It begins with the economic system, after all.
That slogan would do in a pinch if CFOs wanted one to emphasise their high near-term dangers. Financial situations and inflationary pressures, adopted by cyber threats and rising labor prices, are the highest near-term considerations for finance chiefs, in keeping with the 2025 Executive Perspectives on Top Risks international survey, performed by Protiviti and NC State College’s ERM Initiative. These identical dangers additionally sit atop the listing of long-term considerations for CFOs as they give the impression of being out over the subsequent decade, indicating that their most important near-term considerations are persistent long-term.
CFOs’ threat outlook—the economic system, cyber and expertise are high considerations
The economic system’s high billing on CFOs’ listing of threat considerations isn’t any shock. Happily, few, if any, finance leaders might want to do a lot inner campaigning to make sure these considerations are addressed. Within the survey, CFOs align with board members, CEOs and different senior executives (1,215 international respondents in complete) of their assessments of essentially the most urgent macroeconomic, strategic and operational dangers.
All leaders charge financial situations, cyber threats and varied expertise administration points (labor prices, expertise availability, retention, succession planning and extra) as their high dangers. That mentioned, deeper survey findings make clear the CFO’s distinctive views regarding synthetic intelligence (AI), volatility within the international regulatory setting, monetary planning and evaluation (FP&A) challenges, the dual wants for know-how modernization and value optimization, and extra. These finer knowledge factors are price probing provided that they will result in priceless recalibrations in how CFOs work with boards, CEOs and different C-suite colleagues to evaluate, prioritize and mitigate dangers.
‘Eternally dangers’: financial uncertainty, cyber threats and expertise
For context’s sake, listed here are the total descriptions of every of the CFO’s high three near-term dangers that we used within the survey:
- Financial situations (together with inflationary pressures) in markets we at present serve could negatively impression progress alternatives and margins.
- Our group is probably not sufficiently ready to handle cyber threats which have the potential to disrupt core operations and/or injury our model.
- Anticipated will increase in labor prices could have an effect on our alternative to fulfill profitability targets.
Once more, every of those dangers can be among the many high long-term considerations for CFOs, as effectively, as they take into account points that may have essentially the most vital impression on their organizations over the subsequent decade. On condition that these dangers additionally topped CFOs’ priority lists in one other international survey performed final yr, it’s honest to now refer to those hazards as “perpetually dangers.” They’ve captured the eye and concern of CFOs and different C-level executives, they usually aren’t going away any time quickly.
The economic system is high of thoughts for good purpose. Interrelated market forces, together with deglobalization, tariffs and commerce limitations, geopolitical tensions highlighted by U.S.-China relations, in addition to varied regional conflicts reminiscent of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, are contributing to financial uncertainty. Different components embody modifications in fiscal and central financial institution insurance policies in main economies, shifting demographics, immigration insurance policies, and the associated impression of all these components on the provision of labor, rates of interest, inflation charges, international provide chains and client spending. Clear and measurable financial progress is crucial to alleviate these considerations. For the CFO, the motion merchandise right here is to prioritize price optimization actions that leverage applied sciences, together with AI, to enhance working outcomes by way of a fastidiously orchestrated mix of focused price reductions and income enhancements.
Cyber threats characterize the second-ranked near-term threat for CFOs, in addition to for board members and C-suite leaders. The emergence of AI has improved cybersecurity by enabling quicker and extra centered menace detection, automated incident response and analyses of community visitors to determine threats. Nevertheless, cybercriminals additionally leverage AI to inflict refined, large-scale assaults in addition to extremely misleading phishing schemes. CFOs in public firms are particularly centered on cybersecurity on account of cyber disclosure requirements in america and different international locations. Cyber threats additionally correlate with escalated geopolitical dangers. And cyber threats, as soon as realized within the type of cyber incidents, might be extraordinarily costly.
CFOs should keep vigilant in response to how cyber threats have an effect on different finance actions and priorities, together with monetary reporting, regulatory compliance, FP&A, threat administration, third-party threat administration and enterprise efficiency. They need to accomplice with enterprise leaders within the enterprise to make sure threat administration and mitigation efforts are funded and prioritized appropriately.
Whereas growing labor prices mark CFOs’ third highest-ranked threat, three different talent-related dangers are also of serious concern for finance leaders: the flexibility to draw, develop and retain high expertise, handle shifts in labor expectations, and deal with succession challenges; expertise and labor availability; and resistance to vary limiting the group from adjusting enterprise fashions and core operations. I’m sure that the majority finance leaders are intimately aware of expertise pipeline dangers because the variety of college students taking CPA exams—historically, a key indicator of the most important finance expertise pipeline—continues to plummet. The adoption of AI and different rising applied sciences requiring new abilities in brief provide figures as a high strategic concern for CFOs as they give the impression of being out long-term.
These developments require CFOs to formulate complete expertise administration plans for the finance group, ideally in partnership with the CHRO. Additional, finance leaders will need to have a robust understanding of the abilities and capabilities the group would require to execute its enterprise technique and obtain near- and long-term progress aims.
Different vital considerations: AI, regulatory volatility and technical debt
AI- and talent-related dangers are clearly intertwined provided that the group’s capacity to leverage rising applied sciences to create new improvements (and companies) whereas staving off disruptive opponents relies upon in nice half on entry to AI abilities. The same dynamic pervades throughout threat classes and finance focal factors. The perpetually threat of unsure financial situations leaks into FP&A actions. Regulatory volatility is walloping planning and forecasting actions with near-daily bursts of uncertainty. The fast tempo of AI breakthroughs is ratcheting up stress on CEOs and CFOs to advance past efficiency-focused pilot applications to derive measurable worth from new investments in generative and agentic AI. This interrelatedness is necessary to remember when contemplating different threat considerations for CFOs, as indicated in our survey:
- AI methods confront finite sources. AI is a significant funding and governance precedence for CFOs, who’re effectively conscious that there are finite sources and funds to allocate to those investments in addition to a have to assess the return on these investments critically. This results in tough tradeoffs between back-office transformation and customer-facing improvements.
- Regulatory-driven uncertainty is spiking. The implications of U.S. tariff bulletins, regulatory company restructuring and different authorities actions are producing ripple results all through most FP&A capabilities whereas impacting different high CFO threat considerations, together with expertise attraction and retention, labor prices, third-party threat administration, and uncertainty surrounding core provide chain ecosystems.
- Extra know-how modernization is required. Regardless of vital investments in know-how modernization lately, many efforts to reduce technical debt haven’t gone far sufficient. As firms proceed to prioritize moving into the superior automation sport, CFOs have to assess methods for the group to attain better progress with know-how modernization efforts that ship value-added outcomes with acceptable threat.
- CFOs are centered on overcoming resistance to vary. This concern displays the all-in nature of CFOs’ dedication to addressing workforce, expertise and abilities dangers. Most finance leaders have firsthand publicity to this threat provided that the ERP cloud migrations that underpin many digital transformation efforts can substitute as much as half of legacy finance processes whereas requiring main upskilling or reskilling.
Lastly, it’s price noting that CFOs’ 10-year threat outlook is decidedly strategic in nature. Along with financial situations, the provision of AI abilities and ongoing regulatory uncertainty, finance leaders additionally determine buyer loyalty and retention as a key long-term threat. This emphasis exhibits that CFOs perceive how the bundling of digital services and products, together with omnichannel capabilities (in each B2B and B2C firms), will problem present buyer loyalty and retention ranges whereas posing more and more strategic dangers to organizations over the approaching decade.
The following two to 3 years will probably see ongoing and fast shifts in enterprise situations, with comparable ranges of volatility anticipated over the long run. CFOs might want to keep on high of those challenges as they lead their organizations by additional transformation.
