Finance Leaders Barometer
Managing change initiatives is the most time-intensive aspect of the CFO's expanding role, according to our latest survey of 500 finance leaders* – but meaningful, business-wide transformation can't be achieved in isolation.
Whether it’s digital disruption, navigating today’s complex geopolitical environment, or driving cultural shifts, the challenges businesses face today demand cohesive and coherent, cross-functional leadership.
However, our research revealed a significant top-level disconnect. Fewer than half of CFOs report a strong working relationship with their C-suite peers – at the potential cost of misalignment, slowed decision-making, inefficient resource allocation and more. Head of Finance Consulting Simon Davidson explores common reasons for this, and how to address it.
Alignment isn’t achieved simply by adding more meetings to the calendar. The most effective leadership teams we work with build strong foundations that make strategic collaboration a natural part of how they operate – not something that feels forced.
There are four core questions CFOs should reflect on.
Finance is often viewed as the team that oversees the tracking and reporting of KPIs, but its role today should extend beyond that. The CFO’s influence needs to extend to ensuring that KPIs are aligned with the organisation’s overarching objectives, and that people understand their contribution to them.
If finance is measured on financial outcomes only – cost control, cash flow, EBITDA and so on – while your peers in marketing and operations are driven solely by engagement and speed-to-market KPIs, it’s no surprise that there's a disconnect between the leadership.
This was supported by the findings of the survey. For example, CFOs who reported a 'weak working relationship' with their HRD cited two of the top three reasons as 'a lack of shared goals', and by extension 'competing priorities'. This doesn't indicate that collaboration isn't valuable – instead, it points to a need to realign objectives.
When performance bases are directly aligned, the working relationships with peers will naturally become stronger, with ultimately each area of the business incentivised to work towards common or joint goals.
*This question was asked of CFOs who described their relationship with their HRD as a 'weak working relationship'.
Rightly or wrongly, finance continues to be perceived as a gatekeeper function that says ‘no’ more than it says ‘yes’ in many businesses. This doesn't just hinder strategic discussions; it often means that CFOs may not even be invited to participate in them.
To reform this view, CFOs need to engage proactively with peers as an ongoing practice to understand their priorities and challenges.
They need to ensure that their peers understand the value they can add and address misconceptions. This trust can’t be achieved in one meeting – it needs to be built through regular touchpoints and over time.
As the survey results suggest, the biggest constraint we see CFOs face in strengthening executive relationships is simply a lack of time. Operational pressures continue to be time consuming, pushing what can be viewed as optional tasks like stakeholder engagement to the back seat.
It’s tempting to expect that there will be more time for stakeholder engagement and other strategic areas "in the future" or "once this project is complete" - but as we often see with the CFOs we work with, time won’t automatically become available for this unless it is made a priority. There needs to be a dedicated, conscious effort.
Freeing up time can only happen if you have built a capable team that you can trust to take ownership of routine tasks, allowing you to redefine your priorities and focus more on strategic leadership – and resetting others’ expectations accordingly.
When we asked those CFOs who don’t have a strong working relationship with their Human Resources Director what’s holding the relationship back, a ‘lack of shared goals’ was cited as a top barrier.
We often see this happen across businesses because of the ‘Telephone Game’ scenario. A project is agreed upon by leadership, then communicated slightly differently each time it’s relayed through various levels of the organisation.
The result is that despite working towards what should be the same goal, each team focuses on a slightly different vision and objectives; leading to misaligned priorities, inefficient resource allocation, and ultimately frustration among the leaders of the business when things aren’t headed in the right way.
There should be continuous, transparent dialogue and informal catch ups throughout a project's lifecycle – not just at the start and end.
Amid the current landscape of geopolitical tension and shifting trade policies, risk tolerance and views on strategy are bound to differ. That’s not always negative; healthy debate should form the bedrock of making difficult decisions.
However, when the C-suite is not aligned outside of the Boardroom, the narrative they present within it is less likely to be cohesive, making alignment more difficult to achieve. Strengthening those relationships should naturally lead to improvement in this area.
There are also deliberate steps CFOs can take when communicating with the Board to foster alignment.
Board decisions should be guided by data-driven insights, with CFOs ensuring that this data is consistent and high quality.
That won’t come as news to any finance leader, but it's about clarity, not quantity – we often hear from Board members that they are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data provided. The narrative isn’t clear. What you leave out is just as important as what you include.
Ultimately, when board members know that they’re getting accurate, balanced information, it becomes easier to align around a direction.
Board members bring diverse expertise, and their priorities will vary greatly. A one-size-fits-all board pack will overwhelm some, and underdeliver to others.
Simplifying the numbers for non-finance professionals is a step most CFOs take already, but tailoring can go beyond that – framing them in a way that supports discussion, decision-making, and shared accountability. Are you highlighting what matters most for the conversation at hand, and reflects current business priorities? Are you drawing a clear line between the data and the strategic implications?
If there's a lack of alignment despite clear data and a strong financial case, we often see it is because past projections missed the mark.
Rebuilding this confidence can be difficult. It means being open and transparent about where things haven’t gone to plan – and showing how lessons have been applied going forward.
Consistency between what’s promised and what’s delivered is what ultimately builds credibility.
The companies that succeed tomorrow will be the ones whose leadership teams are aligned enough today to make quick decisions and accelerate transformation.
Working towards that aim is the responsibility of every member of the C-suite – but as the CFO, your knowledge of everything from data to risk to people strategy positions you with a unique vantage point to connect dots that others might not see.
*The Finance Leaders Barometer is an anonymous survey of 300 CFOs and 200 Financial Controllers. The data was obtained in H1 2025. All respondents come from UK-based businesses across sectors, markets and regions.
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