Beyond the Numbers: What HR Taught Me About Being a Better CFO

In the three companies where I served as CFO, I also oversaw human resources. On paper, it might seem like an odd pairing. Finance is about numbers. HR is about people. One is spreadsheets and forecasts, the other is recruiting and employee engagement. But living in both worlds taught me that the two functions aren’t as separate as most organizations think, and it made me a far stronger CFO.

Here’s what I learned.

People are investments, not expenses

When you’re purely in finance, headcount often shows up as a cost to control. Salary, benefits, payroll taxes—they all hit the expense line. But when you run HR too, you see the other side of the ledger. You see the ROI of training programs, leadership development, and smarter hiring. You see how a well-structured compensation plan reduces turnover, saving money in recruiting and retraining.

Suddenly, it’s not just “headcount expense.” It’s a portfolio of human capital investments. Some pay off, others underperform, and your job as CFO is to help optimize those returns.

Culture is a hidden line item

Culture doesn’t show up directly on a balance sheet, but it drives countless financial outcomes. High turnover? That’s a recruiting and training expense. Burnout? That’s lost productivity and potential client churn. Poor leadership? That’s inconsistent performance and missed revenue targets.

Overseeing HR gave me a front-row seat to how culture bleeds into the numbers. I learned to forecast not just from contracts and sales pipelines but from employee sentiment. If engagement is low, you can almost predict the ripple effect in financial results months later.

Communication matters more than analysis

Finance is often seen as technical. Think budgets, forecasts, and variances. But HR is human. It’s sitting across the table from a manager struggling with performance issues. It’s coaching leaders on how to deliver tough feedback. It’s helping employees navigate change when new systems roll out.

That taught me something critical. Financial strategies only work if people understand and embrace them. A perfect forecast is useless if leaders don’t act on it. My HR experience pushed me to communicate differently with less jargon and more clarity. Less “here’s the variance,” more “here’s what this means for your team’s decisions this quarter.”

Strategy is meaningless without execution through people

As CFO, I’ve worked on growth plans, cost optimizations, and system implementations. Every one of those strategies succeeds or fails based on whether the company has the right people in the right roles.

Running HR alongside finance made that crystal clear. You can model out a brilliant expansion plan, but if HR can’t recruit fast enough or retain the right leaders, the numbers won’t materialize. You can plan a cost-saving initiative, but if employees aren’t engaged or equipped, execution stalls.

Now, when I look at strategy, I automatically ask: do we have the people and culture to carry this forward? If the answer is no, the plan needs work before it hits Excel.

Empathy changes decision-making

Finance often demands tough calls—cutting costs, restructuring departments, reallocating resources. From a numbers-only perspective, it’s easy to reduce these choices to percentages. But HR forced me to see the human side: the employee who gets the news, the family that feels the impact, the morale of the team left behind.

That doesn’t mean avoiding difficult decisions. It means approaching them with more care and being intentional about timing, communication, and support. As CFO, empathy doesn’t weaken you. It makes your decisions smarter, more sustainable, and more aligned with long-term success.

The CFO-HR connection is the overlooked advantage

Looking back, I realize overseeing HR was one of the most valuable experiences of my career. It gave me a broader perspective. Finance isn’t just about controlling costs, and HR isn’t just about managing people. Both are about building a company that can grow, adapt, and thrive.

The best CFOs understand that every financial result is ultimately the product of human performance. And the best HR leaders know that every people decision carries financial weight. When the two work together, or live in the same leader, you get an edge most companies don’t have.

💡 Closing thought: The spreadsheets may tell you where the company stands. But it’s the people who determine where the company goes next. As a CFO who has lived in both finance and HR, I’ve learned that the real magic happens when you connect the two.