Operations experience counts as well. Running a division, as either CEO or CFO, "is now a requirement at many companies, because it helps you relate so much better to the business units," says Lorraine Hack, a partner at Heidrick & Struggles. In fact, most of the women who have recently become CFOs point to their experience in the business as a major milestone. New USAA CFO Kristi Matus, who was promoted from CEO of the life-insurance division in January, for example, ran an insurance billings and collections call center at her previous employer, Thrivent Financial. She nearly passed over that chance to get into the "guts" of the organization, she says, but after heeding a mentor's advice she found the experience helped her "connect to the customer and what's happening on a day-to-day basis."
That's not to say there aren't still places for pure finance gurus. Both Simmons and Douglas came from corporate finance roles without holding executive business-unit titles. The ideal path ultimately depends on what a company needs, says Hack. In the case of Hertz, financing its fleet of rental cars means that "treasury is an integral part of the business," says Douglas, making the former treasurer a natural choice for CFO.
The Right Vibe
Still, a potent résumé will take you only so far. "Whether or not someone is going to become a CFO is much more personal than can be reflected on paper," says Jenna Fisher of executive recruiter Russell Reynolds Associates. The winners have "this kind of vibe: they carry themselves in a certain way and have a certain way of articulating themselves."
Indeed, leadership, confidence, and communication skills are nearly always the first words that emerge from recruiters' mouths when asked to describe a viable CFO candidate. While there's nothing gender specific about those qualities, the bravado that executive presence requires can conflict with deeply ingrained female behaviors. "A lot of the old-school types will question whether women can be tough enough," says Howard Seidel, an executive coach and a partner with Essex Partners in Boston. Women often don't help themselves, says Lori Dernavich, president of Step Ahead, an executive consulting firm in New York, because they "tend to be too apologetic. They'll say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't been a CFO before, I may not be right for the role.' They'll downplay their strengths and go right to their weaknesses. A man would never consider doing that."
You won't find this problem among the women who have made it. The Hartford's Zlatkus, for example, easily explains why she got the job: "I know how our products are sold, how we make money, and how the market uses our products." She says she has progressed because she's a "quick study" and "passionate about what I do." At Hertz, Douglas made the most of an interim post. "When [CEO] Mark Frissora asked me to be acting CFO, one of the things I said to myself was, 'Until somebody tells me otherwise, I'm the CFO,'" says Douglas. Within three months, she was.
Not that it's all about bravado. When Thomas Marra, chief operating officer of The Hartford, describes CFO Zlatkus as "one of the top — if not the top — pure leaders in the company," he points to her unusual ability to talk with people about their weaknesses while "making them feel like they're being helped instead of criticized." Communication, in fact, is a multifaceted skill. One recruiter often screens potential CFO candidates by asking them to describe their careers in 10 minutes or less. Surprisingly, "very few can do that; they get sucked into minutiae," he says.
Lessons Learned
Asked what specific advice they would offer to women who aspire to the CFO post, Davies and the other women profiled here don't hold back.
Network and self-promote. That's a lesson that Robyn Denholm, recently appointed CFO of $2.7 billion Juniper Networks, learned the hard way when she was passed over for CFO at Sun Microsystems in 2006. At the time, she was Sun's senior vice president of strategic planning and the lone internal candidate for the CFO job, having been then-CFO Michael Lehman's right hand for three years. What she hadn't done, however, was get to know board members well enough. She had done board presentations and worked extensively with the audit committee, but "as I went through the debrief, I learned that [one of the reasons I didn't get the job] was that the board didn't know me as well as they should have."
Be ready for role reversal. Ramos of ITT credits her husband's decision to stay home with their children as an important factor in her career path, which has taken the family from Los Angeles to Denver to Louisville to St. Louis to White Plains, New York. "I don't know if [staying at home] would have been his first choice," she says, but in doing so, "he's given me the flexibility to be a CFO." Likewise, Matus says that her husband's willingness to start his own company was one of the decisive factors in their move from Wisconsin to Texas when she first signed on with USAA in 2002. In addition, about 25 percent of our "women to watch" say that their most important career decision to date has been a willingness to accept overseas assignments.
Don't wait for the opportunities to come to you. "If you're not being challenged by your current company, look elsewhere," says Douglas, who worked at Nabisco and Coty before joining Hertz in 2006. To find the best opportunities, "look for the areas where the company needs help," says Matus, who discovered her interest in strategic planning by volunteering for an ad hoc committee early in her career.
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