By Cassie Petrie, Managing Director SMB EMEA at SAP Concur
2025 saw a record high number of CEO exits across global indices. Most were the result of planned succession as head roles in other business units stepped into the chief executive officer’s shoes.
One common transition is from CFO to CEO. According to this year’s annual SAP Concur CFO Insights Survey*, 86% of CEOs and MDs believe their company’s finance head has the potential to become the CEO in the future.
Yet, while CFOs bring a high level of skill to the C-suite, most business leaders (67%) say they have critical areas to upskill in before they take the top spot.
Let’s unpack the top three skills CFOs must develop before they become CEO, according to the survey’s findings.
- Strategic leadership
71% of CEOs and MDs cite strategic leadership as a CFO skill that requires the most development. If finance chiefs want to transition from setting the financial agenda to the overall direction of the enterprise, they’ll need to develop their ability to make strategically sound, effective decisions around business priorities, trade-offs, and timing.
Despite this, more than half (57%) of CEOs and MDs say the CFO is increasingly acting as the CEO’s strategic partner, rather than focusing purely on financial stewardship.
Strategy again comes to play when thinking about where finance should contribute the most to business growth: thinking beyond reporting for 83% of CEOs strategic planning is most important. As an integral part of this strategic focus, 69% of CEOs want CFOs to provide new business models that ensure their companies long-term success.
- People leadership
The second-largest skills gap that CEOs and MDs perceive is people leadership, cited by 41% of respondents. Business leaders see the jump from managing a ringfenced finance team to leading an entire organisation as a hurdle for finance chiefs to overcome. But why do they lack confidence in their CFOs?
If finance chiefs can overcome department-level talent challenges by enhancing recruitment, upskilling, and mentorship programmes, they could present a “proof of concept” of their wider people leadership capabilities to CEOs and MDs. It would illustrate that CFOs are capable of building a high-performing culture that can be replicated across the wider business – positioning them as the natural successor to the CEO.
It could come down to how they perceive the head of finance’s ability to run their own department. Nearly a quarter (24%) of CEOs report that finance faces talent and skills challenges which impact performance. Technology is a particular talent leak, with 86% of CFOs finding it challenging to attract or retain talent with hybrid finance-technology skills.
Beyond finance, spearheading cross-functional initiatives that target multiple departments would help CFOs showcase expertise in other areas that business leaders see as developmental priorities. These include communication (35%) and visibility (29%).
While CEOs and MDs believe the latter two skills need less development than others, they’re by no means unimportant.
- Commercial capabilities
Business leaders aren’t looking for finance leaders to play a background role that centres only on cost optimisation. Instead, they want a strategic partner who understands why customers buy and why they exit the revenue stream. Commercial or customer insight is ranked as the CFO’s third-largest development area (24%).
How the CFO works with customers, boards, investors, and partners – and accurately reports on revenue – matters just as much as internal performance management.
That’s not to say demand has fallen for traditional financial management activities. Finance and business leaders still believe that finance priorities such as risk management (82%) and cost efficiency (74%) should contribute to growth. However, there’s a feeling that more could be done: just 57% and 53% of respondents say these areas actually contribute to the company’s growth, respectively.
To support business leaders as needed, CFOs will need to deliver substantive insights on revenue, costs, and growth opportunities both internally and externally. This is where data and analytics upskilling can unlock new opportunities for forecasting, scenario planning, and cost control.
It’s the aspiring few with the necessary strategic leadership, people leadership, and commercial capabilities who will become CEO and play an integral role in shaping the future of business. If the focus areas identified are prioritised by the business leaders of today, CFOs can prime themselves to become the business leaders of tomorrow.
