During out recent AI in Finance podcast, Derric Ciccone raised an interesting point regarding the changing expectation of the CFO role. For years, the evolution of the CFO role has been described as a shift from financial steward to strategic business partner.
AI is accelerating that transition and while that may be good news for many finance leaders for others it will represent a significant career challenge.
As finance teams become able to produce reports, interrogate data and complete routine analytical work faster, the question for CFOs is no longer simply how AI can make the finance function more efficient.
It is what finance does with the time and intelligence that technology creates. Increasingly, that means getting much closer to how the business actually operates.
How is AI changing the role of the CFO?
Traditionally, finance has spent a significant amount of its time looking backwards. What happened last month? Why did revenue move? Where did costs increase? How did performance compare with budget?
All of that remains important. But AI has both raised expectations of what finance can deliver for the business beyond reporting and simultaneously reduced the time required to produce and analyse that information
The CFO increasingly needs to be able to explain what is happening underneath those numbers and what the business should do about it. That requires a much deeper understanding of product, customers, operations and the commercial decisions being made across the organisation.
It is also why the boundaries between CFO and COO responsibilities may increasingly begin to overlap. A CFO who understands the operational mechanics of the business is better placed not only to report performance, but to influence it.
What does this mean for CFOs and their career development?
For CFOs and finance leaders aspiring to become CFOs, career development may need to extend considerably beyond traditional finance expertise.
Technical credibility will remain essential. But the CFOs who become most valuable to their organisations will increasingly be those who can connect financial insight with what is actually happening across the business. That means deliberately building experience outside the traditional boundaries of finance.
Future CFOs should be looking for opportunities to deepen their understanding of areas such as operations, product, technology, data and commercial strategy.
That might mean:
- Taking ownership of transformation projects
- Becoming involved in pricing or investment decisions
- Working more closely with operational teams
- Leading the implementation of new technology within finance
AI capability will form part of that development, but CFOs do not necessarily need to become technology specialists. More important will be understanding what the technology can do, where it can create value and how it changes the way their teams work.
The career question for finance leaders is therefore shifting from “How do I become a better CFO?” to “How well do I understand the business I am helping to lead?”
What skills will the next generation of CFOs need?
As the CFO role becomes more operational and commercially focused, businesses are likely to place greater value on a broader combination of capabilities.
Alongside financial leadership, future CFOs will increasingly need:
- Operational understanding: Knowing how the organisation actually delivers its product or service and where value is created or lost.
- Commercial judgement: Using financial insight to influence pricing, investment, growth and resource allocation.
- Data and AI fluency: Understanding how emerging technology can improve decision-making, productivity and the finance operating model.
- Communication and influence: Translating complex financial and operational information into clear recommendations for CEOs, boards and leadership teams.
- Transformation leadership: Being able to change processes, technology and team structures rather than simply operate within existing ones.
- Cross-functional leadership: Working effectively across product, operations, technology, sales and other areas of the organisation.
The differentiator will increasingly be the ability to turn information into action.
What should companies look for when hiring a CFO?
For businesses appointing a new CFO, this evolution should also influence the hiring process. A strong technical finance background and relevant sector experience remain important, but they tell only part of the story.
Companies should consider:
- How candidates have used financial insight to influence business performance?
- Have they operated beyond the finance function?
- Do they understand the commercial and operational drivers behind the numbers?
- Have they led meaningful transformation?
- Can they challenge a CEO or board constructively?
- Have they changed how a finance team works rather than simply inherited and managed it?
AI creates another important area to explore.
Rather than simply asking candidates whether they have experience using AI, businesses should look at how they think about its application. Can they identify where automation could create capacity? Do they understand how that capacity could be redirected towards higher-value activity? And can they lead a team through the organisational and cultural changes that follow?
The best CFO hire may not necessarily be the candidate who has spent the longest time doing the CFO job in exactly the same type of organisation. Increasingly, it could be the person who can demonstrate that they understand how the CFO role itself needs to change.
Is the CFO becoming more like a COO?
Not every CFO needs to become a COO, and the two roles remain distinct. But the increasing overlap between them is significant. As finance becomes more integrated with data, technology and real-time business decision-making, CFOs have greater visibility into how an organisation operates. The value comes from using that visibility.
That means understanding not just what the numbers are, but what created them, what can change them and where the business should act next. For CFOs, that creates a clear career imperative: get closer to the business.
For companies hiring their next finance leader, it creates an equally important question: Are you hiring someone to report the performance of the business or someone who can help shape it?
