Strategy and Leadership as Service

Numerous financial blog articles and LinkedIn posts highlight the benefits of a small business owner hiring a portfolio CFO. However, I do not recall these writers commenting on why financial professionals step away from the W-2 world to serve multiple owners as clients. Sara Daw may be the first author to articulate why CFOs jump into the gig economy through her comprehensive research, which we can read about in Strategy and Leadership as Service.

Interview Highlights

Sara Daw’s origin story begins in a chemistry lab at Oxford University
The reason CFOs exit the W-2 arena
Mark’s shoutout to Stacey Barr and weasel words
The reason other professions are lagging behind CFOs in the gig economy
Sara’s reference to the 2022 Jeffcock study and the future of the C-suite
Psychological owner (PO) explained
Access vs. ownership
Liquid vs. solid in the context of ownership
Why networking is Sara’s favorite of the six virtues
What it truly means to be ‘always on’
The future-proof conversation is continual in the mind of the CFO
Sara’s favorite books

There was more to life than doing corporate finance, there was more to life than numbers. So I [completed] an MBA, and that was a bit of a turning point for me because that’s where I realized business was so much more wider than finance.
Sara Daw

Strategy and Leadership as Service

$38.24

By moving to the Strategy and Leadership as Service framework, the outcomes are better for all stakeholders: more engagement, access to the right skillsets and mindsets at the right time and in the right quantity to match the changing business agenda, more flexibility for senior leaders, and strengthened risk management.