2. Chief Financial Officer
3. Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
All three will do, but the third one often refers to the "chief financial officer", and I think the first one should be the most accurate.
In the senior financial management positions of enterprises in China, CFO (Chief Financial Officer), Chief Accountant and Chief Financial Officer coexist at the same time. People often confuse them, but they are not synonyms. Not only the literal expression is different, but also its historical origin, essence, position in corporate governance and responsibility orientation.
CFO originated from western enterprises and appeared in 1970s. The chief financial officer is an outstanding senior manager of the company and plays an important role in corporate governance. They enter the decision-making level of directors and the executive level of managers at the same time and participate in the company strategy based on shareholder value creation. The important duty of CFO is to realize the strategic goal and long-term development of the enterprise through resource allocation. Therefore, CFO should be the manager of enterprise strategy, implement external capital control on behalf of investors and be responsible to shareholders and the board of directors. For China, CFO is an exotic product. The name "CFO" was adopted by some internet companies and high-tech enterprises earlier. At present, more and more domestic companies adopt the name "CFO".
The financial supervision system originated from western countries. Before and after World War II, the state-owned enterprises in western countries developed to a certain extent. Generally speaking, the management of state-owned enterprises is to select the general manager in the talent market by the financial department or competent department that can represent the country, and the general manager will manage it on his behalf, and authorize the general manager to select suitable senior managers such as chief accountant to form a manager level to manage production and operation.
In China, the word "chief financial officer" comes after "chief accountant". Like western countries, China's "CFO" system originated from the government's appointment of CFO to supervise state-owned enterprises. Its work involves the main aspects of financial supervision. In essence, it is the development and improvement of the chief accountant system and the internal audit system of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises at a higher level in financial work organization and financial supervision. It absorbs and concentrates some financial management and supervision functions of the chief accountant and internal audit, and also makes up for the deficiency of the position, responsibility and authority of the chief accountant in the enterprise organization. Is a senior financial manager at the manager level, mainly responsible for internal fiduciary duties. At first, this title was mainly used by listed companies and some state-owned enterprises as well as other enterprises such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Based on the good supervision effect, the CFO system has been gradually popularized. Now the title of "Chief Financial Officer" is very common, but its positioning among enterprises is quite different. The "chief financial officer" of some enterprises is equivalent to the "chief accountant" who is responsible to the general manager of state-owned enterprises. Some "CFO" refers to "the person in charge of the financial department". There are also individual companies whose "CFO" is equivalent to CFO. The "Chief Financial Officer" is responsible to the board of directors, the general manager and the board of supervisors.
Because the chief financial officer and the chief accountant have different responsibilities and functions, they cannot replace each other. Therefore, in practice, it is suggested that the chief financial officer system and the chief accountant system run at the same time, but this cannot change the present situation that senior financial managers can't really be responsible for all aspects of enterprise financial management, so they have no position in the enterprise.