Careers

Chief financial officer

The chief financial officer decides the funding structure, arbitrates investment, secures cash and reports to shareholders. They translate strategy into financial balance, and financial balance into room to manoeuvre.

Funding a strategy

The finance directorship works on two horizons. Short term: cash, working capital, banking maturities, payment arbitration. Long term: funding plan, choosing between equity and debt, appraising an investment, preparing a growth transaction. Between the two sits management control, which gives the chief executive the economic reading of each activity and makes it possible to choose between two directions.

Build a funding plan and negotiate with banks
Appraise an investment and defend the decision to the board
Steer cash and working capital
Report to shareholders and prepare for an auditor's review

Organisations that open this directorship

Groups and their subsidiaries

Head-office reporting, international standards, consolidation: a structured function, demanding in formality.

Growing companies

Raising funding, structuring accounting, professionalising steering: a directorship to build end to end.

Institutions and programmes

Earmarked funding, accountability, regular external audits: a permanent documentary requirement.

The programme data

Four values, one source. They feed the qualification page, the application form, the equivalence file and the final certificate without ever being re-entered. That single source is what makes two catalogue programmes comparable: the figures carry the same meaning and the same unit everywhere.

qualification level: 7
months of programme: 9
taught hours: 700 h
credits: 70
competency blocks: 5

What each of the blocks covers

For each block the framework states the ground covered and the taught hours devoted to it. That precision serves at the orientation stage, then during the programme, then on exit when you have to describe what you can do. One vocabulary throughout, that of the occupation as companies practise it.

Financial strategy and funding: 190 (27 %)
Performance management: 190 (27 %)
Accounting, consolidation and audit: 170 (24 %)
Tax, legal and compliance: 100 (14 %)
Executive conduct: 50 (7 %)

Total: 700 taught hours

Financial strategy and funding · 190 h — Financial structure, funding, banking and investor relations, valuation
Performance management · 190 h — Management control, budget, forecasting, executive dashboards, investment decisions
Accounting, consolidation and audit · 170 h — Closing, consolidation, statutory audit, internal control
Tax, legal and compliance · 100 h — Group taxation, audits, compliance, governance
Executive conduct · 50 h — Advising the chief executive, raising alarms, financial ethics, board communication

Reaching financial leadership

This table sets side by side what genuinely prepares for this role. Credits and taught hours measure the gap between two options; fees relate that gap to a budget. Those are the three questions a candidate asks, and the three answers sit on a single row.

Programme	Duration	Credits	Taught hours	Fees
Finance and Accounting programme — Bac+5 level · Master's degree	2 years	120	1200 h	6 800 000 GNF per year
Certificate in OHADA Finance and Compliance · Professional certification	6 months	18	180 h	4 200 000 GNF in total

Useful to know before you apply

Does the qualification assume prior finance management experience?

Level 7 recognises executive responsibility: admission examines professional experience on the same footing as prior study. The finance and administration manager qualification, at level 6, is the preceding step.

How central are accounting standards?

The OHADA framework is the production reference; international standards come in for subsidiaries of groups consolidating abroad. The OHADA finance and compliance certificate deepens the first strand.

Explore next

See all 72 pages

View the finance and accounting programme