On three legs of CFO stool (cont...) - Investor Relations...

The three legs of the CFO stool are: 1) Accounting/Auditing; 2) Finance Ops 3) Investor Relations

The first two are relatively easier.  Skills can be acquired through education (CPA/CA, etc).  Investor relations is more tricky because it requires communicating a story to investors.  When Akamai acquired Prolexic, it didn't have a lot of revenue.  But Jim had to believe in the security story and it's potential, and sell it to investors and capital markets.  That story involved some financial milestones, and some non-financial milestones - to help investors track that we are actually making progress on our strategy.  Jim was involved in not only selling the story, but also crafting it.  

To be of value to the CEO, a CFO has to be able to sell to investors such decisions in the right financial context - which makes #3 more art than science.