Last updated: June 10, 2026
CFO Staffing & Executive Search
We recruit and place the permanent finance chief your board can stand behind. Retained or engaged, confidential when the seat is still filled, and run by recruiters who have closed the same search before.
Last updated: June 10, 2026
CFO staffing is the executive search work of finding, vetting, and placing a company’s permanent Chief Financial Officer. KORE1 has run senior finance search since 2005, our recruiters average more than 15 years on the desk, and 92% of the leaders we place are still in the role a year later.
The CFO is the one hire your investors read line by line. A weak one shows up in a missed forecast, a board that loses confidence, a fundraise that stalls because the numbers don’t tie out the way they should. The cost of getting it wrong isn’t a salary. It’s the quarter you spend cleaning up after a CFO who couldn’t.
Here’s the part most companies learn the hard way. The finance leaders worth hiring are not on the market. They’re running someone else’s close right now, they’re compensated well, and they are not answering a recruiter they’ve never met. You reach them through relationships and real recruiting, or you don’t reach them at all. That’s the whole job at this level, and it’s the part of accounting and finance staffing a job board can’t fake.
We’ve run finance search for two decades. CFO placements at KORE1 are almost always a direct hire engagement, and they sit on top of the same finance bench that powers our controller and finance manager searches. Same recruiters, deeper relationships, a longer runway. The 92% one-year retention number is the one we’re proudest of, because a miss in the CFO chair is expensive and it’s very public.
The Finance Leaders We Recruit
A Series B startup hiring its first real CFO needs something very different from a 400-person manufacturer replacing one who’s retiring. We’ve sat on both sides of that table, and the search is built around which one you are.
- Chief Financial Officers. Full-time, permanent, owning the forecast, the board deck, the audit, and the capital story end to end.
- VPs of Finance and Heads of Finance, the operators who run the function day to day and grow into the CFO seat.
- Controllers and assistant controllers who can close the books fast and clean, then explain what the numbers actually mean.
- Finance directors and managers. The bench beneath the CFO, often the next thing a new CFO asks us to build. See finance manager staffing.
- Interim and fractional finance leaders, for the stretch when you need the seniority now but can’t justify a full-time hire yet.
How a KORE1 CFO Search Works
We start with the problem the seat has to solve. Not the job description. Whether you’re hiring a CFO to get audit-ready, to run a raise, to take the company public, or to fix a finance team that’s drowning. Half of CFO searches go sideways because nobody pinned that down before sourcing started.
Then we map the market. Who’s doing this job well, at your stage, in your industry, and what it would take to move them. Most of that map is people who’d never reply to a cold note from a recruiter they don’t know. We’ve spent twenty years earning the calls that get answered.
Vetting goes well past a resume read. We talk through real decisions. The restructuring they led, the audit they cleaned up, the hire they regret. References we actually chase, including the back-channel ones that never make the reference sheet.
And we keep it quiet when quiet matters. Replacing a sitting CFO without tipping off the team, the auditors, or the person still in the chair is something we do often. More on that below.
Still in Seat at 12 Months
Years Average Recruiter Tenure
Years Running Senior Search
U.S. Metros Served
Permanent CFO, Fractional CFO, or Hire It Yourself
Not every company needs a full-time CFO yet, and not every search needs a firm. Here’s the honest version of when each one makes sense.
| CFO Search (KORE1) | Fractional CFO | Post It Yourself | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best when | You need a permanent leader, full time | You need senior finance part time | You already know the candidate |
| Reaches passive talent | Yes, that’s the whole point | Sometimes | Rarely |
| Time to a real shortlist | 3 to 4 weeks | Days to weeks | Unpredictable |
| Confidential option | Yes, routinely | N/A | No |
| Replacement guarantee | Yes | N/A | No |
Still scaling and not ready for a full-time hire? Our fractional CFO services cover the in-between, and we’ll move you into a permanent search when the timing’s right.
Retained, Engaged, or Contingency
Most CFO placements run as a percentage of first-year base, commonly somewhere in the 20% to 35% range, or as a flat retained fee for the confidential and genuinely hard-to-fill searches. Retained means you commit and we commit our senior bench, with the fee split into stages so we’re paid to run a real process rather than win a race to your inbox. Engaged sits in the middle. A smaller amount down buys the search real priority, and the balance is due on placement.
For the right role we’ll run a straight contingency search too. On the first call we’ll tell you which structure fits your situation, not the one that pays us best. We’ll also tell you when you don’t need us at all, which is the part that earns the next search.
What You Get That a Posting Won’t Give You
Recruiters, Not Forwarders
Our team averages 15-plus years on the desk and most have placed a CFO before. They screen on judgment, not keyword matches.
A Finance Network You Can’t License
The CFOs you want aren’t applying anywhere. We reach them through relationships built over twenty years, not a database seat.
Confidential by Default
Replacing a CFO who’s still in the chair? We run the whole search off-market so the news breaks on your timeline, not a leak’s.
The Whole Finance Function
Once your CFO lands, we can build the team underneath, controllers, FP&A, finance managers, on the same account.
This is one search inside our broader executive search practice. The same desk fills CIO, CTO, and CISO roles when companies scale more than just finance.
Common Questions
What does a CFO staffing firm actually do?
A CFO staffing firm finds, vets, and places a company’s permanent finance chief, usually reaching candidates who would never respond to a job posting. The work is mostly relationships and judgment. We map who’s running finance well at your stage, approach the ones who aren’t looking, pressure-test them against what your role really needs, and manage the offer so a strong candidate doesn’t walk over something fixable. A good firm is also honest when a search isn’t working, which is the part that earns the next engagement.
How much does it cost to hire a CFO through a recruiter?
Most CFO searches run 20% to 35% of the hire’s first-year base salary, or a flat retained fee for confidential and hard-to-fill roles. Retained search splits that fee into stages so the firm is paid to run the process, not just to race you a resume. We don’t charge an upfront retainer on standard contingency searches, and we walk through both structures on the intake call before you commit to anything. The right number depends on the role, the urgency, and how thin the candidate pool is.
How long does it take to fill a CFO role?
Plan on 6 to 12 weeks for most CFO searches, with a vetted shortlist in front of you inside the first three to four weeks. A VP of Finance ready to step up in a deep talent market can move faster. A CFO with a specific background, say IPO experience plus your exact industry, in a city with three qualified people who are all currently employed and content, takes longer and there’s no honest way around it. We give you a realistic timeline for your search at the start instead of a number that sounds good on a sales call.
What’s the difference between CFO staffing and a fractional CFO?
CFO staffing places a permanent, full-time CFO on your payroll. A fractional CFO is a part-time or interim leader you bring in for a stretch, often while you scale toward a full-time hire. Companies under roughly $20M in revenue, or in the middle of a transition, frequently start fractional and convert to a permanent search later. We do both, and we’ll tell you which one your stage actually calls for. If you’re weighing it, start with our fractional CFO services and we’ll help you decide.
What should a CFO earn in 2026?
Base pay for most U.S. CFOs lands between roughly $240K at mid-market private companies and well over $400K at larger and public ones, with total compensation often pushing past $500K once bonus and equity are counted. Company stage, industry, and whether the role carries IPO or M&A duty move that number more than anything else. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks top-executive pay broadly, but a real comp band for your specific seat comes from market data, not an average. We’ll benchmark it with you before you make an offer.
Can you replace a CFO who is still in the role?
Yes, and discretion is the entire point. A confidential search lets you line up a successor before the current CFO is told, so the transition stays clean and the news breaks on your schedule rather than a rumor’s. We never put your company name in outreach without permission, we wall the search off from your own org chart, and we tell candidates how sensitive it is on the first call. Handled right, the finance team finds out when you’re ready for them to.
Do you only place CFOs, or the rest of the finance team too?
Both. Because our CFO search shares a bench with our broader finance practice, we can build the team beneath a new CFO once they land, which is usually the next thing they ask for. That includes controllers, finance managers, FP&A, and accounting staff across contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire. One firm, one account, instead of three agencies that never talk to each other.
Ready to Hire Your Next CFO?
Start with a short, confidential call. Tell us what the seat has to fix and what’s gone wrong with finance hiring before, and we’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right firm for it. No retainer to talk.