2021 Survey Report: The State of the PE Sponsor-CFO Relationship
Measuring, Managing, and Scaling the PE-Backed Business
It’s been two years: two years since Accordion published its first survey report on The State of the PE Sponsor-CFO Relationship, and two years since the world embarked on a period of massive disruption. That disruption (and subsequent economic uncertainty) has forced private equity firms to reassess their portfolios and reevaluate the role of the CFO in driving growth and value creation within their portfolio companies.
This report, therefore, takes a fresh look at the responsibilities of the PE-backed CFO function and the sponsor-finance dynamic across three critical dimensions. It examines how PE-backed CFOs:
- Measure the Business: Collect clean data to inform insights
- Manage the Business: Turn clean data into analysis and then into insights to make informed business decisions
- Scale the Business: Utilize value levers to help the business transform to achieve strong growth and returns in a PE-backed environment
In doing so, this report examines PE firms’ perception of their CFOs across each dimension of their role and across multiple areas of sponsor-CFO misalignment. As noted in our last report, instead of viewing this misalignment as an alarming headline, we view it as helpful intel that can be used in service of CFO-sponsor expectations, communication, collaboration, and, ultimately, investment success.
Download the report.
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