January 27, 2025
For this year’s blog on CFO priorities, we’ve culled insights—sometimes overlapping and mostly survey-based—from a variety of knowledgeable sources, including Gartner, Forbes, PwC and CFO.com (the latter citing a report by AvidXChange).
- “62% of CEOs selected growth as their top business priority for 2024-2025 – the highest level since 2014.”
- “AI usage in finance almost doubled in the past year, helping teams automate work, detect errors and gain deeper insights from their data.”
- “The role of CFO is rapidly evolving, with over 70% of CFOs now shouldering responsibilities beyond finance.”
- Data Mastery: “Think robust data systems and advanced analytics tools that deliver real-time insights. This isn’t just about better forecasting; it’s about having the agility to pivot when market conditions shift.”
- Strategic Growth: “We’re not just cutting costs; we’re reallocating resources to drive innovation and leverage emerging technologies.”
- Digital Transformation: “AI, machine learning, and automation… are freeing up our teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine tasks.”
- ESG: “We’re integrating sustainability into business operations and leading initiatives to track and improve ESG metrics.”
- Strategy and Growth: “Finance leaders need diverse skills — financial expertise, strategic decision-making and risk and stakeholder management — to navigate complex challenges, financial regulations and political uncertainty.”
- Reinvention: “The most innovative products and services are often born amid economic instability… top-performing CFOs act as quarterbacks, boldly exploring new revenue streams, untapped markets and emerging technologies.”
- Technology: “Finance leaders and their teams can act as data stewards, using advanced analytics, AI and cloud technology to improve forecasting, cash management, organizational transformation and to inform acquisition or IPO decisions.”
- Use AI to drive ROI: “CFOs should remain patient and look to measure other benefits resulting from AI, like improvements in productivity or customer satisfaction.”
- Continued focus on cybersecurity to combat things like phishing and deepfakes.
- Develop new skills to plug talent gaps in areas like data analytics and reporting, financial technology integration and cybersecurity/fraud prevention.
- Consolidate tech stacks, expand cloud adoption: “Finance leaders are evaluating and consolidating their tech stacks with integrations that centralize their processes with all the information they need in one place.” (AvidXChange)
Late last year, another illuminating article from CFO.com explored how CFOs can improve their leadership in 2025. “Through practices like being comfortable with failure, salary transparency and authenticity,” it noted, “CFOs can simultaneously be more approachable and effective — a skill that is developing into a requirement for those leading younger generations.” Interview subjects included a host of experts, from corporate executives to academics, who weighed in on the topic. Here are some brief excerpts from each, but we encourage you to read the entire story.
Gary Hamel, founder of Strategos: “I believe all salary data should be shared across the company. It’s a good way to ensure that you don’t have anomalies and that you don’t have a strong leader somewhere that has been able to lever up the pay of their subordinates at the expense of everyone else.”
Amy Edmonson, Novartis professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School: “CFOs are not in the business of celebrating failure, but human beings are fallible, they make mistakes, and that does not mean our products or people are faulty; it means we need to [proactively] be in the business of catching and correcting.”
Anne Chow, former CEO of AT&T Business: “Over time, I have found that authenticity in leadership has grown in importance. No one wants to work for people they don’t relate to. We don’t want to work with people we don’t believe in or don’t trust and respect.”
Nick Araco Jr., CEO of The CFO Alliance: “I think FP&A [financial planning and analysis] has turned into a gateway competency with different definitions, but the application of the process is still consistent. It’s important to make sure that, as CFOs, we are challenging and validating the decisions we make in the immediate, short term and long term, with the supporting information that gives us the best ability to make that prediction or decision.”
Given the continually evolving role and expectations of the CFO, Mindsight is committed to providing discussions and expertise that can help guide CFOs in reducing risk, better managing costs, and addressing talent gaps – when it comes to IT.
About Mindsight
Mindsight delivers enterprise managed services and technology solutions to the mid-market across a variety of industries including manufacturing, financial services, government, education – just to name a few. Our solution architects and engineers are 100% expert-level and work as an extension of your IT team. Mindsight is headquartered in Downers Grove, IL, a suburb of Chicago.
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