To hire a CFO in Australia, confirm the job is a full-time CFO, not a head of finance or a fractional CFO. Then brief before you advertise, score candidates against your next round, run three interview stages and plan around a three-month notice period.
Before you start: make sure the job is a CFO
A CFO is the executive accountable for a company's capital, financial strategy and investor relationships, sitting alongside the CEO rather than reporting through operations. That is a different job from running the close and the board pack, and most early founders who ask me for a CFO actually need the second one first.
The data says the same thing. Of the 191 funded Australian startups we tracked with a dated finance hire, only 29% (56) made a CFO their first finance hire. Most started with a head of finance, a financial controller or a finance manager, and 48% (65 of 135) of those below-CFO starters later added a CFO, a median 26 months after the first hire.1
My own read, from the searches I run: a head of finance owns reporting, planning, the board pack and the day-to-day, while a CFO owns capital, investors and the story the company tells about itself.[1] You can usually run a strong Series A business with the first. Very few Series B businesses run well without the second. If you are not sure which side of that line you are on, read when to hire a CFO first, and the difference between a CFO, a financial controller and a head of finance.
The other alternative is not hiring yet. If the finance load is a raise and a model rather than a full-time job, a fractional CFO covers it for a fraction of the cost until the business outgrows it. If a finance leader has just left and you need cover while you search, that is an interim CFO. The rest of this page assumes you have decided on a permanent, full-time CFO.
Step 1: write the brief before you write the ad
A CFO brief is a one-page account of the business the person will walk into: the problems on day one, the event on the horizon, and what they have to build. It is not a job description. I sit with founders before any job description exists, because the brief is where the search is won or lost.[2] The CFO job description comes after, and it is much easier to write once the brief exists.
Before the brief, answer four questions most hiring plans skip. What problem is this person actually solving? What does the salary do to runway? What happens if revenue lands late? And are you hiring for today's bottleneck, or for the organisation you want in 18 months?[3] The last one matters most, because in a growing company, as I put it in a short video on finance careers, “every 18 months the business is going to step to a new level.” Price the role against the complexity you will have in a year, not the complexity you have now. In my experience founders under-hire more often than they over-hire, and the cost shows up as a second search.[4]
A good brief comes down to three or four pillars. On a recent fintech CFO search, it was deep securitisation and treasury knowledge the candidate could demonstrate in technical terms, an understanding of international markets, and an appetite for the pace of a high-growth company.[5] For a business heading towards an IPO or an exit, the pillar that outranks the rest is having been through one: a raise, a sale or a listing, and the relentlessness those processes demand.[6]
The ad follows the brief, and it matters more than founders think. I once had a client struggling to fill a finance role because of a weak advert; after we changed it, the role filled in about a week and a half.[7]
Step 2: build a scorecard keyed to your next round
A CFO scorecard is the short list of things the hire must be able to do before your next raise, each with the evidence you will accept. The round you are raising next decides the scorecard far more than the round you have just closed. These are the lines I use with founders.
| Raising a Series A next | Raising a Series B next | |
|---|---|---|
| The seat you are really hiring | Often a head of finance or financial controller with a CFO on the horizon, not a CFO yet. | A CFO who is a peer to the other executives, not someone reporting up to them. |
| Capital | Gets the numbers, model and data room ready for a raise; often alongside an outside adviser who runs raises for a living. | Owns the raise and the capital strategy: debt facilities, secondaries, FX and tax structures. |
| Board and investors | Monthly reporting the board can rely on, and forecasts detailed enough for the board you now report to. | Quarterly, audit-grade reporting and a credible three-year plan for institutional investors. |
| The function | Builds it from scratch: month-end close, billing operations, R&D tax claims, planning, and automating what can be automated. | Lifts the maturity of the function and hires the team underneath as products, entities or countries multiply. |
| Evidence to ask for | Has built a finance function from nothing, not only inherited one. | Has led a raise, sat as a peer in board meetings and hired a finance team before. |
| Red flag | Only big-company experience, with no sign of adaptability or initiative, and talks systems before understanding the business. | Has never owned an investor relationship or a capital decision end to end, whatever the last title said. |
The Series B column is where the CFO title earns its salary. Once institutional investors sit on the board, quarterly reporting, audit-grade numbers and a credible three-year plan are the standard, and capital decisions like debt facilities, secondaries, FX and tax structures need an experienced owner rather than a founder doing it on the side.[8] If your scorecard reads like the Series A column, the person you are describing is very often a head of finance, and the salary bands for each seat are materially different.
Step 3: know where first CFOs actually come from
Where you look decides who you see. When we traced the prior employer of every first-hire CFO among the companies we tracked (56 of them), the largest single source was a large non-tech corporate at 23% (13 of 56), then another startup at 18% (10), a private non-tech business at 13% (7), a not-for-profit or government body at 11% (6), an accounting or advisory firm at 9% (5), a bank at 7% (4) and self-employment at 7% (4). Only one came straight from a Big 4 firm. First heads of finance came from a different mix: of 44, the most common origin was another startup at 32% (14), then a private non-tech business at 23% (10).2
Two things follow from my side of the desk. First, rule out corporate backgrounds at your peril. It is a common belief in startup land that a first finance hire has to come from a startup, and it is wrong: a corporate background often means someone has seen what good looks like and knows exactly what to build.[9] What you are screening for is how they think when there is no playbook in front of them, not the size of their last employer. Second, the best people are often in adjacent sectors founders never search, which the guide to CFO recruitment covers in more detail.
The pool is small either way, and most of the people in it are employed and not looking, which is why the job board is the weakest channel. Of the seven or so placements I had made this year when I was asked about it on the Honest Wealth Builders podcast, four came from a public post telling the story of the role, two from direct outreach and market mapping, and one from an advert.
If you are weighing whether to run the search yourself, I set out what CFO recruitment costs and how long it takes.
Step 4: run three interview stages, not six
A CFO interview process at a startup needs to test three things: whether the person understands your business, whether they can think through a real finance problem in it, and whether you can work together under pressure. I run it as three stages.[10]
| What it tests | What a strong candidate does | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Get to know each other | Both sides collect information: the business, the brief, the candidate's real scope in past roles. | Asks sharp questions about the numbers and the next round. Strong technical candidates get dropped here for not asking enough. |
| 2. Case study on a real problem | A common finance problem in your business, ideally reviewed with a finance person you trust. | The output matters less than the questions, the assumptions they challenge and how they reason through it. |
| 3. Culture and a coffee | Whether you can work together at startup pace, with ambiguity and no playbook. | Is candid about how they handle pressure, and pushes back on you without becoming the blocker. |
Two practical points. If you do not come from finance, borrow the technical judgement: a fractional or virtual CFO you already trust can sit in on the case study or a final sense-check interview and tell you whether the answers hold up, which I recommend to non-finance founders because finance teams are so lean that nobody in-house has hired for the function before. And keep it moving. The candidates you want usually have other conversations running, and a corporate-style process with long gaps between stages is how you lose them.
The questions, the case study and how to judge the answers are in how to interview a CFO or head of finance.
Step 5: check references, with permission
A reference check for a CFO is a conversation with people who have watched the candidate do the specific things on your scorecard. It is not a formality at the end. Always ask the candidate before you call anyone. I have seen reference calls get back to a current employer, and it goes badly for the person you are trying to hire.[11]
Then use the scorecard as the script. Ask each referee about the rows that matter for your next round: did they build the reporting or inherit it, what happened in the last raise or audit, how did they behave when the plan was wrong, and how did the founder or CEO rate their pushback. A referee who can only talk about attitude and work ethic has not seen the work you are hiring for.
Step 6: make the offer, then plan around the notice period
The offer is where a good search is most often lost, and it is where founders are least realistic about time. Most senior finance people worth hiring are employed on four weeks' notice or more, so demanding a two-week start rules out a large part of the market before you begin.[12] At CFO level, three months' notice is the norm for companies under 200 to 300 staff, and anything longer starts to become an obstacle.[13]
For pay, use our CFO salary bands by stage rather than a number from a generic salary guide, and remember that for the first finance hire a long-term incentive is often more of an idea than a meaningful part of the package, so the base does the work.[14] Once they sign, use the notice period. A structured plan for the months between resignation and start date is what separates a CFO who arrives ready from one who spends a quarter catching up, and the CFO's first 90 days sets out what that looks like.
How long it takes to hire a CFO
The time to hire a CFO has two parts: the search, from brief to a signed contract, and the notice period, from signature to first day. The search is the part you control. On my searches it averages about three weeks from the brief meeting to a signed contract, through a first interview, a case study and a final coffee.[15] That is what a clear brief and an existing network make possible, not a promise for every search. The notice period is the part you do not control, and at three months it is usually the longer of the two. Plan the start date around it.
| What slows it down | What it produces | |
|---|---|---|
| Brief | Undecided level: CFO or head of finance. | The one-page story of the role, and the scorecard. |
| Mapping and outreach | Starting from a job board instead of a network. | A list of people who fit, most of them not looking. |
| Shortlist | Adding candidates late because the brief moved. | A small number of assessed candidates, with real trade-offs. |
| Three interview stages | Long gaps between stages; too many interviewers. | A preferred candidate and a credible alternative. |
| References and offer | A counter-offer, or unvested equity at their current employer. | A signed contract. |
| Notice period | Three months is the norm at CFO level. | A start date, and time to prepare the first 90 days. |
Why first CFO hires go wrong
A mis-hired CFO costs far more than the salary: the months of the wrong person in the seat, then a second search. The most common cause I see is level. Hire too senior, too early, and the person is either bored or unable to deliver what you expected, and both end the same way: an exit inside a year and a search you have to run twice.[16]
The study adds a number to that. Among first-hire CFOs who have since left, the median stay was 24 months (38 leavers of the 56 first-hire CFOs we tracked).3 It is a reason to scope the role for the next 18 to 24 months, and to be honest in the interview about how fast the job will change.
The line I use with founders, and in my own calls: “Businesses scale exponentially, people don't.” The CFO who is right for your Series B may not be the one who takes you to an IPO, and that is normal.[17] Hire the person who is right for the next stage, and tell them so.
Tom Hunter's view: The other cause is the relationship. As I said on Olive Insights, “that relationship between finance and ownership is so critical. Rapport, the chemistry, the communication stuff really needs to click. Otherwise, it can make and break it.” (Olive Insights, March 2025) What actually decides whether it works is the relationship between the founder and that CFO. If the founder and their CFO don't genuinely trust each other, that can break the company. (LinkedIn, August 2026)
If you are still deciding whether it is time, I set out the three timing mistakes founders make with the data behind each.
Common questions
How do I hire a CFO for a startup in Australia?
Confirm the job is a full-time CFO rather than a head of finance or a fractional arrangement, write a one-page brief before any job ad, build a scorecard keyed to the round you are raising next, look beyond the job boards because most strong candidates are employed, run three interview stages (get to know each other, a case study on a real problem, culture), check references with the candidate's permission, then plan the start date around a notice period that is usually three months.
How long does it take to hire a CFO?
Think of it as two parts. The search, from brief to signed contract, is the part you control; on my searches it averages about three weeks, which is what a clear brief and an existing network make possible rather than a promise. The notice period is the part you do not control, and at CFO level three months is the norm for companies under 200 to 300 staff, so it is usually the longer of the two.
Should my first finance hire be a CFO?
Usually not. Of the 191 funded Australian startups we tracked with a dated finance hire, only 29% (56) made a CFO their first finance hire, and most started with a head of finance, financial controller or finance manager. My rule of thumb is that a strong Series A business can run with a head of finance, while very few Series B businesses run well without a CFO.
Should I hire a full-time CFO or a fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO suits a business whose finance load is a raise and a model rather than a full-time job, and in my experience the relationship with a provider often lasts 18 to 24 months before the business outgrows it. A full-time CFO makes sense once the work is continuous, there is a team to build, and the board or institutional investors expect audit-grade reporting and a multi-year plan.
Do I need a recruiter to hire a CFO?
Not always. If your network already includes finance leaders who have done a first CFO role well, you can run the process yourself, ideally with a fractional CFO you trust helping to assess candidates technically. A specialist recruiter earns the fee when the right people are employed and not looking, which at first-CFO level is most of them.
What should I look for when hiring a startup CFO?
Evidence of building rather than inheriting: someone who has built a finance function from scratch, and for a Series B CFO, someone who has led a raise, sat as a peer in board meetings and hired a finance team. The red flags are big-company experience with no sign of adaptability, and a candidate who talks systems before understanding your business.
Notes
- The companies were found through the finance people they eventually hired, so a startup still running on an outsourced or fractional CFO does not appear in the data at all.
- The origins come from public LinkedIn histories, so treat them as indicative, not a census.
- The 24-month median describes the leavers only, and it says nothing about why they left.
References
- This is the line I draw in my First CFO playbook: a head of finance owns reporting, FP&A, the board pack and the day-to-day, and a CFO owns capital, investors, M&A and the relationships that move the company forward.
- The brief I write with a founder describes the actual environment and the problems the person will walk into on day one, and what they need to build. Most founders do not come from finance, so without it they end up writing a finance job description based on guesswork.
- These are the four questions I most often see skipped once a hire has been approved and everyone feels good about it. Each one is cheaper to answer before the search than after it.
- A pattern I see in first finance searches: founders price the role against their current complexity, not their complexity in 12 months, and end up hiring again because the person could not scale with them.
- From a fintech CFO brief I took this year. The business is not named because the conversation was private.
- From a CFO brief I took for a company with a liquidity event on the horizon, where the founders wanted a commercial, growth-focused CFO rather than a compliance lead.
- The role was below CFO level, but the lesson carries to any finance hire: the advert is part of the pitch, not an administrative step.
- The Series B expectations as I set them out in my First CFO playbook. The exceptions that pull a CFO hire earlier are a Series B led by a US fund, international expansion, or a complex regulated, hardware or multi-entity model.
- The most useful screen I know for a first finance hire is how they think when there is no playbook, which is a better predictor of fit than whether their last employer was a startup or a corporate.
- The three stages I recommend to clients: an information-gathering conversation from both sides, a case study built on a common finance problem in the business, ideally assessed with a trusted internal or external finance person, and an informal culture conversation.
- I check with a candidate before speaking to anyone they have worked with, because I have seen inquiries reach a current employer and create problems for the candidate.
- Most high-quality senior finance candidates are employed and on four weeks' notice or more, so an urgent two-week start can eliminate half the available pool.
- What I tell clients about notice: for the kind of businesses I work with, six months would be too long, but most CFOs at companies under 200 to 300 staff are on three months, so plan against it.
- For a first finance hire, the packages I see are mostly base plus super; a long-term incentive is often a concept rather than anything substantial early on. At CFO level, equity becomes a real part of the offer.
- My average across searches, from the brief meeting to contract signing: about three weeks. The usual stages are an interview, then a case study, then a coffee.
- From my First CFO playbook: a CFO hired before the business moves fast enough will be bored inside 12 months and gone inside 18.
- A first finance leader can often take the function through to Series A, but institutional Series B investors have very different requirements, and the CFO hired at Series B is often not the one who scales with the business to IPO or exit.
These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.