As a highly experienced tax recruiter with over thirty-three years in the tax executive search profession, I have information to share if you want to know how to attract leaders in the tax profession. As many tax leadership roles unfold due to baby boomer retirements,  multinational corporations are increasingly losing access to the most technically sophisticated tax executives throughout the market. There is an elite pool of underground tax executive talent only accessible through a channel of trusted connectors. While people are distracted by the advances of AI, few people realize the negative impact AI is having on the ability to attract the hidden pool of talented tax professionals. This post addresses important factors affecting a search for a corporate tax executive today.

Understand my views are based upon thirty-three years’ experience communicating with highly educated leaders in the tax profession nationally and internationally. When you spend your professional life communicating  with tax executives with multinational corporations for decades, you learn how identify and reach the very best of the tax profession. They are now increasingly hidden and underground due to the need for greater  privacy. I have been fortunate to meet the most technically sophisticated tax executives around the world who are saving corporations millions, and in some cases billions, in tax dollars. There are CFOs who retain me to help build their tax team as a profit center; and there are CFOs who view their tax organization as a cost center. You learn there is a big difference in how a CFO treats their tax organization. You learn the most technically sophisticated tax executives want to report to the CFO; you learn tax executives want to report directly to the CFO. Companies who have the head of tax reporting to anyone other than the CFO will never be able to access the top tax executive talent. You learn when companies reorganize management and remove the tax executive from reporting to the CFO, they lose access to talented tax executives. There is higher turnover in a lead tax executive role when it does not report directly to the CFO. Most lead tax executives approached by recruiters on a search for Head of Tax will not even consider interviewing with the company if the role is not reporting to the CFO. This prevents extraordinary talent from even considering the lead tax executive role.

When you have a corporate CFO and lead tax executive working together as business partners, you have a corporation that increases income and value of the organization. Happy investors reap the benefits of a management team of a CFO and Head of Tax working together. These extraordinary teams are built. These top management teams do not happen by someone randomly walking in through a corporate resume portal. They do not randomly happen by a contractor recruiter with no deep network in the tax community.  Success happens when you retain an expert tax recruiter to actively pursue top tax talent for your organization. CFOs who retain an expert in tax recruitment will reap the reward working with an expert with a strong and proven tax executive network.

Proven and experienced tax recruiters communicate with technically sophisticated tax executives who understand how to legally use our tax laws to claw back millions and often billions in what would otherwise be corporate income lost forever to tax revenue authorities. Lead tax executives in multinational corporations are fending off tax revenue authorities at state and local, federal and international levels daily. Highly intelligent, technically sophisticated tax executives offer profit-making benefits to the companies who hire them.

Three Reasons Corporations Struggle To Hire A Tax Executive

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