SEA CFO Agenda 2025

Despite the fact that concerns surrounding many of the same external risks – such as economic slowdowns, as well as inflation and interest rates – have not abated, SEA CFOs appeared to have, by and large, acclimatised and adapted to the new norm of ongoing economic and geopolitical volatilities.

Overall, they expressed broadly neutral sentiments – that are notably punctuated by a significant sliver of cautious optimism – to both the overall economic outlook and financial prospects of their companies. Taken together, we have found that these sentiments have, in turn, translated into a palpable focus on growth for many SEA CFOs (see figure below).

As SEA CFOs look ahead to consider how they can support their organisations in achieving their growth objectives, they are also thinking about how they can adopt more disciplined capital allocation and financing approaches. Examples of such approaches include, but are not limited to, leveraging strategic frameworks to manage the trade-offs involved in investment decision-making, adopting a maturity lens to capital allocation across the portfolio, and diversifying funding sources by moving away from traditional bank debt.

Areas of strategic focus

Across all industries and sectors, SEA CFOs are facing an urgent need to intensify their scrutiny of portfolio holdings and future capital allocation strategies, as they seek to rebalance, look for growth opportunities, and divest assets that no longer fit.

To this end, we found that more than half of SEA CFOs assess their portfolio performance at least twice a year. As they conduct these portfolio reviews, SEA CFOs are primarily focused on two priorities – growth and resilience – and how they can diversify and improve their revenue profiles to withstand boom and bust cycles.

Overall, more than one-quarter of SEA CFOs had completed at least one M&A transaction in the last 36 months, and our conversations with them revealed that a significant proportion are currently in the midst of post-merger integration (PMI) activities.'

Looking ahead, nearly half expect the number of deals their organisation closes to increase over the next 36 months. In terms of strategies, SEA CFOs expect to leverage M&A to increase their competitive positioning, strengthen their core business, and accelerate long-term transformation (see figure below).

Top three M&A strategies

Overall, SEA CFOs expect digital technologies and automation to play a bigger role in their organisation’s operations. Notably, many SEA CFOs shared that their organisations have established dedicated teams – typically in the form of centres of excellence (CoEs), transformation teams, or committees – to oversee the experimentation of AI use cases.

Examples of such use cases include the automation of internal controls to better monitor internal transactions, as well as AI applications to improve customer interactions. Within the finance function specifically, SEA CFOs cited use cases in the automation of routine and transactional processes, planning, forecasting, and analysis, and accounting, reporting, and reconciliations (see figure below).

Nevertheless, it must be noted that these are primarily low-risk applications as most organisations are only in the early stages of their AI journey. SEA CFOs continue to face challenges in rationalising investments in AI and/or emerging technologies; however, they believe that cost-benefit evaluations and practical use cases could help them in making these decisions.

Most promising AI use cases in the finance function

SEA CFOs are considering how they can recalibrate their talent operating models to strike the right balance between internal and external talent for their organisations.

Nearly a quarter expect to increase the use of internal shared services and/or CoEs, and nearly one in five expect to increase the outsourcing of their operations. Notably, however, nearly one in five also expect to increase the use of external resource integration or augmentation models in more strategic and mission-critical areas of their operations (see figure below).

One common concern, however, lies in managing the trade-offs between the greater ownership and accountability of in-house teams and the higher levels of efficiency in outsourcing. To address this issue, SEA CFOs are leveraging a range of different hybrid talent operating models to meet their varied skill needs, while also continually assessing them for fit.

Expectations for different talent operating models

In line with expectations for digital technologies and automation to play a bigger role in their organisation’s strategy, SEA CFOs are thinking about how they can advance a trustworthy AI agenda. To this end, our research has found that talent resources and capabilities, as well as data and technology resources, are top barriers that SEA CFOs believe their organisations face in AI adoption.

This is not a surprise, as it is in line with our findings from last year’s survey. What is notable this year, however, is that a significant proportion also expressed concerns regarding cost of investment, risk and governance issues, as well as privacy and security issues (see figure below).

This growing awareness of risks associated with AI adoption amongst SEA CFOs is, in turn, likely to have significant impacts on their AI-related investment decision-making: nearly half believe that an understanding of risks and limitations would help them make investment decisions related to the use of AI and/or other emerging technologies.

Barriers to AI adoption

Despite widespread acknowledgement of ESG as an area of priority for SEA CFOs, less than one-quarter are incorporating climate and/or ESG considerations into their operating model, with the overwhelming majority currently only in exploratory or experimentation phases (see figure below). Possible reasons for this include talent resources and capabilities, difficulty measuring ESG impact, and competing priorities.

From a financial decision-making point-of-view, key actions that SEA CFOs are taking include conducting ESG risk assessments, reporting on ESG initiatives to stakeholders, and establishing ESG performance metrics. Only a minority are aligning capital allocation with ESG goals – a finding that is not surprising, given the aforementioned observation that SEA CFOs face difficulties in measuring ESG impact.

Nevertheless, several CFOs we spoke to appear to be leading the pack in this regard. Key approaches that they are adopting include leveraging the use of balanced scorecards to align ESG performance with financial performance, and engaging in thorough cost-benefit analyses to select ESG projects with demonstrated evidence of a long-term positive net present value (NPV).

Progress at incorporating climate and/or ESG considerations into operating model