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How CFOs are rewriting the definition of leadership
In this episode of the Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast, author of Fortune’s CFO Daily newsletter, Sheryl Estrada, shares the leadership themes emerging from CFO conversations and what they could mean for the future.
In this episode of the Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast, Myles Corson speaks with Sheryl Estrada, senior writer at Fortune and author of the CFO Daily newsletter. Drawing on her conversations with finance leaders, Sheryl shares insights into how the CFO role is evolving beyond traditional finance responsibilities. She also explores how CFOs are playing an increasingly influential role in enterprise transformation.
Sheryl explains how finance leaders are reassessing whether traditional performance metrics still fully capture business growth.. With CFOs taking a more active role in shaping business strategy, organizations are placing greater emphasis on connecting financial performance to the broader business narrative. As a result, finance is reassessing legacy KPIs and redefining how value is measured and communicated.
The need for greater clarity is also reshaping the finance function itself. Sheryl describes AI and automation as a way to move finance beyond routine work, creating more capacity for the function to contribute to the business as a strategic partner. As CFOs rethink how roles are structured and how work gets done, the future of finance becomes less about adopting new technology and more about building a finance function that can bring sharper insight to the decisions that shape long-term value.
Key takeaways:
Understand how the CFO’s role is evolving beyond traditional finance responsibilities
Recognize the growing influence of AI on finance priorities and decision-making
Rethink how organizations measure and communicate value
Strengthen collaboration across the C-suite through data-driven insights
Prepare finance teams for a more strategic, technology-enabled future
For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
Myles Corson
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to the EY Better Finance: CFO Insights podcast — a series that explores the changing dynamics of the business world and what it means for finance leaders of today and tomorrow. I’m your host, Myles Corson, from EY.
Today I am delighted to be joined by Sheryl Estrada, senior writer at Fortune and author of the Fortune CFO Daily Newsletter.
So, Sheryl, welcome, great to have you on.
Sheryl Estrada
Thank you. Thanks so much, Myles. So great to be here.
Corson
I'm excited because, of course, you know, the tables are turned a little bit today. As a journalist, you're normally the one asking the questions. So, I'm excited to be able to turn the spotlight in the other direction.
Estrada
Oh, great. Yes, I can have that experience that I always give others.
Corson
So Sheryl, you've been on the CFO [chief financial officer] beat for a while.
You connect with a lot of CFOs through your writing, your interviews, the panels you host, and you obviously had a ringside seat at how that role has continued to evolve. So, I'm really excited to explore some of those things.
So, maybe as we kick off, what have you seen change from when you started talking to CFOs to where we are now? How are you seeing the evolution?
Estrada
So, I started at Fortune about five years ago in 2021 — March 2021. And when I first started there, we were still in the pandemic [COVID-19 pandemic]. And of course, the focus of CFOs at that time was survival, cost control, liquidity management, near-term resilience.
As we went further and conditions started to stabilize, I realized the conversation shifted toward recovery. The digital transformation largely centered on optimizing processes and modernizing systems.
So, technology was beginning to become top of mind, but that was only the beginning because if you fast-forward to now, CFOs are basically one of the primary decision-makers on AI [artificial intelligence] infrastructure.
So, as the technology picked up, the role of the CFO became more central in AI strategy for the company at large. They became more central in enterprise-wide transformation. And they definitely have become more front facing alongside the CEO [chief executive officer ] and are considered the strategic partner of the CEO.
So, I've definitely seen that shift from where CFOs — of course, they're still focused on finance — but they are more deeply involved in operations and the strategic element of companies.
Corson
You talked about this shift, which I think is a good way of describing it, and the expanded scope, the responsibilities. So, how are you seeing CFOs show up differently, and how do they balance some of those priorities in that evolved model, the sort of expectations of them? How do they meet those expectations?
Estrada
It's interesting because with the expanding of the purview of the CFO, you have a lot of CFOs who are taking on the chief operating officer role. You have CFOs who are becoming president. You have CFOs who have technology reporting to them.
One CFO that I've interviewed is the CFO of ServiceNow, Gina Mastantuono. She was on a panel session, which I moderated at the Fortune's Most Powerful Women event back in October. She described it very well. She said the role is now a combination of strategic vision, discipline, execution and enterprise-wide leadership. And now, finance and strategy are inseparable. And she told her teams that they must perform and transform at the same time. She also took on the role of president.
So, I think that CFOs are fully aware that the company is relying on them to use their sensibilities to benefit not only just finance but the whole organization at large in different capacities. And for some, it's a stretch of what maybe they initially signed up to do when they first went on the CFO path, but it is a way for them to expand their knowledge set and meet the challenges.
Corson
I love that articulation from Gina. I think it encapsulates so much of what the role has become. You mentioned this operations role as well. I think one of the trends we've already seen is COFO title — Chief Operating and Financial Officer role. So, I'm interested in your views on that, how pervasive it's going, what that role actually means and what's in the scope of it as well. Because I think on the one hand, again, all this conversation is around your finance and driving top-line growth, revenue generation with value creation, which we'll talk about more.
But does the operations role constrain that a little bit more around the lens of efficiency, cost management? And again, is there a conflict there?
Estrada
I don't see it as a conflict. I see it as the CFO has firsthand knowledge of what is going on in operations and what is needed, that can inform the allocation strategy. I think that the more that they're involved or can see firsthand what the needs of the company are in terms of operations that helps them make more well-managed decisions.
It seems, in my perspective, a natural fit because CFOs have the training and ability to instill processes and procedures that bring returns because that's what they do, and they take that lens on different parts of the organization. You should see more efficiency.
Corson
You've probably spoken to a number of people who have taken on that operating and finance officer type role. Are there some themes or trends you see that people are doing that role successfully?
Estrada
Yes, I would say, one person who I've spoken to is Amrita Ahuja. She's the CFO and COO of Block. She has told me in interviews how having the role helps inform her role as a CFO, that she has even more increased oversight on the organization. And she sees the role going hand in hand, and I would say she's a good example.
Corson
I think one of the things we've seen is people coming to the role with a different skill set, different career journey. And as, again, the scope and mandate of the role have expanded, it's pulling from a broader pool. Any trends you're seeing in terms of the career trajectory and background of people stepping into that expanded role?
Estrada
Well, I would definitely say that it has evolved from just CFOs who have an accounting background who focus on the numbers. I've talked to many CFOs who have come from investment banking backgrounds — just varied types of experiences. There's one CFO who I spoke with recently. Her name is Seun Sodipo. She's the CFO of Plaid. And she actually has a degree in Applied Mathematics, and she has an MBA [Master’s of Business Administration]. We talked about that, and it's interesting how her background has helped her to meet the moment because she says she's using her coding experience as a foundation to work with large language models in AI and come up with use cases and things of that sort. And she's also worked in investment banking. She's worked in private equity.
And it's so interesting that she's bringing that lens to her job and falls under what a lot of people consider like the modern CFO, who has the financial ability but has all of these other strategic experiences and training. And even if you look at an AI CFO, someone like Sarah Friar, she's been at OpenAI since 2024 but she didn't take that kind of traditional route to the role she's at now. Her degree is in Engineering and Economics, and she has an MBA. I've been seeing that increasingly.
Corson
One of the things that we see in our research, the DNA of the CFO recently, is finance leaders really understanding the need to be focused on the value creation agenda. And at the same time, there are some challenges around that in terms of how do you actually measure it, how do you track and monitor it. In the conversations you're having, it sounds like you're seeing that focus on the value side. How, again, are successful CFOs that you're talking to really communicating, from an enterprise perspective, what value creation means, and how, from a finance perspective, they're supporting it?
Estrada
I would say when I think of value creation, what comes to mind is like the metrics that they focus on. So, the CFO has traditionally been about numbers, but now, it's more about the narrative behind them. So, traditionally, okay, CFOs will look at revenue, profit and cash, to name a few, and communicate that as finding the value creation. But there are newer metrics, or when I talk to the CFO of Levi Strauss and Company, his name is Harmit Singh. He's a very great CFO, in my opinion. He's been at Levi's for many years. He's retiring soon once they find a replacement.
When I talk to him a lot about value creation and keeping a company like Levi's that's been around for more than 160 years, keeping it relevant, he was just like, “Legacy KPIs need to be revised, if you want to take advantage of new data and technology.” It was one of the things that he told me.
And so, with the company having more of a focus on direct to consumer, they're looking at metrics like customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs, which some would say, “Well, those are traditionally marketing metrics.” But that's where a lot of companies are starting to look for value, that customer relationship — so, again, how the CFO partners with the C-suite and how their role is expanded.
So, you may say that there was that traditional friction between finance and marketing, but like the CFOs who are visionary, if we want to create value for the company, maybe those marketing metrics will help us.
Another example of, not necessarily a CFO, but a CEO, the CEO of Verizon, Dan Schulman, he recently said on an earnings call that one of the clearest measures of whether the company's turnaround efforts are working is churn. Another metric that isn't traditionally finance. So, creating value is being innovative and looking at different ways around the organization, whether it be different KPIs, different methods that foster innovation.
Corson
I love your point around metrics needing to evolve. And I think particularly with some of the new technologies coming on stream, how do you measure beyond the traditional return-on-investment type models?
That's fantastic. But a number of things you raised there that I'd love to explore further.
So, you mentioned the cross-functional collaboration aspects of the role. Obviously, the CEO, CFO role traditionally has been very strong. It's a big axis of power in many enterprises. Have you seen that evolve? What drives success in terms of that core relationship? Then you also obviously mentioned the interaction with other functions like marketing, HR [human resources] and technology. The CFO has got to be really part of that crew that brings the C-suite together. So, how do the CFOs you're talking to build those cross-functional relationships as well and build the credibility of what finance can bring?
Estrada
A lot of the CFOs that I talk to understand the importance of effective communication, the importance of being more front facing than they traditionally have been and creating methods for the different C-suite leaders to connect. And a big part of that, I would say, is data. If you're the CFO and you are working with the different divisions in the company and a lot of CFOs’ decisions are based on data, I say that it's less of working in silos and it's more of having that commonality of data.
And that's where the technology comes in, where everyone can have access and everyone can be on the same page. So, I think that's a big part of that. And CFOs, some are creating committees within finance or people — it could be someone from FP&A [financial planning and analysis] or it could be someone from accounting — that become those who have interaction with the other parts in the organization.
So, you can have this finance team that goes to marketing meetings and finds out what their needs are, shares data, comes up with ways to create value. So, I think from the CFO, it’s like kind of a top down of creating that communication, the commonality with data and then the communication of having finance have that seat at the table to be able to interact with the different departments.
Corson
That's a great point and using data as a platform to build from. But once you're at that table, how do you bring the insight from the data and the application of all of the insight that finance has access to from the history, but also, you know, how trends may develop in the future? I wanted to get back and maybe sort of connecting the data point also with the point you made about innovation, Sheryl, because I think that's a really interesting one in the finance context — how CFOs model innovation across the organization, but also within the finance function.
Because again, you think about a lot of finance organizations, they tended to be focused on control, the things that we can't allow any errors in are absolutely sort of ingrained with many finance professionals. That's a big challenge now when you're asking them in this rapidly evolving world to think differently, to bring fresh ideas. Any examples you've seen of how CFOs have been successful in driving that culture shift to create more innovation and a culture and mindset?
Estrada
I would say an example would be the CFO of Adobe [Editor's note: The executive referenced held this position at the time of the interview and has since left Adobe.] He is very involved from a technology standpoint at the company. And he has the finance team very involved in creating use cases for AI. For example, they have hackathons and they are encouraged to come up with ways to find that value in the technology that the company uses. And I see that effective CFOs are looking for ways to inspire team members to take an active role in shaping strategy, especially when it comes to technology and AI. That is a way to create innovation within the company.
Corson
We talked about how the career path has evolved with people coming into the CFO role from a wider career background. Historically, when we do our DNA of CFO survey, one of the things is the CFO role is really aspirational. There's high degrees of satisfaction. The responsibility, the things that they are doing, I think, really create high levels of satisfaction in the role historically. We've seen some data in the market recently. I think Russell Reynolds put out some research. One, we're definitely seeing the trend of CFO tenure coming down. The Russell Reynolds survey particularly talked about actually people choosing to move out of the role, attributing that to the pressures. When you look at the upsides and downsides, people choosing to step away. Interested, if that's coming through in the conversations you're having as the scope's expanded and the pressure's expanded, is it now getting too much, and do you see people being willing to step away?
Estrada
Yes, I did see that Russell Reynolds study, the CFO turnover is being fueled by retirements. The role is definitely, I would say, become very intense. The scope maybe is larger than what a lot of CFOs may have signed up for. But I have seen a few seasoned CFOs move toward the direction of retirement.
It could be perhaps that they're ready to pass the baton on to the next generation, but we're in a, I would say, age where an executive may have to keep redefining themselves in a way or reinventing themselves to keep up with the pace. You look at what the traditional CFO was, in the back office in a sense. And now, I speak to CFOs all the time who are on stage, and they're representing their companies and they're sitting alongside of the CEO.
So, part of what is may be compelling some people to step back from the role is that it's really changed. But I think, in a way, it can create an opportunity for a new generation of CFOs who have that sensibility to be more people-oriented or have these different types of backgrounds that we talked about earlier that when combined with finance, that create a robust opportunity.
But you definitely have to be someone who's willing to be ready to face a lot of uncertainty that we've been experiencing and really think perhaps outside of the box and really be focused on innovation. So, I would say it's a lot of skill sets that maybe traditionally you wouldn't think that you would need as being a CFO.
Corson
I think that's well said. I think change and transition is important. It's healthy. And my view also is that frankly, as we've talked about, because the way the role has expanded, because you've got people coming from a broad background, actually there are more opportunities being created, whether that's in advisory positions or on boards.
I don't think necessarily some of the CFOs that are moving out of the direct CFO role are retiring from work. They're moving into, transitioning into a different stage of their career, which the experiences they have is allowing them to take on these different roles. So, to me, it's hopefully a positive indicator.
On this point of pressure, one of the questions we ask guests and CFOs that come on the podcast is around how they maintain wellbeing. You mentioned Gina from ServiceNow, who's obviously very visible on LinkedIn and some of the social platforms in terms of the importance of wellbeing, her priorities around fitness and health. As you sort of look at other CFOs you've spoken to, what do they do to deal with the pressure and maintain wellbeing and balance?
Estrada
You know, Myles, a popular response that I hear is spending time with family.
Corson
It's very grounding.
Estrada
Yes, it's very grounding, and it keeps things into perspective. A lot of CFOs that I spoke to, they enjoy traveling. Gina, she's very athletic and she works out, I know, but at the end of the day, it always comes down to spending time with loved ones and putting that first.
Corson
I'm sure you talked to people who are also stepping into the role as well as seasoned professionals. If you were thinking of distilling down some of the insights you've got from the conversation to someone who's new to the role, is there anything you'd counsel them to think about in this area?
Estrada
One of the things I would say to really think about is, how are you staying abreast of technology? Because, and you know, Myles, that AI isn't going anywhere. And a lot of companies are going forward and wanting to invest and reimagine what the company will look like with AI policies and procedures and things of that sort. And I think as the board increasingly turned to CFOs, as CEOs increasingly turned to CFOs, you would need to have that type of aptitude.
Not that you need to be a technologist, but you definitely need to be aware of AI and how it functions and be experimenting with it yourself. I would say that would be a number one thing. And I would also say that you would need to be someone who is agile, someone who is able to, okay, you have plan A and plan B. Well, you're going to have to go to C. You have to have that flexibility now with so much uncertainty and be willing to listen and have good communication skills.
And that's of course on top of having the financial know-how, but I see those things as being quite important if you're stepping into the role nowadays.
Corson
I think you mentioned the importance of communication and listening is such an important part of that to me. I think that's a really important differentiator going forward.
You made a really important point. I think this point about staying educated and informed is so important. And I think technology is the extreme example, but it applies more generally for new CFOs, for all CFOs, frankly, how do you make the time to stay educated and informed about what's happening is so important.
And on the podcast, we ask through some of the surveys and research we do. And I think to me, one of the common threads around that is building personal networks. And that's within your organization, but obviously externally as well, because you need that outside-in perspective. I’m just interested, does that resonate with you? Do you hear that as being a common theme in terms of staying relevant, staying up to date, and any recommendations you'd have about building a personal network and sort of how you create that council around you to be informed?
Estrada
Myles, yeah, I talked recently to a tech CFO. And, he said that he has a cohort of peers in which they discuss things and they have learnings from each other. So, it's kind of a network-based education, which I think that CFOs value and a lot of them participate in.
Corson
So, we talked about the personal dimensions of the role. We've talked about enterprise value creation. Just thinking a little bit about the finance function. Obviously, with all the technology or conversation around how it's evolving so fast, the vision for what the future of the finance organization looks like is front and center. Any themes coming through in the conversations you're having about what finance organizations need to be focused on where the priorities are.
Estrada
With AI and automation, it's definitely CFOs that I've spoken to have the intent of having the finance team be even more strategic. So, if you have automation doing mundane tasks, it allows for, let's say, someone in FP&A to be more strategic and be able to think outside of the box and be able to contribute more to the finance function, doing a role that they've enjoyed.
I think for CFOs, the future of finance is elevating the finance organization to be not only the CFO, but the organization itself to be that strategic partner to the company, to the different divisions. And that's what AI and automation is hopefully going to help do.
I think also what I've been hearing is that in terms of implementing AI in the finance function, it's also a means of how are we going to reimagine certain positions as well. If you have that FP&A person, we may have to really redesign what the requirements or basis is for that position as we use technology that's going to, like agents, right?
If you have an agent that's doing the mundane work, you have an agent that is going to help that particular role, how will we redefine that role? And it's also when you think of agentic AI and agents, are we going to be in a situation where perhaps you'll be managing an agent? Who knows, right?
So, all of those things are going through the minds of CFOs. And at the same time, they're using AI themselves and thinking of ways of how it can streamline their job and make it function better. When I was talking to the CFO of Plaid, who I mentioned earlier, she was telling me ways in which she uses it as like a thought partner, AI, and she bounces ideas off of it. And so, I think the future of finance model will be just like even more strategic and effective use of technology.
Corson
That absolutely resonates. And I think you may have covered this Sheryl, but I think there was this conversation around should CFOs have their own personal agents? I don't know if you're seeing that any time soon, but I've been interested in obviously the personal aspects, but then you talked about how do you reimagine workflow and the way work gets done.
So, I think, again, we're seeing a lot, we are moving beyond just the personal productivity, beyond individual use cases, more into this workflow within functions, but also across functions, right? How processes get reimagined. Interested in any other examples where you're seeing organizations really start to embrace the potential of AI?
Estrada
I would say HPE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. I recently, a few months ago, spoke with Marie Myers, the CFO, and she really has been utilizing it and seeing great productivity gains. They made great strides in that. I think that for AI and finance, there are a lot of CFOs who are looking at the use cases and the value for that, but not everyone has their foot on the pedal to accelerate in that aspect. I don't know if that's what you're seeing. I'm seeing that there are some exceptions, but it's still determining what use cases are helpful and valuable. What are you seeing?
Corson
Yeah, I think that's right. As I said, I think the conversation is moving beyond just individual use cases to what are the skills that are being established that are repeatable across the enterprise? How do you embed AI into workflow? What do the roles look like in that reimagined world?
And I think particularly organizations that have invested in rationalizing ERP [enterprise resource planning] platforms, they've invested in global business services and shared services where you've got multiple functions as part of one organization, I think there's real opportunities to turbo-charge some of that process reimagination. So, yeah, I definitely share that view.
But I think one of the challenges, which kind of goes back to the metrics conversation we were having earlier, is how do you assess the investment? And we sort of mentioned that traditional return on investment isn't necessarily the right model when you can maybe assess the cost of what you're spending, but it's difficult to measure the upside when it's uncertain and unclear because these are new technologies you don't know the benefits from.
So, again, as you speak to CFOs, as they think about how do they balance competing priorities for capital allocation, anything you're seeing them think about particularly in how to place a bigger bet on new technology?
Estrada
I would say managing AI investments and decisions has become, in my opinion, one of the defining challenges of the modern CFO role, because I think it may be hard to fit into traditional financial networks. Because when you think about it, technology is evolving faster than the measurement cycles. And so, timelines really don't conform to the conventional capital budgeting logic.
I would say that effective CFOs are navigating it by reframing the risk equation. For example, hyperscalers position that the downside of under-investing in AI infrastructure exceeds the downside of overspending. That missing that capacity window is like an existential competitive risk, while excess capital is a recoverable financial one, so to speak.
I think that it may require like a more aggressive posture than traditional discipline would suggest. So, in practice, I think CFOs are structuring spending in tiers, like a baseline infrastructure they consider table stakes and then strategic bets with defined milestones and then maybe a smaller pool of exploratory investment, perhaps where the expected return is learning rather than near-term revenue.
In other words, maybe they're looking at it in terms of different horizons. And then, they have to talk a lot to boards, not just presenting the numbers, but telling the story of the vision of the conceptual framework. So, I think that would be some kind of example of what I've been seeing, especially for companies that are doing like a lot of spending on AI.
Corson
I think that segmenting out the different time horizons is an important one. I think the time horizons have been compressed just given how fast technology is moving. You've got to be thinking in much, much shorter cycles initially, but still tied back to the longer-term vision of where you're trying to take the organization and the enterprise.
We covered a lot of ground, fantastic conversation, talked about a little bit of the past and a lot of the present. As you look to the future, what are some of the trends that you're tracking and you're going to be talking to CFOs over the coming months?
Estrada
Definitely AI, yeah, that's a given, right? And some other factors other than AI. Interesting that I've recently covered, which was announced last week, is that the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] is revisiting whether or not companies should have earnings reporting semi-annually or quarterly, or giving the option to have it semi-annually instead of quarterly. That's something that I've been talking to a lot of CFOs about and that should be interesting to follow.
And definitely, a big concern now is the rise of inflation. I think at this point, CFOs have a lot of experience in uncertainty, but still, you know, how are you going to face, again, these challenges and come out of that side? How do you manage the short-term and also focus on the long-term? So, those are quite a few pieces that I'll be talking with CFOs about.
Corson
Fantastic. Well, it's been great to talk to you. I really appreciate you subjecting yourself to be on the other side of the microphone today.
Estrada
It's not easy, Myles.
Corson
Well hopefully, you'll appreciate what you're torturing people with going forward. It's been great. I feel I've had an interview with probably 10 or 15 CFOs through your voice. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to join.
Estrada
You’re very welcome.
Corson
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