Chief financial officer

The chief financial officer (CFO) of a company is the person primarily responsible for financial planning and record-keeping. In recent years, however, the role has expanded to encompass communicating financial performance and forecasts to the analyst[?] community. The title is equivalent to finance director[?], commonly seen in the United Kingdom.

Whereas a UK Finance Director is commonly a chartered accountant[?], it has become commonplace for non-accountants to become CFOs in the United States. Indeed, many CFOs have an MBA but no CPA or other accounting qualification. This has been criticised in some quarters as a contributory factor to the wave of accounting scandals seen in the US in 2002. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 aims to address this by requiring at least one member of the company's Audit Committee[?] to hold an accounting qualification.

See also: company officer[?], board of directors, corporate title, chief executive officer, chief information officer, chief operating officer[?]