The CFO as architect of enterprise confidence

An Emergent Africa point of view for CFOs of JSE-listed companies

The CFO mandate is being rewritten.

Across recent CFO and finance-leader research from Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG and McKinsey, the message is strikingly consistent: finance leaders must protect cash, margin and control while accelerating AI, improving decision speed, redesigning talent and strengthening the credibility of financial and nonfinancial reporting.

For CFOs of JSE-listed companies, this is not a collection of parallel initiatives. It is one leadership challenge: how to create confidence in the enterprise when volatility, investment pressure, technology change and stakeholder scrutiny all rise at once.

Emergent Africa’s view is that the defining role of the CFO is no longer simply to steward the numbers. It is to build the enterprise confidence system: one set of governed data, one scenario language, one portfolio of value cases and one integrated narrative linking cash, capital, risk, technology and sustainability.

The winning CFO will not be the one with the most dashboards or the largest AI pipeline. It will be the CFO who enables the business to make better decisions faster – and can prove that value, risk and accountability travel together.

The survey evidence: finance is becoming the integrator

There is no formal “Big Five” category for CFO surveys. This perspective draws on Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG and McKinsey because each has published recent CFO or senior finance-leader research with clear relevance to the mandate. The surveys differ in geography and methodology, so their statistics should not be mechanically combined. Their convergence is what matters.

1. Volatility has made cash, cost and optionality strategic

Deloitte’s UK Q2 2026 CFO survey found that 47% of respondents rated external uncertainty high or very high. Geopolitics, productivity and competitiveness, and energy disruption all featured prominently, even as digital investment expectations rose. Deloitte’s conclusion is telling: “CFOs continue to prioritise cost reduction and cash control in this environment.” Deloitte UK CFO Survey, Q2 2026

PwC’s May 2025 US CFO findings point in the same direction. Sixty-five per cent of CFOs were adjusting forecasts or budgets; 61% were pursuing cost reductions excluding layoffs; and 58% were investing in cash and liquidity forecasting. PwC CFO findings, May 2025

The South African implication is not that local companies should copy US or UK responses. It is that fixed plans are increasingly inadequate. In a market shaped by currency, infrastructure, cost, regulatory and demand uncertainty, finance must give management an active resilience capability.

That means moving beyond periodic reforecasting to a scenario-and-action system: explicit assumptions, leading indicators, decision thresholds and pre-agreed actions for pricing, inventory, working capital, procurement, capital expenditure and funding.

Cost discipline is necessary. But it should not become indiscriminate austerity. The best CFOs use cost and cash transformation to release capacity for the few investments that can protect competitiveness, improve productivity or create future growth.

2. AI has moved from experimentation to governed value

The CFO is increasingly central to the AI agenda – not because finance must own every model, but because AI is now a capital allocation, operating model, governance and value-realisation question.

Deloitte’s Q2 2026 North American CFO Signals survey found that 93% of respondents were already using AI across key operations. Nineteen per cent said the CFO held the greatest responsibility for AI governance, ahead of the CEO, board and chief risk officer; 59% identified balancing rapid deployment with risk management as the leading governance challenge. Deloitte CFO Signals, Q2 2026

KPMG’s global AI in Finance research found that 71% of finance organisations were already using AI, but maturity varied considerably: 18% were beginners, 58% implementers and 24% leaders. Data security, skills shortages, inconsistent data, implementation cost, transparency and compliance were among the leading obstacles. KPMG Global AI in Finance, 2025

McKinsey reports that 44% of surveyed CFOs used generative AI for more than five finance use cases in 2025, up from 7% in the previous year. Its strongest adopters saw finance professionals spend 20% to 30% less time on data crunching. Yet McKinsey’s warning is more important than its adoption statistics: “The biggest barrier is often adoption, not technology.” McKinsey, How finance teams are putting AI to work today

For JSE-listed CFOs, the implication is clear: AI should be governed as a portfolio of value cases.

Every significant use case should have:

• A business owner accountable for realised value;
• A transparent baseline and full run-cost view;
• Clear data and model ownership;
• A risk classification and proportionate controls;
• Human oversight and escalation rules;
• Adoption measures, not only technical milestones; and
• A scale-or-stop gate based on evidence.

The question is not, “How many pilots do we have?” It is, “Which decisions are improving, what value is being realised, and can management and the board trust the result?”

3. Data integrity is now a strategic constraint

The AI debate often begins with models. It should begin with data.

PwC’s 2026 South-East Europe CFO Compass found that 54% of respondents had moderate-to-no standardisation of accounting data across their groups; 56% still relied on spreadsheets for reconciliation and consolidation; and 75% lacked formal policies or controls to assess AI trustworthiness. PwC SEE CFO Compass, 2026

EY’s 2025 global Tax and Finance Operations Survey found that 51% of respondents were still at an early stage of data maturity, while 44% cited the inability to execute a sustainable data, AI and technology plan as their biggest transformation barrier. EY Tax and Finance Operations Survey, 2025

In EY’s corporate reporting research, 96% of finance leaders reported problems with nonfinancial data. EY Global Corporate Reporting Survey

This is not a technology problem disguised as a finance problem. It is a decision-quality problem.

Poor master data creates reconciliation effort, disputed numbers, fragile forecasts, weak AI outputs and reporting risk. Finance should therefore help define and govern the enterprise data that determines value: customer, product, supplier, asset, project, cost centre, investment case and relevant sustainability measures.

The goal is not perfect data everywhere. It is decision-grade data where it matters most.

Emergent Africa can help CFOs make this practical by linking master-data integrity, data ownership, lineage, controls and remediation directly to critical management decisions – rather than treating data as a separate IT workstream.

4. Finance talent must shift from production to judgement

Technology will not remove the need for finance talent. It will change the work that good finance teams must do.

EY found that routine activities consumed 53% of tax-function time, while respondents wanted that figure to fall to 21%. Eighty-nine per cent were investing in upskilling or reskilling; 73% were prioritising data-science and tax-technology capability; and 83% expected to use external expertise. EY Tax and Finance Operations Survey, 2025

EY Global Vice Chair Marna Ricker captured the challenge well: “Without the right foundations, its true potential remains out of reach.”

The finance operating model should be redesigned around the work. Automate repetitive production. Simplify controls where risk permits. Improve self-service access to governed information. Then redeploy capacity into commercial challenge, scenario thinking, data stewardship, model challenge and change leadership.

Training alone will not be enough. Role scorecards, incentives, career paths and management routines must reinforce the new work.

5. Reporting credibility is becoming a strategic asset

CFOs are increasingly responsible for connecting the enterprise’s financial and nonfinancial narrative.

EY found that 69% of finance leaders were receiving more investor questions on nonfinancial value drivers than two years earlier. Fifty-five per cent believed sustainability reporting could be perceived as greenwashing, while 74% of investors said external assurance would increase confidence. EY Global Corporate Reporting Survey

The JSE’s Sustainability Disclosure Guidance is voluntary and does not itself create Listings Requirements obligations. Its strategic relevance is nevertheless significant: it encourages decision-useful, higher-quality disclosure that supports accountability, performance, market resilience and access to capital. JSE Sustainability Disclosure Guidance

King V raises the bar further by linking strategy, performance, sustainable value creation, reporting, risk, compliance, technology and assurance. Its technology guidance emphasises ethical and effective data governance, cyber resilience, benefits commensurate with technology investment and responsible AI, including accountability, human oversight, transparency, explainability, privacy, fairness and trustworthiness. King V Code

For the CFO, sustainability should not start in the annual report. It should start in the investment case.

Material sustainability issues need to be translated into cash-flow assumptions, capital-project economics, risk appetite, operating targets, financing consequences and performance measures. That creates a credible line from strategic intent to management action, reporting and assurance readiness.

The Emergent Africa point of view: build the CFO Confidence System

Emergent Africa proposes a finance-led management system with four connected capabilities.

Sense: integrate financial, operational and external signals; define early-warning indicators; establish data ownership and decision-grade insight.

Decide: use a common scenario language across strategy, budget, forecast, risk and capital allocation; make assumptions and trade-offs explicit.

Execute: govern transformation, cost, AI and strategic initiatives as a portfolio of accountable value cases; track adoption and realised benefits.

Prove: create traceable decisions, controlled data, credible performance and sustainability scorecards, and assurance-ready evidence.

This is how the CFO becomes the enterprise’s confidence system.

It is particularly relevant to JSE-listed companies because the local environment places a premium on pragmatic sequencing. South African businesses cannot wait for a perfect data platform, a fully mature AI operating model or unlimited specialist capacity. They need to identify the decisions that matter most, repair the minimum viable data and control foundation, prove value in a contained domain, build capability and scale what works.

A practical CFO agenda

In the next 90 days

1. Identify the 10 to 15 recurring decisions that create or destroy the most value.
2. Quantify the value at risk across cash, margin, capital, control, talent and reporting credibility.
3. Reset scenarios, assumptions, action thresholds and ownership.
4. Build an AI use-case portfolio with clear value, risk, cost and control criteria.
5. Diagnose data readiness against the critical decisions and highest-priority use cases.
6. Launch a focused cash, working-capital and structural-cost sprint.
7. Establish one benefits ledger and a monthly CFO decision-and-delivery rhythm.

Over the next 12 months

• Deploy driver-based performance and scenario management for priority decisions.
• Scale AI use cases only when their economics, data, controls and adoption evidence mature together.
• Redesign selected end-to-end finance processes and roles.
• Institutionalise working-capital and cost governance.
• Connect material sustainability drivers to planning, investment, risk and performance scorecards.
• Build a coordinated assurance-readiness plan with internal audit, external assurance and relevant legal and tax specialists.

How Emergent Africa can assist

Emergent Africa can support CFOs through a focused, senior-led programme that connects strategy, decision intelligence, digital, cost reduction, sustainability and execution.

Potential modules include:

• CFO Confidence Diagnostic: a four-to-six-week fact base on critical decisions, value at risk, data/control gaps and priority actions.
• Decision Intelligence and Scenario Cockpit: driver trees, scenario economics, decision calendars, early-warning indicators and management routines.
• Finance AI Value Sprint: use-case prioritisation, value baselines, run-cost visibility, governance gates, proof-of-value and scale roadmap.
• Cost-to-Fund-Growth: structural cost, working-capital and value-leakage opportunities, with accountable owners and benefits validation.
• Finance Data Readiness: master-data priorities, ownership, lineage, reconciliation reduction and remediation sprints.
• ESG Value and Reporting Readiness: strategy linkage, materiality economics, scorecards, data and control readiness, and transition/project pipeline support.
• Finance Transformation Execution Office: integrated roadmap, benefits ledger, capability plan, executive cadence and results management.

Emergent Africa’s role is to help management design and execute the strategy, operating model, data, governance, scorecards and change required. Independent audit, legal, tax and assurance opinions should remain with appropriately appointed specialists.

The challenge to CFOs

The most useful question for a CFO and board is not, “What transformation programme should we run?”

It is:

Which three enterprise decisions would create the most value if they could be made faster, with better evidence and stronger accountability?

Build the transformation around those decisions. Everything else is an enabler.