Credentials, Experience, or Passion?: Pick One

Thought experiment:  Your firm needs a new CFO, and you've winnowed the search down to three candidates:

• one who aced the CPA exam and has a degree in accounting from a blue-chip school but has never worked in a law firm;
• one who is reasonably smart and an OK communicator but who for the past ten years has been the CFO at a law firm nearly identical in size to yours ; and
• one who has the least financial/accounting experience of the three but who is energetic and passionate about connecting financial measures to business realities.

Time's up.  I would take #3 every time, and so, evidently, would CFO Magazine.  Peter Mondani, General Electric Co.’s manager of finance leadership development and human resources, says it nicely:

"While talent spotters may be divided in the book-smarts-vs.-street-smarts debate, one thing they do agree on is that future finance stars have desire. 'They have the passion and energy to want success,' says Mondani."

In other words, there's simply "no need for deep technical skills" going in, so long as the individual is highly motivated to learn and to succeed.  As one recruiter put it bluntly:  people who were accounting majors are the ones who have the hardest time reaching the executive suite.

So here's your checklist:   Perfectly adequate financial/accounting skills, superior communications skills, genuine business acumen, and passion, passion, passion.

Don't be nervous about making a "non-linear" choice; when was the last time double-entry bookkeeping nailed a strategic decision for your firm?  And besides, people with passion are just more fun to work with.