If you’re working in finance at a startup and aiming for a CFO role, the gap isn’t technical.

Most people already have the accounting, reporting, and modelling skills.

The real shift is how you think, how you communicate, and how you support decisions in a business that’s moving quickly and doesn’t have perfect information.

Here are the five skills that actually move someone from finance manager or controller into a CFO role in a startup.

1. Turning Numbers Into Decisions

This is the biggest shift.

At a certain level, everyone can produce reports. That’s not what makes you a CFO.  Instead, what matters is:

• what do these numbers mean
• what should the business do next
• what are the trade-offs

For example, questions that a CFO may ask when reviewing month end are:

• Do we slow hiring to extend runway?
• Do we increase spend to accelerate growth?
• Which product or channel should we focus on?

If you’re only presenting numbers without a point of view, you’re not operating as a CFO yet.  You're just reporting history and this is a Financial Controller level, not a CFO.

2. Commercial Understanding (Including Cash Runway)

You need to understand how the business makes money and how long it can survive.  Cash is so important for a startup and scaleup, largely because they don't have much of it!  So it needs an absolute focus.  

That means, really getting under the skin and constantly tracking:

• revenue drivers
• pricing and margins
• customer behaviour
• cost structure
• and critically, cash runway

In startups, runway drives decision-making because every decision ties back to:

• how much cash is left
• how quickly it’s being spent
• what needs to change to extend it

If you don’t understand both the commercial model and the cash position, you can’t guide the business properly.   If you aren't doing it, either a competent founder does it for you, a CFO is hired above you or the business has real problems....

3. Communication (With Non-Finance Teams)

You can be technically strong, but if people don’t understand you, it doesn’t matter if you are or aren't.

You really need to be able to:

• explain financial concepts simply
• present to founders and leadership teams
• influence decisions without overwhelming people with detail

I have often seen finance professionals overcomplicate things.

But, I have also seen the best CFOs simplify.  Super simple.  Which can sound harder than it actually is.  But the simpler the better.  

These CFOs help the business understand:

• what matters
• what’s changing
• what needs to happen next

4. Prioritisation

There is always too much to do in a startup.  You will never have a complete to-do list.  There is always something on fire that needs your attention.

So the skill is deciding:

• what actually matters right now
• what can wait
• what doesn’t need doing at all

Without this, you get stuck firefighting,  reacting andtrying to fix everything at once.

Strong CFOs focus on the few things that move the business forward.  If you need help with this, take a look at the Eisenhower Matrix.  I did a post on it here.

5. Leadership

Being a leader is definitely not only about sending 100s of reports around the business and ensuring that you are on top of compliance.  There is so many nuances to leadership and it is a skillset that requires learning (I definitely had to learn it the hard way!)

Leadership is all about:

• building a team
• setting standards
• developing people
• creating structure

You need to move from doing everything yourself

to:

building a team that can operate without you

This is where a lot of strong finance professionals struggle.  Particularly when moving from manager to a leader and it isn't unusual to struggle this way.  If you find yourself here, then take a look at the links at the bottom of this post to help you.

If you want to become a CFO in a startup, these are the skills that matter.

Not more technical knowledge.

Not more complex models.

Instead, it's how you think,  how you communicate, how you make decisions, how you prioritise and how you lead.

These are the areas that founders notice.

And these are the skills that get you into the role.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll also cover why some finance directors never make the step up to CFO, the mistakes that slow that transition down, and what founders actually expect from the role.  If you want to be notified when new posts are live, subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Want to become a confident, strategic finance leader in a startup within the next 12 months? 

Here’s your plan:

1. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and Newsletter for weekly practical tips and real talk about startup finance leadership.
2. Read my book Financial Leadership Fundamentals to get clear on what’s expected of you and how to show up as a leader.
3. Join the Financial Leadership Fundamentals course to fast-track your growth with structure, support, and strategy that works in the real world.