Chief financial officer: the title is as appealing as it is intimidating. It sits at the top of the corporate finance track, where treasury, investments and financial strategy are decided alongside general management. But nobody becomes a CFO straight out of a master's degree. Here is the realistic path, in large groups and in SMEs, and how to present each step on your CV.
What does a CFO (DAF) actually do day to day?
In France the "directeur administratif et financier" (DAF) runs all of the company's financial and administrative functions: accounting, management control, treasury, tax, sometimes legal, purchasing or IT. In an SME the DAF handles everything; in a large group the role focuses on strategy, supported by specialised directors.
Main responsibilities:
- Define and monitor financial strategy: budget, medium-term plan, investment decisions.
- Guarantee the reliability of the accounts: closings, consolidation, relations with statutory auditors.
- Manage treasury and financing: bank relations, debt raising, risk hedging.
- Drive performance: dashboards, variance analysis, recommendations to general management.
- Lead teams: accountants, management controllers, treasurers.
Titles vary. You will see DAF, CFO or "RAF" (administrative and financial manager) in smaller structures. They do not always cover the same scope, so always read the job description.
Education and career paths
There is no "DAF degree". The usual expected level is a master's (bac+5) combining finance and management.
Most common routes:
- Business schools (grande école programme, master in finance or management control).
- University master's degrees in corporate finance or accounting-control-audit.
- Engineering schools, completed with management training.
- The chartered accountant diploma (DEC) for profiles coming from the accounting profession.
Experience then weighs far more than the degree. According to L'Étudiant's career profile 🔗, the role is reached after several years of experience, often as accounting director or management controller. Michael Page's advice on becoming a finance director 🔗 points the same way: you get there step by step.
A typical path
- Early career (0-3 years): audit at a firm, management control or accounting in a company.
- Confirmation (3-7 years): senior management controller, accounting manager, treasury manager.
- Management (7-12 years): head of management control, accounting director, RAF in an SME.
- Finance leadership (10 years and more): DAF or CFO.
This is not a law. An SME's RAF can become DAF of a mid-sized group earlier; an auditor who moves into industry can speed up by taking a financial controller position.
Key skills recruiters expect
Technical skills:
- Accounting standards (French GAAP, IFRS) and consolidation.
- Financial modelling, budgeting, cash forecasting.
- Financing and bank relations.
- Corporate tax, at least in outline.
- ERP and reporting tools.
Interpersonal skills:
- Leadership: rallying teams with very different profiles.
- Communication: explaining numbers to an executive who is not a finance person.
- Business-partner mindset: challenging management without blocking it.
- Rigour and ethics: the DAF is accountable for the fairness of the accounts.
Your network matters too. The DFCG association 🔗, which brings together finance directors and management controllers, runs programmes for students and young professionals: a useful way to meet people who do the job. Our article on networking in finance explains how to approach these meetings.
Salary and pay at each stage
Pay varies strongly with company size, sector, region and scope. The table below is a reading guide, to be checked against recent recruitment-firm and Apec salary guides before any negotiation.
| Stage | Typical role | How pay reads | |---|---|---| | Early career | Management controller, accountant | Entry-level pay for the track | | Confirmation | Senior controller, accounting manager | Steady progression with responsibility | | Management | Head of accounting or control, RAF | A variable part appears | | Leadership | DAF, finance director | High fixed pay, variable and sometimes equity |
Career profiles quote starting pay around €3,250 gross per month for a DAF in a small structure, but that is a floor: in a large group, total compensation is in another league. To compare with other jobs in the field, see our guide to finance salaries.
📊 Go further: to understand the gap between fixed and variable pay in the sector, see our analysis of salaries in banking and investment.
Career progression and exit options
Being a DAF is not always the end of the road. Several paths open up afterwards:
- General management: some DAFs become CEOs, especially in SMEs.
- Finance leadership at a larger group: a change of size or sector.
- Private equity: a DAF who led fundraisings or acquisitions is a sought-after profile.
- Advisory and board seats: part-time CFO, independent director.
- Starting or buying a business, with the advantage of a full view of management.
For those who did not follow a straight path, our guide on switching into finance shows how to leverage an unusual background.
How to showcase this profile on your CV
A future DAF's CV does not read like a junior's. Recruiters look for three things: the size of the scope, the results and the ability to manage.
Best practices:
- Open with the scope: the entity's revenue, the number of people managed, the number of countries.
- Quantify achievements: shorter closing time, better working capital, renegotiated credit lines. Only give figures you can defend in an interview.
- Show progression: a logical move from one role to the next is reassuring.
- Highlight management: team sizes, projects led, successful transformations.
- Keep it to two pages: beyond that, readability suffers.
💡 Learn more: our article How to write a CV for finance and investment banking details the full structure of a finance CV.
One often underestimated point: a profile at this level is screened by recruitment software before a human reads it. A decorated or multi-column layout can lose key information. FinanceCV handles the layout: you enter your career and the tool produces a clean, ATS-compatible CV, so your experience is read as you wrote it.
Ready to build your finance CV? Use our free generator to get a professional document in minutes.