Most Australian startups start below CFO, and no seat below CFO takes more than a quarter of first hires. When a CFO does follow, the first hire is still in the role more often than not: in at least 35 of the 65 cases we tracked.
71% of Australian startups hired below CFO first
A CFO was the first finance hire at 56 of the 191 startups, 29%. The other 135 started with a head of finance, a financial controller, an accountant or a finance manager, and no single seat below CFO took more than a quarter of first hires. So the real choice for most founders is between four seats, and the title matters less than what the person owns.
- CFO29% 56 of 191
- Head of finance or finance director23% 44 of 191
- Financial controller19% 36 of 191
- Accountant or FP&A analyst15% 29 of 191
- Finance manager14% 26 of 191
View as a table
| First finance hire | Startups | Share of 191 |
|---|---|---|
| CFO | 56 | 29% |
| Head of finance or finance director | 44 | 23% |
| Financial controller | 36 | 19% |
| Accountant or FP&A analyst | 29 | 15% |
| Finance manager | 26 | 14% |
The split between those seats is simpler than the titles suggest. A financial controller owns controls, compliance and reporting. A head of finance leans forward into the model, the budget and the forecast. A CFO owns capital, investors and governance. Knowing that does not make the choice easy. The first internal finance hire catches founders off guard: it is a different decision to most hires, there is no obvious benchmark, and the cost of getting it wrong shows up slowly rather than all at once. Most founders also come from growth, sales, product or investing rather than finance, so, as I said on Celia’s Corner, they often do not have the networks to hire finance people the way they hire for growth and tech. Five questions get you most of the way.
Find your first seat
Five yes-or-no questions about the business as it is today. The first yes sets the seat.
- Is there less than a full-time job in finance today, even at month end?
- Raising, or answering to investors, lenders or an acquirer, in the next 12 months?
- Does the board need a forecast, a budget or a model nobody inside can build?
- Are the books, the month end or the controls behind?
- Will the business look very different in 18 months: a second product, a second market or a much larger round?
0 of 5 answered. Your answer appears here after the last one.
Not sure which seat fits? Send me what finance covers today and where the business will be in 18 months, and I will tell you.
Get a read on my first finance hireFor 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.
For each seat’s own record, how long it lasted and how soon a CFO followed it, see what each first finance hire led to.
Hire the seat you will need in 12 to 18 months
The brief goes wrong when it is written for this quarter. The problems you have with finance now are rarely the problems you will have in a year and a half, and a growing business gets there faster than founders plan for. As I put it on Celia’s Corner:
“If you’re in a growing business, the now is a very short period of time and it’s very different to six months from now.”
Sometimes that means “hiring the person for six months from now rather than hiring the person for now”, and giving them enough scope to build the role and grow into it. In practice it usually means briefing one level above today’s gap: a controller who can forecast rather than an accountant who closes the month, or a head of finance who can run a board pack rather than a controller who needs someone above them to.
It also changes what you pay for. When I broke down what different first-hire budgets buy, the top of the range was someone who has been the first finance hire before, and what that buys is not having to replace them in 18 months. That is the most expensive version of this decision: hiring for today, then running the search again when the person cannot scale with the business.
About half get a CFO above the first hire, and more often than not the first hire is still there
Of the 135 startups whose first finance hire was below CFO, 65 (48%) have since hired a CFO, a median 26 months after that first hire. In at least 35 of those 65 the first hire was still in the role when the CFO started, which means the CFO more often arrived as a layer above them than as a replacement. Starting with a CFO does not settle the question either: 28 of the 56 CFO-first startups have since hired another one. What happens when the second hire itself is the CFO, and how to tell the person already in the seat, is in the second finance hire benchmark.
If you are being told to hire differently
“Hire the CFO now, so we only hire once.” The data does not support the “once”. Half of the CFO-first startups hired a second CFO, a median three years later, so a CFO today is not a guarantee against another senior search. Hire the CFO first when the next 12 to 18 months are about capital, investors and governance.
“If they cannot grow into the CFO, it was the wrong hire.” A head of finance or a controller who is still running the numbers when a CFO arrives above them is the most common outcome, as the figures above show. Some businesses outgrow people on a timeline no one can match. As I said on The CFO Track, “some of these businesses really do grow exponentially, and it’s hard for a human to do that.” Tell your first hire at offer stage where the senior seat will sit, and whether it is theirs to grow into.
Plan the second hire when you make the first: it comes a median 16 months later
Most startups do not stop at one. Only 35 of 191 (18%) have made a single finance hire so far, and among the 156 that made a second, the median gap was 16 months, with each hire after that coming sooner. If your first hire is a controller or head of finance, the second is most often either the support they need or the CFO they will report to, and it is worth deciding which before you make the first offer.
For which way the second hire goes, how fast the hires after it follow, and when, read the second finance hire benchmark.
For who sits where once there are two or three of them, I set out how to structure a finance team as you scale.
Most first hires stay about two years
Of the 191 first finance hires, 59 (31%) are still in the role. The 125 who have left stayed a median 25 months, which means that when the seat turns over, it tends to be around the two-year mark, roughly when a CFO tends to arrive. 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. Startup titles run generous, so a “step down” into a larger company is often a step sideways.
When the first hire does leave, re-brief the seat before you fill it. The business that needed a controller two years ago may need a head of finance now. Most finance leaders already work this way: in our Q2 2026 State of the Market report, 81% said they pause to reassess a role before replacing a resignation, and only 5% replace like for like straight away.
Four in five first hires did not come from another startup
Every one of the 191 first hires was labelled by the employer they came from. 37 (19%) came straight from another startup. The rest came from somewhere with more structure: a private business outside tech, a large corporate, an accounting or advisory firm, a bank.
| Previous employer | First hiresshare of 191 |
|---|---|
| Private business outside tech | 20%38 of 191 |
| Another startup | 19%37 of 191 |
| Large corporate outside tech | 16%31 of 191 |
| Accounting, advisory or CFO services firm | 13%24 of 191 |
| Bank | 6%11 of 191 |
| Non-profit or government | 5%10 of 191 |
| Listed tech company | 5%9 of 191 |
| Big 4 | 4%8 of 191 |
| VC or private equity | 4%8 of 191 |
| Self-employed | 4%7 of 191 |
| Not stated, or a career break | 4%8 of 191 |
“It has to be someone from a startup.” That is the objection I hear most often at this stage, and it is one of the biggest myths in startup finance hiring. A corporate background does not stop someone building from scratch; it often means they have seen what good looks like and know what they are trying to build. I wrote about a head of finance who came straight out of a large corporate to be a health tech company’s first finance hire. Three years in, they had raised capital and built the whole function below them. Insist on startup experience and you cut out four in five of the people who have done this job.
How Zeller and Provectus Algae built from the first seat
Two first seats and two different next steps, told from public profile titles and announced rounds: a head of finance who has run finance with no CFO above them, and a financial controller who stayed when a CFO was hired above them.
Zeller
A head of finance before the seed, still running finance six years on
- Business
- Payment terminals and business banking (founded 2020)
- First finance hire
- Head of finance and analytics, Apr 2020
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 2 months before
- Next finance hire
- Junior accountant, Jul 2022 (27 months later)
- Now
- Head of finance still in role; five finance hires, no CFO in public records (Sep 2026)
Zeller builds payment terminals and business accounts for small businesses. Its first finance person, a head of finance and analytics, started in April 2020, two months before a A$6.3 million seed round. Over the next two years the company raised a A$25 million Series A, a further A$50 million and a A$100 million Series B, and the same person ran finance through all of it.
The next finance hire we can see is a junior accountant in July 2022, 27 months after the first, followed by a management accountant and an FP&A manager. Six years in, the first hire is still in the seat and no CFO appears in public records, though outside advisers on the capital work never would.
A head of finance hired for where the business was going can carry it through several rounds. When that works, the next hires go in underneath them.
Provectus Algae
A financial controller before the seed, then a CFO above them 15 months later
- Business
- Algae-based feed and specialty ingredients (founded 2018)
- Rounds
- Seed, Oct 2020 (US$3.25M); pre-Series A, Dec 2021 (US$11.4M); Series A, Jul 2025 (US$12.6M with grant funding)
- First finance hire
- Financial controller, Dec 2019
- Against the first roundVs first round
- 10 months before
- Next finance hire
- CFO, Mar 2021, above the controller (15 months later)
- Now
- No finance employee in public records since Apr 2025 (Sep 2026)
Provectus Algae, based in Noosa, grows algae for animal feed and specialty ingredients, including a supplement that cuts the methane cattle produce. Its first finance hire, a financial controller, started in December 2019, ten months before a US$3.25 million seed round. A CFO joined above them in March 2021, 15 months later and nine months before a US$11.4 million pre-Series A.
The controller stayed, and the two worked side by side for more than two years, with a financial accountant added beneath them in April 2022. The controller left in July 2023 and the CFO in April 2025, three months before a US$12.6 million Series A that included grant funding. No finance employee appears in public records since, so whoever does that work now is outside help the data cannot see.
A CFO over a sitting controller does not have to cost you the controller. Tell the first hire at offer stage that the senior seat may go above them, and brief the CFO on how the two will split the work.
Two first seats, and two next steps: hires underneath a head of finance who stayed, and a CFO above a controller who stayed on beside them for more than two years.
By industry
This page covers every funded startup in the study together. Each industry has its own first-seat benchmark, with its own figures and case companies:
- What Australian tech startups hire first in finance (software and internet)
- What Australian fintechs hire first in finance
- What Australian deep tech companies hire first in finance
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 right seat is the one the business will need in 12 to 18 months.
If my first finance hire is below CFO, will I have to replace them when I hire a CFO?
More often than not, the CFO goes above them. Of the 135 startups we tracked whose first finance hire was below CFO, 65 later hired a CFO, a median 26 months after the first hire. In at least 35 of those 65, the first hire was still in their role when the CFO started.
How long does a startup's first finance hire usually stay?
Of the 191 first finance hires we tracked, 59 (31%) 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 do the second and third finance hires follow?
Among the startups we tracked, the median gap from the first finance hire to the second was 16 months (156 companies), then 11 months to the third (120), 8 to the fourth (107) and 7 to the fifth (83). Only 35 of 191 (18%) have made a single finance hire so far.
Does a startup's first finance hire need startup experience?
Most did not come from one. Of 191 first finance hires we tracked, 37 (19%) joined straight from another startup. The rest came from private businesses outside tech (38), large corporates (31), accounting, advisory and CFO services firms (24), banks (11) and elsewhere. A corporate background does not stop someone building a finance function from scratch.
Where these numbers come from
All figures come from Story Recruitment’s study of 194 funded Australian startups, 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, and “no CFO” means no CFO employee we could find. 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, and a first hire promoted out of their first title can read as having left: both the CFO figure and the “still in their role when the CFO started” figure are floors. Eleven of the 65 first-hire and CFO pairs carry a year-only date on the first hire, the CFO or the exit; three of those are among the 35. Tenure describes leavers only. The two company sequences are read from public profiles and announced rounds, titles and dates only. The study records what happened and in what order, and nothing in it shows 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.
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.