The CFO's guide to bold finance leadership

The evolving and expanding role of the CFO has been well documented in the media and industry research. Close the books, open doors to growth. Be aggressive, but spend prudently. Take approaches that are tactical, but also visionary.

Growing areas of functional oversight are further evidence of the CFO’s evolving responsibilities. Recent McKinsey research has the CFO taking an increasing role in leading investor relations, board engagement, post-merger integration, procurement and digital.

Conversations with CFOs back it up. They’re trying to maintain a very difficult pace for their businesses as they accelerate or shift business plans disrupted by the environment created by COVID. At the same time, they’re trying to slow everyone down enough to make sure good decisions are made.

In this playbook, we look at four key challenges for CFOs today outside of textbook finance tasks:

• Getting and keeping people who will help advance the company’s mission and vision
• International expansion and growth
• Fraud and cybersecurity
• Dealing with legacy technology and integration