Expert insights directly from Boyden’s Financial Officers Practice
Q3 2025 Edition
The CFO Leadership Lens newsletter offers timely insights, market intelligence, and strategic perspectives for CFOs and senior finance leaders. Our goal is to support financial executives in navigating complexity, driving performance, and shaping resilient, future-ready organizations.
In this edition, we explore three priorities for CFOs entering the 2026 planning season: balancing AI with human judgment in budgeting, managing data as a strategic product, and using year-end planning as a platform to mentor next-generation finance talent. This issue was prepared by Paul Dennis, on behalf of Boyden’s Financial Officers Practice.
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For many companies, the end of summer signals the beginning of the 2026 planning process. Over the next few weeks, CFOs will work with business leaders to agree on the right set of strategic growth investments while modeling cost and revenue targets and aligning sound business goals. In this quarter’s CFO Leadership Lens, we highlight three important considerations for finance leaders as they head into planning season.
Integrate AI, But Keep Budgeting Human
New technology, particularly AI-driven analytics, is transforming business planning processes by enabling faster and more comprehensive forecasting, scenario modeling, and real-time cost and growth visualization. These tools allow finance teams to evaluate risks, test assumptions, and allocate resources with far greater speed and precision than traditional spreadsheets. Yet, to achieve effective business outcomes, CFOs can not rely on data alone. In spite of all their processing power, AI-driven budgets can not yet properly reflect organizational culture, values, or competitive strengths. This means that as finance processes continue to evolve and become more automated, it remains essential for CFOs to preserve space for conversation, debate, and judgment. Data should inform rather than dictate decisions, and budgets should remain analytically rigorous yet grounded in human judgment.
Manage Data as a Product
Despite its potential to unlock trapped revenue, improve operational resilience, and strengthen decision-making, data remains one of the most underused strategic assets in business. As more CFOs start to recognize data as an asset comparable to intellectual property, finance leaders must lead the mindset shift to manage data as a product. This shift may require a review of data governance to ensure quality, accessibility, and regulatory compliance, as well as the creation of clear stewardship roles and practices that focus on business outcomes. Furthermore, investments in advanced security, including zero-trust architectures and AI-driven threat detection are essential to protect sensitive information and, in their own right, can be measured as a driver of growth, resilience, and long-term differentiation.
Use Year-End Planning to Mentor Next Generation Finance Talent
As year-end activities intensify, CFOs have a unique opportunity to turn these high-stakes moments into growth and mentoring opportunities for their teams. Bringing high-potential finance talent to site visits, customer meetings, or investor briefings helps future leaders connect financial governance to broader business strategy. Most senior leaders reflect on formative moments in their careers when they were given the chance to operate at a higher level and remember the leaders who provided that platform. While long days may lie ahead, there is no better time to give the next generation of finance talent room to grow. Experienced CFOs understand the importance of ensuring these opportunities occur while also investing their own time in personally coaching and mentoring their most critical future talent.
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Suggested CFO Reading
Featured Insights:
Additional Insights:
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Harvard Business Review How Finance Teams Can Succeed with AI
Researchers at Vlerick Business School’s Centre for Financial Leadership and Digital Transformation have worked with CFOs and finance leaders to understand how finance can lead in the AI era. The findings reveal that although AI adoption is widespread, its impact is often limited by organizational misalignment, digital overload, and the challenge of integrating new technologies without overwhelming human decision-making. The real obstacle turns out to be not the technology itself but whether finance teams are structured to absorb and apply it effectively. -
The Australian Data is an overlooked powerhouse of value: here’s what to do about it
Data can drive significant value for any organisation, especially if it is treated like intellectual property. CFOs are well-placed to push for organisational change in this area. -
Future CFO ExecOpinion: Finance leadership through communication and continuous growth
Amid shifting interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty, and rapid market change, Asia’s business landscape demands agility from CFOs. To thrive, finance leaders must align strategy with evolving conditions, drive collaboration, and reinvent business models for resilience and growth.
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Thank you for reading. If you’d like to discuss any of the topics explored in this edition, or how Boyden can support your finance leadership needs, please reach out to our Boyden team of experts.