The changing role of the CFO: From number crunchers to strategic players

If you’re looking for proof that change is the only true constant, look no further than the evolution of the CFO role. Back in the day, CFOs poured hours into processing stacks of invoices manually. Now, invoicing is paperless and automated. The tools for how the job is done have evolved, too.

CFOs no longer need to create static Excel master files and present them to a boardroom. AI and advanced data analytics have replaced that competency. Simply put, the industry has changed. It’s no longer about delivering numbers to the C-Suite; it’s about the story those numbers tell and how finance leaders extract insights from the data to drive change. 

At the centre of this transformation is the CFO role, once known primarily for managing costs, reporting numbers, and keeping a watchful eye on budgets. Today, the CFO is deeply embedded in every department, serving as both a strategic partner to the CEO and a resource that the C-suite relies on to fund the next big initiative. They hold, as the saying goes, all the cards, with the unique position to both shape and cut, to invest and divest, to lead the organisation’s financial strategy from a place of proactivity rather than passive oversight.

To understand the evolving role of the CFO, we turn to Rita Piçarra, former CFO at Microsoft Portugal, who has experienced this transformation firsthand throughout her career, first at Deloitte, then at Microsoft, where she had a chance to work in different markets and under different leadership, before holding the position of CFO herself.  

“Finance, as we know it, no longer exists in the same way it did when I started as an auditor at Deloitte”, Rita stated during her presentation at Forge Connect, an event hosted by Rydoo and iBanFirst in Amsterdam. During her presentation on the changing role of the CFO, Rita shared her journey of leading Microsoft’s finance team through mass change and transformation. Her insights offer a blueprint for finance leaders looking to grow amid mass change and adapt to seismic shifts in technology, culture, and organisational expectations. 

Within finance, the pace of change has increased by 183% over the past four years. Among finance leaders, roughly 8 in 10 CFOs forecast disruption in the next two years. In turn, companies are increasingly prioritising reinvention as a strategy for success.  

CFOs are no longer bookkeepers but strategic leaders in the organisation. Increasingly, CEOs rely on their CFOs and finance teams to guide the way toward transformation and uncover new levels of performance potential. CFOs no longer have a passive role but an active one, with a seat at the C-Suite table. “The CFO is at the centre of everything. We own the money, so the CEOs look to us for answers and advice”, Rita said during her presentation in Amsterdam. As such, they are uniquely poised to drive strategic, enterprise-wide change programs.  

Rita reflects on the evolution of her own role as former CFO at Microsoft Portugal. “Before, we waited for the month to close, and we reported on what happened. But that’s not what’s required anymore. Reporting the past can be done automatically. Now, it’s about how do we add value? How do we transform our teams to actually focus on things that add value? It’s about how we gather the data that is being generated by the sales team with pipeline opportunities, the marketing teams with the leads and other kinds of opportunities from the accounting system. How we gather all that data and make it uniform is very crucial [to our role].” 

There’s a new concept of value at play. The role of the CFO is expanding beyond the traditional accounting, finance, and treasury sectors, taking on more digital functions. As finance broadens its reach, maintaining this sense of unity within, the teams also gains ground.  

The CFO’s job is being reconsidered. One CFO, Paul Young, noted how CFOS are morphing into Chief Future Officers. “You have to see what’s happening in business in real-time, but you also must have the foresight to look ahead and anticipate what will happen and how the business will react under various scenarios”, Paul notes. 

Rita’s experiences as CFO tell a similar story. Recounting her teams’ own shift, she shares, “We had to look forward. We asked ourselves questions like: how are we going to make business decisions? Where are we going to redeploy and put our money? How do we make choices? How do we grow our companies? As CFOs, we need to be able to answer these questions.” 

In today’s hyper-dynamic environment, finance leaders must not only own the data but be able to answer key leadership questions about the business’s trajectory. As change agents, they are expected to drive new initiatives and, as storytellers, paint a meaningful picture of where the organisation stands and where it needs to head.  

While AI has historically been perceived as a threat among finance leaders, CFOs now see generative AI (GenAI) as a critical enabler that helps them deal with technological transformations and boost productivity. In fact, nearly all CFOs surveyed in an analysis conducted by McKinsey believe that GenAI has the potential to create value, from helping finance employees move away from manual analysis to improving leadership and strategy support. 

While the consensus on AI’s usefulness exists, organisations are slow to enact change, with only one-quarter of CFOs admitting their processes are currently digitised or automated. This shows a startling gap between wanting and doing, with finance leaders citing demanding workloads and insufficient resources as the main roadblocks to action.

How, then, can finance leaders move toward embracing technology and automation? According to Rita, there are several ways to approach business process automation. 

“Automation is the answer for all those repetitive tasks that don’t add value to our teams. Is the invoice paid? Has my expense report been processed? These are all questions that can be responded to automatically through a chatbot. We don’t need a real person to answer these questions. Automating this frees up our people’s time to focus on the things that really add value.” 

However, while AI holds great potential, it cannot solve everything, nor can it change the guiding principles of finance. A company must still generate returns above its cost of capital. To make the most out of AI, finance leaders should prioritise their top value-generating projects and stick with them. 

Data is central to agile business planning, forecasting, and analysis, all core components of the modern CFO role. However, many firms still lack the intelligent insights to do the job effectively, with a recent survey by Ernst and Young revealing how 8 in 10 CFOs say that legacy technology and system complexity are the main obstacles to progress. 

To stay relevant in today’s complex business world, CFOs must pivot their focus from data processing to delivering value-driven insights. With predictive analytics, finance teams can harness complex data to build accurate forecasting models—fuelling revenue growth and better managing risks.  

How do you turn data into action? It’s a question every modern CFO is asking. According to Rita, leaning into AI is key.  

Forecasting, for instance, has transformed dramatically. It used to be a manual process, relying heavily on gathering insights and predictions from various teams. Today, machine learning drives forecasting, making it faster, more accurate, and less dependent on manual input. Expense management software provides finance teams with the right tools to identify spending patterns, find cost-saving opportunities and even forecast spending in a single dashboard, with no need for manual processes.  

Right before Rita left Microsoft, she witnessed this transformation in her own team, with forecasting becoming machine enabled. Multiple projections could be generated in one go, from three to six-month forecasts. This helped her see recent patterns and past performance, giving her the time and insight to weigh these projections and identify the best ones that matched Microsoft’s business vision. 

“It became my job to actually look at the options the system was generating and provide my input on the middle-ground forecast. It was about making the right decisions based on the information generated by AI.” 

Besides driving predictions with AI-powered data, CFOs have evolved into becoming guardians of data. With GDRPR and other data regulations leading the charge, it is the CFO’s responsibility to ensure data is safe and secure. And the majority of CFOs agree that data security and privacy are the top priorities for finance executives. 

“Everybody in the company looks up to us”, Rita explains. “We are like Uncle Scrooge. Expected to keep the fortress with all the money inside, and no one can come in unless authorised. We need to live up to that expectation, take care of the money, but also take care of all the confidential information and ensure it isn’t leaked to the outside. A company’s success relies on this.” 

“We are entering a highly disruptive decade, thanks in part to the quick pace of technological developments”, Chief Financial Officer, Michael McMurray, noted in Accenture’s report on reinvention in the age of a permacrisis. As we expect the world to continue changing rapidly, another trend crops on the horizon, with a survey from Gartner reporting a 50% dip in employees’ ability to absorb changes before becoming change fatigued. 

Navigating a company through such disruptions calls for a CFO who can act as both gamekeeper and poacher. When they can hold this dual perspective, CFOs become equipped to evaluate the risks and benefits of investing in fresh ideas, new ventures, and technology. 

One thing is certain: the digital future of finance is here, involving tools and techniques previously unimaginable. And with it, roles are changing too. For example, data scientists, prompt engineers, and other roles are popping up in the industry, bringing powerful capabilities to the finance team and new challenges around governance and organisational structure. Finding the right roadmap to tap into these capabilities while minimising disruption is key to success.

One way to lead through change is to invest in the right people. Research shows that the best CFOs are the ones who collaborate closely with their coworkers and direct capital toward attracting, nurturing, and retaining talented employees. They are the ones who understand what it takes to hire people with diverse skills and capabilities, including the talent necessary to drive transformation.  

Increasingly, this calls for CFOs to serve as both talent magnets and chief inspirers while also discerning the true metrics that fuel performance, guiding the organisation toward those objectives. For Rita, being involved with the team and understanding what they needed to grow was essential. Otherwise, it would affect their productivity and the finance team’s overall performance. 

“It was always crucial for me to understand what people wanted for their careers and to make sure the things that they were working on aligned with that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t put their heart into it”, the former CFO explained. 

Ankur Agrawal, partner at McKinsey, goes so far as to say that CFOs are change agents. “They have to be motivational. They have to be inspirational. They have to lead by example. They have to be cross-functional. They have to drive the talent agenda”, he stated during an interview with Sean Brown for McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast. “It’s a very different muscle, and the CFOs have had less of an opportunity to really leverage that muscle in the past”.  

Despite the CFO role being rooted in finance, there is still a genuine human connection and a desire to work towards a common goal that can get overlooked. One of the most notable ways a CFO can make an impact nowadays is to be on the ground, engaged in operations across the company.  

This exposure to the different opportunities and challenges across various business functions gives CFOs a more nuanced picture of where the company is heading. In fact, these partnership dialogues are the foundation of business performance and professional growth. 

“We cannot be dissociated from the sales team. We cannot be apart from the marketing team. We need to be interconnected because we need to understand the business. If we don’t understand the products and the go-to-market strategy of our own companies, we are going to be isolated, and we will never be able to make the right decisions or make the right proposals to the leadership team to make the company successful.” Rita adds. 

Gone are the days of working in silos. Nowadays, the most successful CFOs are the ones who understand what makes the business tick. That requires being involved on multiple fronts, from decision-making and fundraising to understanding how customers react to changing business models. With enhanced visibility, CFOs are uniquely positioned to observe and navigate the boundaries between different departments and look forward rather than in the past. 

The modern finance leader isn’t just tasked with managing reporting and compliance at the best cost: they’re investing more time and resources in capabilities that will help the business better operate in an environment of change and uncertainty. 

According to a 2024 PWC benchmark study, companies have continued to create finance functions with more time focused on business insight compared to previous years. For the first time in 15 years of tracking data, finance spends over 30% of its time on business insight. 

With business insight comes risk management. It is essential for the modern CFO to have a pulse on everything—from balance sheets and corporate transactions to data security and the business model. They are strategically positioned to recognise, manage, and report risk to the C-Suite.  

That requires never dropping the ball. “It takes years and years to build the reputation of a product, a company, or a go-to-market approach, but a single transaction, one deal, or someone making a wrong move at the wrong time can destroy it all. So, when it comes to risk management, we cannot take anything for granted,” says Rita.

Now, more than ever before, CFOs have the freedom to envision, create, and map out their legacy and move to a leadership and influencer role inside the organisation. Moving beyond just traditional finance structures, CFOs have become true change agents.  

“[Being a CFO] It’s not about just seeing what happens”, Rita says. “It’s about helping your CEO make the right decisions. It’s about helping your company be more profitable. It’s about hiring the right people. It’s about being strategic.” The faster finance leaders embrace this new role, the more impact they will have across the business.