Your CFO should be a CPA

There’s a growing narrative in boardrooms and executive circles that the modern CFO doesn’t need to be an accountant. That as long as your head of finance is “strategic” and fluent in capital markets, they can leave the debits and credits to someone else. I understand where that thinking comes from—today’s CFOs are expected to be big-picture thinkers, business partners, capital allocators, storytellers.

But let me be clear: your CFO should be a CPA. Not because they need to be closing the books themselves, but because if they don’t understand the technical foundation of their own department, you’re flying blind when it matters most.

Accounting Is the Language of Business

Finance tells the story of the business—but accounting is the language that story is written in. A CFO who doesn’t speak that language fluently is at a disadvantage in every conversation that requires precision, discipline, or defensibility.

They can’t pressure-test the numbers. They can’t spot red flags buried in the GL. They can’t translate operational decisions into financial outcomes with the kind of fidelity that boards, investors, and auditors demand.

And when the pressure’s on—during a financing round, an audit, an acquisition, or a crisis—you don’t want your CFO trying to “phone a friend” for answers that should be instinctive.

Technical Rigor Builds Strategic Credibility

The best CFOs move fluidly between the weeds and the whiteboard. They can go from a strategy session with the CEO to a revenue recognition analysis with the controller without breaking stride. That dual fluency—strategic vision backed by technical rigor—is what sets great finance leaders apart.

You can’t make sound strategic decisions without understanding how those decisions flow through the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. You can’t evaluate growth opportunities without understanding the accounting treatment of deferred revenue, lease liabilities, or goodwill impairment. You can’t build trust across the organization—or with external stakeholders—if you can’t defend the numbers when they’re challenged.

Being a CPA isn’t about clinging to spreadsheets. It’s about having the intellectual tools to evaluate complexity and make judgment calls grounded in GAAP, not guesswork.

Accounting Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum

The technical side of accounting isn’t just a back-office exercise. It shapes how the business operates.

Revenue recognition policies impact sales commission structures. Inventory valuation affects gross margin. Lease classifications affect debt covenants. If your CFO doesn’t understand these levers, they can’t advise operations, product, or sales in a meaningful way. Worse, they may inadvertently encourage behaviors that optimize for optics instead of value.

A CPA-trained CFO doesn’t just “know the rules”—they understand the purpose behind them. They can anticipate second-order effects, navigate gray areas with integrity, and align accounting policy with business strategy in a way that holds up under scrutiny.

M&A, Capital Raises, and Public Company Readiness

There’s a reason investment bankers and private equity firms breathe easier when they see a CPA in the CFO seat: they know things won’t fall apart in diligence.

Accounting issues sink deals all the time. Misclassified expenses, sloppy revenue recognition, unrecorded liabilities—they all show up eventually, and they all erode trust. A CPA-trained CFO knows how to run a tight close, document positions clearly, and defend every line item under audit or investor review.

If your company has ambitions to scale, raise capital, or go public, the technical backbone of your finance function will be under the microscope. A CFO who can’t speak with authority on those matters will get steamrolled—or worse, expose the company to risk it doesn’t see coming.

Strategic Doesn’t Mean Surface-Level

Too often, “strategic CFO” becomes a euphemism for someone who’s good in meetings but light on substance. That’s not strategy—that’s performance.

Real strategy is resource allocation. It’s scenario planning. It’s knowing which levers to pull to grow margin, extend runway, or prepare for a downcycle. And all of those levers are encoded in the accounting.

A good CPA brings analytical discipline to that work. They question assumptions, test edge cases, and build models grounded in how value is actually created and measured. Their insights aren’t just high-level—they’re structurally sound.

The Best of Both Worlds

Not every CPA is automatically a great CFO. Plenty of technically brilliant accountants struggle to elevate into leadership roles. The best CFOs aren’t just technically sound—they’re communicators, collaborators, and strategic thinkers.

But when you find someone who brings all of that and a CPA foundation? You’ve got someone who can operate with both vision and precision. Someone who can build investor confidence, drive cross-functional alignment, and scale the business with discipline.

So no, your CFO shouldn't be closing the books. But they have to understand how the books get closed—and what each number means.

Because in the end, the numbers tell the story. And your CFO should be the one writing it.