Trends in action: Balancing tech skills with financial acumen
Many finance leaders are leaving no stone unturned in their hunt to lure or nurture high-priority skills. After utilizing AI and automation to attempt to address productivity gaps (40%), respondents say they are employing an array of internal and external initiatives to train current professionals, source new talent directly into finance, and structure teams to most effectively capitalize on the combined talents of data science and traditional finance professionals.
Overall, it seems clear that many finance leaders aim to strike a balance between their department’s legacy accounting and financial acumen with the tools and skills required to successfully integrate AI into the function. In discussing the technical capabilities he wants to bring to his team, Garcia says, “Curiosity, for me is everything. Adopting new technologies requires a curious workforce, willing to engage with the tools and explore their possible applications.”
How will these new and emerging skills reshape the finance function?
From bottom-up to top-down: Supercharging accountants with new skills
In their attempts to find the right skills within their organizations, 39% of respondents say they are providing specialized training to upskill the workforce. At Walmart, for instance, Chojnowski shares that much of their AI and automation training has focused on a “bottom-up” approach: “Starting with simple tasks, like using gen AI for presentations or emails, to building agents to execute certain types of contract analysis.” Walmart has also conducted “jam sessions to identify other opportunities for embedding AI” into their work, he says.
At ABB, CFO Ihamuotila stresses that the most impactful internal training starts with senior leadership administering a training firsthand to their respective teams: “We run a senior leadership program where we bring between 50 and 60 of the most senior finance leaders to ensure our professionals are developing skills in step with the current talent market.” Then these leaders take these learnings and can become trainers, themselves. “We call this the ‘train the trainer’ program. The leaders can then act as trainers for their own teams, or on behalf of a specific subject matter, like new tools emerging in the finance transformation program.”
Blending data science and finance with better governance
Some finance leaders are looking beyond their own walls to find talent: Thirty-five percent of respondents say they are considering candidates from nontraditional backgrounds, and another 28% are “insourcing” talent from other departments. This last option was a top response among CFO Signals’ respondents over the first quarter of 2025, when identifying the ways their workforce strategy is evolving due to talent pipeline concerns.
When Perry Beberman joined Bread Financial, a tech-forward financial services company, as CFO, he prioritized introducing new skill sets and upskilling within existing finance talent. “We’re investing in more statistician and data scientist competencies so our team can better conduct complex analyses. It’s not only about hiring these skill sets; it’s also about advancing the skills within the organization”
Beberman believes that focusing on these skills has helped transform their finance organization from a support function to a strategic enabler of growth across the company. By prioritizing strong data, their finance organization can “hang tools on top of it to become more strategic and efficient.”