5 Key 2025 Initiatives for Chief Financial Officers

CFOs describe the macroeconomic environment as unfavorable to enterprise performance. In this time of uncertainty, CFOs who remove growth anchors (such as creating too many internal reports that drown out useful information) and preserve growth ladders (such as protecting funding for bigger growth projects) will be rewarded with a sustained advantage. 

The CFO role has expanded: 76% of CFOs now own or co-own enterprise data and analytics (D&A) strategy. It falls to the CFO to identify the metrics and finance KPIs that will drive better business performance. 

Successful CFOs will embrace this opportunity to maximize data quality across the enterprise, anchor D&A initiatives to business outcomes and prioritize initiatives that will drive the greatest impact.

AI in finance is now mainstream. With 58% of finance teams deploying AI in a pilot or operational phase, there’s urgency to drive returns on AI investments. Yet only 14% of CFOs report significant benefits from their AI deployments.

Despite the hype, many organizations struggle to turn investments in AI and generative AI specifically into material improvements in worker productivity. Successful companies rework finance’s operating model to build technology acceptance and drive greater productivity from AI. They also focus on deploying AI to materially significant problems to deliver competitive advantage.

The CFO role continues to expand beyond finance. Competing demands — such as constant communications and recurring meetings — create the need to effectively balance focus and flexibility. 

As the scope of CFO responsibilities increases, relentless prioritization, time management and delegation will prove critical to CFO effectiveness.

Nearly three-quarters of CFOs say lack of team skills is a critical reason the function hasn’t progressed further with AI. At a typical organization, digital talent comprises less than 15% of finance staff. To keep pace with demands and ensure finance can take more ownership of technology projects, that proportion will need to more than triple. 

Prioritize creating roles and career paths that attract digital talent, while also ensuring core finance talent becomes more digitally savvy to leverage technology more effectively.