Boards hire CFOs. Too often they get controllers in CFO clothing.

Too many Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are still glorified controllers with an oversized corner office. Others are the opposite; cosplaying ‘strategists’ who can talk a good game but don’t actually know how finance functions work. The world is changing too quickly for either. Boardrooms need a CFO who can do both.

Welcome to the first edition of Boardroom Brief a new publication from the Secret CFO.

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Read time: 7 minutes 5 seconds
⧗ Written by Katishi Maake and Secret CFO

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Dependable, safe, and got you from point A to point B. Reliable, but limited. Today’s CFO needs to be different. More like a souped-up Ford F-150 Raptor: built for tough terrain, loaded with tech, and 0-60 in a few seconds.

Too many boards are still riding in their (t)rusty old Corolla, or have “upgraded” to a Porsche 911. Flashy and fast, but not built for the rockier roads and rougher weather of 2025.

This isn’t new. The shift started 25 years ago when boards were signing off eight-figure ERP projects. The pitch was simple: spend big, and get transformational insights that would make the business sharper, faster, more profitable. But you don’t get payback from an ERP if the CFO never leaves their desk.

That change demanded a new kind of finance leader. Someone who could walk the business, turn oceans of new data into real insight, and drive strategy and execution.

Even back in 2002, Wharton ran an exec-ed program called The CFO: Becoming a Strategic Partner. The memo was there. Not everyone read it.

And there were reasons to be skeptical about expanding the domain of the CFO.

He was celebrated in the late 1990s, named CFO of the Year by CFO Magazine in 1999, and praised in the press for his financial engineering and inventive deal-making. Under his watch, revenue rocketed from ~$40 billion in 1999 to more than $100 billion in 2000, and market cap surged to ~$67 billion by mid-2000. Investors and analysts couldn’t get enough.

There was just one problem. Andy Fastow was the CFO of Enron, and we all know how that ended. Fastow ended up serving six years in prison.

1-nil to the Corolla guys.

The fallout from Enron and the collapse of Arthur Andersen hung over boardrooms for years. In 2002, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) hit. The biggest compliance shakeup corporate America had ever seen. CFOs were dragged back to their desks, signing off on numbers in blood and scrambling to document every control.

SOX only applied directly to US-listed companies, but the tone spread everywhere: transparency, accountability, control. Internal control became the first, second, and third priority.

But the need for CFOs to evolve never went away. Boards wanted more insight, influence and better strategic partnering for their CEOs.

Fast forward to today, and the expectations for CFOs are clear.

Those responsible for finding the next great CFOs know what their brief is. 

Domagoj Landher and his UK-based recruitment firm, Essenta, specialize in finding CFOs for private equity-backed businesses.  Landher is looking for candidates who can strike a healthy balance between high IQ and EQ. These are the CFOs who can read the room, work with the board, and lead all aspects of the business effectively.

“No one wants to hire an overpaid accountant,” Landher said. “Good, strategic commercial CFOs are expensive; they come with a price tag but [for] good reason.”

Two in five (41%) CFOs believe driving change is the competency most likely to increase in importance over the next five years, according to a 2025 EgonZender survey of 600 CFOs. 

And four out of five (82%) reported that they had picked up new responsibilities in the last two years, including ESG, M&A, and strategy.

When Perry Beberman joined Bread Financial, NYSE: BFH (formerly Alliance Data) as CFO four years ago, the company was mid-transformation. The company’s balance sheet needed strengthening, and the business needed streamlining.

Beberman knew what he needed to do–fix data governance, hire data scientists, and invest in training. Part of his mandate was to build a finance team that could do much more than close the books. Creating that foundation earned finance a real seat at the table.

“If you don’t have reliable financial data, it’s tough to have a voice,” Beberman told us. “With better analytics, finance can drive growth and innovation. The CEO now looks over to me on every major decision, and my team has been involved from the start.”

Since then, Beberman has introduced AI tools (specifically Microsoft Copilot) to automate data analysis cradle-to-grave. Turning what would normally be days of work into just a few minutes. 

His best analysts can now pull data, perform analysis, and package the findings into a presentation end-to-end with AI doing the heavy lifting. This is an example of what Beberman sees as "the finance person of the future."

But Beberman is clear: the tools only make fine judgment even more important. Future finance leaders will need to master both the tech and the calls it can’t make.

In PwC’s May 2025 Pulse survey, 58% of CFOs said they’re investing in AI and advanced analytics. God help the 42% who aren’t.

The last five years have blown up every constant CFOs took for granted. A pandemic. A whole generation of finance pros who never thought about inflation, tariffs, or interest rates — now hit with all three. Commodity price chaos. Supply chain stand stills. And now a US trade reset is ripping through costing models and pricing policies.

Today’s CFO has to be faster than ever. Faster to react. Faster to insight. That won’t happen without ripping up FP&A, new tools, and cleaner data.

Patrick Boyce, CFO of edtech platform Sketchy, wants his team to understand the fundamentals before leaning on AI. “If you don’t know the basics, you can’t ask the right questions,” he told us.

The tools may have changed, but Boyce argues the core duties of the CFO–capital allocation, strategic decision-making, and stakeholder management–haven’t shifted in 25 years. What has changed is how those goals are met.

He would know. Boyce was first promoted to CFO in the middle of the financial crisis at the now-defunct Highland Capital Management.

“My boss said, ‘You’re going to learn a lot more in the next three years,’” Boyce recalled.

Boyce sees that influence is the real currency of finance leaders. 

“It’s not enough to rely on status markers or the authority of the CFO title, especially in remote or hybrid work environments,” Boyce told us. “Today… you’re just another face on the screen.”

The core duties of the CFO haven’t changed. But technology is moving at breakneck speed, and both Beberman and Boyce are clear: tech alone isn’t enough.

Beberman stressed that successful CFOs still need balance — financial expertise matched with judgment that considers regulation, markets, and community expectations, not just the bottom line.

Beberman calls AI “the early innings.” Companies that are behind can catch up fast, but only with sound value judgments. “We don’t have to be the first one there, but we have to be scanning the landscape,” he said. “And we’ve got to get our data organized so we can best take advantage of new opportunities.”

For 20 years, an entire cottage industry has sprung up around “redefining” the CFO. Podcasts, whitepapers, webinars — all promising CFO 2.0, 3.0, 4.0. Chief Future Officer. Chief Growth Officer. Chief [insert buzzword here] Officer. It’s just branding theater. 

It’s better tools, cleaner data, and sharper leadership. Tech that closes the gap between a number in a system and a judgment in the boardroom.
In a world moving at exponential speed, a CFO who’s a step slow today could be a generation behind tomorrow.

The questions your board will ask - beat them to it:

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