Historically, chief revenue officers mainly focused on driving sales and revenue growth. Today, CROs are front and center when it comes to such areas as financial planning, investor relations, pricing strategies and forecasting, according to Irina Wolpert, a leader with the executive search firm Egon Zehnder. 

As businesses have become more complex and market dynamics have shifted over the last three to five years, the responsibilities of the CRO have expanded to “just encompass a much broader set of strategic and operational functions,” Wolpert said. 

That leaves CROs nudging up against CFOs’ typical remits, an evolution that comes both with potential points of tension as well as greater opportunities to create success for their businesses.

“Both roles are incredibly critical and in fact have to coexist and partner in order for the company to have a long-term, sustainable growth agenda,” Wolpert, who serves as leader, financial services, tech & fintech practice groups at Egon Zehnder, told CFO Dive in an interview.

Weighing risk versus growth  

One of the newer entrants to the C-suite, the CRO position began to gain ground as companies — especially startups in the technology and software spaces — increasingly focused on high growth, according to a 2015 article by VentureBeat.

The position, which could also be occupied by a “chief experience officer,” or “chief growth officer,” is “tasked with creating a single revenue engine — from lead generation in digital marketing to closing the sale,” a 2023 write-up by McKinsey said. “The CRO’s role goes beyond sales and marketing to the entire market landscape, customer journey, and strategic expansion plans.”

As such, one of the main areas of tension between a CRO and CFO tends to be that “balance of risk versus growth,” Wolpert said. CFOs tend to have a more conservative approach, focused on risk management and financial stability, while CROs “are typically incentivized to take much more calculated risks to achieve more aggressive revenue targets,” she said. 

“Typically, where we see the tension is, number one in the area of resource allocation,” Wolpert said. “If you think about the traditional role of the CRO, typically they tend to push for more resources to drive sales and revenue growth. The CFOs, rightfully so, are typically much more focused on budget constraints.”

Prior to joining the Zürich, Switzerland-based leadership advisory firm, Wolpert served as global head of sales enablement and go-to-market strategy for e-commerce company Amazon, according to her LinkedIn profile.

A former professional ballet dancer turned business executive, Wolpert also served a 15-year span at American Express in various roles including as head of sales enablement and marketing and VP, global sales enablement.

While the two positions can tussle over growth versus stability, both the CRO and the CFO are morphing into more strategic leaders within the C-suite.

“Given how both roles have evolved, these two critical roles can actually build a much stronger partnership than they ever could in the past,” Wolpert said. In order for businesses to achieve their goals, that collaboration is critical, she said.

“When I think about strategic planning at the end of the day, you need both functions to focus on revenue growth and they have to be completely in alignment on their financial goals,” Wolpert said. “And I think you need a very strong CFO and a very strong CRO to really come together and think about a business strategy that ultimately drives growth and profitability.”

Broadening the path to the CEO seat  

A strong relationship between CFOs and CROs — both of which typically report to the CEO — can also help top executives to more smoothly execute on their business strategies, balancing “financial frugality” with a customer-centric approach to growth and revenue, Wolpert said. As such, both CFOs and CROs are becoming more “viable contenders” for the role of the CEO, she said.

In her view, the CRO is in a slightly better position to assume the top executive seat, as those executives have a “comprehensive” view of the businesses’ entire revenue ecosystem and so, they naturally develop “a very deep understanding of how various parts of the organization ultimately work together to achieve [a] common objective,” she said.

Finance chiefs are also emerging as more popular candidates for the CEO chair, however — and for those companies which are examining their CFOs for such a role, it’s important to invest in honing the operational leadership and other key skills of their finance chiefs outside of finance, Wolpert said.

Some companies approach this by crafting “an intentional path for the CFO to step into a chief operating officer role or a divisional CEO role” within the same company, she said, enabling them to develop their operational skills.

“I also think… the most successful CFOs who ultimately become CEOs, not only do they bring the kind of operating chops and experience running other parts of the organization, but they have really cultivated tremendous relationships with the board, with their peer set,” Wolpert said.