CFO Executive Search
CFO Executive Search, Brisbane and South East Queensland
Businesses hire their first serious CFO later than they should. Once the numbers are driving investment decisions, funding, acquisitions or a transformation, a strong financial controller is not always enough. Those are different jobs, and neither person is failing.
What a Chief Financial Officer does in a mid-market business
A Chief Financial Officer owns capital, funding, forecasting, commercial decision support and the numbers a board relies on. In Queensland's mid-market and private equity-backed businesses, the first genuine CFO appointment is usually triggered by a raise, an acquisition, a major transformation or an approaching exit.
The trigger
When founders and boards hire a CFO
The numbers are now driving decisions
Investment, pricing, capital allocation. When the ledger has to inform strategy rather than record it, the role has changed.
Funding, M&A or a transaction is in view
Debt facilities, raises, acquisitions and exits all reward a CFO who has done that specific thing before.
The founder is holding cash and margin in their head
It works until it does not, and it usually stops working around $30M to $60M of revenue.
Reporting no longer stands up to outside scrutiny
The first serious diligence process is where most businesses discover this, at the worst possible time.
The assessment
What a strong CFO appointment looks like
- 01
Understands the numbers, and more importantly knows what the numbers mean and what the business should do next.
- 02
Has run the specific playbook you need, whether that is a raise, an integration, a turnaround or a sale process.
- 03
Is trusted by operations. A CFO the business avoids is an expensive scorekeeper.
- 04
Can present to a board and an investor without rehearsing for a week.
- 05
Builds a finance team that closes reliably, so the CFO can spend their time on the decisions instead of the close.
CFO compensation in South East Queensland
Total package ranges drawn from our own Queensland search data, reviewed quarterly. Equity, options and carried interest sit outside these figures unless noted.
Financial Controller, mid-market
Total package. Often the role that precedes a first CFO appointment.
$170,000 to $220,000
CFO, founder-led, $30M to $80M revenue
Commercial CFO with funding and forecasting accountability.
$250,000 to $330,000
CFO, private equity-backed
Base plus short-term incentive plus equity aligned to the exit.
$320,000 to $450,000
Interim or fractional
Common through transactions, system implementations and CFO transitions.
$1,600 to $2,600 per day
Ranges come from our Queensland search data, reviewed quarterly. Total packages exclude equity, options and carried interest unless noted.
The Queensland market
What we see in the CFO market here
The most common error we correct is the assumption that the best technical accountant becomes the best commercial CFO. Some do. Plenty do not, and the ones who do usually already have a commercial scar or two to describe.
Brisbane has strong financial controller depth and a much thinner pool of CFOs who have carried a transaction end to end. Where a raise or an exit is genuinely in view, we widen the search interstate early rather than late.
Private equity-backed CFO searches move faster than any other appointment we run. Candidates who have lived through a hold period know exactly what they are signing up for, and the ones who have not should be told plainly.
Questions we are asked
CFO hiring questions, answered
The trigger is rarely revenue on its own. It is complexity. A first CFO becomes necessary when the business is contemplating a raise, an acquisition, a material debt facility or an exit, or when the founder can no longer hold pricing, margin, cash and working capital in their head at once. That is usually somewhere between $30M and $60M of turnover.
A controller owns accuracy, controls and the close. A CFO owns capital, forecasting and the commercial decisions the numbers point to. Promoting a strong controller into a CFO role works when they have already been doing the second job informally, and it fails when the business assumes the two roles are the same one with a bigger title.
Our South East Queensland data shows CFO packages between $250,000 and $330,000 in founder-led businesses of $30M to $80M revenue, and $320,000 to $450,000 in private equity-backed businesses where incentives and equity form part of the structure. Interim CFOs engage at $1,600 to $2,600 per day.
If a raise, an acquisition or an exit is likely inside three years, yes, and it is worth paying for. Diligence is a specific discipline and learning it live is expensive. If none of those events are in view, prioritise commercial judgement and operational partnership instead.
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