The Highly Effective CFO

What role does the CFO play in the organisation? The role is undergoing perhaps its greatest change in recent history with fundamental changes in how the CFO must now operate in order to be considered effective.Operating as a highly effective CFO requires a more business-wide leadership role. In addition to maintaining a set of basic habits that make them and their organisations far more adaptable to the pace of digital disruption, the CFO must also add new tools to their belt.

Fortunately, none of these habits are too far outside their traditional area of expertise. Rather, they extend and contemporise existing competencies and talents which all effective CFOs should already share.Adding new tools to their belts however does require clear vision and technology that helps them to juggle the “traditional” responsibilities of internal controls, compliance and closing the books quickly with regulatory changes, new disruptive innovations such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, standardisation, and becoming a driver of financial growth.

These observations have been corroborated by NetSuite’s discussions with CFOs from around the world and demonstrate that the most progressive organisations have positioned the CFO as the linchpin between new technology and financial growth. Whilst this may seem a significant challenge, the good news is that the future of finance is in the hands of the CFO.

This white paper examines the most common habits of highly effective CFOs that NetSuite has identified from its history of working with established and growing businesses, and delves into the role-defining trends that are shaping the future of the finance function.