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At the age of 31, David Woodworth was offered CFO positions at two different firms. The first offer came from his then current employer, where as vice president of finance he was keenly aware of urgent challenges that the company\u2019s next CFO would need to address. The second offer came unsolicited from a smaller company in the same field, where he could expect to ease into the role and set the pace for his first 100 days.

\u201cIt was a hard decision, and one where you wish there was a silver bullet,\u201d says Woodworth, who opted to stay where he was, which was at a highly leveraged firm that had recently been taken private by a group of investors.

Woodworth\u2019s early chapter flies in the face of the widely expressed conundrum that to become a CFO, you have to be a CFO. However, in Woodworth\u2019s case, the price of entry to the CFO office was a cool head and an even keel\u2014or at least being someone capable of working alongside a group of edgy investors.

\u201cI had to embrace the role pretty quickly and operate in some unique environments,\u201d he adds.

Thinking back on his first CFO tour of duty, Woodworth concludes by saying, \u201cThe advice that I would like to give to someone stepping into a CFO role would be about how to prioritize and how to say \u2018no.\u2019\u201d\xa0\u2013 Jack Sweeney