Big Four Accounting Firms Ebb as Feeder for Corporate CFO Jobs

Long-term recruiting trends show top accounting and consulting firms are slipping as a dominant contributor to the talent pipeline for chief financial officers at big publicly traded companies, though they remain a common launching point.

About one-quarter of CFOs at large US-listed companies in the S&P 500 index bring past work experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers and its Big Four firm peers Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and KPMG. Add in other common firms where CFOs have previously worked—such as McKinsey & Co. and Boston Consulting Group—and that figure rises to one-third with an accounting or consulting background. That’s according ...