How a CFO can survive a new CEO

While CEOs play musical chairs bouncing from company to company, the finance chief can be the one without a seat when the music stops.

In 2025, CEO turnover hit a record high, with 234 CEOs exiting their roles, up 16% from 2024 and 21% above the eight-year average, according to leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds. It was the second consecutive year CEO turnover reached record levels.

For the CFO and the rest of the organization, getting a new CEO can be a time of massive change. The culture, the rhythm, the expectations, the business priorities, and the strategy may all be in flux.

These changes can be stressful for the CFO, but also a moment of opportunity.

Insightsoftware CFO Josh Schauer went through a CEO transition in 2025. “My goal as part of that transition is that there’s no gap in the company,” he told CFO Brew. “When you’re doing things at a certain pace, you do not want to slow down in that intermittent period when you’re learning each other.”

But at the same time, the CFO has to try to understand the new CEO’s priorities and prove to their new boss that they’re still the right person for one of the company’s most important jobs.

Ready for your audition? A new CEO can mean the CFO is replaced or leaves, typically inside of 12 months, according to a recent study published in the European Journal of Finance. But what if the CFO hopes to stay put?

The CEO is “asking [themselves], ‘Is this the CFO that I would hire if there was no one in the seat?’” Edith Hamilton, a CFO coach and founder of Next New Growth, told CFO Brew. The CFO has “to understand and get over the emotional fact that you’re basically re-interviewing for your job.”

She cautions CFOs not to assume their past work “will speak for itself. And so often CFOs are so fact-driven, and of course the numbers speak for themselves.”

As for expecting C-level peers to “sing your praises” to the new CEO, Hamilton said, “Those individuals will be pretty self-absorbed and thinking about, how do they make the best impression…And so it’s important to not be overly shy. Don’t be a self promoter, but don’t be too reticent to talk about the good things your team has accomplished.”

Form a bond. “Communication is everything,” Schauer said. He recommends over-communicating with the new CEO. “You’re being clear with respect to what the objectives are from a personal, professional, team, functional, and company perspective,” he said.

“It’s a lot more phone calls, a lot more conversations, a lot more one-on-ones, a lot more heart-to-hearts to make sure that you’re both rowing in the same direction,” Schauer said. When the new CEO is “not on calls, I need to know what his opinion would be.”

“The CFO should aim to get on [the CEO’s] calendar very regularly,” Hamilton agreed. “A lot of CFOs seem reluctant about this…I say, have daily contact with your CEO.” Hamilton even recommends the CFO travel with the new CEO, if possible, to build the rapport that can come only from conquering a hectic trip together.

Another potential pitfall for the CFO is not understanding how fast the new CEO expects the company to move, Hamilton said, “especially if the old CEO [had] been there for a while.” The new CEO may have a style very mismatched with the “cadence everybody’s used to…because he’s going to feel under pressure to produce some results pretty early on.”

Don’t just say yes. In the quest to ingratiate themselves with a new CEO, Hamilton said many CFOs make a classic mistake: They try to win over the CEO by saying yes to everything. A CFO needs to find a balance between being supportive and being “willing to speak truth to power,” Hamilton said, recommending that CFOs ask questions like, “Help me understand why that’s important,” or “Have you considered this?” and feel confident enough to say, “Here’s some concerns I have about that.”

The new CEO “need[s] to know that there’s somebody they can turn to and say, ‘So what do you think about that?’” Hamilton said. “And you want to be seen as that person who is going to readily speak your mind.”

Correction 01/28/2026: The description of Russell Reynolds was updated from management consulting firm to leadership advisory firm.