Finance leaders today are increasingly being asked to manage organizational change as much as they’re asked to manage budgets.
That notion was reaffirmed by a recent survey conducted by Dallas-based professional services firm RGP. In a June survey of 63 CFOs at firms with more than $500 million in revenue, 74% of respondents reported “increased influence on enterprise-wide decisions.” What’s more, nearly all (93%) said they had “significant influence” on business strategy, and nearly three quarters (73%) reported the same influence on tech investments.
What sorts of investments are finance chiefs making these days? Per the RGP report, more than half of respondents (57%) say they’re allocating capital in tech and “digital transformation” initiatives, including artificial intelligence capabilities. The same share of respondents said they’re allocating capital for “operational efficiency initiatives” intended to “streamline processes and protect margins in an uncertain economic climate.”
The more tech-focused CFO of today is necessarily forming tighter relationships with CIOs and other technology leaders at their organizations, according to RGP.
“The CFO’s perspective is becoming more essential to the success of digital investment, AI strategy and overall enterprise transformation, and so we’re seeing CFOs and CIOs work more closely together on technology investments and implementations,” RGP CFO Jenn Ryu said in an email to CFO.com. “In fact, nine in 10 of the CFOs we surveyed said their partnership with their organization’s CIO has become more strategic in the last two years.”
Per the report, 84% of respondents said they’re optimistic about the impact of artificial intelligence, though actual investments in such tools remain relatively low. Less than half of respondents said they’re committing more than 10% of their capital budgets to AI, RGP researchers found.
“Enthusiasm around AI is certainly continuing to increase, but many businesses are still in the early stages of AI adoption,” Ryu said. “The key barrier that organizations face is data readiness. Only 27% of CFOs report complete trust in the quality of their data, and only 19% report complete trust in the reliability of their data.”
In the bigger picture, all these changes point to the fact that “today’s finance leader is stepping beyond spreadsheets to shape the future of the enterprise,” RGP officials wrote in the report. “What was once a role defined by accuracy and compliance is now centered on agility, influence and transformation.”
And that’s not to say such changes have always gone smoothly. “Not every finance leader is ready for this evolution,” the report stated. “The path forward demands fluency beyond finance — deep curiosity about people, processes and platforms. It requires emotional intelligence to lead through change and the humility to listen as much as lead.”
Managing change during mergers and acquisitions was another area of concern. While about half of respondents (49%) expect to engage in M&A activity before the year is over, the same share also acknowledged that “change management remains a significant weakness.”
Amid quickly shifting U.S. trade policy, the future of M&A, of course, remains an open question. A pair of recent reports showed that, as of mid-year, activity had been on the rise year over year, but prospects are less clear for the rest of 2025.
