When a fintech later put a CFO over its first finance hire, the first hire was still in the seat in 60% of cases (9 of 15).
The second hire comes a median 15 months after the first, and fintechs keep hiring after that
- First to second
33 fintechs15 months - Second to third
30 fintechs9 months - Third to fourth
30 fintechs11 months - Fourth to fifth
26 fintechs7 months
View as a table
| Between hires | Median months | Companies |
|---|---|---|
| First to second | 15 | 33 |
| Second to third | 9 | 30 |
| Third to fourth | 11 | 30 |
| Fourth to fifth | 7 | 26 |
38% (15 of 39) of fintechs had a second finance hire within a year of the first, and 62% (23 of 37) within two, counting only companies whose first hire is at least that old. So a year in, most were still on one person; two years in, most were not. Only 11% (4 of 36) of those whose first hire started three or more years ago are still on one.
After the second hire, fintech does not stop. The 40 fintechs have made 266 finance hires between them, and 65% (26 of 40) have made five or more, against 43% (83 of 191) across all startups. So the second hire is rarely the last one: plan it as the first layer of a team.
The split that decides when a fintech makes its first finance hire, whether the product lends or moves money, does not carry into the second. 45% (9 of 20) of lenders and payments companies hired below the first person, against 46% (6 of 13) of the others, and their median gaps (16 and 11 months) sit well inside each other’s spread. The product sets the first clock. After that, a lender builds like any other fintech.
The first seat sets the direction: no fintech that started with a head of finance hired above them
| First finance hire | Below | Same level | Above |
|---|---|---|---|
| CFO first | 5of 9 | 4of 9 | 0top seat |
| Head of finance first | 6of 9 | 3of 9 | 0of 9 |
| Financial controller first | 2of 5 | 1of 5 | 2of 5, both CFOs |
| Finance manager first | 2of 4 | 1of 4 | 1of 4, a CFO |
| Accountant or analyst first | 0of 6 | 2of 6 | 4of 6, 2 CFOs |
| All fintechs | 45%15 of 33 | 33%11 of 33 | 21%7 of 33, 5 CFOs |
A senior first hire builds underneath or beside: of the 18 fintechs that started with a CFO or head of finance, 61% (11) hired below and 39% (7) at the same level. In software, 25% (3 of 12) of head-of-finance-first companies hired above; in fintech, none of 9 did. When the first hire already holds the capital questions, the next seat goes under them.
The same-level second hire is where fintech stands out: 33% (11 of 33), the highest share of any sector we tracked. Four were a second CFO and three a second head of finance, and in 36% (4 of 11) the first person had left by the month the second started, so part of that is replacement. Where both stay, ask what the second senior seat is for. As I wrote about buying back a founder’s attention, if a finance hire only adds admin and another reporting line, something has gone wrong; the role should create capacity.
A junior first hire is the one that gets someone above: 47% (7 of 15) of the fintechs that started with a controller, finance manager or accountant hired above, 5 of them a CFO.
Above or below your first hire?
Four yes-or-no questions about your finance function as it is today. One yes is enough.
- You still own the forecast, the board pack or the reporting your funders see?
- A raise, a new funding line or an acquisition in the next 12 months that nobody on the team has run before?
- Your first hire is a controller, finance manager or accountant?
- The job has grown past the one your first hire was hired to do?
0 of 4 answered. Your answer appears here after the last one.
Not sure which way your next seat goes? Send me who is in the seat, what they own today and what the next round or funding line needs, and I will tell you.
Get a read on my finance hireIf you are being told to promote, or that AI means nobody below
“Promote your first hire into the CFO seat.” Sometimes that is right.5 It is a different test from hiring a CFO in. On Episode 8 of The CFO Track I asked a fintech CFO about being promoted into the role, because it is a very different challenge to coming in from another business. And as I wrote about a finance leader whose role began to outgrow them, the skills that get you the seat may not be the skills that keep you in it. If you promote, the second hire goes below and becomes the first person they manage.
“AI means you will not need anyone underneath.” It is shrinking that seat. As I said on AccountDads, “your transactional roles or your early stage roles will definitely be impacted”: in one example, automating accounts payable took a team of three or four officers and a manager down to one or two people. In fintech the accountant or analyst is still the most common second hire, 36% (12 of 33). What changes is what you hire them for. On Celia’s Corner I put it this way: “someone really does need to be a business partner and go and speak to non-finance or even non-corporate stakeholders.” Brief the hire below for that.
When a CFO lands over the first hire, the first hire was still there in 60% of cases
Of the 30 fintechs whose first finance hire was below CFO, 50% (15) later hired a CFO, a median 32 months after that first hire. The first hire was still in the seat when the CFO started in 60% (9 of 15). In 33% (5) they had already gone, and in 1 they left in the month the CFO arrived. Across all startups the first hire was still there in 54% of cases (35 of 65), and in software 46% (11 of 24), so in fintech the CFO more often arrived to a seat that was still filled.
Which means the person already in the seat should hear about the CFO search before it starts. I said it in a short video on finance leaders: “every 18 months the business is going to step to a new level ideally if they’re growing,” and someone who does not keep pace will find their skills “relevant for a season of the business’s life.” If your first hire was the right person for the last season, tell them before the search starts where the CFO will sit and what stays theirs, and brief the CFO on how the two of them will split the work.
For the signs that your fintech has reached the CFO point, I set out when a fintech needs its first CFO.
How Block Earner, Simply Wall St and FrankieOne made their second finance hire
Block Earner
An accountant first, and a head of finance above them five months later
- Business
- Crypto-backed lending and yield products, founded 2021
- First finance hire
- Financial accountant, Aug 2021
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 4 months before the seed
- Next finance hire
- Head of finance, Jan 2022, above
- Now
- Head of finance since Mar 2024; finance manager since Apr 2026
Block Earner lends against crypto and offers yield products, so customer money moves through it from the start. Its first finance hire was a financial accountant in August 2021, four months before the seed.
The second came five months later, a head of finance above the accountant, a month after the seed. The accountant stayed another year, to January 2023. The first head of finance left in May 2023, the seat was filled again in March 2024, and a finance manager joined underneath in April 2026, after an A$8 million Series A.
A hands-on first hire with a senior seat above them soon after the round is the usual fintech path from an accountant. Tell the first hire at offer stage that the senior seat is coming.
Simply Wall St
A finance manager first, and an accountant below them 11 months later
- Business
- Share research and portfolio analysis for retail investors, founded 2014
- First finance hire
- Finance manager, Apr 2021
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 68 months after the seed
- Next finance hire
- Accountant, Mar 2022, below
- Now
- Latest on record: financial controller, Nov 2024 to Aug 2026
Simply Wall St sells share research to retail investors by subscription, so customer money does not pass through it. Its first finance hire, a finance manager, started in April 2021, almost four years after its Series A.
The second came 11 months later, an accountant below, in March 2022, inside the 15-month median. Three months after that the finance manager left, so the hire below became the team. An FP&A analyst joined the same year, and the senior seat was not filled again until a financial controller started in November 2024.3
A hire below is only a team if the person above stays. Before you add the second seat, ask the first hire whether they are building a team or planning a move.
FrankieOne
A CFO first, and nobody below them for three years
- Business
- Identity verification and fraud prevention for fintechs and banks, founded 2017
- First finance hire
- CFO, Feb 2019
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 32 months before the Series A
- Next finance hire
- Accountant, Feb 2022, below
- Now
- Second CFO since Oct 2024, with a finance manager and an accountant
FrankieOne sells identity checks and fraud screening to fintechs and banks. It hired a CFO in February 2019, 32 months before its A$20 million Series A, and for three years nobody joined below the CFO on the public record.
The second hire came four months after the Series A: an accountant below the CFO in February 2022, then a financial controller that September, two months before an A$23 million Series A+. It is the most common fintech direction from a CFO start, 5 of 9 hired below. The first CFO left in June 2024 and a second CFO started that October.
A CFO hired early can run alone for a long time, but the round is when the month end lands on them. Put the hire below in the plan for the months after the raise.
Against the other sectors, fintech’s second hire lands at the same level most often
| Second finance hire | Fintech | All startups | Software | Deep tech |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Second hire below the first | 45%15 of 33 | 49%77 of 156 | 53%34 of 64 | 49%23 of 47 |
| Second hire at the same level | 33%11 of 33 | 21%32 of 156 | 16%10 of 64 | 15%7 of 47 |
| Second hire a CFO above the first | 15%5 of 33 | 19%30 of 156 | 17%11 of 64 | 26%12 of 47 |
| First hire still there when a later CFO started | 60%9 of 15 | 54%35 of 65 | 46%11 of 24 | 62%13 of 21 |
| Five or more finance hires so far | 65%26 of 40 | 43%83 of 191 | 35%29 of 82 | 37%19 of 52 |
The clock barely moves between sectors: a median 15 months to the second hire in fintech and software, 16 across all startups and 17 in deep tech. What differs is the shape. Fintech hires beside the first person more often than any other sector, and goes on to build the biggest finance teams. Each sector has its own page: all startups, software and deep tech. The other fintech benchmarks: before or after the raise, how long after a raise and what to hire first.
Common questions
Should a fintech's second finance hire be more senior or more junior than the first?
Usually more junior or at the same level. Of the 33 funded Australian fintechs we tracked that made a second finance hire, 45% (15) hired below the first person, 33% (11) at the same level and 21% (7) above, 5 of them a CFO. None of the 9 that started with a head of finance hired above them; 47% (7 of 15) of those that started with a financial controller, finance manager or accountant did.
How long after the first finance hire do fintechs make the second?
A median 15 months (n=33), with the middle half between 5 and 27 months. 38% (15 of 39) of fintechs made it within a year of the first and 62% (23 of 37) within two, counting only companies whose first hire is that old. The later gaps are shorter: 9 months to the third, 11 to the fourth and 7 to the fifth.
Do lenders and payments companies make the second finance hire sooner?
Not in our data. Lending and payments fintechs hire their first finance person earlier than other fintechs, but the second hire looks the same: 45% (9 of 20) of those that lend or move money hired below the first person, against 46% (6 of 13) of the others, and the median gaps (16 and 11 months) sit well inside each other's spread.
What happens to the first finance hire when a fintech hires a CFO above them?
Usually they are still there. Of the 30 fintechs whose first finance hire was below CFO, 50% (15) later hired a CFO. The first hire was still in the seat when the CFO started in 60% (9 of 15), had left in 33% (5), and left in the CFO's first month in 1. Across all startups the first hire was still there in 54% of cases (35 of 65).
Notes
- It does not show that hiring finance earlier or later causes a better outcome. It records the order things happened in. The only outcome test so far was run on the first 102 companies in the study, before it grew to 194. There, the share that raised again within 24 months of the first finance hire ran 55% when the hire came before any round (27 of 49), 47% at Series A (7 of 15) and 33% at Series B or later (2 of 6), and none of those differences could be told apart from chance (Fisher exact test, p=0.77 and p=0.41). Outcomes have not been collected for the full 194, and companies that hire early and companies that raise again are often the same well-organised companies, so no timing figure in this series is an argument for a timing.
- It is a survivor set. Every company announced a round and has at least one finance employee we could find, so the study describes companies that did build an internal finance function. In the 93 of the first 102 companies with a usable status there was not one insolvency, administration or wind-up. It cannot say what share of Australian startups have no finance lead at all.
- Outsourced and fractional finance is invisible. A virtual or fractional CFO supplied by a firm does not list the startup as an employer, so it never appears in public employment records. 16 of the 191 first hires we tracked (8%) were visibly fractional, part-time or interim, and that is a floor. Every “had no finance hire” figure means no internal hire we could find, among the companies we tracked.
- There is no headcount at the time of the hire. Only today’s headcount is public, so nothing here says “they hired a CFO at 40 staff”. The companies run from roughly 2 to 500 staff today.
- Titles are counted once. Each person is recorded at the earliest finance title they held at the company, so a controller promoted to CFO in the same business reads as a controller. Every “later added a CFO” figure is a floor.
- Rounds are dated by announcement. An announcement usually trails the close by weeks, rounds that were never announced are invisible, and grants and research funding are not in the round series. Round amounts are the least reliable field and no figure in this series rests on one. For 12 companies with names too common to search cleanly, past-staff coverage is a floor.
- It is not the market report. Story’s earlier market report on the first finance hire measured something different, the share of recently funded companies with a finance leader at each stage, so its figures and these do not compare directly.
- Sector and product are tagged by us. “Fintech” means the product is financial; the split into 24 that lend or move money and 16 others is our own reading of each company’s product, and the groups are small, so read the direction, not the decimal. Each seat row in the direction table holds fewer than 10 fintechs, so it shows counts.
The full method, including how rounds were double-checked and how same-named companies overseas were excluded, is in the study’s methodology section.
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.