Major trends are broadening the leadership remit of CFOs in the UAE
A wave of major trends and developments is mounting pressure on chief financial officers in the UAE. At the same time, those who are thriving in this environment are significantly broadening their leadership remit, evolving into strategic partners for business growth, risk management, and trust. That is according to a new report from Grant Thornton.
The report, based on a survey of more than 300 finance leaders in the UAE, shows that the CFO role is rapidly expanding across the country. Over the coming years, more than half (57%) of CFOs expect to take on greater responsibility beyond traditional finance activities, including areas such as ESG, digital transformation, and strategic decision-making.
This broadened remit reflects both global trends and local market dynamics. Rapid economic growth, regulatory change, rising operating costs, increased scrutiny of governance, and accelerating digitalisation are all driving the need for a more forward-looking finance function. As a result, boards are increasingly relying on CFOs to provide judgement, foresight, and strategic balance.
Hisham Farouk, Chief Executive Officer at Grant Thornton in the UAE, said: “The CFO role is undergoing a fundamental shift in the UAE. Finance leaders are no longer focused solely on financial control. They are playing a central role in shaping strategy, managing risk, guiding technology adoption and building trust with boards, investors and regulators at a time of sustained economic and regulatory pressure.”
Kabir Dhawan, Partner and Head of Consulting, added: “The CFO role now cuts across transformation, data, risk and people. Finance leaders are increasingly expected to bring clarity and discipline to complex change while organisations adapt their operating models.”
To meet rising expectations and master their evolving role, CFOs need to adapt. Today’s finance leaders must excel not only in financial analysis, but also in interpretation – translating numbers into insights that inform strategy, risk, and long-term value. In addition, they must better balance their traditional mandate of financial discipline with forward-looking priorities such as scenario planning and organisational resilience.
According to Dhawan, this requires CFOs to “step out from behind the numbers, becoming a strategist, storyteller and change leader.”
In doing so, CFOs should be open-minded towards support, both in terms of building their own capabilities and leadership skills as well as building capabilities of their teams. The report also highlights the value of learning from industry trends and best practices, working on personal effectiveness, and nurturing the skills required to lead change.
Finance priorities
In terms of top priorities for the CFO, one of the main challenges is curbing the rise in operating costs, which was cited by CFOs as the second largest risk facing their function for the year ahead.
Liquidity management is another big priority. More than four in five CFOs surveyed plan to raise new funding in the coming months, highlighting continued ambition across UAE organisations alongside heightened scrutiny from banks and investors. CFOs are reassessing capital allocation, liquidity protection and funding models as access to credit becomes more selective and transparency requirements increase.
Unsurprisingly, technology also features prominently among the top priorities, with cloud platforms, automation and artificial intelligence now central to finance transformation programmes.
“CFOs are increasingly using advanced analytics and AI-driven tools for forecasting, scenario planning and anomaly detection, shifting finance from backward-looking reporting towards forward-looking insight. Progress, though, is often constrained by gaps in data quality, governance and clarity around ownership of AI strategy,” stated the researchers.
Then there are risks to be managed closely, including financial risk, cyber risk, geopolitical risks and ESG risk. While the first three are well embedded among most organisations, the latter still shows quite some divergence between the leaders and laggards.
The report found that only 37% of organisations surveyed have dedicated ESG processes in place, despite growing expectations that formal sustainability reporting standards will emerge. Notably, CFOs in organisations with more established ESG frameworks report stronger engagement with investors and improved access to capital.
Reflecting on the report, Dhawan concluded, “Despite the development and pressures in the marketplace, the findings reveal a fairly confident and ambitious finance community, one that is moving beyond traditional financial stewardship towards strategic and digital foresight.”
