Boards are under ever-increasing pressure to support and challenge management effectively as organisations make difficult calls about the future—where to deploy capital, how quickly to back new technologies, and how to balance short-term performance with longer-term transformation, to name but a few.

Financial performance remains fundamental, but future value creation is increasingly shaped by data, technology, talent, resilience and innovation—and these new drivers of value must be understood and managed effectively. As these decisions become more complex, the relationship between boards and CFOs becomes even more important: CFOs can help boards to challenge management with the financial discipline, data and insight needed to assess where value is being created and where it may be at risk.

Boards should understand how management is connecting the drivers of value to strategy, risk, performance and investment choices—and the CFO is uniquely placed to support that understanding. The 2026 EY DNA of the CFO survey underlines the importance of the CFO’s role in value creation—but it also sheds light on the many challenges that stand in their way.

As boards contend with a growing number of interconnected priorities, risks and opportunities, effective oversight increasingly depends on the ability to interpret complexity and make informed strategic choices. In this context, the CFO has a vital role to play as both a strategic thinker and trusted adviser, bringing together financial discipline, data-driven insight and scenario planning to help boards make confident decisions about the future.

AI investment

Technology brings this challenge into sharper focus. Eight in 10 of the CFOs we spoke to expect AI-enabled business models to feature in their organisation to a “significant” or “moderate” extent over the next 12 months. But only 21% say their finance function is advanced or leading in its readiness to use AI to create enterprise value.

This matters because AI investment is moving at such speed, while the ability to evaluate and govern it is still developing. It also matters because the most AI-ready finance teams are more likely to see AI’s potential beyond defensive applications: 71% of CFOs whose finance functions are advanced or leading in AI preparedness see strong potential in growth forecasting, compared with 44% of those developing their capabilities and 30% of those at a limited or early stage. The survey points to familiar but significant obstacles: 61% cite data quality and bias as a barrier to securing investment in AI tools; more than half struggle to explain the benefits clearly; and half point to limited skills, resources or capacity.

Boards should therefore look beyond whether AI initiatives exist and ask:
• Have we developed a responsible AI framework for the enterprise to increase confidence in the technology?
• How is the finance function enabling a reliable data foundation?
• How is the finance function assessing investments in AI? Is the focus on defensive areas such as risk, fraud detection and automation, or is it also being used to improve forecasting, pricing, capital allocation and growth decisions?

Navigating uncertainty

None of this is to say that boards should simply ramp up technology spending without question. Their role is to ensure that investment is disciplined, and well governed. But they also need to recognise that many of the most important opportunities do not fit neatly into traditional business cases. The CFO can help boards navigate that uncertainty—if they are given the space and authority to do so.

Challenges with assessing how value creation is measured are not limited to AI. The DNA survey shows that CFOs understand this. Nearly seven in 10 believe enterprise value metrics need to be urgently redefined, and around half say traditional measures struggle to capture the value created by technology, data, new roles and long-term investment. A similar proportion say it is difficult to prove return on investment upfront using current metrics.

Qualitative, outcome-based measures can help CFOs better assess and articulate the value of investments in technologies such as AI. For example, finance can evaluate how AI frees up time for higher-value activities such as business partnering; strengthens pricing through improved forecasting and scenario analysis; or enhances supply chain performance by identifying risks, reducing costs and improving working capital. However, many CFOs do not yet feel equipped to develop such approaches. Almost half (47%) say their team lacks the ability to effectively measure value created by initiatives involving emerging technology, new roles and new ways of working.

The implications for boards are clear. In a world where standard financial metrics inadequately capture future or intangible value, there should be a reassessment of the information on which boards are making decisions. Are they being given a truly rounded view of the organisation’s value drivers, or mainly a retrospective view of financial performance? Are long-term investments being assessed with enough sophistication, particularly when benefits are difficult to quantify at the outset? And are intangible assets being scrutinised with the same discipline as more traditional financial measures?

Realising ambition

CFOs have the ambition to meet the challenge, with six in 10 believing they should define and shape how their organisations create value. But that ambition is not always translating into real-world influence. Only 26% say they lead discussions on key value drivers, and just 25% lead investment decisions where the returns are long term, indirect or uncertain.

Boards should engage with their CFOs to understand whether there is a gap between ambition and reality and how they can help to reconcile these. Without finance being fully engaged, boards may lack the challenge, data and discipline needed to judge where value is being created, where it is at risk and where investment should be focused.

To deliver on the ambition for finance, it is critical that CFOs and their teams continue to develop capabilities to meet new challenges. More than two-thirds of CFOs say they need new skills and leadership styles to remain effective. Yet the survey also points to a disconnect: people and culture leadership ranks only fifth among CFOs’ development priorities, despite being their second least developed capability today.

Almost two-fifths of CFOs believe they are evolving faster than leadership teams across the wider finance function, and half want leadership development to be available more broadly across finance to reduce succession risks. Boards therefore have an opportunity to ensure that finance leadership development, succession planning and team capability are receiving sufficient attention.

That has implications for resilience. Boards should be asking whether the finance function has the skills required for the next phase of value creation: data literacy, technology fluency, commercial judgement, collaboration and the ability to translate complexity into clear recommendations. They should also be asking whether there is a strong enough pipeline of future finance leaders who can operate in that broader role.

Boards can take a structured approach, focusing on four priority steps:

• First, involve the CFO earlier in strategic and investment discussions, so that value considerations are embedded from the outset.
• Second, expand value measurement beyond financial metrics, so that long-term and intangible drivers of value can be better understood and assessed.
• Third, assess whether the finance function is equipped for AI-enabled decision-making, including the strength of data foundations and the ability to evaluate both the risks and opportunities associated with these investments.
• Finally, prioritise finance leadership development and succession, to build the capabilities required for the next phase of value creation.

Boards set the tone for what is valued, what is measured and what gets attention. The EY Board of the Future study shows that governance models are evolving: by asking sharper questions and giving finance a stronger mandate, boards can help CFOs to be architects of value for the enterprise.

As value becomes more complex, more intangible and more dependent on technology and talent, the CFO has an ever more important leadership role to play, particularly around decision-making where outcomes are uncertain.

CFOs should be a central voice in how enterprise value is defined, created and sustained, and boards have the agency to help them realise that ambition.

Myles Corson is global Strategy and Markets leader for Financial Accounting Advisory Services and Massimo Marinelli is global Assurance Clients & Industries leader, both at EY.