CFOs in the driver’s seat

Who’d be a business leader right now? 

 

Across Europe, businesses are feeling the sharp end of tariffs, global headwinds and high employee taxes. The business landscape has never been so complex – especially when it comes to threading the needle, and ensuring you’re not just surviving but thriving.

 

For finance teams, 2025 might have felt like an exercise in resilience – bracing themselves against whatever unforeseen circumstance came their way. But for business leaders looking to do more than just get through the rest of 2026 unscathed (which is a long time to remain in the brace position, by the way) they should pull over and ask their finance team to move into the driving seat.

 

 

Finance as drivers, not passengers

For generations, finance was seen as the glorified safety net of businesses. It would ensure you were compliant, costs were controlled and expenses were all in order. But what it wouldn’t ensure is that you were making smart spend decisions, being strategic in your investments and making your excess cash work harder for you. (Or at least, it wasn’t seen to be doing these things). In short, it was defined by hindsight, not foresight.

 

While this outdated perception of finance might be largely over, CFOs and their teams are still not seen as the value accelerators they truly are. This is the last piece of the puzzle and can finally cement the team’s evolution from the guardians of risk management to the stewards of opportunity management.

 

 

Why finance can get you where you need to go

So what makes finance leaders such good candidates for getting businesses where they need to go? For one, they are uniquely positioned to provide a panoramic view across the business. Finance isn’t a bolt-on to a business – it’s the heartbeat. And visibility into risks, cash flow and performance metrics is now the differentiator. Yes, you have to spend money to make money – but you also have to know how to manage it.

 

This doesn’t mean finance leaders alone hold the keys to this brand of visibility. In fact their responsibility goes beyond that to ushering in a culture change where finance is democratised. This isn’t just about people becoming more mindful of spend policies (although, this helps!). It’s about the whole organisation being empowered to spend responsibly with greater confidence, so that they make better spend decisions. Bringing this confidence to the wider business – those who might be financial decision-makers, but not financial experts – is a crucial step towards running a confident, effective business.

 

But for this to work, you need more than just financial know-how – you need financial talent with soft skills; hybrid change-makers that know what strategy looks like and have the skills to communicate it. Today’s finance teams aren’t purely accountants or analysts; they’re part strategist, part technologist and part communicator. This hybrid is what adds strategy to numbers and creates opportunities from risks.

 

 

How to empower finance leaders to become value accelerators

We’re not pretending it’s easy for business leaders to hand the keys over to finance. Even when they do, they risk becoming the ultimate backseat drivers. But instead of micromanaging their CFOs, leaders should empower them, which, in today’s fast-paced business environment, revolves around how they make decisions.

 

Across Europe, 65% of CFOs are saying they’re making more high-level decisions than they were a year ago. But almost half (44%) of CFOs say they do not have the proper tools or technology to mine the data/insights needed for effective decisions. This has created a situation where financial leaders are second-guessing their decisions through a lack of confidence and contextual information. Or worse still, they aren’t making decisions at all.

 

To change this, leaders need to invest in the right technology to empower their teams. These might be tools that save time through automation, that reduce errors or that use AI to surface data insights. Chances are, it’s tools that do all of this. But that’s not to say technology is replacing finance teams; it’s reshaping them – creating a shift from backward-looking reporting to predictive, scenario-driven insights. And one where data really means something and is the common language of an organisation.

 

Getting this balance right can empower finance because it empowers effective decision-making.

 

 

Setting cruise control for your business

A fast-paced environment requires fast-paced decisions. If your business is on a rapid growth journey, you have to keep your eyes on the road, but you also don’t want to miss your turn. 

 

Keeping the finance function in the backseat won’t solve this – leaders must be proactive in bringing them up front to help navigate a fast-changing environment. But this means evolving everything in the finance department from cards to cash flow – and everything in between. Only then will teams be agile and empowered enough to keep the engine running and see any bumps in the road coming a mile off.

 

---

 

Søren Westh Lonning is CFO at Pleo  

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com AND matdesign24