What CFOs Should Prioritize Now – And Next

If you’re like most CFOs, your to-do list might look something like this:

• Address supply-chain delays and identify a workaround for fuel shortages.
• Hire a technology leader (VP level) within the finance function.
• Review automation pilot outcomes and select a key vendor partner for automation needs.
• Audit job descriptions to ensure current job postings incorporate key digital skills.
• Finalize the forecasting process for next quarter.

The demands are vast, and time is short, making it hard to narrow down the list of CFO priorities. When it starts to feel like you’re not moving through a transitional period on solid ground, it may be time to step back, refocus how you’re spending the hours in the day, and create a list of leadership priorities in the short-term and long-term.

In a recent survey, 76% of finance leaders noted that strategic capability is vital for advancement. While we cannot craft a CFO strategy plan that fully addresses the unique challenges of your role and business, we can show you how to think about finance leadership priorities over the next 6 months, within the year, and in the long term.

The digital age of finance is already underway; it’s time to map out how your organization is going to approach it.

Assessing Current State

Before starting an action plan, get an idea of where your company is on its digital transformation journey. Have you meaningfully adopted new tools, or are pilots still siloed? Is your data consistently reliable, or does it require manual intervention to validate? Do your teams trust automation outputs?

Too often, transformation conversations happen exclusively at the leadership level. But the most valuable insights often come from those closest to the work. Analysts, managers, and operational finance teams understand where processes break down, where inefficiencies persist, and where technology could make an immediate impact.

The best CFOs are making sure they listen in the early stages. While driving momentum from the top, they also need to distribute function-wide surveys and facilitate discussions with team members. With a better understanding of employee sentiment and adoption rates of AI, automation, and other tools, a go-forward plan can be established.

6 Months: Priorities for Here and Now

Although your organization’s readiness may vary, spend the next 6 months building momentum around digital usage and adoption. You may not feel like you’re hitting the “transformation” aspect of finance digital transformation, but a solid foundation is a necessity.

Establish Organizational Confidence at Every Level

Before scaling new technologies, address uncertainty with transparency and reassurance. It’s normal for everyone – from analysts to finance leadership – to experience some level of concern. Maybe they’re worried that they don’t have the bandwidth to support automation initiatives, or maybe there’s fear around AI replacing human employees.

Clear communication is critical; when you create the space for people to share their concerns and thoughtfully address questions, you’re building a foundation of trust. That trust turns into organizational confidence, which is one of the most important factors in establishing successful digital transformation projects.

Make no mistake, it’s not just finance teams that need confidence; CFOs must collaborate with the C-Suite to drive alignment. In fact, 67% of CFOs report tensions within their leadership teams when trying to balance short-term and long-term priorities. Finance leaders can and should use data to support their CFO strategy, but they also need to forge trusted relationships with every member of the leadership team.

Identify Impactful Opportunities

Only 37% of CFOs  are investing in automation to improve the performance of their function, but as more organizations adopt transformation efforts, CFOs need to be able to secure wins – big and small. Not every process needs to be automated or transformed overnight. Effective finance leaders identify targeted processes that are manageable, yet high-impact.

The goal is to start with processes that are good candidates for optimization or automation and use them to prove the value of digital transformation. Repetitive, rule-based tasks such as reconciliations, consolidating reports, or validating data are great launchpads for showcasing success. Early wins help build credibility by showing, rather than telling, your teams how digital tools can augment their daily tasks. 

Start Upskilling Now

Adopting new technologies without proper workforce readiness can lead to frustration, turnover, and failed initiatives. Your teams don’t want to get left behind, but they’re also not sure exactly what the future looks like.

Next-gen CFOs should aim for a proactive finance talent strategy that focuses on enhancing digital fluency throughout the organization. This doesn’t mean that every team member needs to become a data scientist, but rather, that every team member is comfortable working with new tools, learning how to use data differently, and adapting workflows when it makes sense.

1 Year: Setting the Foundation for the Future

With a solid foundation established, the one-year mark should showcase some measurable outcomes. In this period, you can explore process changes and technology implementations on a larger scale, shifting your CFO priorities to the future of finance.

Run Pilots and Evaluate Outcomes

Pilot programs are a meaningful way to test new tools and technologies before investing in them at an enterprise level, but some CFOs can get stuck in a cycle of testing without clear goals or outcomes established.

With each pilot program, identify metrics of success, monitor them throughout the pilot, and evaluate the outcome at completion. This puts pilot outcomes in a comparable format and helps you make technology investment decisions that are backed up by data.

Build Leadership Infrastructure

Even with a careful CFO strategy, finance digital transformation requires dedicated leadership. To avoid overextending yourself and to provide the best support to next-gen priorities, consider adding a dedicated digital transformation leader within the finance organization.

Whether you hire someone externally or elevate internal talent, a role like this needs someone who is an expert at the intersection of finance, technology, and strategy.  With a reliable leader propelling digital transformation initiatives, leading change management efforts, and building a future-facing roadmap, CFOs can bring technology into the fold without sacrificing current priorities.

Bring Data into Decisions

Toward the end of year one, you should see a noticeable difference in how your organization uses data. Instead of just looking at historical numbers, teams can glean insights and make future-facing decisions with real-time data.

Data should do more than streamline reporting; it should inform business decisions. This transition is just as much technical as it is cultural. About 35% of finance leaders believe that using data-driven insights to inform decisions is one of the most effective ways next-gen CFOs can influence the executive team’s decision-making, but it doesn’t stop there. Data-based decisions boost transparency and help everyone navigate changes with confidence.

Looking Longer Term

The list of CFO priorities will only continue to grow as time goes on. Once you’ve taken the time to understand the current state of your finance team’s capabilities, you can start to do finance differently. With data from pilots and alignment across the C-Suite, it’s time to make decisions about what the future of finance looks like within your organization. 

"With priorities continuing to expand, the real shift happens when we step back, assess what our teams are capable of today, and use that to shape what comes next," according to Stever Rudd, CFO, LHH.

It feels daunting, but 92% of companies report that AI initiatives within finance are meeting or exceeding ROI expectations. For those who love data, that statistic is an undeniable reason to continue the pursuit of next-gen finance. The journey won’t always be easy, but ignoring the future will only result in one thing: falling behind.

With leadership insights and practical guidance, we can help turn ideas into action. Contact us to learn more.