Nell Minow, a shareholder advocate, says “yes”:
CFOs play a really crucial role. The most important thing that I look for in a CFO is somebody who reports directly to the audit committee, because what I want is a CFO who is absolutely clear that his or her job depends on telling the truth to the board.
Bob Frisch of the HBR Blog thinks it’s a bad idea:
The CFO is most often the closest advisor to the CEO. In my recent research on the structure of senior management teams, I found that the most common subordinate in a CEO’s informal kitchen cabinet — the people the CEO trusts when making the most important decisions about running the company — was the CFO. As one senior financial-services executive told me, “If your CFO isn’t your most trusted partner, it’s time to get yourself a new CFO.”
Minow also thinks that CFO are underpaid relative to CEOs.