INTRODUCTION

See. Solve. Strategize. Repeat.

Asked what the CFO role requires today, Joe Powers offered this: “Constantly solve problems we’re facing now, and look ahead to other problems, solutions and challenges.” “Constantly solve” is a great CFO tagline. And like many of today’s finance leaders, it’s a mandate that Powers embraces as the CFO of zSpace, a San Francisco-based education technology company leading the market in virtual and augmented reality for in-classroom, remote and hybrid learning environments. The evolving and expanding role of the CFO has been well documented in the media and industry research. Close the books, open doors to growth. Be aggressive, but spend prudently. Take approaches that are tactical, but also visionary. Growing areas of functional oversight are further evidence of the CFO’s evolving responsibilities. Recent McKinsey research has the CFO taking an increasing role in leading investor relations, board engagement, post-merger integration, procurement and digital. Conversations with CFOs back it up. They’re trying to maintain a very difficult pace for their businesses as they accelerate or shift business plans disrupted by the environment created by COVID. At the same time, they’re trying to slow everyone down enough to make sure good decisions are made. It’s little wonder there’s more on their minds than the really important tactical things — budgeting, closing the books, and making sure financial reporting is accurate. There is a lot swirling around in there with the numbers.

In this guide, we look at four key challenges CFOs face today, outside of textbook finance tasks:

• Getting and keeping people who will help advance the company’s mission and vision
• International expansion and growth
• Fraud and cybersecurity
• Dealing with legacy technology and integration

In addition to reviewing recent internal and industry research on these issues, we also asked CFOs for their advice on how they are approaching each of them.