Finance Transformation No Longer Top Priority as CFOs Increased Focus on Growth
The October 2024 survey of 251 CFOs showed that finance transformation ranks much lower as a priority for CFOs in 2025, replaced by a focus on AI adoption in finance, which ranked fourth overall (see Figure 1).
“The survey showed the most CFOs since 2014 prioritizing enterprise growth,” said Dennis Gannon, vice president of research in the Gartner Finance Practice. “The marked return of growth and cost pressures mean that many CFOs are planning to be ruthless in delegating finance transformation.”
Figure 1: CFO Top Priorities for 2025
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Source: Gartner (November 2024)
“CFOs expect one in two finance employees to be digital talent by 2027,” said Gannon. “Given that digital talent currently makes up less than 20% of the finance function, there’s clearly much work to be done.”
The survey also showed that CFOs recognize their own leadership profile needs attention in 2025, with an expanded CFO role creating a need to influence across the entire organization, raising the bar for CFO leadership effectiveness. Finance talent management also climbed in importance as CFOs confront an expected uptick in attrition of longer-tenured finance workers while evolving their value proposition for digital finance talent.
