Lessons from CFOs who became CEOs

According to fresh results from this year’s CFO Day Survey, nearly three quarters of all CFOs are eyeing the top job and aspire to be CEO after their current role. And their ambitions are not unrealistic: a third of all CEOs of the JSE Top-40 are previous finance executives. But what does it take to scale the highest summit? Which different skills are required? How do you move from numbers to people and strategy? CFO Magazine spoke to five former CFOs who were promoted to CEO – at AECOM Africa, Attacq, the FoodBev SETA, Imperial Logistics and Peregrine – to find out what it takes.