Good morning. The dual roles of chief financial officer and chief operating officer are becoming More commonand the experience of two industry-leading executives shows that the CFO and COO positions can be complementary.
In 2023, Gina Goetter joined Hasbro, the largest publicly traded toy maker in the United States and one of the world’s largest giveaways, and was hired as a CFO and COO, a combination that immediately attracted her interest. This is her second CFO role during her Harley-Davidson.
Early in Goetter’s career at General Mills, she made a perspective on inherently functioning. “I’m a little born and developed that mindset, and every operational decision is about finances – they just go hand in hand,” she explained. Wealth Chief Summit Tuesday.
Gott said Hasbro has the same philosophy. “When you work with a company that is making products, you are making real cost decisions (real investment decisions), and it’s not a path without operational or financial,” she said.
Team member Amrita Ahuja, Block’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer Fortune 500 FinTech Companyshared that in the first half of her career, she began with strategy and company development. The second half of her career focused on finance, where she developed strong analytical skills and was passionate about driving insights from data.
Ahuja joined Block in 2019 and later added COO responsibility in 2023. The company offers clients financial options, such as through Afterpay, Audge Pay, offering Square Sellers a variety of loan options, and the ability of cash app users to allocate salary deposits in cash, Bitcoin or stocks.
In addition to overseeing finance, Ahaya also leads the law and People’s functionsoversees communications and policy and serves as chairman of the company’s Industrial Bank Square Financial Services.
In the dual CFO-COO role, Goetter explains: “It’s very mixed. Without another character, you can’t do one, and I find that combining them actually creates a lot of simplicity throughout the organization.”
Is there some complexity in dual roles? “The tension of the character is ambition and discipline,” Aguha points out. She explained that as a CFO, you advocate growth while ensuring you are responsible for capital allocation. As the COO, you enable your business to act quickly but responsibly. “It’s the same without COO characters,” she said.
Some big companies go beyond the dual CFO-COO role and combine creation capabilities Hybrid position. In an increasingly complex business environment, bridging finance and operations is strategic.
You can watch the Fortune COO Summit Group Meeting here.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally fortune.com
