In the UK, the CEO Path Runs Through Finance First

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  umeshgupta5305/15/08 Report as spam
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  CEO path rund thro' Finance First

  For a long time, being incharge of Finance function, they do not actively participate in day to day operation of the company, therefore remain unscathed. For any failure in the company's performance, Finance Director is generally not blamed because at that time he is considered as head of teasury who works as per the direction of CEO.
  
  Such situation in the end help them to become CEO of the company.

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  littul@...05/15/08 Report as spam
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  RE: In the UK, the CEO Path Runs Through Finance First

  Don't we have the CFO for that - specializing in finance?
  
  The CEO ought to be creative in order to provide strategic direction to the company; improved financial health of a business is a result of the "creative" leadership qualities of the CEO. I do not discount the fact that finance is a necessary skill, but it definitely is not the leading one for a CEO.
  
  May be the focus should be on analyzing "the most successful 200 CEOs" instead of "200 CEOs"?

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  Jeffreyfrankel05/16/08 Report as spam
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  RE: In the UK, the CEO Path Runs Through Finance First

  I dont think it's an either or situation. In the UK there are standard management career paths to the top, which include operations (engineers, chemists etc), finance, sales and marketing. At any given moment in time one of these paths becomes more populated than the others. This may be due to necessity (during the dot com boom only IT trained people could understand the technology so finance, legal, sales and marketing people were at a disadvantage) or fashion (some fifteeen or twenty years ago marketing MBA's were in). The people who rise to the top, by their nature are competent in more than one area of business, and that will include soft skills, whether or not they have extensive experience in sales or marketing. How a CEO was trained is less important than his ability to integrate all the skills of his team members for the benefit of the company.

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  zenzola05/16/08 Report as spam
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  RE: In the UK, the CEO Path Runs Through Finance First

  It is interesting that finance, marketing and sales are mentioned but not HR. The one function that cuts accross all disciplines and should have expertise to integrate all functions is HR. The only CEO of prominence that I have heard make the case for HR being strategic and more important than the CFO is Jack Welsh. Admittedly in most firms HR does not have the role it should if "people are our most imprtant asset".
  
  Ed Zenzola
  www.zenzolagroup.com