CFO role expanding beyond traditional expectations, Gartner survey finds

The chief financial officer (CFO) role is expanding beyond traditional responsibilities as the digital capabilities of finance teams expand, Gartner’s survey of 251 CFOs found.

“For most CFOs, the responsibilities they carry beyond finance include a mix of enterprise data and analytics (D&A), enterprise risk, corporate strategy, M&A, and procurement,” Mallory Bulman, CFO advisory leader in the Gartner Finance practice, said.

“This expanded role will require CFOs to make decisive trade-offs in their own time and prioritisation decisions.”

CFOs are increasingly overseeing roles related to artificial intelligence, information technology, real estate, cyber security and environmental social governance – competing priorities that will require CFOs to plan their time strategically and delegate effectively.

Gartner also found that AI usage in finance has become mainstream, with 58 per cent of finance teams utilising AI in 2024 compared to 37 per cent in 2023. Common use cases included process automation, anomaly detection, decision augmentation and advanced analytics.

With the ever-expanding role of AI in finance, Gartner urged CFOs to ensure that their company’s AI usage attained adequate returns on investment. For those who had deployed AI, 14 per cent had seen significant benefits, while 86 per cent had not.

Gartner also highlighted the importance of building digital skills across finance teams to ensure that maximum benefits can be attained from emerging technologies. According to Gartner’s survey, 74 per cent of CFOs believed that lack of team skills was a barrier to AI advancement in their finance team.

The most important factors causing attrition in digital finance talent were related to compensation, respect, manager quality, career growth and future opportunities.

Gartner identified five skill priority areas for digital transformation, to ensure companies can make the most out of evolving technologies. These included building technological literacy, honing the ability to explain technologies to stakeholders, managing the risk of bias in machine learning and motivation to embrace rapidly evolving ways of working.

Growth was the top strategic priority for 62 per cent of CFOs, followed by technology for 32 per cent of CFOs and workforce for 26 per cent.

“Profitable growth will always be the number one priority for CFOs,” Bulman said.

“However, owning and anchoring strategic D&A to the overall business system will underscore CFOs’ ability to create a streamlined, measurable approach to tracking metrics and boosting overall enterprise performance.”