Why should a new CRO learn the CFO's view of the plan first?
The CEO hired you to grow the number. The CFO will judge how you grow it. Both views meet in the plan. Learn the second before you put your name on anything.
The CFO's side of the plan has its own priorities. In a Gartner survey of more than 200 CFOs taken in August 2025, 56 percent ranked hitting enterprise-wide cost optimization targets among their top five priorities for 2026, and 51 percent ranked improving forecast accuracy and quality. Gartner also reported that more CFOs ranked capital allocation for growth as their number one priority than any other item, even though fewer than half put it in their top five. Read together, those findings describe a finance leader who will fund growth and wants to trust the forecast first. A new CRO who asks for headcount before learning how finance reads the number spends credibility that has yet to be earned. The questions below earn it first.
What should a new CRO ask the CEO and CFO first?
Six questions, and one that sits under all of them.
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How was this year's number set, and who agreed to it?
Every plan carries a theory of where growth comes from. Ask whether the number was built up from named accounts and open bids, or set from the top by the growth the investment case needs. Ask which parts rest on a price increase, new sellers, an acquisition or one large customer, and who below the CEO signed off. Harvard Business School's Michael Jensen argued in a 2001 Harvard Business Review article that budgeting encourages managers to lowball targets and inflate results, and penalizes them for telling the truth. Listen for the assumption each leader holds most loosely.
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How has the number moved against plan in the last few years, and why?
The history of the number shows how this company plans. Ask to see plan against actual for the last few years, and the reason given for each gap. In a 2018 McKinsey Quarterly article, Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt and Sven Smit write that "hockey sticks recur with alarming frequency," using one disguised company that planned a breakout in 2011, got flat results and kept drawing new hockey sticks. They also describe managers who attribute weak performance to one-off events such as weather or a regulatory change. When each year's miss has a different one-off cause, look harder at how the plan gets built.
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What cash, hiring and spending limits apply to the revenue team?
A plan can count money the CFO has yet to release. Ask whether the new seats in the plan are approved or tied to a cash or results condition, and how long the plan gives those sellers to produce. Payment terms belong in this conversation too, since the terms sellers grant decide when revenue becomes cash. The Hackett Group, a consulting and advisory firm, reported in 2025 that days sales outstanding at the top 1,000 US public nonfinancial companies worsened for a second straight year, "as customer bargaining power drove extended payment terms." Listen for limits stated as conditions you can work toward.
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Who decides on price, discounts, territories and headcount?
Decision rights set the speed of your first year. Ask who sets annual price increases, who approves a discount, who can move an account between territories and who signs an offer letter. Listen for names. In a McKinsey online survey of more than 1,200 respondents fielded in February 2018, 57 percent agreed that their organizations consistently make high-quality decisions. For decisions that cut across the business, McKinsey found that clear roles and decision rights alone were not enough to win. When the answer to who approves a discount is "it depends," the price is being set one deal at a time.
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How does the CFO judge the quality of revenue?
The CEO may count every dollar the same way, and the CFO and any future buyer will sort them. Grant Thornton's transaction services team in Switzerland published an April 2026 explainer on quality of earnings reviews in M&A due diligence. Among the things such a review weighs, it lists how much revenue repeats and how much of it sits with a few customers. The aim is to see whether revenue reflects "a repeatable operating model" or "short-term commercial decisions that are unlikely to persist." Ask the CFO which of last year's wins they would set aside on that test. An answer framed in renewed agreements and price increases that held tells you what finance will count.
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Where do the CEO's story and the CFO's numbers part ways?
Ask each of them what has to go right for the year to land. If the CEO answers with new markets and new sellers while the CFO answers with price and collections, both can be right. The gap between their answers is the part of the plan nobody owns yet. Naming it is easier while you are still new to the seat.
"What does the CFO know about the number that I don't know yet?"
This question sits under the other six. The CFO has watched past plans land and miss, and knows where margin leaks between the price list and the invoice. Ask it plainly and leave room for the answer. What you hear tells you which numbers to trust before you commit to one of your own.
What are the signs the CEO and CFO agree on the plan?
Good signs
- Asked what the year depends on, the CEO and the CFO give matching answers.
- Past misses come with specific causes, and the next plan changed because of them.
- The CFO ties each hiring limit to a condition the revenue team can meet.
- Each decision on price and discounts has one named owner.
- The CFO separates agreement and renewal revenue from one-time work without being asked.
Warning signs
- The number came from the growth the investment case needs, and nobody below the CEO agreed to it.
- Each year's miss has a different one-off explanation.
- The plan counts new sellers the CFO has yet to release.
- Discounts and longer payment terms go to whoever knows whom to ask.
- The CEO and the CFO describe two different years.
Case study Fictitious numbers
A PE-backed commercial cleaning and facility services company with 22 sellers across five branches has just hired a CRO. The plan grows revenue from $48 million to $56 million. The CEO's slide credits the $8 million of growth to a stronger sales team. She asks the CFO how the $8 million breaks down and gets three parts. Price increases on renewing agreements account for $3 million. New agreements account for $3.5 million. The last $1.5 million is one-time project work for a single customer moving its headquarters.
- Price increases on renewing agreements
- New agreements
- One-time project work
The CEO's slide credits all $8 million to a stronger sales team. The CFO's breakdown tells her which part is hers.
Each part tells her something different. The price line assumes renewals carry the full increase, and the CFO points out that branch managers waived much of last year's increase at renewal. The new agreement line assumes four new sellers start in January. The CFO has released two, and the other two depend on first-quarter collections. The project work will not repeat, and the CFO already leaves it out of the run rate he reports to the sponsor.
She now knows that $3.5 million is hers to win, $3 million depends on a pricing decision she does not yet own, and $1.5 million will not come back next year. Before she commits to a number of her own, she asks the CEO who will own the renewal price decision this year.
FAQ
What questions should a new CRO ask the CEO?
Ask which commercial decisions the CEO wants to keep and which they want you to own. Ask what the last revenue leader did that they would like to see again, and what they would not. Listen for how sure the CEO sounds about each part of the plan, and where that certainty comes from.
How should a new CRO work with the CFO?
Agree early on what the numbers mean. Use finance's revenue figures in your own reviews, so the board never sees two versions of the year. Tell the CFO about a slipping deal before the board hears about it, and ask for their read on unusual terms before you sign them. Trust builds when your forecast and their ledger tell the same story, quarter after quarter.
What is revenue quality?
Revenue quality describes how likely today's revenue is to repeat. Finance teams and buyers look hardest at how much of it recurs and how much rests on a few customers. In services, agreement and renewal revenue tends to count for more than one-time project work. Capstone Partners, an investment bank, says in its July 2026 HVAC services update that listed buyers have been choosy, favoring businesses with a large share of recurring service work because it makes future revenue easier to see.
Who should own pricing and discount decisions?
One named person for each decision. A 2003 McKinsey article calculated that on the average S&P 1500 company's income statement, a 1 percent price rise with stable volumes would lift operating profit by 8 percent. The same article describes a lighting supplier whose smaller distributors won deeper discounts and extra time to pay because they had long-standing ties and knew whom to ask. Price drifts when approval depends on relationships.
Sources
- Strategy to beat the odds, by Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt and Sven Smit (McKinsey Quarterly, 2018) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Corporate Budgeting Is Broken: Let's Fix It, by Michael C. Jensen (Harvard Business Review, 2001) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Gartner Survey Shows Top Priorities for CFOs in 2026 Include Cost Optimization, Improved Forecasting and Funding Growth Opportunities (Gartner, press release dated 10 Dec 2025) checked 9 Oct 2026
- The Hackett Group 2025 Working Capital Survey: Payables Rebound but Receivables and Inventory Lag (Business Wire, 2025) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Decision making in the age of urgency (McKinsey & Company, 2019) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Understanding Quality of Earnings: a critical component of M&A due diligence (Fabian Kunz and Sébastien Nicolas, Grant Thornton Switzerland/Liechtenstein, 16 Apr 2026) checked 9 Oct 2026
- HVAC Services M&A Update, July 2026 (Capstone Partners) checked 9 Oct 2026
- The power of pricing, by Michael V. Marn, Eric V. Roegner and Craig C. Zawada (McKinsey & Company, 2003) checked 9 Oct 2026