counter-offer cannot match: the mandate, a clear vision and equity shown as dollar outcomes. In Story’s Q2 2026 poll, 52% of finance professionals said nothing would keep them from their ideal role.
Assume there will be a counter-offer
The strongest senior finance candidates are almost always employed, and a good employer will try to keep them. So plan for the counter from the first conversation, not the day they resign. Our Q2 2026 State of the Market poll asked finance professionals in our network what would make them stay put if they were offered their ideal role today. 52% said nothing, they would leave anyway. The rest split across three levers, and no single one moved more than 22%.[1]
| Share of the vote | What it means for your offer | |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing, I'd leave anyway | 52% | Your offer only has to be right. The counter is already too late for these candidates. |
| Salary increase to match | 22% | You cannot win a pure bidding war, so do not let the offer rest on base alone. |
| Equity or retention deal | 17% | Find out what they hold that is unvested, and present your equity as dollar outcomes they can compare. |
| Promotion brought forward | 9% | Sell the scope. Building a function is a bigger job than the next title up in someone else’s. |
Read that the right way round. More than half of finance professionals are not negotiating on exit, which means the counter that follows a resignation is arriving too late for most of them. The other half can be kept, and you need to know which half your finalist is in before you make the offer. So ask them, plainly, in the final stage: if your employer matched this, would you stay? A candidate who has thought about it will give you a straight answer.
The risk is highest when a finalist is sitting on something they would lose by leaving. One candidate I worked with held a six-figure block of options that had cost him next to nothing, which made leaving complicated and made him a prime target for a serious counter. That does not rule someone out. It means you find out early, price it into the conversation, and stay close to them through the resignation.
What senior finance people are choosing you on
The finance talent worth hiring is not choosing founders on pay or title first. In our Q3 2026 poll we asked finance leaders in our network which founder trait they find most attractive. A clear vision took 46.9% of the vote and trusting the team took 32.7%. Being decisive took 13.3%, and being financially literate only 7.1%.[2] A good CFO can supply the finance themselves. What they cannot supply is direction and room to run the function.
That matches what I hear from people making the move. Someone leaving an established or listed business for a startup is primarily investing in the founder and their plans, far more than in the package. One of the most effective closing moves I have seen came from the CEO of a $200 million-plus business who met a preferred candidate for a casual coffee, for a role well below the executive team, not to pitch the role but to share the strategy, the direction and where the role fitted into it. A gesture like that brings the candidate inside the vision of the business before they have signed anything. If the CEO of a business that size can give up an hour for it, a founder can.
Candidates will also look you up. In the Q2 poll, 37.6% of finance professionals said a visible online presence from the executive team definitely makes them keener to join and 21.8% said it helps, but not significantly, while 40.6% were not fussed. It is a soft lever. It will not win a candidate on its own, but a founder who explains where the business is going in public has already made half the closing argument.
Be honest about what the seat is, too. A first finance role at a tech startup typically lasts two to three years, and I sell it to candidates on that basis: exposure worth having even if they do not stay five years. Our study of first finance hires shows where that next move goes. Of those who have since left and list a next role (91 people), only 12 stepped up to a bigger title and stepped down; most moved at the same level (39) or left the finance track (25). The study covers funded Australian startups that eventually built an internal finance function, so it cannot see businesses run on an outsourced or fractional vCFO.
What a counter-offer can match, and what it cannot
Our Q2 report’s advice to hiring managers was blunt: when you make an offer to a finalist, assume their employer will counter, and build your case around what the counter cannot match. In practice that looks like this.
| What their employer can match | What only you can offer | |
|---|---|---|
| Pay | A salary match, often on the spot. It is the lever 22% of our poll said would keep them. | A base priced for the role in 12 months, with super stated separately, so the comparison is honest. |
| Title | A promotion brought forward, or a bigger title. | The mandate: building a finance function from scratch and sitting next to the founder on the decisions that matter. |
| Equity | A retention bonus or a refreshed grant on existing equity. | A stake in what they are about to build, shown as dollar outcomes at realistic exit values rather than a percentage. |
| The next 18 months | More of the role they already know. | A written brief: what the business is, what they own, what the first twelve months look like and how success is measured. |
| The founder | A manager they already know. | A clear vision and the trust to run the function, the two traits finance leaders in our Q3 poll rated highest. |
Many of the people you will be closing are coming from somewhere that can afford to counter. Of the 191 first finance hires we traced at funded Australian startups, 50 (26%) came from a large corporate, a bank or a Big 4 firm, against 37 who came from another startup. That is not a reason to avoid them: a corporate background often means someone has seen what good looks like. It is a reason to expect a counter, and to write the offer for it.
Closing starts in the interview. I set out how to assess a CFO or head of finance, including why a corporate background should not rule anyone out.
Build the offer: base, super, incentives and equity
Put every element in writing, in one place, before you make the call. The pieces, and how I think about each at the stages I hire for:
- Base salary. At first-finance-hire level the base does most of the work, because the long-term incentive is often more of a concept than cash in the early days. Price it against the role the business will need in 12 months, not the one it has today. The current bands by seat and stage are in our CFO and finance leadership salary guide, so I do not repeat them here.
- Superannuation. State it separately from base, at the 12% guarantee rate or above, so nobody ends up comparing a package on one side with a base salary on the other.
- Short-term incentive. Optional, and often absent for an early-stage CFO, where companies tend to load the package towards long-term incentive instead.
- Equity. It is very rare for a first finance hire or first CFO to join without an equity upside, because founders want them bought into the vision. For an early-stage CFO it is usually options vesting over three or four years. How you present it matters as much as the size of the grant.
- Title. Agree scope first. A candidate who negotiates hard on title before the scope is agreed is one of the red flags in my First Finance Hire Playbook.
- Notice and start date. Agree a realistic date in the offer, not after it. The next section covers what is realistic.
On equity, do not present a bare percentage. Ten percent of a business worth two million dollars and 0.1% of one worth two hundred million are the same $200,000, and a percentage on its own gives the candidate no way to weigh it against a cash counter-offer. Show the grant as a table of dollar outcomes across a realistic range of exit values. Alexey Mitko, the founding CFO of Eucalyptus, who has structured ESOPs for several startups and has been a guest on The CFO Track, makes that case in the equity and ESOP guide we host. In the offers I review, a bare percentage is the most common reason a genuinely strong equity component fails to land.
The tax treatment changes what the equity is actually worth to the candidate, so check whether your plan is structured for the ESS start-up concession before the conversation, not after they ask.
For what real option grants have looked like on senior finance roles, I set out how stock options work in Australia.
Notice periods and the start date
Most strong senior finance candidates are in a permanent role with four weeks’ notice or more. Insisting on a fast start is how founders shrink their own shortlist. I walked a client through this recently: if the role is so urgent that you need someone in two weeks, you are cutting out about half the pool.
What to expect depends on the level:
- Head of finance and financial controller. Four weeks or more is standard. On an urgent search, six weeks is usually workable and eight is where businesses start to walk away.
- CFO. Three months is the norm and most businesses accept it. Four to six months usually comes with a seasoned CFO, and for a business under 200 to 300 staff, six months is too long.
Check the timing of their bonus and vesting dates as well as the notice clause. One candidate I worked with had a bonus paying out in mid April and six weeks’ notice, which pushed the start date into June. That is a reasonable thing for a candidate to wait for, and a founder who knows about it early can plan around it.
If you genuinely cannot wait, do not compromise the hire to fix the timing. You are better off getting interim cover in, so you can still take your time to hire properly. Interim cover also protects you if the permanent start slips. I have seen a board bring in a three-month interim because their chosen CFO kept delaying their resignation while a sale at their current employer, and the payout that came with it, kept moving.
If the gap is real, I explain when an interim CFO makes sense and how to stop it becoming the permanent hire by default.
The resignation week
The week they resign is when the counter-offer lands, and it is the week founders most often go quiet. Do the opposite. Check in the day after they resign, because the first few days after telling a team you are leaving always feel strange. If you asked the “would you stay if they matched” question in the final stage, you already know how this conversation goes. Have the person they will report to reach out personally, and set a date for a coffee before they start. From there the notice period is the start of onboarding, not dead time, and I cover how to use it in the first 90 days of a new CFO or finance hire.
Close out the runner-up properly while you are at it. Tell them quickly and give them honest feedback. The senior finance market in Australia is small and candidates talk. I spoke with a finance leader whose second search was harder than the first, because the way the first process had been run was now how the market saw the business.
Common questions
How do I get a CFO to leave a corporate job for my startup?
Sell the mandate and the vision, not the package. Finance leaders in Story Recruitment's Q3 2026 poll of its network rated a clear vision (46.9%) and trusting the team (32.7%) as the most attractive founder traits, well ahead of financial literacy (7.1%). Give them a written brief on what they will own and what the first twelve months look like, have the CEO or founder meet them for an unhurried coffee to talk strategy rather than pitch the role, and present equity as dollar outcomes across realistic exit values.
How do I handle a counter-offer for my finance candidate?
Assume it will come and plan for it before you make the offer. In Story's Q2 2026 poll, 52% of finance professionals said nothing would keep them from their ideal role, 22% said a salary match would, 17% equity or a retention deal and 9% a promotion brought forward. Ask your finalist directly in the final stage whether they would stay if matched, find out what unvested options or bonuses they would give up, build the offer on what a counter cannot match, and stay in close contact through the resignation week.
What should an offer to a CFO or head of finance include?
Base salary, superannuation stated separately at the 12% guarantee rate or above, any short-term incentive, the equity grant with its vesting schedule and shown as dollar outcomes, the title and agreed scope, and a realistic start date. At first-finance-hire level the base does most of the work; for an early-stage CFO the package is often weighted towards options vesting over three or four years, sometimes with no short-term incentive at all.
What notice period should I expect when hiring a CFO in Australia?
Three months is the norm for a CFO and most businesses accept it. Four to six months usually comes with a seasoned CFO, and for a business under 200 to 300 staff six months is too long. For a head of finance or financial controller expect four weeks or more. Insisting on a two-week start cuts out around half the pool; if you need someone sooner, bring in interim cover and hire properly.
Should I offer equity to my first finance hire?
In practice, yes. It is very rare for a first finance hire or first CFO to join without an equity upside, because founders want them bought into the vision. At first-hire level the equity is often more concept than cash, so the base salary still has to be right. Present the grant as a table of dollar outcomes across realistic exit values rather than a percentage, and check whether your plan qualifies for the ESS start-up concession.
References
- Our Q2 2026 State of the Market report polled over 350 finance professionals in the Story network on retention, hiring, resignations, executive visibility and AI. It is our own network, not a random sample. The figures here are read from the report’s charts: 52% would leave anyway, 22% would stay for a matched salary, 17% for equity or a retention deal and 9% for a promotion brought forward; on executive visibility, 37.6% definitely, 21.8% yes but not significantly, 40.6% not fussed.
- Our Q3 2026 State of the Market report polled the Story network of founders, CFOs and senior finance professionals, with over 260 votes across four polls. The report does not publish n for each question; figures are read from its chart.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we place. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.