OneStream Research: Strategic CFOs are in Demand

Investors are willing to pay a direct premium for finance chiefs who drive corporate strategy, ranking finance leadership above chief executive capability when evaluating capital deployment.

A study of 2,000 global business leaders and institutional investors by enterprise finance platform OneStream reveals that funds increase their initial commitment by an average of 2.6% when a CFO serves as the main strategic growth driver. 

OneStream says that for the world’s largest asset managers, that premium climbs to 3.6%.

In total, 78% of investors state that finance chiefs must show technical, operational and strategic capability to secure their backing. 

When weighing capital allocation, investors identify CFO competence as their most critical consideration after market expansion, placing it ahead of CEO competency.

“Our research found that the large majority of investors believe the role of the CFO will be even more important in ten years than it is today,” says Tom Shea, CEO of OneStream. 

“With persistent economic uncertainties and an evolving regulatory environment, CFOs already feel the pressure to steer the business towards growth. 

“Our Finance 2035 Initiative sets a blueprint for how business leaders expect these dynamics will evolve in the future and creates a clear mandate for where finance teams must focus their attention across skills, operating models and technology.”

According to Tom, market volatility and shifting global frameworks mean finance leaders are being pushed into enterprise strategy. 

The survey shows 88% of investors and 65% of corporate executives expect the finance chief’s influence to expand over the next decade, with 80% of investors anticipating harmonised global reporting standards.

Expanding boardroom expectations

The pressure accompanying this investor scrutiny is landing squarely inside corporate headquarters. 

Two-thirds of chief executives (67%) maintain that organisational success or failure rests on their finance chief, whilst 75% report that expectations on the role have multiplied over the past three to five years. 

Furthermore, 72% of CEOs believe a holistic understanding of the wider commercial enterprise is now more valuable than technical finance expertise alone.

Yet this widening remit has left 69% of finance chiefs struggling to steer organisational strategy and expansion alongside operational governance. 

Seven in ten report balancing demands to remain profit-led whilst purpose-focused, taking on risk oversight alongside strategic planning.

Infrastructure and capability deficits

Finance chiefs highlight three clear impediments to meeting these commercial targets: an internal finance capability gap (78%), technology limitations (72%) and restricted cross-functional collaboration (70%).

Data management presents a sharp operational bottleneck. While 74% of corporate leaders expect unified data to serve as their primary commercial asset by 2035, 68% of finance leaders say an unmanageable volume of data inhibits their ability to prioritise growth initiatives.

Chief executives and finance leaders both identify modernisation as an urgent survival metric rather than a discretionary upgrade.

The report notes that 70% of CEOs and 68% of CFOs state that businesses failing to modernise financial architecture, integrate automated intelligence and train staff will not survive the next five years.

Key partners: 

Microsoft: An expanded strategic partnership integrates OneStream's SensibleAI with Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure to accelerate AI adoption across finance workflows.

Snowflake: A technical alliance introducing a native connector to bridge governed financial data into Snowflake's Data Cloud for scalable, trusted AI analytics.   

Hg: Parent company of OneStream after an US$6.4bn acquisition in April 2026.