Corporate resilience is front and center to shareholders and boards. As economic volatility and geopolitical instability dominate headlines, businesses are continuously asking for more from Finance. But they are facing an instability of their own: A global talent crunch.

According to CFO Magazine, 84% of CFOs struggle with significant talent shortages within their departments, as more college graduates choose other areas of study and over three-quarters of CPAs have reached retirement age.

While Finance leaders have made significant investments in digitizing and upskilling critical areas of the business, such as sales, operations, and HR, Finance has lagged in modernizing its own infrastructure and talent development. As the only department with a bird’s eye view of the business, the Office of the CFO has an opportunity to lead digital transformation by leveraging the same digitization principles other business units have embraced.>

As a global people leader in FinTech for over a decade, I’ve witnessed first-hand this shift in talent, skills and the impact it’s having on the industry.

The rise of AI and automation have revolutionized the traditional Finance skills required. While CFOs are increasingly embracing these technologies, they must re-think team structures and operating models for resilience. 

So how can Finance build an operating model for the future?

Our ongoing discussions with Finance leaders point to three strategies to close the talent gap: invest in leadership training, rebrand Finance as strategic advisors and leverage AI to modernize Finance infrastructure.

Rebrand the Finance Function

The Office of the CFO is traditionally known for long hours spent number crunching and managing budgets. This outdated perception fuels the growing talent gap, with the next generation of talent disinterested in the reputation of long hours and arduous, repetitive tasks.

How can Finance rebrand to attract the next generation of talent?

• Highlight Finance’s Strategic Impact: Emphasize Finance’s role as a strategic driver of organizational growth and direction. This elevated position will attract job seekers who want exciting, purposeful roles that create an impact within the organization.

• Leadership Training: Finance teams must hone their soft skills as they become strategic advisors to other C-level executives and the Board. Effectively translating complex concepts and data into compelling, actionable business insights is essential for success. Providing leadership workshops and mentorship opportunities enables Finance teams to gain the experience needed to successfully guide decision-making and strategic direction.

• Leverage the Excitement that AI brings to Finance: Accenture research found that up to 40% of all working hours can be impacted by generative AI, transforming roles to enable more valuable, strategic and satisfying work. Showcase how AI impacts Finance roles to resonate with the next generation of talent seeking cutting-edge opportunities.

• Broaden the Talent Pool: Recruit both within and outside the organization to tap into a wider range of skillsets and experiences. Bring in fresh perspectives from other departments to drive innovation, creativity and problem-solving.

Upskilling Finance for Digital Transformation

PwC’s 2023 CFO survey revealed that more than half of CFOs are prioritizing the use of AI technologies in their departments, including planning new hires to drive growth. The hard truth is that AI-savvy talent is hard to come by, especially for non-tech companies that may not be an obvious fit for candidates.

To build the foundation for a resilient operating structure, Finance leaders must view their team as the blueprint for digital transformation:

• Unlock Digital Transformation: CFOs must spearhead the adoption of modern finance and accounting systems that bring disparate data and workflows together in one place, leveraging machine learning to automate repetitive, administrative tasks. This opens the door to elevate Finance leaders as strategic advisors to the business.

• View AI as the Right-Hand Support: Finance teams don’t need to rely on data scientists, but they must understand how to make sense of the ever-growing volumes of data produced by the organization, and in real-time. Foundational skills in AI models and data science can help Finance leaders implement pre-packaged AI solutions within their Finance operations. When AI is seen as a right-hand, rather than a hindrance, Finance leaders can leverage AI solutions to better forecast, keep ahead of risk, and steer the business towards growth.

Fast-Track the Future of Finance

As the data shows, the Finance talent shortage is real and needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency. The Office of the CFO has a unique opportunity to drive digital transformation and build an organizational structure for the future.

OneStream can help. OneStream is how today’s Finance teams can go beyond just reporting on the past and start steering the business to the future. It’s the only enterprise finance platform that unifies all your financial and operational data, embeds AI for better decisions and productivity, and can extend to meet evolving needs of your business, without adding technical debt.

For more information about OneStream’s Enterprise Finance Platform, visit OneStream.