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The CFO Imperative
EY Global Financial Accounting Advisory Services, Strategy and Markets Leader
Contributors
In brief
CFOs are increasingly expected to define and shape how organizations create value in a fast-changing and uncertain environment. How they invest in technology and talent is no longer a trade-off, but a leadership decision about how these capabilities work together within a clear vision for the future of finance.
However, the EY Global DNA of the CFO Survey (pdf) shows a gap between ambition and action. CFOs increasingly see themselves as shaping enterprise value, yet consistent leadership action lags — particularly where value is uncertain, long‑term or shaped by new technologies and ways of working, and where decisions are harder to justify and act on.
This reflects a deeper challenge. As value creation becomes more complex, it can become harder to define, measure and act on within traditional frameworks. The result is not a lack of intent, but a disconnect between how value is understood and how decisions are made.
While transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) can offer unprecedented opportunities, it is the CFO’s ability to cultivate the right mindset, skill set and toolset within their finance teams that can unlock enterprise value. The findings point to a broader pattern: successful transformation is human-centric, where these elements evolve together to drive adoption, build confidence and accelerate value creation.
Between 16 February and 30 March 2026, the global EY organization conducted research to understand the evolving role of the CFO. The research explored how CFOs can shape their roles to meet changing business requirements and deliver greater impact at personal, functional and enterprise levels. Through an anonymous online survey, responses were collected from 1,610 CFOs, Finance Directors and Heads of Finance. The responses were weighted to provide a geographically representative sample.
Within the weighted sample, 33% of respondents were Group CFOs, Finance Directors or Heads of Finance, 34% were Divisional CFOs, Finance Directors or Heads of Finance and 33% were Regional CFOs, Finance Directors or Heads of Finance.
Respondents were from 28 countries — 40% from the Americas, 35% from EMEIA and 25% from Asia-Pacific — and 22 industry segments. To participate in the survey, respondents were required to work for organizations with US$1b or more in annual revenue, total assets, assets under management (AUM) or gross written premiums. Respondents in the private equity sector had to work for a fund with at least US$250m in AUM.
In addition, 16 in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with CFOs from global organizations and EY subject-matter professionals. These interviews specifically explored the role of the CFO in relation to value creation, AI, finance transformation, personal development and collaboration with the wider business.
2026 EY Global DNA of the CFO Report
The full report explores how CFOs can accelerate finance transformation by investing in technology and talent to unlock enterprise value.
Chapter 1
CFOs should adapt to rapid change across technology and talent to deliver enterprise value.
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Over the past decade, new technologies have emerged, consumer preferences and habits have shifted drastically, and new risks — such as cyber-attacks, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical tension — have risen to prominence. But what has changed most significantly in the past two years is the speed of these developments. For example, AI is maturing so rapidly that what seemed impossible months ago is suddenly becoming possible. Reflecting this, 80% of CFOs surveyed expect AI-enabled business models to feature in their organization to a significant or moderate extent during the next 12 months.
Risks are also evolving more rapidly, with 77% of CFOs surveyed predicting that they will continue to consider geopolitical volatility in supply chain, investment and risk exposure decisions over the next year. As a result, multiple drivers of both value creation and erosion are now emerging, generally requiring CFOs to rethink their approach.
As the nature of value creation continues to evolve, it can become harder to define, measure and implement using traditional approaches — increasing the challenge for CFOs in how they assess and communicate value. Therefore, CFOs should rethink how they measure and report value. This is reflected in the research: 67% of CFOs surveyed say they urgently need to reevaluate how enterprise value is measured, and 71% of respondents say traditional metrics are not enough to evaluate initiatives that bring together people and technology.
At the same time, the research highlights a clear gap between ambition and action. A majority of CFOs want to become more strategic partners: 60% of respondents say CFOs should define and shape how the business creates value, and 55% of respondents agree that finance should accelerate value creation initiatives. The research also shows a gap between ambition and the current reality. Only 25% of CFOs surveyed say they lead investment decisions where returns are uncertain, indirect or long-term, and just 26% lead discussions on which value drivers matter most for the organization and how these are evolving.
This gap is reinforced by how finance is perceived within organizations.
Finance is often still widely perceived as a control, risk or operational function rather than as a strategic partner in shaping enterprise value. This can limit its influence on decision-making and the extent to which it leads discussions on value creation.
Deirdre Ryan
EY Global Finance Transformation Leader
Lack of time is another issue. CFOs surveyed report that 47% of their capacity is devoted to operational tasks such as regulation, reporting, internal controls and core finance processes. This could limit finance’s ability to deliver timely insight and increase the risk that decisions are shaped elsewhere in the organization.
To strengthen their role in shaping enterprise value, CFOs should:
Chapter 2
AI can transform finance, but most finance teams lack the capability to apply it effectively and realize its full value.
The rapid evolution of AI is creating the potential to automate existing finance processes and reduce costs in ways that were not previously achievable. More importantly, it can extract meaningful connections from large and previously unconnected data sets, supporting better decision‑making across the business.
However, this potential is not yet being realized. Most finance functions are not prepared to use AI to create enterprise value. Just 21% of CFOs surveyed describe their function’s preparedness as leading or advanced, indicating the current level of readiness across finance teams.
Where AI is applied effectively, the impact can be significant. “An automotive and consumer electronics component business recently implemented an end-to-end agentic AI solution for its purchase-to-pay process, reducing the capacity required for these activities by around 85% and enabling teams to focus on higher-value work,” says Ben Castell, Partner, Ernst & Young LLP. “Just two years ago, the technology that enabled this didn’t exist.”
Without adequate preparation, finance may struggle to secure budget for AI initiatives. When asked about the top challenges in securing investment for new AI tools, 61% of CFOs surveyed cited data quality and bias as their top barrier, which highlights the central importance of data foundations. Long-term, indirect or unclear benefits are the second greatest challenge (51% of respondents), followed by a lack of skills, resources or capacity (50% of respondents).
These challenges are particularly evident in how CFOs are currently applying AI to value creation. Fewer than half of CFOs surveyed see strong potential in areas such as data analysis, growth forecasting and dynamic pricing. Instead, many continue to prioritize defensive applications such as fraud detection and risk assessment.
This likely reflects differences not just in access to technology, but in the capability required to generate insight and apply it in decision‑making. Notably, finance teams that are more advanced in their AI preparedness are more likely to recognize AI’s potential, suggesting that capability shapes both adoption and ambition. This pattern is reflected in how finance leaders assess the potential of different AI applications.
AI’s potential value lies not just in generating more outputs, but in surfacing insights that can inform better decision‑making across the business — provided that the underlying data and outputs can be trusted.
AI can create value by supporting more informed, cross-functional decision-making. “A client wants to reduce the time it takes to ship their product from the US to Europe and back from 150 days to 100 days, because it would save them about tens of millions of dollars and generate a competitive advantage,” says Paul Green, EY Americas Tax Sector Leader and Americas Consumer Products and Retail Tax Leader. “By analyzing shipping data, container data, weather data, port data, customs data and other supply chain signals, AI can identify issues and start to make actionable or autonomous recommendations.”
Ben Castell
Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
As familiarity with AI increases, finance teams are beginning to move beyond experimentation and apply it to use cases that support decision-making and drive value creation. However, realizing its full potential will likely require a shift from isolated pilots to scalable, capability‑driven implementation — particularly in areas where value is harder to define, measure and act on.
To enhance value creation through AI, CFOs should:
Chapter 3
Finance transformation generally depends as much on people as on technology, but outcomes can be determined by how effectively teams adapt and apply new ways of working.
A strategic CFO should have a modern finance function that integrates technology, data and new ways of working. These capabilities can support finance teams to generate insight more rapidly and create capacity to support the business.
However, these capabilities do not always consistently translate into results. Just 12% of CFOs say their finance transformation outcomes exceeded expectations in the past two years, and 40% of respondents say that progress has been slow or limited.
This reinforces a further challenge. Even where technology and data capabilities are in place, transformation outcomes can often depend on whether finance teams have the mindset and behaviors to apply them effectively.
Tracy Farr
CFO, Lazard
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The research highlights the factors that differentiate stronger transformation outcomes. Finance teams’ wellbeing and energy, confidence in using new technology, adaptability and appetite for continuous learning are becoming performance differentiators for finance transformation.
These factors point to a set of team behaviors and mindsets that can help finance teams to operate effectively under uncertainty, including feeling safe to challenge decisions, staying curious and adaptable, working across team boundaries and applying judgment with confidence.
These factors can determine whether investments in data and technology translate into real improvements. For example, 42% of respondents who say their teams are highly adaptable say their finance transformation outcomes exceeded expectations in the past two years, compared with 16% of respondents who say their team is generally adaptable. Only 3% of respondents whose teams “adjust with support” say their transformation exceeded expectations.
The ability to embrace change, respond quickly and try new ways of working can be an important factor in transformation success. But just 11% of CFOs surveyed describe their teams as highly adaptable.
CFOs who improve their teams’ mindset and approach in these areas could be better positioned to strengthen the finance function’s role as a strategic business partner.
Meg Paschall
EY Global Organization and Workforce Transformation Leader
Improving outcomes can require greater emphasis on the human dimension of transformation — particularly adaptability, confidence in new tools and continuous learning.
To improve finance transformation outcomes, CFOs should:
Chapter 4
CFOs recognize the need to develop new skills and leadership styles, but their learning approaches remain largely traditional.
As the role of the CFO continues to evolve, finance leaders recognize an increasing need to develop new skills and mindsets and adopt different leadership styles. Strategic thinking and people leadership, for instance, are often essential for success.
This builds on the human dimension of transformation explored earlier. As finance becomes more dependent on insight, judgement and collaboration, CFOs are also expected to evolve their own capabilities, as well as those of their teams.
The survey shows strong consensus among CFOs:
However, there is a clear gap between development priorities and capability needs. Asked where they most want to develop over the next two years, CFOs rank people and culture leadership only fifth — despite it being their second weakest capability.
The behavioral and cultural side of performance can be extremely important to finance transformation. To address this, CFOs should strengthen their ability to shape team dynamics and mindsets as part of their own professional development.
CFOs have different backgrounds, strengths and capability gaps. As a result, development approaches should align with these differences and the organization's strategic priorities.
Also, CFOs can often rely heavily on traditional learning approaches. When asked about their learning and development methods, 61% of CFOs surveyed say they conduct self-directed learning through reading or online resources, making this their preferred approach.
Only 37% of CFOs surveyed say they participate in reverse mentoring with junior team members, suggesting many are not using a potential channel for learning particularly around emerging technologies. CFOs have the opportunity to learn from them about the technology’s workings and potential applications in finance.
To strengthen their own capability and leadership impact, CFOs should:
Chapter 5
Technology alone is not enough. CFOs should build adaptable, confident and strategically focused finance teams to drive transformation and shape enterprise value.
CFOs should take a more active role in shaping enterprise value by aligning technology, talent and leadership capabilities.
As the drivers of value creation continue to evolve, the challenge is not simply adopting new technologies, but applying them effectively through the right mindset, skills and leadership. Where capability gaps persist, organizations may struggle to fully realize the value of transformation.
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The EY Global DNA of the CFO Survey highlights how CFOs can accelerate finance transformation and unlock enterprise value by aligning technology, talent and leadership. As expectations of finance continue to evolve, the ability to build adaptable, confident and strategically focused teams will likely define the future of the function.
Part of the CFO Imperative Series, these insights are designed to help CFOs and finance leaders shape the future of finance.
2026 EY Global DNA of the CFO Report
Explore the full survey insights and discover how CFOs can align technology, talent and leadership to drive transformation and shape enterprise value.
Download the 2023 DNA of the CFO Survey (pdf) | How can bold CFOs reframe their role to optimize performance?
The future of finance is likely to be shaped not only by technology, but by the mindset, skills and leadership of finance teams to apply it effectively. As the drivers of value creation evolve, strengthening these capabilities can support CFOs to translate ambition into action and shape enterprise value.
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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.
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