Best CFO Communities to Join in 2021

With the pandemic and remote work ongoing, digital communities have taken on a whole new significance for businesses hoping to stay connected. CFOs and finance leaders have increasingly relied on these communities to stay in touch with their companies and their employees. And while remote communication can be challenging, the good news is these online communities and digital networks are stronger than they’ve ever been.

Are you interested in finding new ways to network and expand your business capabilities? Here is the list.

Top Finance Communities and Dedicated CFO Communities Worth Exploring

1. CFO Chat

CFO Chat is a free, Slack-based community where CFOs congregate, network, and share advice. This is a 100% free service run by the SiliconCFO company that aims to be the premier chat-centric CFO networking group.

While limited in functionality compared to some others, CFO Chat offers great networking opportunities for CFOs at all levels. It also features curated content, online resources, job opportunities, and more, all to help finance leaders access the same growth-oriented communities that are so common in the startup space.

2. CFO Connect

CFO Connect is a growing finance community of over 6,5000 members centered around three pillars:

1. Online & in-person events
2. Virtual communities
3. Finance resources

Like CFO Chat, CFO Connect offers a private Slack channel where finance leaders can share ideas and insights. But CFO Connect goes a little further, hosting online and in-person workshops, meetups, and 1:1 member matching to help users really push their professional skillsets.

This group may be of particular value for European CFOs because the Euro-centric community plans to host future events across London, Berlin, Paris, and more.

3. Evanta

Evanta is a Gartner-based company that boasts a network of over 300 active CFOs, 83% of whom are Fortune 100-level. Like our other entries, Evanta was built to give CFO communities a place to share ideas and learn from one another.

Evanta’s goal is to highlight issues most critical to CFOs, broadly including:

• Building a data-centric organization
• Exploring seamless integration of digital capabilities and business operations
• How to prepare and respond strategically to recession threats

Evanta is a great choice for any finance leader seeking new perspectives on old challenges or actionable insights to help validate their strategies. It’s a high-level CFO networking group with plenty of value to share.

4. Controllers Council

Controllers Council is one of the top finance communities dedicated to the needs and challenges of controllers. While CFOs and other financial leaders are welcome to join, this group has a particular focus on controller operations; a pivotal role for any institution:

Controllers outnumber CFOs nearly 3-1 in the United States, and almost 6-1 globally. In fact, there are over 250,000 Controllers in the United States and more than 800,000 Controllers globally. -Controllers Council 

This group provides ongoing programs, webinars, and a variety of great training resources built specifically for corporate controllers and accounting/finance organizations. They’re updated regularly to ensure relevancy and accuracy, giving this underappreciated financial role some great exposure.

5. CFO Leadership Council

The CFO Leadership Council is a finance community committed to empowering senior financial executives with educational resources, sponsorship opportunities, and in-person networking across chapters.

The group features 27 chapters and nearly 2,000 members across the U.S. who actively drive the organization through feedback, recommendations, and in-person insights.

Membership with the Council also features some interesting personal development programs, including the MIT Executive Education Program and the CGMA Finance Leadership Program. These are great resources for any top-level financial executive interested in pushing their professional skills to the next level.

6. GrowCFO

GrowCFO is a community of ambitious financial leaders dedicated to helping one another achieve full professional potential. As with other communities, GrowCFO offers great peer development group programs and a huge library of online training courses.

This finance community also offers more in-depth resources, such as private mentoring sessions with experienced professionals and collaborative events across a wide range of topics. CFOs can start with GrowCFO’s Competency Framework Assessment, an easy-to-use tool that supports simple benchmarking and highlights key focus areas to work on. For budding CFOs, there’s nothing better.

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