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Your first year sets your next five. Plan all twelve months.
A month-by-month field guide for new finance leaders. Run the listening tour, audit the close, land early wins, and lead your first planning cycle, with Monday morning actions in every chapter.
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What you'll learn
From day one to a plan the board approves
The year breaks into six stretches, each with a different job. Here is what each one asks of you, and the actions that make it stick.
01
Listen before you fix
Spend the first thirty days on conversations and hold off on changes. Run the listening tour with the same questions for every person, and ask the one that reveals the most. The themes you hear become your year-one agenda.
02
Trace every number to its source
Map the systems behind your board metrics, audit the close day by day, and find the definitions that disagree. Check the controls you inherited while a gap is still a project.
03
Win early, then set the rhythm
Choose early wins by value and effort, then say so at a 90-day review with the CEO. Publish a monthly cadence, write variance commentary in four parts, and start a rolling forecast on five drivers.
04
Make the case and lead the plan
Communicate up, across, and down. Assess your team, choose tools for the data layer first, and build the business case in the CEO’s language. Then run your first planning cycle in scenarios and score year one.
INSIDE THE E-BOOK
Seven chapters, from the first conversation to the year-one scorecard
Listen First
Days 1 to 30. Run the listening tour and ask the one question that reveals the most.
Trace Every Number to Its Source
Map the data, audit the close, and check the controls you inherited.
Early Wins
Days 31 to 90. Choose wins by value and effort, then say so at your 90-day review.
Build the Operating Rhythm
Set the monthly cadence, write variance commentary, and start a rolling forecast.
Communicating Up, Across, and Down
Brief the CEO and board, partner with department heads, and lead your own team.
Team and Stack
Months 6 to 9. Assess the team, use the hierarchy of needs, and make the business case.
Lead the Plan
Months 10 to 12. Run planning in phases and scenarios, then score year one.
Trust in the numbers comes first. Influence comes second.
Cube · Your First Year in a New Finance Role
Who's behind it
Written by a three-time CFO
Christina Ross has been CFO three times, at companies from high-growth startups to global enterprises. This e-book comes out of a conversation she has had dozens of times, with controllers who were excellent at their jobs and still not ready for hers.
It ends where Cube starts. When 60 to 80 percent of a finance team's capacity goes to reconciliation, the strategic work never gets a calendar slot. Cube's four FP&Agents work on a single governed data layer, so the hours the close used to take go to the judgment only you can supply.
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Get Your First Year in a New Finance Role
Seven chapters and 26 Monday morning actions, from the thirty-day listening tour to your first planning cycle, plus a year-one scorecard to measure the result. Yours in one download.
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