The survey by executive search firm Korn Ferry International shows that the number of Fortune 500 CFOs hired from outside of their new companies totals 190. Of that number, 58 percent were chosen from within the ranks of existing corporate or divisional CFOs, with just 4 percent of controllers chosen.

The survey of external CFO hires also included the following results:

17 percent of big company finance chiefs were CFOs and general managers immediately before being named to the CFO slot

9 percent of CFOs were senior financial generalists

3 percent of CFOs were treasurers

4 percent were involved in strategy and corporate development

5 percent came from "other" disciplines

The numbers were dramatically different for 310 big companies that promoted insiders to the CFO spot. Thirty-three percent of the insiders were controllers, demonstrating strong succession planning in those companies.

Among the insiders promoted at Fortune 500 companies, the study revealed that:

19 percent were former treasurers

14 percent were one-time senior financial generalists

CEOs, and general managers, and divisional CFOs, each accounted for 10 percent of the promotions

8 percent of the CFOs were promoted after heading up strategy and corporate development roles

ANNA PAIGE , 20 April 2007 @ 21:49 PM  CFO misleading I agree with the former comment. While I just recently became a CFO/Treasurer, I could speak from experience that it is difficult to gain the CFO position into a new company having only controller experience. But in all the companies where I served as Controller, I was sure they would easily promote me if the opportunity arose. My experience is with a non-profit organization which is very different from for profit. Furthermore, this article seems to present statistics with no insight or intpretation. I would have been more interested in seeing what experience or other intangibles that Controllers need to make it to the CFO level.

Louise Berto , 19 April 2007 @ 19:03 PM  The title of this article is misleading As an executive recruiter with experience placing CFOs, I believe the title (and first sentence) of this article are very misleading. Controllers are promoted to CFO all the time, and most CFO's have controllership experience. Canididates with only controllership experience are rarely hired from the outside to fill Fortune 500 CFO slots, but that's not news. When a Fortune 500 company decides to hire from the outside, they almost always retain an executive search firm to find a candidate, and they will insist that the candidate have prior CFO experience. So yes, at that level, most people hired from the outside have prior CFO experience (but, as I said, before they were CFO's, they were probably controllers!)