The duties of a CFO is generally to manage financial concerns for a company, but due to recent economic growth in Asia, the CFO has become an increasingly valuable asset to the company. As a few companies begin to realize that their growth must be well managed in order for the company to reach its full potential, they begin to seek out better and better CFOs, and of course, entice them with bigger paychecks. This leads to other companies realizing the implications of these offers, and in turn, offering more for good CFOs as well. The CFO is initially viewed as a good investment by a select few, and soon, all others follow suit as well and ignore any of their private information that says otherwise. Whether the benefit of a great CFO is actually worth the pay raise is debatable, but because of this information cascade, CFOs are earning more and more every year.

As the pool of good CFOs dwindles, companies seek them out more aggressively, expecting the CFOs act as leaders and bring them greater fortune. This is reflect in many countries in Asia, where Indian CFOs see their salaries rise 25%, 14% in China, 11% in Hong Kong, 14% in Indonesia, 19% in Malaysia, and 10% in Singapore. The average pay raise for CFOs in Asia is now 16%. These numbers are not surprising, since information cascades often causes rushes to invest, especially in a high growth economic sector as Asia where professional trends are just being established. Thus, information cascades can have drastic impacts, for the worse, as with the current housing boom, or for better, as it seems in this case with CFOs being in higher demand.

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