Integrity As Important As Number-Crunching Ability For CFOs; Chief financial officers at top firms must also have good people skills.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(MANAGING A SUCCESSFUL COMPANY)

Byline: DONNA HOWELL

It's vital these days for companies to have a good chief financial officer. Companies need their skills to maximize profit in these non-boom times. Chief executives need them to help steer a path clear of financial missteps.

So how do top-performing companies find, hire and then work with their CFOs? They look at career experience, managerial skills and number-crunching abilities when searching. Personal factors such as ethics also come into play.

Take health and life insurer Aflac Inc. of Columbus, Ga. CFO Kriss Cloninger helped build the company into what it is today -- a strong performer. IBD gives it an Earnings Per Share Rating of 88, meaning it's in the top 12% of publicly traded companies in earnings in recent years and quarters.

How did Aflac pick Cloninger back in 1992? "It was truly one of those things where you just knew it was the right person," said Dan Amos, Aflac's CEO. He hired Cloninger as CFO after more than a year of considering candidates.

"I kept in the back of my mind there was possibly somebody from Peat Marwick that might fit in -- that was our accounting firm at time," he said.

Cloninger had been consulting Aflac for 15 years. "I knew most of the people who were already here," he said.