For finance professionals building their careers in industry, the route to Finance Director or CFO is not always linear - and the skills required go far beyond technical expertise. Decisions made early on around operational exposure, leadership development, ownership environments and stakeholder management can have a lasting impact on long-term progression. In this interview, we speak with Jon Blythe, an experienced Group Chief Financial Officer whose career has been shaped through senior finance roles in complex manufacturing and multi-site businesses. Having worked across privately owned organisations, UK operations within US-owned groups, and private-equity-backed environments, Jon brings a pragmatic, experience-led perspective on what genuinely prepares finance professionals for senior leadership. This conversation is relevant for Financial Controllers and Heads of Finance who are thinking about their next step to FD, as well as Qualified Accountants thinking ahead - offering candid insight into operational grounding, leadership capability, and the realities of operating at board level.