CFO Coaching
As the former CFO of Microsoft's Worldwide Operations, Ken Hickey has sat in the chair his clients sit in now. He brings that lived experience to help senior finance leaders strengthen judgement, influence, and leadership impact through the growth, transformation, and complexity they increasingly face.
Executive Coaching
As a former CFO of Microsoft Worldwide Operations, Ken Hickey brings real-world C-suite executive experience to his client's leadership and business opportunities.
How CFO Coaching Works
A structured, practical process designed around the realities of the CFO and finance leader's role. Clear objectives, real challenge, and tools you can apply between sessions - built to strengthen how you lead, decide, and influence.
Schedule a confidential, no-obligation call by pressing the ‘Get Started’ button. We will spend 30 minutes discussing the pressures you’re facing, the leadership challenges ahead, and where you want to grow as a finance leader. If there is a good fit, you’ll receive a clear proposal.
We agree the foundation of the work; your objectives, confidentiality, success measures, and the practical arrangements for the engagement. If your organisation is sponsoring the work, we'll agree how they're involved.
We begin the coaching engagement, typically meeting every two weeks for one hour or ninety minutes. Engagements are usually three, six, or twelve months depending on your needs and objectives. We start by clarifying your strengths, development priorities, operating context, and the leadership outcomes you want to create. Together, we develop a Personal Development Plan that provides a clear roadmap for the work ahead.
Our sessions are driven by what matters most in your role. We work on the patterns shaping how you lead, decide, communicate, and influence - and develop practical approaches that you apply directly in real decisions, stakeholder conversations, and leadership situations. The objective is not insight for its own sake. It is meaningful change in how you operate and the impact you create.
As the engagement concludes, we review the progress you have made, the leadership practices that have worked, and the patterns that could pull you back into old habits. You leave with greater self-awareness, practical habits, and a clearer leadership approach - so that the progress you have made can continue well beyond the coaching engagement.
What you’ll strengthen
Sharper Judgement Under Pressure
Make clearer decisions with less second-guessing. Coaching helps you work through ambiguity, competing demands, and incomplete information - so you can commit with confidence when the stakes are high.
Stronger Executive Presence
Show up with the composure, clarity, and authority expected of a peer to the CEO. Build a leadership presence that allows your expertise to carry weight in high-stakes moments.
Control Over Decision Load
Fewer decisions owned, better decisions made. You learn to prioritise ruthlessly, delegate with trust, and protect your attention for the calls that actually move the business.
Leading Change While Still Delivering
Lead transformation, growth, and increased scrutiny without allowing core performance to slip. Build the capacity to drive change and protect performance at the same time - the defining pressure of the modern CFO.
Building a High-Performance Team
Build a stronger finance leadership team around you. Create greater clarity, accountability, communication, and trust - so the function delivers more consistently without every critical decision needing to sit with you.
From Functional Leader to Enterprise Leader
Move beyond running the Finance function to shaping enterprise priorities. Strengthen your ability to connect financial insight, strategy, and execution - and influence the decisions that determine business performance.
CFO Coaching FAQs
The questions CFOs and finance leaders most often ask before starting. If yours is not here, get in touch.
What is CFO Coaching?
CFO Coaching is a structured, confidential, one-to-one relationship designed to strengthen how you lead, decide, and influence.
It gives you protected space to step back from the day-to-day, see your situation more clearly, and work through the real pressures of the role with someone who has sat in the chair. The work is practical, focused on outcomes, and built around the leadership challenges and business priorities that matter most to you.
Who can benefit from CFO Coaching?
CFOs and senior finance leaders - particularly those leading through transformation, growth, increased complexity, or greater board and investor scrutiny.
It is also valuable for leaders stepping into a broader role, building a stronger Finance function, or seeking to increase their enterprise influence while still carrying the pressure of delivering the numbers. The work is for finance leaders who want to lead with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.
Is Coaching confidential?
Yes. Coaching is confidential, subject only to legal obligations.
What we discuss stays between us. Nothing is shared with your CEO, board, HR team, or any other stakeholder without your explicit agreement. Where your organisation is sponsoring the work, we agree at the outset what will and will not be shared - typically broad themes and progress against objectives, never the substance of our conversations.
How often will we meet and for how long?
Most engagements run between three and twelve months - shorter for a focused goal, longer for sustained development, depending on what you want to achieve. We typically meet every two weeks, for an hour or ninety minutes, with real work applied between sessions.
Is Executive Coaching in-person or online?
Most sessions take place online by video, providing flexibility around a demanding role and schedule. In-person is available where location allows. We'll do whatever works best for you.
I'm already experienced - why would I need a Coach?
Because seniority changes the feedback environment. As your role becomes broader and more visible, fewer people are willing, or able, to challenge your thinking candidly. At the same time, the consequences of blindspots, unexamined assumptions, and poor prioritisation become greater.
Coaching gives you protected, confidential space to think out loud, pressure-test your judgement, and work through the decisions, relationships, and leadership patterns that shape your effectiveness.
I will challenge you honestly, without organisational politics or a personal agenda. My work is designed to help you see more clearly, make more deliberate choices, and lead with greater impact, drawing on both rigorous coaching practice and first-hand CFO experience.
How is Coaching different from Mentoring?
Coaching helps you develop and own the answer. Mentoring allows you to draw on mine.
In coaching, my primary role is to help you think more clearly, see your situation from new angles, and make decisions that are genuinely yours. I use questions, challenge, reflection, and practical experimentation to strengthen your judgement, influence, and leadership effectiveness.
In mentoring, I am more direct. Having spent decades in senior finance roles, including as CFO of Microsoft’s Worldwide Operations, there are times when my perspective may be useful: what I would look for, risks I would consider, questions I would ask, or lessons I learned in similar circumstances.
Coaching is the core of this work. Where appropriate, we can deliberately bring in an experience-based Mentoring perspective where it will help you move forward. The balance is shaped around your objectives, your context, and what you need most from the engagement.
Results that speaks for themselves
A significant impact on me, as a person and an executive
Energised, excited, and clearer about how I lead
Expert guidance through career transformation
Clarity, challenge, and lightbulb moments that stick
Genuinely transformative, with impact beyond the sessions
Clearer priorities, stronger leadership, more deliberate decisions
An outstanding coach
One of the best that I have worked with
An excellent executive coach
Provided a safe environment for us to push our boundaries
Guided me on a journey of self-discovery