71% of the funded Australian startups we tracked (135 of 191) made their first finance hire below CFO. 65 of those 135 (48%) later added a CFO above that first hire, a median 26 months after it.
Which seat comes first
The first finance hire is the first person a startup employs whose job is finance. In the 191 companies with a dated finance hire, that person was a CFO in 56 cases (29%). The other 135 (71%) started lower: most often a head of finance or finance director, then a financial controller.
| First finance hire | All (n=191) | Tech (n=82) | Fintech (n=40) | Deep tech (n=52) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CFO | 56 (29%) | 20 (24%) | 10 (25%) | 20 (38%) |
| Head of finance or finance director | 44 (23%) | 19 (23%) | 12 (30%) | 10 (19%) |
| Financial controller | 36 (19%) | 18 (22%) | 6 (15%) | 10 (19%) |
| Accountant or FP&A analyst | 29 (15%) | 15 (18%) | 6 (15%) | 6 (12%) |
| Finance manager | 26 (14%) | 10 (12%) | 6 (15%) | 6 (12%) |
| Started below CFO | 135 (71%) | 62 (76%) | 30 (75%) | 32 (62%) |
That matches what I see. A founder rarely gets a CFO in first; it is usually a financial controller or a head of finance. The difference between those two seats matters more than the title suggests, and I explained it on a podcast like this:
“The biggest difference between those two style roles is financial controller is more around, as in the name, financial controls and compliance and reporting, where a head of finance is probably going to be a little bit more broadly across the forward-looking tasks. Like financial modelling or FP&A... or the budgeting and forecasting component.”
Deep tech is the exception worth noticing: 20 of its 52 first hires (38%) were a CFO, the highest share of any sector. Grants, R&D claims and capital-heavy raises pull a senior finance person in earlier. Software sits at the other end, with 62 of 82 (76%) starting below CFO.
For what each seat owns, what it costs and when it is the right one, I compare the CFO, the financial controller and the head of finance side by side.
Does the first hire get a CFO above them?
This is the question founders ask me that nobody had put a number on. Of the 135 companies whose first finance hire was below CFO, 65 (48%) have since added a CFO. The median gap from that first hire to the CFO was 26 months (n=65). The other 70 have not added one yet; some are simply too recent to have reached that point, so 48% is a floor for the eventual share, not a ceiling.
It fits what I see in briefs. The first person in finance is often not the person who will sit in the CFO seat, so the CFO is hired above them.[1] That is not a failure of the first hire. A head of finance and a CFO are different jobs, and a business that needed the first at seed can need the second by Series B.[2] The expensive mistake is usually the hire that follows the first one, when a founder priced the first seat against today’s complexity instead of where the business would be 12 to 24 months later. As I put it to founders: businesses scale exponentially, people don’t.
So if you are hiring a financial controller at seed, go in with your eyes open. Nearly half of the companies in the study that started below CFO later added one. Brief the first hire for the business you will be in two years, and be honest with the candidate about whether the CFO seat is on the table.
How fast the next finance hires follow
Most companies do not stop at one. Only 35 of 191 (18%) have made a single finance hire so far; 83 have made five or more. Each later hire tends to come sooner than the one before it.
| Gap | Median months | Companies (n) |
|---|---|---|
| First to second hire | 16 | 156 |
| Second to third | 11 | 120 |
| Third to fourth | 8 | 107 |
| Fourth to fifth | 7 | 83 |
The second hire is most often an accountant or FP&A analyst (52 of the 156 companies that made one), then a CFO (43), a finance manager (22), a head of finance (21) and a financial controller (18). In other words, the second hire splits two ways: support underneath the first person, or a CFO above them. I often say that every 18 months the business is going to step to a new level if it is growing, and the finance team has to step with it. The gaps above are what that looks like in practice.
For who sits where once there are two or three of them, I set out how to structure a finance team as you scale.
How long the first hire stays, and where they go
Of the 191 first finance hires, 59 (31%) are still in the role. The 125 who have left stayed a median 25 months. That is a figure about leavers only: it does not tell you how long the people still there will stay.
91 of the 125 leavers list a next role. 39 moved at the same level, 12 stepped up, 15 stepped down, and 25 left the finance track or took a broader executive role. Treat those splits as indicative, because startup titles run generous and a “step down” into a larger company is often nothing of the kind.
Where first finance hires came from
Every one of the 191 first hires was labelled by the employer they came from. The largest sources were other startups and private businesses outside tech, not the Big 4.
| Previous employer | First hires |
|---|---|
| Private business outside tech | 38 |
| Another startup | 37 |
| Large corporate outside tech | 31 |
| Accounting, advisory or CFO services firm | 24 |
| Bank | 11 |
| Non-profit or government | 10 |
| Listed tech company | 9 |
| Big 4 | 8 |
| VC or private equity | 8 |
| Self-employed | 7 |
| Not stated, or a career break | 8 |
Fewer than one in five first hires (37 of 191) came straight from another startup. Most came from somewhere with more structure, and in fintech the largest sources were banks and large corporates, 7 each of 40. That is worth sitting with if your brief says “must have startup experience”. A corporate background does not stop someone building from scratch; what I look for is how they think when there is no playbook.[3]
Three sequences, in the order they happened
Each is described from public profile titles and publicly announced rounds, in order. They are sequences, not prescriptions.
- Zepto (fintech). A director of finance, listed as part-time, started in April 2020, 23 months before its Series A was announced in March 2022. A head of finance followed in August 2021, seven months before the round, and a CFO in January 2023, ten months after it. At least nine finance hires by 2025.
- Block Earner (fintech). A financial accountant started in August 2021, four months before its seed round was announced in December 2021. A head of finance followed in January 2022, the month after the round.
- Sicona Battery Technologies (deep tech). A part-time CFO started in July 2020, 13 months before its pre-Series A round in August 2021. A full-time CFO followed in August 2023, two months after its Series A, with a finance manager the month after.
All three had someone in finance before their first round and brought in a more senior person within months of a round. That is one route, not the only one, and the timing of each company’s first hire against its first round is set out in when Australian startups make their first finance hire.
How these figures were built
All figures come from Story Recruitment’s study of 194 funded Australian startups (83 tech, 53 deep tech, 40 fintech, 18 other), each with a venture round confirmed by two independent searches of public funding announcements. 191 have a dated finance hire. Hires are dated from public professional profiles, using the earliest finance role each person held at the company; 966 hires were dated, 907 to the month. Titles are grouped as CFO; head of finance or finance director (including VP Finance); financial controller; finance manager; and accountant or FP&A analyst.
Limits. “First finance hire” is the earliest one we could identify. An outsourced or fractional CFO supplied by a firm does not appear in public employment records; 16 of 191 first hires (8%) were visibly fractional, part-time or interim, which is a floor. Each person is counted once, at their earliest finance title, so a first hire later promoted into the CFO seat does not count as a CFO being added: the upgrade figure is also a floor. Tenure describes leavers only. The study records what happened and in what order; it does not show that any seat or sequence leads to a better outcome. The full method is on the study’s timing page. Data read 23 September 2026.
Common questions
Should a startup's first finance hire be a CFO?
Usually not. In Story Recruitment's study of 194 funded Australian startups, 135 of the 191 with a dated finance hire (71%) started below CFO: a head of finance or finance director (44), a financial controller (36), an accountant or FP&A analyst (29) or a finance manager (26). 56 (29%) started with a CFO, the highest share being in deep tech (20 of 52, 38%).
If my first finance hire is a financial controller, will I need a CFO above them later?
Often. Of the 135 companies we tracked whose first finance hire was below CFO, 65 (48%) have since added a CFO, a median 26 months after that first hire. The rest have not, at least so far; some are too recent to have reached that point.
How long does a startup's first finance hire usually stay?
Of the 191 first finance hires we tracked, 59 are still in the role. The 125 who have left stayed a median 25 months. That figure describes leavers only, not everyone who was hired.
How quickly does a startup make its second and third finance hires?
Among the companies we tracked, the median gap from the first finance hire to the second was 16 months (n=156), then 11 months to the third (n=120), 8 to the fourth (n=107) and 7 to the fifth (n=83). 35 of 191 companies (18%) have made only one finance hire so far.
References
- This is the pattern I see most in the briefs I take: the first finance person is often a head of finance or VP Finance rather than a CFO, and most of them are not ready to step into the CFO seat when the business needs one, so a CFO ends up being hired above them.
- The way I explain the split to founders: a head of finance owns reporting, FP&A, the board pack and the day to day. A CFO owns capital, investors, M&A, the narrative and the relationships that move the company forward. You can run a strong Series A business with the first. Series B usually needs the second.
- Something I remind candidates of as often as founders: a corporate background does not mean someone cannot build from scratch. What matters is how they think when there is no playbook in front of them.
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.