Sara Börsvik on maximizing impact: a CFO's guide through company growth stages

A good CFO sees themselves as the custodian of truth. It’s not about keeping the books tidy, it’s about understanding what’s going on in reality across the business, and then telling it like it is–the good and the bad–to keep the house in order.

Like many other positions, the CFO’s role has been through a lot of change. Thanks to the explosion of data and tools (including AI), CFOs now sit at a seriously influential vantage point. You’ve got a front-row seat to everything in detail—costs, revenue, strategy, risk—and you're often the only person with a clear line of sight across it all.   

You’re not just the numbers person, but a key strategic advisor in the mix with the CEO, the board, and every team trying to make magic happen. 

When done right, it’s not about slowing things down with red tape. It’s about bringing structure and insight that actually fuels better, braver decisions. The trick is knowing where your business is in its growth journey, and then focusing on the handful of levers you can actually pull to make a difference at the right time, in the right order, with the right outcome.

Driving growth in early stage companies

Startups are a mix of amazing ideas, great intentions, and high ambition. Energy and passion can be through the roof, but efficiency can be low through a lack of structure and experience. As the strategic advisor, now’s the time to build that business model, get scalable processes in place, and start assembling your superstar team.

• Establish a robust business model: In the spirit of truth-telling, a successful company must have a business model that’s inherently profitable. It doesn’t need this from day one, but it will need to make money at some point. Get real about this in the startup phase. If you don’t check this box, you need to help correct this. Getting familiar with AI and its efficiencies (and deficiencies) is a good place to start right now.
• Implement scalable financial processes: If it ain’t broke, it probably will be in 12 months' time, so DO fix it. Make sure your accounting process is up to scratch, that you’re starting to think through internal controls, and getting set up for mid- and long-term planning. Flexibility is important, but so are the baseline and scalable structures to help growth, not hurt it.
• Build a high-performing team: This one’s simple–work on equalizing the balance between energy and experience. Bring in people who have seen the movie before, know what’s needed to get set up for the growth and scale that’s coming.

Navigating the scale-up phase

So you’ve hit product-market fit, your business model has shown its worth, and you’re starting to grow across more regions and reach more customers. Congratulations, you’re now a scale-up! They brim with joy that the idea is working, so much so that people can have a tendency to only look at the wins and potential. Remember your truth-teller core and make sure you’re helping to bring out the full potential of the company: work with normalized profitability, avoid overpromising, and be honest about your own financial processes.

• Champion normalized profitability: In other words, would you be making money if you weren’t scaling (ie. spending a lot to grow your offering, reach, and service)? If you can understand this as a scale-up, you should be able to plot a path to actual profitability and help justify decisions and strategy.
• Avoid overpromising: Easy to say, harder to live by. Think carefully about the predicted numbers and KPIs you share, because these will become expected over time. Focus on the operational plan and remember that it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. 
• Evaluate your own financial processes: Be honest about your processes. Are they holding up to the growth? Will they crumble if the pace and number of transactions increase? Don’t be afraid to switch things up to build for the future.

Strategic levers for the mature business

When you make it this far, your business model is fully proven, you’re in a good place with financial stability, and you’ll have a loyal base of customers, so now it’s about refining the offering. Here, the CFO can find their levers in scenario planning, and effectively balancing revenue growth with profitability.

• Implement scenario planning: Startups and scale-ups thrive on rapid change. Established businesses are the exact opposite and stability becomes the name of the game. You need to have sight of possible future scenarios and how they could affect the company. Get prepared for market shifts, weigh-up the risks and impact, and work out how you’re going to fix these problems if they do become reality.
• Balance revenue growth and profitability: There’s no one-size-fits-all perfect balance here–it should shift naturally depending on the year and market conditions. What’s absolutely critical, though, is that you’re in control of this trade-off, and can choose which to prioritize at which point. Scenario planning goes hand-in-hand with finding this balance.

Yes, the CFO position is broader these days, but the core responsibility remains the same. Be the truth-teller–the custodian of truth–and find the levers that can help create meaningful impact at the right time, in the right order, with the right outcome.