Pros Up Corporate Ladder

For corporate accountants looking to get ahead, now's the time to make the move.

The demands of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 have created promotion opportunities for controllers eyeing the chief financial officer chair and other professionals seeking to move up the finance-department ladder. They're benefiting from greater turnover in the financial ranks due to the pressures of new regulatory compliance, as well as new job creation in internal-audit departments.  

For those looking to advance to a CFO spot, the most openings can be found at small and midsize companies. Controllers making such a move are likely to see a big bump in pay. At companies with $100 million to less than $1 billion in annual revenue, CFOs earn an average annual base salary of $238,700, compared to $113,300 for controllers, according to the Association for Finance Professionals, a Bethesda, Md.-based professional group.  

Recruiters say they're casting their nets wider to find qualified talent. " You have to look for people who are looking to make a step up, rather when before you might entice more-senior people with a lateral approach," says Eric Rehmann, senior client partner for the financial-officer practice at the Washington office of Los Angeles-based search firm Korn/Ferry International. " Demand at the largest companies is still for experienced people who've demonstrated success and are looking to make a lateral move, whereas midsize and small companies are willing to give that No. 2 executive a chance."

Ian J. Harvie is a case in point. In December, he joined C& D Technologies Inc., an electrical component and equipment company with more than $400 million in annual sales, as CFO. He'd been a corporate controller at Exide Technologies Inc., where he also had been interim CFO for a year. The 42-year-old had helped lead the battery manufacturer with more than $2.5 billion in annual sales through Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

He'd sought a step up in his career when he began job hunting in the fall. Exide had announced plans to relocate to Alpharetta, Ga., from Lawrenceville, N.J., and he was reluctant to move. An executive recruiter alerted him to the CFO opening at C& D, which is based in Blue Bell, Pa. Joining C& D, Mr. Harvie received an annual base salary of $335,000, plus a target incentive bonus of 35% of his base salary. At Exide, he'd earned an annual base salary of $300,000, he says.

" Someone who has lived under Sarbanes implementation and all of its rigors is a fairly rare commodity these days, and you have to pay for them," says Jeffrey Graves, C& D's chief executive officer.

Anthony Colatrella stepped up to the CFO post at Paxar Corp. from corporate controller at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. in July 2005. He'd sent out feelers to recruiters a few months earlier. " I was surprised at the number of opportunities thrown in my direction," he says. Paxar is a 9,700-employee clothing-label manufacturer in White Plains, N.Y., with annual revenue of around $800 million. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., a marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products, has annual sales of $2.3 billion.

By switching jobs, Mr. Colatrella, 50, says his salary increased modestly, though he declines to provide details. His background includes a diverse mix of accounting-related responsibilities --controllership, financial planning and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and most recently, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance at Scotts.

While increasingly available, corporate-accounting jobs are also more rigorous than they once were, says Mike Eastman, president and chief executive officer at Eastman Consulting Group, a Houston-based executive-search firm specializing in accounting, finance and tax. " There's a lot of pressure -- pressure not to massage the numbers, to do what's right and make sure there are no mistakes," he explains. " Sarbanes has changed the complexities and ramifications of these jobs, which could range from shareholder lawsuits to actual jail time."