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The CFO Agenda: 5 priorities shaping finance leadership this year
As geopolitics and advanced AI reshape risk, productivity, and value creation, CFOs sit at the center of the response. IMD’s Salvatore Cantale identifies five priorities shaping finance leadership.
If CFOs were looking for some complex problems to get their teeth into, last year did not disappoint. President Trump’s Liberation Day announcement underlined just how abruptly trade rules, alliances, and supposedly unshakeable economic assumptions can be upended. The AI race also entered a new phase, as attention moved to superintelligence and “agentic” systems capable of reasoning, decision-making, and real-world interaction.
These developments are driving a more volatile operating environment, in which geopolitical decisions and technological innovation reverberate rapidly in companies’ balance sheets. This has implications for how CFOs should manage risk, allocate capital, and define productivity. In the coming months, finance leaders face a new set of priorities, reflecting the fact that they sit at the intersection where uncertainty becomes economic reality.
Five issues stand out on the CFO’s agenda this year.
1 – Building the CFO-CISO relationship
Cybersecurity demands a more explicit integration into financial leadership, reflecting its growing impact on enterprise value and resilience. The cost to the UK of 2025’s Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack, for example, has been estimated at £1.9 bn. For CFOs, the priority is to hardwire cyber risk into financial decision-making and capital allocation, reinforcing enterprise resilience.
This demands a close working relationship between the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and the CFO. The CFO must use their position of financial oversight to assess balance sheet exposure and strategic risk in relation to cyber threats. Only when CFOs articulate the value of security investments in business terms do they start to gain traction at the board and executive levels. While boards should not expect CFOs to become cyber experts, it is reasonable to expect them to ensure that their teams understand, fund, and govern the mitigation of cyber risk with the same rigor as any other material financial risk.
“Finance teams are well placed to assess whether AI systems are reducing friction and creating meaningful improvements.”
2 – Getting returns from agentic AI
The adoption of agentic or autonomous AI is beginning to scale. This technology offers systems capable of completing tasks, making decisions, and operating across functions. For CFOs, the focus has shifted from experimentation to optimization. Traditional cost and productivity models do not always apply to these tools, raising questions about where they create value and how finance leaders should measure it.
Finance teams are well placed to assess whether AI systems are reducing friction and creating meaningful improvements. The priority is to apply financial discipline by setting clear metrics, redefining output, and ensuring automation translates into long-term performance gains.
Many CFOs say they are keen to inject a new kind of finance talent into their in-house skillsets.
3 – Investing in the next generation of finance leaders
Many CFOs say they are keen to inject a new kind of finance talent into their in-house skillsets. It is commercially fluent, confident in communicating with senior leadership, and active in shaping strategy. But that means CFOs must invest time in developing potential, taking ownership of the financial leadership pipeline, mentoring high-potential talent, and ensuring they are exposed to the right development opportunities.
This hands-on approach goes beyond formal training and reflects a shift in mindset to view talent development as a strategic imperative. In an increasingly demanding environment, the strength of the finance bench will be a critical differentiator.
But organizational theory tells us that when variance is high, and change is faster than planning cycles, adaptation beats optimization every time.
4 – Measuring value in constant transformation
For many organizations, ongoing change is now the default mode. But too many companies measure progress in terms of continuous activity, such as initiatives launched or teams restructured, rather than productivity levels and outcomes. CFOs can reset the conversation by tying transformation efforts to a refined set of financial and operational metrics.
This requires clarity on what matters most: which changes truly drive margin, growth, and efficiency, and which create complexity without real benefit. This kind of clear-eyed discipline makes transformation a source of long-term value.
5 – Navigating geopolitical risk without losing momentum
Political risk is no longer episodic. Trade fragmentation, regional instability, and industrial policy shifts are now features of the operating environment that cannot be ignored. CFOs have a critical role in helping companies manage this uncertainty without becoming paralyzed by it.
Through scenario planning, capital flexibility, and sharper risk modelling, finance leaders can instill and sustain operational agility. The goal is not to predict disruption, but to prepare for it by building structures that allow the business to adapt without sacrificing productivity levels or strategic ambition.
Conclusion: A volatile year
If 2025 was shaped by geopolitical volatility, the early months of 2026 have underscored just how disruptive the year could be. A dramatic US military operation in Venezuela saw President Nicolás Maduro captured by US forces and brought to the United States to face federal charges. Beyond geopolitics, early 2026 has been defined by tariff escalation, energy‑price shocks, and abrupt policy shifts tied to elections and conflict, compressing decision timelines and materially raising the cost of strategic error. This signals that the post-1945 consensus that underpinned decades of global economic integration continues to fragment, raising the bar on scenario planning, risk mitigation, and long-term investment decisions. In an era of strategic competition and heightened uncertainty, volatility is a defining condition of our environment.Authors
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