During a conversation with Jim, I was complaining that I have time till 45-46 to become CFO. After which, my window of opportunity will close. He smiled and said, "you sound like Chris Andersen. His magical number was 50". Then he commented - there is no real number to become CFO. People can become CFOs at 50 or 52. What's important is that there is natural progression in everything that a person does over his/her career. If there is a sense of plateauing - the person does similar things across multiple roles - then it indicates limited upside.
Sure, you would find several folks who are CFOs at an earlier age. This isn't surprising, even if it is somewhat disappointing. Careers are a combination of experiences, decisions and luck. Ofcourse, you have to be good at what you do, but luck is important. While assessing our failures and others succcesses, we often attribute more weight to skills/abilities and less weight to luck. Folks attaining higher levels at earlier stages of their career could've joined a company at an early stage (and grown with the company), they could've known someone there, they could've networked their way in - there can be a multitude of reasons.
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