Nevertheless, the family CEO had to have identified a need for professional, non-family
management of the FB’s finances in order to hire a CFO. Hence, the family CEO is likely to
use the CFO’s specific financial management knowledge for advice when making decisions,
but maintains power of making the final decision in his or her hands. The results by Gurd &
Thomas (2012) support this notion and already indicate that in FBs, the CFO is often
deemed to play a role as finance and accounting expert, but not as being a tantamount
sparring partner for the family CEO when it comes to strategic decisions. Nevertheless, Gurd
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& Thomas (2012) also stress that FB owners significantly rely on the specific finance and
accounting knowledge that the CFOs provide. Thus, when the family is still included in FB
management in the form of a family CEO, the CFO may act as an advising steward for the
long-term and financially successful development of the FB, but not as a member holding
strategic decision-making power. Therefore: