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February 2, 2026 – Today’s CFO plays an active role in shaping corporate strategy, managing risk, and driving long-term enterprise value. They navigate complexity, challenge the status quo, and act as the CEO’s co-pilot in an ever-changing environment. CFO influence now spans capital allocation, M&A, operational efficiency, and digital transformation, according to a recent report from True. “Today’s CFO has a hybrid skill set: deep financial acumen, strategic foresight, digital literacy, and exceptional leadership,” the report said. “This structural transformation requires a new talent playbook. Organizations must widen the lens through which they view top financial talent and where they look for their next CFO.”
At True’s finance practice, they are seeing a fundamental rewiring of the CFO’s role, the talent market, and the very definition of a top candidate. “Today’s finance chiefs must manage more than capital,” the search firm said. “They must be cross-functional business partners who operate seamlessly alongside go-to-market, product, and technical teams.”
Many of today’s strongest CFO candidates come from investing or banking backgrounds, and also increasingly from private equity, venture capital, corporate development, and even chief of staff roles, the True report explained. “These individuals have the commercial discipline and market fluency they need to scale complex organizations, particularly those at the intersection of finance and innovation, like AI-driven businesses,” it said. “A product-oriented, technically fluent, and data-savvy mindset is now a baseline expectation.”
The Scale vs. Fit Dilemma
Early-stage, high-growth companies often face a unique challenge. “They need heads of finance and CFOs with experience in scaling, yet these same leaders can find it difficult to adapt to unstructured environments,” the True report said. “This is particularly evident in many AI companies, which are rapidly growing from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue with fewer than 100 employees. This cultural mismatch represents a significant dilemma in the current talent landscape.”
Related: The Demand for Interim CFOs Soars
While the external talent market tightens, many organizations are turning inward, the True report noted. “Forward-looking companies are investing in development and succession planning at a level below the C-suite, focusing on its VPs of finance and divisional CFOs,” the study said. “By cultivating this internal talent, they ensure continuity and create a sustainable pipeline of finance leaders who can step up as the business evolves.”
“Underwater” Equity and Market Reset
Executives who joined PE-backed companies at peak valuations now face “underwater” equity due to a difficult and delayed exit environment. “However, new PE platform investments at more rational valuations offer incoming executives a clear path to meaningful wealth creation,” the True report explained. “This market reset is creating attractive opportunities, motivating CFOs with diminished equity upside to seek new roles based on healthier fundamentals.”
The CFO Talent Shortage Is Reaching a Breaking Point
As economic complexity rises and deal activity remains elevated, the demand for senior finance leadership is colliding with a shrinking supply of qualified executives. What was once a cyclical hiring challenge is becoming a structural constraint for companies across industries. Leo Cummings, an associate at Hunt Scanlon Ventures, examines why the CFO shortage is intensifying – and how organizations are responding.
“To attract top CFOs, today’s investors must demonstrate a rational path to value creation,” the firm said. “They need to proactively right-size equity or offer transaction bonuses to bridge the gap and keep leadership engaged through longer hold periods by acknowledging these changed circumstances.”
Expanding the Definition of the CFO
The modern market has embraced several new archetypes that reflect this new outlook, according to the True report. What unites these profiles is a proven capacity to adapt quickly, think strategically, and drive impact across functions. This is also a clear sign that organizations are redefining what “qualified” looks like. True provides the following examples:
- The Step-Up Candidate: Often a divisional CFO or VP of finance stepping into the top role for the first time. These leaders may come from the same industry or pivot from an adjacent one, bringing fresh perspectives and operational readiness. 26 percent of True’s successful CFO placements this year were first-time CFOs.
- The Scale-Up Candidate: A sitting CFO from a smaller organization who takes on a significantly larger mandate, such as moving from a $150 million business to a $300 million platform. Their experience scaling systems and teams can translate well to a new level of complexity, particularly when they bring strong domain expertise and industry knowledge.
- The Investor-as-Operator: An emerging profile, this leader transitions from a PE, VC, or banking background into a portfolio company’s CFO role. In certain cases, it may be an investment they led, and/or a company where they have sat on the board. Having analyzed hundreds of businesses from an investor’s lens, they bring a deep understanding of value creation, capital allocation, and stakeholder management that align closely with the growth ambitions of high-performing companies.
Cross-Asset Class Mobility
The ideal finance leader now has to be proficient in both rapid growth and disciplined efficiency as the skillsets required in VC and PE ecosystems have become more aligned, the True report explained. The VC market in the U.S. has matured and moved away from a “growth-at-all-costs” mentality and the focus has shifted more toward profitability and operational rigor. This new environment now highly values the disciplined, bottom-line-oriented approach of a PE-trained CFO. True has placed multiple CFOs with PE backgrounds in VC-backed companies, 34 percent of whom went to software, and 15 percent to commercial services.
Related: CFOs as Strategic Architects: Navigating Transformation in Financial Services
“On the other hand, a talent shortage within the PE ecosystem in Europe is making it increasingly common for PE funds to recruit CFOs from VC-backed companies,” the True report said. “A VC CFO who has successfully navigated the recent market downturn, managed cash burn, and steered a company toward profitability has demonstrated precisely the operational resilience and financial discipline that PE sponsors covet.”
The Transatlantic CFO
North America’s abundance of high-growth, scaled companies has created a strong pool of finance leaders. European investors actively seek access to this larger, more mature U.S. talent pool. While few North American candidates once considered a move to Europe, many True speaks to now express genuine interest. True has placed multiple North American CFOs in senior European roles just in the past year, and 54 percent of them were in the software industry, followed by 18 percent in commercial services and seven percent in restaurants, hotels and leisure.
The CFO as Digital Architect and Change Agent
With expanded operational and strategic duties, the CFO now owns the company’s data and automation agenda, the True report noted. “Finance leaders will use AI to enable real-time insights, build dynamic scenario planning models, and set up more efficient AI-assisted operations,” it said. “The most forward-thinking executives will make finance the platform for company-wide AI adoption. CFOs are beginning to sponsor automation and AI investments not just for cost-cutting, but to unlock superior speed and quality in decision-making.”
“This vision, however, faces some challenges,” the report continued. “Many scale-ups lack the integrated data architecture required to deploy AI tools, forcing an incoming CFO to first rationalize a fragmented tech stack of ERP, BI, and CRM systems. There’s also a pronounced scarcity of AI-savvy finance leaders, a talent gap that appears particularly acute in Europe where we have not seen as many ideal candidates.”
As technology infuses every aspect of the business, True is also seeing rising demand for leaders fluent in both hardware and software. “High-growth, complex sectors like defence tech, climate tech, and industrial innovation are driving this trend,” the report concluded. “Ultimately, the new role of today’s CFO is not just limited to finance, and instead encompasses driving the strategic, operational, and digital value of the entire enterprise.”
Related: A Look at How the CFO Role is Evolving
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media