Today’s leading CFOs are thinking differently, operating differently, and hiring differently. They’re helping navigate new markets and building future-ready teams. But they’re contending with a complex growth environment.

Deloitte’s 2026 Finance Trends survey polled 1,326 finance leaders from across the globe in spring 2025. The respondents included both CFOs and senior professionals in finance one level below the CFO. Leaders represent a cross-section of industries and sectors in 23 countries. To better understand how each of these trends are unfolding, we conducted in-depth interviews with nine finance executives from a variety of global organizations.

Based on this research, we identified five trends likely to have the most direct impact on finance leaders, the finance function, and, by extension, the rest of the organization, through 2026. Collectively, these trends illustrate the integral—and increasingly more prominent—role finance leaders are often playing in helping their organizations optimize costs, catalyze innovation, and orchestrate a strategic agenda that fuels enterprise-wide growth and value.

Here are the top five trends impacting finance: