Women CFOs are still rare in banking. Of the nation’s top 50 banks, only three have female CFOs.

First Horizon’s Hope Dmuchowski is one of them.

Dmuchowski told CFO Brew she didn’t believe she could become a CFO until just a few years ago. She grew up in a small town in New Jersey and was raised by a single mother. “I consistently saw her going to work, trying to live, generally, paycheck to paycheck,” Dmuchowski told CFO Brew, while making sure she and her sisters had the things they needed.

Most of the women Dmuchowski knew growing up who had college degrees were either nurses or teachers, and, in college, she pursued a teaching degree before switching to business. She was hired into the Leadership Development Program at Deutsche Bank, where she recalls being one of “five to seven” women in a group of about 100. Members of her cohort had Ivy League pedigrees and parents or grandparents in the banking industry.

Dmuchowski used that fact as inspiration. “It gave me a reason to excel,” she said. “It gave me reason to say, ‘Yes, there’s only a few of me, but I’m going to be the one that makes it.”

To continue reading Hope’s journey to CFO, click here.—CV

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In need of an interim finance chief? Get in line.

In 2023, demand for interim CFOs surged 46% year over year, according to a report from Business Talent Group and its parent company, executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. What’s more, requests for finance pros like controllers and heads of FP&A skyrocketed 114%.

Requests for financial controls, accounting, and audit talent ticked up 33%, and demand for workers in financial planning, analysis, and modeling increased 28%.

“The current talent landscape has fundamentally shifted as companies can no longer rely solely on traditional full-time hiring to access the capabilities they need,” Sunny Ackerman, global managing partner of on-demand talent at Heidrick & Struggles, said in a news release.

The vast majority (95%) of executives said they expect to have difficulties finding the right talent according to their needs over the next three to five years, the report found.

Click here for more on CFO talent demands.—AZ

Chris Ortega is a fractional CFO and chief executive of Fresh FP&A. He is one of the experts who will speak at the upcoming CFO Brew live event, “Next-Gen Finance: Future-Proofing Your Business Operations.” Ahead of the event, we spoke with Ortega about how organizations can balance efficiency with opportunity.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How do the organizations that you work with balance the need for efficiency with growth opportunities?

One of the objectives that we’re always working with our clients on is how they are maintaining profitable growth…You want a growth rate somewhere between 15%–50%, you want an EBIT margin somewhere between 5% and 15%, and you definitely want to be cash flow positive. So I think for us, we’re always balancing growth over efficiency and scale, and making sure we’re doing it in a profitable way, not just in a way of growing the top line as high as possible.

That’s always a balance, because you do have CEOs that are really aggressive, and really want to push it. But that’s where that healthy friction comes in with our clients. They respect us, they trust us as their strategic advisors, and we’re valued partners for them, so we have that seat at the table to share that idea around profitable growth.

For more on balancing efficiency with opportunity, click here.—AZ