“Change in the CFO role” is a familiar topic. But this change? At this pace? It’s exponential—and today’s Finance leaders will likely need to be exponential to meet it head-on. As macro dynamics and business implications interact to shape strategy, the enterprise of 2030 will likely expect more from the CFO. Are you ready?
The pressure to reinvent, rethink, and reshape is intensifying—and boards, CEOs, and other executives will look to the CFO and the Finance team to help plan for the future.
To answer this call, we are likely to see an exponential CFO take center stage—an executive who can lead the organisation by accelerating value creation, driving enterprise-wide operational excellence, and shaping talent experience and culture.
1. Value creation
The ways companies create shareholder and stakeholder value in the future will be complex with avenues for new business models, products, services, and value levers that transcend traditional business boundaries.
2. Operations
How companies balance efficiency and resilience—and seek to optimise both—is likely not only a factor of corporate hygiene, but also a critical success factor in the ability to pivot to new value creation opportunities.
3. Talent and culture
How companies integrate the human agenda into their corporate agenda may need to be profoundly different with human-technology collaboration, new work and worker expectations, and growing prevalence of multi-generational work teams.
As macro market forces shape the shifts in how businesses operate and create value, what is needed and expected of the CFO and the finance team is likely to not only evolve but expand. Change at this pace involves a constant interplay among macro forces bringing unique business implications.
Let's explore a hypothetical job posting of the future.
Imagine the CEO and board sitting down to write the job description for their future CFO—someone who can deal with both unexpected events and long-term structural changes all at once. Who can “do more, in new ways, with less?” How might that job description read?
Seeking a visionary leader who can navigate accelerated change, minimise business risks, and drive value creation as our organisation grows. Our ideal candidate will thrive in uncertainty—and set-up our organisation to thrive as well—while fostering a purpose-driven culture and developing a highly diverse team adept at collaborating with machines.
In this role, you will be a trusted business leader who joins the C-team in forging strategic business decisions using capabilities such as:
You will also serve as an innovative, efficient functional leader who helps Finance function in new ways by relying on capabilities such as:
Does this sound like you? If not, what will it take to get you there?
Becoming an exponential CFO and taking your finance team along with you on the journey, likely won’t happen all at once. It’s a progression that may include mutually supporting changes to technologies, ways of working, relationships, and mindsets. As you set out on your journey, consider:
It's Crunch time.
Let’s sum it up: As a CFO, you may feel like you are operating in a different world. Everyone else might be feeling this way too, and a lot of them may want you to help them understand and manage it. We’re likely past the point of “the same but more.” Defining something as “exponential” invites comparisons with math. Not just growing, but growing at increased scale. Our use of that term here is no accident.
To become an exponential CFO is two challenges in one: to recognise that the demands on you are already expanding that way, and to evolve your own approach and innovate your capabilities to keep pace. When you accomplish that, your dual roles as both business and functional leader all merge into a single approach that can match the velocity of the moment and accelerates out ahead of it. There’s a new inflection point coming into focus. This could be the time to find out what you have under the hood.
Deloitte can help
Our Finance Labs explore the “art of the possible” and define your Finance Transformation strategy, bringing to life potential use cases, road map priorities, and future-state benefits. Contact us to learn more.
Explore other reports and guides in our Crunch time series, along with inspirational Finance Transformation case studies.