How Are Finance Leaders Tackling Modern Growth Challenges?

Today’s Chief Finance Officer (CFOs) think, operate and hire differently than before to handle new markets, organisations, divestitures and build strong teams amid complex, modern growth challenges.

A Deloitte survey of 1,326 global finance leaders from large companies, with revenue over US$1bn, and interviews with nine executives, identify key preparation strategies through 2026.

These trends show finance leaders’ growing role in cutting costs, sparking innovation and driving company-wide growth.

The speed priority  

Deloitte recognises that it may be difficult for finance leaders to keep pace and identify the most important investments to fuel growth and innovation.

This shows in data as three-quarters of the leaders interviewed say their organisation requires either a moderate amount or “a lot more” resources to maximise investment opportunities across the business.

When finance leaders were asked about their top priorities throughout fiscal year 2026, 48% of respondents said planning for external challenges, including inflation, tariffs and regulation, and another 48% said adopting new technological capabilities, including AI.

When it comes to the actions they consider the most important in managing uncertainty more effectively, 30% of respondents said using advanced scenario planning to better anticipate changing needs.

Walmart’s Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer David Chojnowski said: “In the past, we may have run scenarios monthly; now, we’ve been running models and doing analysis almost daily.

“We’re able to use AI to understand market trends and correlate those trends and other competitors’ decisions with ours in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past.”

Finance leaders, the new strategy leaders

According to Deloitte, a 2024 analysis of the CFO role showed the number of skills required in the job increased by 19% over a five-year period. And with this increase, their influence on strategy across the organisation continues to grow.

More than half of survey respondents say they are now among the top leaders influencing strategy development across the organisation.

Nearly half (48%) of respondents say they’re deploying cloud-based solutions to help optimise costs across their organisations, versus a third of finance leaders who are in strategy-supporting roles.

By applying AI-driven solutions, some CFOs are helping redefine the finance function aligned with the firm’s critical goals.

Marie Myers, Executive Vice President and CFO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, says: “Our finance organisation’s journey over the past 18 months has been transformative. We are using AI to empower our teams to become strategic partners, leveraging data and technology to drive enterprise-wide value.”

Embracing AI may implicate ROI

The survey highlights that while many finance teams are experimenting with and deploying AI, the full ROI and the integration of autonomous AI agents in finance operations are still limited.

Specifically, 63% of finance departments have fully deployed AI solutions but only 21% see clear, measurable value from these investments.

Key challenges causing this lag include legacy tech infrastructure hindering AI adoption and difficulty proving ROI.

Data privacy is another major concern, especially in finance where sensitive data is handled. Many finance teams are undergoing digital transformations to modernise systems like ERP to better support AI use, but this is a long term effort.

Despite these hurdles, there is a significant interest in agentic AI. Finance leaders see promise in the tech for areas such as sales and profitability management (48%), working capital optimisation (46%) and expense management (44%).

Deloitte says for significant business value, CFOs need to expand their values as leaders beyond traditional finance functions and foster agility through autonomous programmes and scenario planning.