12 June 2026
From Steward to Strategist: Building a Finance Function for Sustainable Growth
Are you being asked to operate like a strategic command centre while still being resourced like a reporting department? You are not alone. Many businesses expect their finance function to perform a role it was not originally designed for.
Once defined largely by financial control, reporting and governance, today’s finance function is now expected to shape performance, guide growth, improve resilience and help the business make better strategic decisions in more complex conditions. And they’re expected to do it at speed. Yet, 64% of finance leaders are finding complex scenario and ‘what-if’ analysis challenging with their current technology.
To drive business growth against a backdrop of economic volatility and rapid technological change, senior leaders must resource and retool the finance function to focus on value creation, strategic insight and scalability. For many, this will require transformation.
The finance function built for growth will need different people doing different work in different ways. As the people function, HR will be a crucial partner.
Scaling the digital core
Technology is no longer just an administrative support tool; it is an engine for growth. While AI adoption has doubled in the last three years, of all the business functions, finance is bringing up the rear.
The roadmap for growth is clear:
- Embedded intelligence: Early adopters are beginning to move beyond experimentation to embedding AI directly into core workflows —like predictive forecasting, anomaly detection, and automated budgeting — although the picture remains patchy.
- Eliminating technical debt: 86% of CFOs are constrained by legacy environments. Progressive leaders are prioritising cloud migration and ERP modernisation to ensure real-time data access and operational excellence.
- Unified data: In large organisations, integrated technology platforms offer a single source of truth, connecting fragmented data across the enterprise to facilitate faster, data-driven decision-making.
The narrative is moving on from automation to AI-led finance operations.
The challenge for senior leaders is cutting through the often vendor-led, agentic-AI hype to understand: What task does it improve? How much time does it save? Can we trust the answer? Who checks it?
With 35% of CFOs reporting data trust and reliability as their top barrier to AI ROI, AI will not transform finance unless the basics are right — clean data, clear processes, strong controls and people who know how to challenge the outputs.
CFO to CVO
Growth is increasingly viewed through the lens of long-term sustainability rather than short-term profit. The role of the modern CFO has undergone a fundamental transformation, shifting from a traditional ‘scorekeeper’ to a strategic advisor and Chief Value Officer (CVO). The CVO mandate requires a comprehensive view of performance that includes economic, environmental, and social equity.
- Measuring intangibles: Most enterprise value is created not by assets themselves but by the interaction of people, data, systems, and culture. Human capital is the catalyst that turns these elements into performance. Without measuring and investing in these intangibles, organisations systematically underestimate the drivers of ROI — particularly in areas like AI adoption.
- Non-financial metrics: High-growth organisations are incorporating non-financial data, such as net promoter scores, into their performance assessments, to gauge value creation for a broader range of stakeholders, including customers, employees, and regulators.
- Strategic advisory: The finance function must proactively highlight future opportunities rather than simply reporting on the past, acting as a direct partner to the CEO in setting and delivering organisational goals.
Integrated planning
A major barrier to growth is disconnected planning, where financial goals are out of sync with operational drivers, like supply chain constraints or sales capacity.
- Breaking silos: Currently, 85% of finance organisations use different platforms for financial consolidation and planning. Building for growth requires integrating operational and financial planning into a single, trusted foundation.
- Scenario modelling: Against a backdrop of uncertainty and volatility, finance teams are prioritising real-time calculation engines to evaluate trade-offs and respond at pace to market shifts with greater confidence.
For smaller finance teams — for whom full-scale planning platforms are too costly, complex, and resource intensive for their requirements — new, lightweight FP&A tools, like Cube, are offering fast deployment, low overhead, and tools that enhance, rather than replace, their existing workflows.
People and culture
Growth often exposes capability gaps that were previously hidden. The CFO can’t do it alone. Building a high-performance finance function requires a shift in leadership philosophy. Lessons from high-performance environments, such as Formula 1, advocate for empowerment as a more effective performance driver than rigid control.
Influence not power: As a company grows, a leader must shift from a ‘do-it-all’ micro-manager into an architect of systems and a developer of people and teams.
- Strengths over weaknesses: Successful leaders amplify what people do best and foster innovative environments to build a future-proofed team.
- The capability gap: There is a growing competition to attract and retain finance professionals who possess digital, analytical and commercial acumen. Leaders need to move away from role-based to capability-based thinking. Success hinges on upskilling existing teams, building clear development pathways and creating flexible, trust-based working models.
Whether your team has the right skills, behaviours, structure, leadership depth, succession plan and development support to deliver the finance capability your business needs for growth all sits under the purview of HR.
Governance and cyber resilience
As the finance function becomes more data-dependent and reliant on AI, data security and privacy have become top strategic priorities.
- CFO & CISO partnership: Finance leaders are taking a leading role in quantifying cyber risk in financial terms, working closely with security teams to manage third-party risks and comply with evolving global regulations from the SEC and EU.
- Explainable AI: For AI to be a trusted growth driver, finance functions must ensure governance and auditability, to explain clearly how AI-driven insights and forecasts were derived.
In brief
The finance function is no longer defined primarily by stewardship, reporting accuracy, and cost control. It now sits at the centre of organisational strategy, digital transformation, risk navigation, and long term value creation. As such, it must be connected, strategic, and resilient. By balancing technological innovation with a broader definition of value, and creating cultures where people are empowered, the finance function can be a powerful engine for sustainable business growth.
Need help building your finance function for future growth?
As a specialist finance recruitment and HR consultancy, we’ve been helping businesses build their finance functions since 2012.
For help benchmarking your team, succession planning or developing a people strategy that supports transformation, call Victoria Beadle, Director of our People and Change strategic HR consultancy on 07988 276402 or email victoria@seymourjohn.com
For talent acquisition support
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire, call: Emma Hughes on 07872 142465 or email emma@seymourjohn.com
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12 June 2026