More than two out of three listed companies in Italy hire a chief financial officer who has no experience in the role. The phenomenon, which mainly concerns our country, emerged from an analysis conducted by the head hunting company Spencer Stuart, on the profiles and backgrounds of the CFOs of companies listed on the Ftse Mib and from the comparison with other European countries.
Corrado Passera and Gianluca Raisoni, Spencer Stuart consultants, explain that “the study offers several interesting food for thought for managers who are in the course of the career process towards the role of CFO, for the CFOs themselves and for the board of directors, especially in comparison with the European market on highly topical issues such as diversity, internationality and corporate governance ».
Coming to the data, first of all it must be said that 57% of the companies analyzed by the Ftse Mib choose their own financial director, but only 27% can count on a manager who has already played the same role in another company. This figure places Italy on the same level as Germany, but well below the European average, where the percentage rises to 42%. In company requests, experience is not considered a fundamental parameter. Among the CFOs who come from outside, and therefore do not enter the role after having made a journey in the company, the percentage of those with experience rises up to 44% but still remains below half and very far from the European average which is 70. %. The analysis also shows that this is a manager who has a rather long corporate life, with a mandate that in Italy lasts an average of 6.7 years, compared to 5.2 in Europe.
«As regards the relevant experiences preparatory to the role, the data suggest that experiences outside the finance and control area are rewarding in line with the growing centrality of the CFO in the company – interpret Passera and Raisoni -. The data also tell us that in a significant number of cases the role of CFO of Italian listed companies is held by executives who are at the first experience as number 1 of the function and indicate how from the CFO function it is possible in non-isolated cases also to rise to the role of CEO “.
If experience is a topic on which a rather surprising figure emerges given the importance of the role, the one on which there seems to be a lot to work on are the issues of diversity and inclusion: in Italy, in fact, women CFOs are about l 11%, therefore just one in ten, less, albeit slightly, compared to Europe which has an average of 14%, which has doubled from 2013 to today. The country where there are more women in this role is Spain with 23%.