The job outlook in corporate finance is bright. Robert Half recently surveyed over 1,000 Chief Financial Officers in 1995 and concluded "The outlook for hiring is better than it has been in many years.

"Shortages in a variety of job categories and industries are taking place. Hot job categories include international and operationally-oriented positions. Hot industries include financial services, manufacturing, high-technology, environmental management services and distribution."

Asked to name the qualities that finance executives should have, CEOs top their list with strategic thinking, fresh perspective, and candor. The demand for finance executives who can formulate strategies and foment change on a global scale will only increase in a world where trade barriers are crumbling." CFO Magazine, February 1994.

It is crucial that a financial officer be a team player, whether at the bottom or the top of a company. At the top, relationships are especially important. For a CEO, the chief financial officer is financial whiz, strategist and partner. The relationship needs to be tight. Consider the role played by Marcus Bennett at Lockheed Martin, the largest defense firm in the United States: "As a key member of [CEO] Augustine's inner circle, [Bennett] is intimately involved in hashing out the company's strategic plans. And when the group decides on a major acquisition or merger, such as the recent linkup with Lockheed, Bennett serves as the primary negotiator. Once a deal is done, he oversees the melding of the balance sheets of the two companies, the combining of employee benefits programs, the squeezing out of cost savings and the overall financial operation of the five current major operating units." (Institutional Investor, "Stealth CFO," Dec. 1995)

A good financial officer can create enormous value for a company. For example, when Jerome York switched from being the CFO of IBM to being the CFO of Chrysler, Chrysler's stock gained $1.3 billion the next day, while IBM's stock fell sharply.

While still largely a male world, women are making rapid inroads in corporate finance positions around the United States. According to the Detroit News (Jan 28, 1996): "Finance has become the first field of opportunity for women because promotions are based on merit - not the old-boy network. Experts say accounting and its natural offspring - finance, treasury, budgeting - are less obstructed by the macho cultures more prevalent in manufacturing and engineering, other traditional paths to the corporate pinnacle." There a wide variety of examples of women who have succeeded in corporate finance. Heidi Kunz engineered General Motor's turnaround plan in 1992 and jumped to become CFO of a new ITT spinoff in 1995. And Judy Lewent is widely credited with creating large amounts of value at Merck as a thinking CFO and strong leader. Mina Brown, CFO at Aviall notes that it is very important for women who want to rise far to get management positions in line divisions.

The job of the financial officer is to create value for a company. For example, Ann Cleary writes that in the finance group at American Electric Power (Columbus OH) "the four main areas of concentration are liquidity, flexibility, compliance with laws and regulatory support. The goals of the objective are met through four main activities carried out by AEP's Finance Department: 1) designing, implementing and monitoring financial policies, 2) planning and executing the financing program, 3) managing cash resources, and 4) interfacing with the financial community and investors."

There is growing interest in integrated methods of risk and liability management. Many companies have decentralized risk management activities where each division or plant can hedge away price and interest rate risk. Companies are increasingly permitting this, but aggregating positions into a book at the corporate level and adding controls.

Many firms are looking for quantitative analysts in their finance group. Merck now employs dozens of rigorous finance professionals who use techniques like Monte Carlo simulation to assess new R&D projects. There will be more and more firms who quantitatively make financial and operating choice. For example, choosing a capital structure by balancing off the expected costs and benefits of debt.

Chief financial officer (CFO) pay is rising. Average annual pay of 200 CFOs from about 1,500 of the largest revenue-producing companies in the US surveyed by Investors' Fiduciary Services was close to $1 million. The compensation includes salary, bonus, 'other' income, stock options exercised, and restricted stock. Superstars, like Stephen Bollenbach, CFO of Disney, have especially high salaries. Bollenbach was hired as Disney with a package worthmore than $20 million.

Twenty to forty percent of employee costs now come in the form of benefits. Managing benefits cost-effectively has now become a major challenge for financial officers.

A key skill for financial professionals is negotiating ability. Persons who can put the other side at ease at the negotiating table, while still getting a good price are invaluable. Many firms are actively engaged in acquisitions strategies and require employees who can evaluate possible partners and then negotiate transactions.

Company's want more and more leadership ability in their financial officers. The financial leader of the future will have more and more experience with the dynamics of the financial markets and be innovators in that market as well. She must be a strategic planner, a problem solver and an innovative leader.

Leading-edge companies such as General Electric are centralizing their finance functions under a system known as shared services. Instead of each business unit having its own CFO and accounting operations, the businesses become customers of a centralized finance function. Business Week, March 14, 1994, p. 75.

The oftentimes derogatory views of finance professionals as "bean counters" is changing fast. Technology means the computers count the beans. This frees up time of executives to interpret the results of bean counting. In the words of Roberto Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola: "The secret isn't counting the beans. It's growing more beans." Ultimately, this means that the demand for smart, communicative and thoughtful people in finance positions will increase even more in the future