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What happens when the finance leader stops playing defense and starts designing the whole playbook for value? This 2026 roadmap drops you into the CFO’s world of volatility drills, AI that has to earn its keep, and budgets that move as fast as the market, not once a year.
Take a moment to see how these five shifts can help you steer your company through a shaky economy with a calmer hand.
📰 Upcoming in this issue
📊 Five CFO Power Plays for 2026
📊 Citi CFO Transition and U.S. Banking Revamp
📈 Inside the Rise of the Exponential CFO
📈 Trending news
CFOs Practice Fast, Flexible Scenario Planning
CFOs Swap Spreadsheet Chasing for AI Alerts
CFOs Ask How Much AI to Trust in Finance
📊 Five CFO Power Plays for 2026
The global economy is walking a tightrope, and CFOs must shift from basic resilience to architecting value. This playbook lays out five non-negotiable moves for 2026.
Key Takeaways:
📉 Stress-Test for Volatility, Not Recession: CFOs model trade wars, rate cuts, liquidity lags, and pricing scenarios to protect cash runway in a choppy 2026 economy.
🤖 Make AI Pay Its Way: CFOs treat AI as a P&L line item, demand measurable returns, fix data quality, and build teams fluent in prompts, controls, and risk.
🧭 Kill the Static Budget: Finance teams kill static annual budgets, adopt rolling forecasts, and use unified data so more time goes to scenario analysis, not reconciliation.
🔐 Grow at a Discount, Guard Cyber Risk: CFOs pursue revenue growth with shrinking SG&A ratios and treat cybersecurity as a cash-flow risk, quantifying breaches in balance-sheet and reputational terms.
📊 Citi CFO Transition and U.S. Banking Revamp
Citigroup is transitioning CFO duties from Mark Mason to U.S. personal banking chief Gonzalo Luchetti as it overhauls its U.S. personal banking structure. The move pairs a seasoned insider with a simpler model that aims to boost returns and sharpen execution.
Key Takeaways:
📉 CFO Shift Signals Next Phase: Citi begins a CFO transition from Mark Mason to Gonzalo Luchetti, signaling a new phase of execution-focused growth and returns.
👔 Mason Moves to Strategic Role: Mason becomes executive vice chair and senior adviser to CEO Jane Fraser, keeping his experience close to the boardroom during the handover.
🏦 Retail Bank Folds into Wealth: Citi folds its U.S. Retail Bank into Wealth, led by Kate Luft, aiming for a unified client ladder from everyday banking to Citigold.
💳 Cards Business Gets Sharper Focus: Branded Cards and Retail Services merge as U.S. Consumer Cards led by Pam Habner, sharpening focus on profitability, risk controls, and scale.
📈 Inside the Rise of the Exponential CFO
Deloitte Malta’s latest CFO Challenges event gathered the country’s top finance leaders to unpack what it really means to build an “exponential” finance function. The recap highlights how CFOs balance performance, technology, talent, and ESG as their role stretches far beyond traditional number-crunching.
Key Takeaways:
📊 Performance Still Rules the Agenda: Most CFOs plan to deploy capital into new investments in 2026 while keeping a tight grip on efficiency and profitability.
🤖 Tech Momentum, Patchy Adoption: Leaders see automation and GenAI as critical to freeing finance teams for higher-value work, yet many organisations are still in the early stages of implementation.
👥 Talent and Culture as Pressure Points: Competitive pay, growth paths, flexibility, and human sustainability emerge as essential levers for retaining scarce finance talent.
🌱 ESG as Competitive Edge: CFOs increasingly view ESG integration as a driver of investor confidence and long-term value, not just another compliance checkbox.
Why It Matters
CFOs are being asked to do more than protect the downside; they are being asked to shape the business’s future in real time. By stress-testing for shocks, treating AI like an investment, ditching static budgets, and tying growth to tighter controls and greater cyber awareness, this framework gives finance leaders a more straightforward way to act rather than react.
It is a reminder that the numbers are not just reports; they are levers you can pull to create resilience, momentum, and trust.
Wishing you continued success,
Vanessa Carter
Editor-in-Chief
CFO Executive Insights
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