The Most Overlooked Growth Partner in Your GTM Strategy
Strong CMOs don't just align with finance. They partner with it. Here's how to build a high-trust relationship with your CFO that drives faster, smarter growth.
Early in my career, I walked into a budget planning meeting with our company's CFO with a solid forecast, clean reporting, and a clear rationale for how additional investment would translate into pipeline and revenue growth.
We walked through my deck, and she asked three questions:
“What will we cut if this doesn’t result in what you’re forecasting?”
And perhaps even more important, “What would we do if the results are better than expected? Could we accelerate what we were doing to take advantage of the opportunity?”
These three questions reframed how I approached working with my CFO.
It wasn’t about defending the spend. It was about building a dynamic system, one that could absorb failure, but more importantly, accelerate when we hit traction.
That conversation shaped how I approached the CMO-CFO relationship from that day forward. Not as a checkpoint, but as a growth partnership. One grounded in data, built on trust, and capable of moving fast in either direction.
The CFO Is a Core Member of Your GTM Team
Too often, we define the GTM team as product, marketing, sales, and customer success, and forget about the person who ensures the financial health and stability of the entire go-to-market operation.
That’s a miss. And I’ve written about it in other articles here and here.
A good CFO isn’t there to gatekeep your budget. They’re there to help the company allocate capital in a way that supports growth, protects runway, and improves margins. They don’t own your budget–you do. But they do own the framework for how capital is planned, forecasted, and tracked across the business.
When you lead GTM, your job is to drive growth. And that means thinking about the relationship between dollars in and dollars out, just like your CFO does.
Marketing and finance shouldn’t be operating in silos. They’re looking at different sides of the same strategy: how do we grow faster, more efficiently, and more predictably? The best CMOs I know don’t just understand the numbers. They partner with finance to stress-test the logic behind them.
Alignment Is a Strategy, Not a Soft Skill
The best marketing leaders don’t just “work with finance.” They build real partnerships. For me, that happened when I set up a recurring monthly meeting with my CFO. Not because I had to (who wants another meeting?), but because I wanted to understand what she cared about, how she assessed risk, and what made her feel confident in marketing’s investments.
Over time, she became one of the most important mentors in my career.
She didn’t just review my numbers and provide feedback. She challenged my assumptions, helped me connect financial metrics to strategic impact, and sharpened how I made the case for acceleration when something was working. I did the same for her. I shared insights into buyer behavior, pipeline dynamics, and how market signals were shaping our GTM decisions.
That relationship taught me how to work with every CFO I’ve partnered with since. Even those that didn’t particularly like marketing when I started. Never defensive. And certainly not transactional. Every partnership is a collaboration.
When you treat alignment as a shared objective instead of seasonal performance, everything changes:
You identify risks earlier
You build trust that lasts beyond the quarter
And when it’s time to place a bigger bet? You’re not asking for permission. You’re moving in lockstep with your finance partner.
And remember, the CFO doesn’t need a marketing primer. They need a seat at the GTM table and a partner willing to bring them in before the numbers are final.
Great Partnerships Unlock Smarter, Faster Growth
When marketing and finance operate as allies, not opponents, the entire business moves with confidence and speed. It’s not just that it’s easier to get the budget approved. It’s that you can pivot faster, scale what’s working, and make smarter calls without endless internal friction.
At one company, my CFO and I had such strong trust that we could greenlight new initiatives mid-quarter without the typical long approval loop. We both understood the goals, the metrics, the risks, and the upside. We didn’t need a marathon of meetings (thank you!). We needed a 20-minute conversation. That kind of agility only happens when you’ve built the relationship first.
And here is something that many marketing leaders overlook: Your CFO isn’t just your internal partner. They’re often your bridge to your investors and/or your board.
If you want marketing to be seen as strategic, not tactical, you need your CFO to be aligned with your vision. Because when the CFO understands the “why” behind your investments, and believes in the logic behind your plan, they’re far more likely to speak on your behalf in board and investor-level conversations.
I’ve seen too many marketing leaders show up in boardrooms armed with campaign plans, vanity metrics, and some wins, only to lose the room. Not because their work wasn’t valuable, but because they didn’t connect the dots to business impact. The CFO can help you do that. But only if you’ve brought them into the thinking ahead of time.
So, how do you build that kind of partnership? Start here:
Frame growth investments through a business lens. Focus on financial outcomes, not just funnel metrics (never leads or MQLs!)
Treat capital like a lever, not a lifeline. Be proactive with tradeoffs, and bring finance into the decision-making, not just the results.
Build rhythm, not one-off requests. A standing dialog beats a year-end pitch deck every time.
When the CMO and CFO operate in true partnership, you don’t just get smarter budget decisions. You gain a strategic ally who helps you move faster, build credibility, and ensure your story lands where it matters most.
Build the Bridge Before You Need It
I’ve worked with some absolutely amazing CFOs throughout my career after realizing that the CFO wasn’t simply my financial counterpart. They became one of my most powerful strategic partners. But those partnerships don’t form during budget season. They were built in the in-between. The regular check-ins. The candid conversations. The shared wins and losses.
If you want to move faster, take bigger swings, and build a more resilient GTM engine, start investing in that relationship today. One tangible step? Book a standing meeting with your CFO. Not to ask for budget. Not to defend metrics. But to listen, share context, and start building mutual understanding. Ask what they’re tracking. Share what you are seeing in the market. No slides. No fluff. Just two executives working toward the same goal: smart, sustainable growth.
And if you’re not sure how to start the conversation? I’ve had it more times than I can count. Connect with me today, and I’d be happy to help.