Why One CFO Isn’t Always Enough

Rethinking how we support financial leadership when complexity outpaces capacity

After more than 20 years in financial leadership roles, I’ve come to appreciate a simple but uncomfortable truth: even the most capable CFOs—myself included—can’t do it all.

We’re responsible for everything from cash management to capital strategy, from system oversight to investor relations. Add in board prep, budgeting, hiring, reporting, compliance, and a few fire drills, and there’s often no room left for the big, strategic work we “want” to be doing—or the areas of risk we know we’re not giving enough attention.

And the demands aren’t slowing down. With shifting tariffs, new regulatory pressures, global instability, and ongoing labor constraints, CFOs are being asked to do more, faster, with greater scrutiny and less margin for error. The questions coming to the CFO’s desk today require agility, experience, and deep business context—and they rarely come one at a time.

This has led me to an idea I’ve been thinking about more lately: Is it time to normalize the concept of financial leadership reinforcement?

We often talk about interim CFOs in the context of vacancy—a gap in leadership. But what I’m talking about isn’t a backfill. It’s a peer-level partnership. A temporary but embedded senior resource who works alongside the existing CFO to focus on a specific challenge, take the lead on a neglected process, or drive a strategic initiative that’s at risk of getting buried beneath day-to-day demands.

And let’s be honest: those demands are real. Even high-performing CFOs are often stuck trying to balance foundational responsibilities with the forward-looking work their business really needs. Strategic planning, M&A prep, team structure, cash flow strategy—these things require space, and sometimes the day-to-day simply doesn’t allow for it.

What if companies had a model that let them bring in an additional CFO-level thinker—not to take over, but to create capacity? Someone with operational fluency who doesn’t need six weeks of onboarding. Someone who knows what “normal” looks like across different industries and company sizes. Someone who can start making progress in week one.

This kind of model doesn’t have to be complicated.  A shadow CFO during a transaction. A defined project with a clear handoff. The point isn’t to displace the person already in the seat. It’s to make that person—and the entire executive team—more effective by giving them room to breathe, think, and lead.

We do this in other parts of the business all the time. Companies bring in legal specialists, IT architects, ops consultants—often at a peer level to someone already in place. But in finance, there’s still a reluctance to augment the CFO unless it’s viewed as an emergency.

Maybe it’s time to shift that thinking.

I’m not suggesting this model is right for every company. But I do think it’s worth discussing more openly. Especially now, when the margin for error is slim, the expectations are high, and the best leaders are the ones willing to build the bench they wish they had.

Have you seen something like this work? Tried it? Struggled with it? I’d love to hear your experience.